Maximizing the usage of PSG channels

I'd like to leave my two cents. @JohnHassink is being careful with his words here, but I'd dare to say typically games with FM music don't use the PSG for music, with a few notable exceptions. There may be many reasons not to use them both at the same time for music, including but not limited to:

• Balance issues between FM and PSG (hard to predict whether the music will sound right on a particular system)
• The PSG having only one noise generator (makes it harder to use it for both drums and sfx)

So it's all about compromises. You could even use the opposite approach: reserve all channels to music except for one FM channel, and use only internal FM instruments in your music, so you're free to use one FM channel for sfx based on custom FM instruments (and also have beautifully PSG-enhanced music).

Great insight. But I wonder how arkos tracker 2 handles this, when they offer this simple "api":

Ld a,sfx number
Ld c,channel (0-2)
Ld b,volume (inverted 0-16)
call PLY_AKG_PLAYSOUNDEFFECT

(I seem to recall that programmers behind arkos tracker are on these boards from time to time?)

The 'key' is to keep the sound effects short. Long enough to matter, but short enough to not hog up the PSG channel(s) for too much time/ticks/interrupts.
IMO, a good PSG sound effect will typically use only one channel.

A lengthy sound effect will inevitabely, but unnecessarily so, screw with the sound registers. You will need a music replayer that collaborates with your sfx generator in a way that the music data written to the registers will pick up really quick after a sound effect is triggered.

Another good way to go is to only use the noise generator in sound effects when it's really, really needed (or, on the other side of the coin - avoid using white noise in your music, but that's quite the sacrifice).
You can make some pretty convincing sound effects without ever using the noise generator!

Sure, it also depends on the type of game you're making. Lots of explosions? In that case, preserving two PSG channels for the sound effects seems like a wise choice.
But as you already stated, those two channels are still going to interfere.
It's a matter of balance, I guess.

We're working to complete the final versions of TriloTracker (both the one for SCC as the one for FM).
Quite some new features and functionality, but with that, still some little issues that have to be ironed out. Basically, it's very near completion.

Nice! Sounds like *the tool* going forward. The often referred-to Moonblaster 1.4 released sources seems to be as old as 1997, so the tool is even older. That's a while ago :-) How does TriloTracker compare?