Date: Fri,  9 Oct 92 12:21:38 MDT
From: yackd@oregon.et.byu.edu (Don Yacktman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Distribution: world
Organization: Brigham Young University, Provo UT USA
Subject: Re: Multiple Sound... AND free game offer
Keywords: Sound, 3.0, games


In article <2599@ulysse.enst.fr>, laroche@wayne.enst.fr (Jean Laroche ) writes:
>Hi guys!
>
>Here's a new cool feature of 3.0: You can play several sounds simultaneously!  
>Try to play a first sound with 
>	sndplaydsp sound1 &
>then play another one sndplaydsp sound2 & and another etc...
>The result is pretty cool! All sounds get mixed, all in real-time, without the  
>help of the DSP (which can continue doing whatever it was busy with). AMAZING!
>The limit seems to be 4 sounds at 44.1 kHz.
>
>Game programmers, you HAVE to use this! Now you can have a sound (compressed by  
>a factor 5) playing in the background of your game, and several other small  
>sounds superimposing depending on what's going on etc...

Yes, it's _very cool_.  If you really want to flex the muscles of it,
try playing a music kit score and _then_ play a bunch of sounds.  YES!
It finally works the way it should have from the beginning!!

Well, I hope to have music and sounds fully implemented in my games by
December (Columns, PacMan, and PillBottle) and have already begun the
process.  This will also turn up in the two other games I've almost got
completed.  However, if I don't have this done by December, please don't
shoot me...my monitor died two weeks ago, and I can't go any further
until I have either replaced it -- or fixed it, or whatever -- so at
the moment I'm at a standstill.  :-( :-(  If anyone wants to e-mail
me recommendations for good 3rd party monitors, I'd love to hear your
opinions.  (If you do send a suggestion, I'd like to know where you
got it from, too, especially if it didn't cost too much, 'cause I'm
a poor grad student and don't have much money for this right now.
And if you think that I actually have made any money off of Columns
or PillBottle, think again.  |-:O) since I didn't really expect to make
anything off them, and I was basically right.)

Hmmm...somehow I strayed off topic.  Forgive my indulgence.  At any
rate, I am working on the sound stuff.  (Or at least doing what I can
without use of my NeXT.)  Now, here's an offer:

Write a score (i.e. uses the Music Kit and can be played by ScorePlayer)
and send it to me.  If I like it enough to include it in the distribution
of any of my games, I will offer a free license to either PillBottle
or Columns.  If you're already registered for both of them, contact me
to work something else out.  I'm looking for scores that would be good
for the following:  PillBottle, Columns, PacMan, Space Invaders, Lode
Runner, and shoot-'em-up types of games.  If you have anything you'd like
to submit, feel free to send it to me.  NeXTmail is OK if you need to
send an attachment, but plain mail is preferred if there aren't any.
Note that the free license only applies to scores that I feel are truly
worth including in a game distribution; if I don't like any of the
submissions, I'll write my own score...I have a reasonable musical
ability, but I need to get this done quickly, and due to current
circumstances, I think it's better to see what kind of scores netland
at large can write.  :-)  I know there are some really good musicians 
out there...  (note that custom synth patches probably aren't a good
idea at this point, and are discouraged, but you may feel them
necessary, and they're not impossible to work with...)  I also have
a licensed copy of Presto and a MIDI interface, so I can hear just
about anything you come up with.  Note, too, that two versions of the
score could be handy, too:  one using the music kit and one that can go
out to MIDI with more instrumentation, etc.  (That way, a basic
system could get decent music, but someone with MIDI could get
wonderful music.)  If you have any ideas, etc., I'm quite open to
suggestions, as well.

So, let's hear the scores!

Later,
-Don Yacktman
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy