After a few days of experimenting with mbwave, and even longer with mbfm, I came to the conclusion that mbwave is nowhere near as powerful as mbfm. FM is way, way, WAY more practical (esp. for games), and FM doesn't have the typical artifacts that (rom/ram) samples have. 6 wave channels is .. meager, but sufficient.

Take this advice from me: ditch mbwave and explore mbfm, trust me.

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After a few days of experimenting with mbwave, and even longer with mbfm, I came to the conclusion that mbwave is nowhere near as powerful as mbfm. FM is way, way, WAY more practical (esp. for games), and FM doesn't have the typical artifacts that (rom/ram) samples have. 6 wave channels is .. meager, but sufficient. Take this advice from me: ditch mbwave and explore mbfm, trust me.

I can only agree with you! FM has always been my favourite!
you can create nice effects with them, it doesn't sound cheap like those samples from the 2MB samplerom. It's like moonblaster 1.43+++

btw, I checked the sources of mbfm, the document written by Remco says the sources are from version 1.04, while on the internet I can only find version 1.03.
Anyone knows where I can find 1.04? does it even exist?
Maybe I'll look into these sources someday, mbfm needs updates

**** EDIT *****

It seems like version 1.04 is actually version 1.03a:

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- Version v1.03 was completely unreliable. My harddisk interface destroyed several bytes in each file! - When a stereo event was handled, the pitch bend/modulation should continue. - Cleaned up initial Select FM voices screen.

I just couldn't resist to reply

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After a few days of experimenting with mbwave, and even longer with mbfm, I came to the conclusion that mbwave is nowhere near as powerful as mbfm. FM is way, way, WAY more practical (esp. for games), and FM doesn't have the typical artifacts that (rom/ram) samples have. 6 wave channels is .. meager, but sufficient.

I never thought it was a good idea to make two seperate moonblasters.
I think the Best of Hamaraja Night 2 OPL4 music is a very good example of moonsound FM sound. (Just had to say that ) But it uses more than 6 wave channels some times, I think.

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Take this advice from me: ditch mbwave and explore mbfm, trust me.

I ditched mbwave 5 years ago. 8) Take this advice from me: explore Realfun. Even in it's not finished version (just missing some own-pcm-samples functionality) it beats the crap out of any moonblaster. Or I would think that, wouldn't I?
It's quite funny to see I forgot a lot of key combinations of moonblaster. I thought Realfun used almost the same ones.

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I can only agree with you! FM has always been my favourite! you can create nice effects with them, it doesn't sound cheap like those samples from the 2MB samplerom. It's like moonblaster 1.43+++

I have heard some music that doesn't sound cheap, even when all samples come from the 2MB rom.

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btw, I checked the sources of mbfm, the document written by Remco says the sources are from version 1.04, while on the internet I can only find version 1.03. Anyone knows where I can find 1.04? does it even exist? Maybe I'll look into these sources someday, mbfm needs updates

More competition for Realfun
Bring it on
But what would you like to update?

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More competition for Realfun Bring it on But what would you like to update?

well. If realfun 2 is comming soon with a good own wave support, maybe mbfm can be ditched too
mbfm still has some nasty bugs (it even crashed here sometimes)

btw, I think a good and fast replayer for use in games is also very important

A fast replayer is way more important than an app with tons of features (consuming tons of cpu time).

And RAM samples are essential

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A fast replayer is way more important than an app with tons of features (consuming tons of cpu time).

I am pretty sure the Realfun engine as used in Hamaraja is faster than any other moonsound replayer. The extra features don't consume more cpu time. Who uses arpeggio anyway? If you don't use/like realfun because you think it's slower than moonblaster, uhm, you're wrong. Remember I use realfun for my own gameprojects too. And I don't like to sonyc-effect (=no smooth scroll with 3.5MHz and moonsound).

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And RAM samples are essential

I don't think so. However I'll include some sampleRAM support in Realfun(2) to keep everybody happy

RAM samples are *really* essential! Really!

as soon as realfun has RAM sample support, I'll have a look.

wel Wolf, why don't you prove your statements with making us a nice MBFM song

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>> However I'll include some sampleRAM support in Realfun(2) to keep everybody happy

Sjoerd can you specify what you mean by some sampleram support.
I think it is wise to have clear what is supported and not.

Sjoerd I've read on your homepage that realfun2 will use maximum 16 channels.. .why not selectable from 1 to 42? Not all music is just made for games and with faster cpu's it's not a problem to use more channels even behind games.. O before I forget.. still interrested in the patch table routines and patch table?

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>>>> However I'll include some sampleRAM support in Realfun(2) to keep everybody happy << Sjoerd can you specify what you mean by some sampleram support. I think it is wise to have clear what is supported and not.

In Realfun2: loading & playing samples. Very much like mbwave/mbfm.

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And I don't like to sonyc-effect (=no smooth scroll with 3.5MHz and moonsound)

Well, this 'Sonyc-effect' could have prevented by giving certain routines different priorities (for example put the scroll register change *before* the MBWAVE routine). But Manuel Pazos' skills were still a bit limited back then I guess ^_^. So were mine, btw, I actually contributed to the project with a most horrible (IM 2) ISR... Ahh, those were the days...

~Grauw

Besides, a screen-per-screen RPG (such as metalgear) is less cpu cooking than a 'scrolling' RPG such as xak, sd sn., ds6 etc. You could use 18+6 here w/o much hassle.

So, a 16 chn limit is somewhat premature.

And about mbfm tunes ... working on it hey, it's only my 3rd mbfm day since years now, need to do FM voice-banks, prepare waves etc.

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Sjoerd I've read on your homepage that realfun2 will use maximum 16 channels.. .why not selectable from 1 to 42? Not all music is just made for games and with faster cpu's it's not a problem to use more channels even behind games.

1. It's the number of channels we're going to use in the last dragon in-game replayer.
2. 16 channels means no scrolling in the editor. (In the horizontal version at least).
3. Looking at all music we've done with Realfun 16 channels is enough.
4. To keep system requirements reasonable. Realfun now needs at least 256KB RAM.
5. This way it's easy to cut & paste a lot of routines from the previous version. 8)
6. Our games will run on 3.5MHz.
7. To keep programming the track editor simple. (the voicebanks are complex enough).
8. To have a reason to make rf3?
9. The editor is almost done. There's pretty much no way back.

I thought about this some time and think 16 channels should be enough. Even for no-game music. 32 channels just take to much memory.
The only problem I see is importing existing musicfiles.

Well better make a realfun 3 than A user should deside how many channels are used not the coder. I tought about this too in mbwave but the code is so fixed around 24 channels with 16 steps...