Maximizing the usage of PSG channels

The ASM ayFX replayer have to options :
- SFX use 1 fixed channel.
- SFX switch channel each frame.
According to code comment, the second feature was created to "limit the impact of SFX play over a music" but it don't work well in my opinion (SFX sound weird and music still impacted).

In my C version of the replayer, I added an option to switch channel not each frame, but at each SFX play.

That said, no matter which option you choose, only one SFX is processed in each frame.

To do what you're talking about, you're going to need to deeply modify the replayer imho.

TL;DR: How to know how many, or which PSG-channels are used when making music together with MSX-Music? What is typical?

Thank you @aoineko and @thegeps. You guys are confirming several things. One thing is that a sound effect always/often is one channel. I actually have always thought that the coolest effects have been made up of several channels. Not the case, or at least, it does not have to be the case. Good. This means that I should have two spare channels left. Either I use these two for effects, or I use them in combination with music, hence the music/composer question.

As a typical case where I want to play several effects at the same time: In my game, when the herione is collecting coins in abundance, the "blings" comes rapidly, but sadly each effect is cut off by starting a new, it would (presumably) sound better if I spawn off every new sound effect in a new channel (and also, continue previous channel-effect(s)). Sounds like this must be done by some modifications in ayFX-replayer, but already supported by arkos tracker. -It just sounds overkill to use a full tracker just for the sound-effects, as confirmed in the last section on this page: http://www.julien-nevo.com/arkostracker/index.php/sound-effe...

That said - arkos tracker 2 really looks *fantastic* for PSG!

If someone can shed som light on whether the music software "normally" lays bonds on all three channels or not? I guess Moonblaster is most interesting, as I found MuSICA-information here, and it seems like it is up to the composer to chose which channels to use, https://www.msx.org/wiki/MuSICA. But over to Moonblaster again, this page: https://www.msx.org/wiki/Moonblaster says "For MSX-AUDIO and MSX-MUSIC, also minimal PSG support"

I see that the drums/drumset in moonblaster uses PSG: https://www.msx.org/wiki/Moonblaster_file_format

$0148 15     Drum set-up MSX-MUSIC/PSG
025-027      Change Drumset MSX-Music

And for the drumkit:

header:
       00-56	   Sample start address (16 bit per sample, 14 samps)
data:
       57-xxxx	   ADPCM data

I can't read any PSG usage in here oO So far ADPCM is listed as an MSX-Audio-feature, and explicitly listed as not-supported on MSX-Music. So I presume this drumkit is not related to "drumset" used by PSG. Or is it? I read from this page that PSG can play PCM-samples, as demonstrated in Aleste 2: http://map.grauw.nl/articles/psg_sample.php Unfortunately I don't understand half of it. Not sure if ADPCM and PCM can be mixed :)

Also, I see that Roboplay supports mbm-replay of any PSG-"values" https://gitlab.com/torihino/roboplay/-/blob/master/players/m... in (in "music_play_drum")

Bottom line: How to know how many, or which PSG-channels are used when making music together with MSX-Music? What is typical?

For MSX there's not an (integrated) suite of music and sfx players. They all work independently of each other, and that's not always handy. One way to overcome this, is to use a shared PSG data table that players write information too. But they don't OUT to the PSG them self. Another process should take care of that. So, it'll be something like this in case of two, or more, PSG players:
- Music player PSG writes it's data to the buffer
- Sound FX PSG writes it's data too, in most cases overwrite since SFX could have a higher prio.
- dump PSG data table to the PSG

That way the first two mix their stuff and the dump procedure actually plays it. Intelligent an integrated players should work with priority. A 3 channel SFX should not by default overwrite all three psg channels.
something like that.

I've worked on such system with Oracle (music player including PSG) and SEE (Sound Effect Editor PSG), but haven't released it. It is (was... long way back) in beta.

And, perhaps some one noticed, in Musix#3 we use SEE for PSG drums instead of the build-in MB ones. they suck. I adjusted the MB player to have SEE as it's PSG driver. Works nice

anywhoooooooo. it prolly takes some custom work to have such things working.

Not wanting to complicate your question more but you might want to also consider that:

• Making good sound-effects is hard (or at least that is what I experience myself). Limiting yourself to just 1 or 2 PSG channels will make it even harder.
• The 3 PSG channels all share the same noise generator wave type and wave frequency. So you will probably need to make a hard cut there: either the music controls the noise generator, or the sound-effects. Either choice will make things harder if you want to make good quality effects / music drums.

Micro Cabin does though: https://vgmrips.net/packs/pack/xak-the-art-of-visual-stage-msx2

I’m a big fan of combining PSG with FM. The combination of square waves with FM gives a really nice sound, and using PSG drums can free up a lot of FM channels. But of course you need the right composition tools for it, and at least MoonBlaster isn’t it.