The most recent build you posted has broken music, at least on B-Em - the notes are correct but the lengths are completely off. Is this a known issue?

No

Just tried on BeebEm with the same results. It sounds like the note lengths are being looked up wrong, meaning that the rhythm of the tune is off. Can't really say much more than that I'm afraid.

Here is a new disc image, hopefully with fixed bullets: no odd ones left behind, don't skip through thing moving down, pipes should work.
I haven't checked the HISCORE save/load, but my daughter/Imogen (she insists i tell you her name!) wants me to go and play PS3
The sound works for me in B-Em and on my netbook in BeebEm (sound doesn't work in beebem on my pc for some reason).
In fact, I don't know of any bugs now ... I think!
Are you sure you have the emulator set to 100% original BBC speed (just checking).

Latest version still has the same problem with the music, both BeebEm and B-Em, both as BBC B and BBC Master. The notes are correct, but the rhythm is not. Also the bassline is out of sync with the melody (this is also because of the note lengths being wrong). I don't really know how better to explain it.

I did change quite a bit of code in that last couple of updates, and gained back nearly a page for code, so there may be a few mistakes.

Has anyone else noticed the change in the music?

I mostly use beebem on my main pc and the sound doesn't play at all on that, i don't hear it very often.

Yes - I assumed you knew. The sound on (I am using B-Em v.2.2) is exactly as RTW describes. I haven't actually heard it sounding "right" though I have only played the last 2 or 3 uploads.

Yeah - sorry Richard, I also thought that you would have been aware of the issues with the music playback; I'd assumed it'd been implemented as a kind of "placeholder" and would be tidied up at some point before completion.

Pretty certain that there hasn't been any changes to the music between beta versions. Sorry I can't be of more (or rather any!) help.

I'm not at all musical, it didn't sound right, but I couldn't tell what was wrong.
It is placeholder as I don't have the musical ability to tweak/fix what I have.
I have many versions of the music and many programs for converting it, but none of them have a button labeled "make good for BBC" ;(
The player I wrote is very basic, it is my second ever music code, the first was the other BBC BASIC version I posted earlier in this thread.
I am back at work today and maybe someone there will be "musical"

Feel free to email me the source code if you'd like me to have a glance over it! richtw1 at gmail

OK, I've found a cleaner MIDI file and cleaned it some more (including making it monophonic) and it seems to play as expected.

no other code changes.

I had a look at the sound code you PM'd me, and I agree that it was the length data itself which was broken. The new version is pretty good but only one channel... since multi channel obviously works, it'd be a shame not to implement it.

If it were any use I'd be happy to transcribe the tune from the original arcade version (in terms of note pitch and length), but it wouldn't be in the raw format that you're using, unfortunately. It would, at least, be a full three channel version though, for authenticity if nothing else.

Thanks Rich,
I'm pretty happy to use whatever version sounds best
I took out the other channels as knowing nothing about music and converting by hand, I just picked what I could tell was OK.
I am in the process of writing an automated converter, so could try more versions.
I will need to steal one channel for bell/squawk occasionally - pipes/gun should be OK on channel 0 (3 in HW).

I've spent my "spare" time I got this week, which wasn't much, working on a midi converter. I can now fairly easily (in a couple of minutes) convert and general midi file into BBC register settings and timings for the music code in carnival.
I have gone back to the previous midi file and cut it down to three notes at once, moving the remaining notes into midi channels 0,1 and 2 to match the BBC sound channels 3,2 and 1 (1 is played at half volume).
Attached is a new ssd with three channel music (still not that good) and the midi file i converted it from in case anyone fancies a fiddle.
I couldn't find an instrument that sounded like a BBC so it is hard to tell what it will sound like until it is converted.

Wow, well that's loads better.

As you say, it's still not quite 100% (odd note here and there off) but with a bit of tweaking it'll be perfect!

Just been playing it on an arcade cab!



(Excuse the shaky camera work and poor gameplay ... was filming using a cameraphone and only had one hand free for the controls. Only just managed to avoid swearing when I hit the -400 penalty box, too!).

It's being emulated using B-Em with the 'Sine' waveform setting ... music sounds great this way!

Still playing very smoothly. It's remarkable how many little touches you've managed to squeeze into the gameplay. I don't remember Carousel having all those.

DaveM, I was watching your last few bullets and saying "will he risk hitting the last duck - there may be another just about to emerge!"; Good one handed shooting (with both hands though.

DavidB, I have stuck pretty closely to the original, studying it for the conversion showed me that there was more to it than I remembered. I have skimped a bit here (no small boxes for +/- 6 bullets) and added a bit there (small delays while bonus bullets etc clock up/down - I like the numbers bluring by!).

The biggest change I made was to scroll the targets 1 pixel at a time, this does eat more memory for the sprites and slows them down, but I like it this way.

I don't remember a high score table as such, just your rank.

I got fed up with the sound, so after some heavy reverse engineering and some hacking, here is the final version of the "original" music. It turns out that the original music didn't use the AY3 envelope HW.

If you get on the high score table, you will need to reboot for now as I was in the middle of adding name entry when I decided enough was enough with music.

I'm now very low on memory and still have quite a bit on the to do list:

sound effects
finish hi-score table
joystick support
2 players
redefine keys (probably in the basic loader program)
sound toggle box (may cheat and put it on a key)
I should really make the conveyors 8 pixels wider, but may not bother - I am getting a little tired of this game now, it is only comments here keeping me going!

And maybe / deluxe version:

SID music (don't have one, nor know anything about them
2 player at once co-op
timers for extra colours and maybe better sound effects

I just noticed I have the pitch wrong!

I told you I knew nothing about music!

try this - still stops on hi-score page.

For reference, I just had a go on Carousel and I think your version is already much more polished than that.


I shot the sound toggle box in Carousel very quickly.

If you're tiring of the game, maybe take a break and come back to it later. I can't sustain interest in my projects for long periods, as my diaries will show.