Sound options similar to SNESAmp for Winamp?

[I_am_dumb]

I have SNESAmp for Winamp, (Alpha II SPC Player v3.2) and I love that it has options for sound rates beyond 44100hz, that it has an option to take sound from 16 to 32 bit, has an option for High Quality Stereo mode, sliders for Stereo Separation (I keep mine at around 40), Echo Feedback Crosstalk (I keep that at -15), options to completely disable echo if you wish (to hear what the music sounds like flat with no reverberation). I think these are nice features, but purists will say that it's just fluff that isn't authentic to the physical system, but if that's the case then having 2xSAI and other filters are fluff too.

Another thing I like is NotSoFatso, that has individual volume sliders and panning sliders for each sound channel along with sliders for Low Pass, High Pass and Pre-Pass and tweaking all of these can give really nice sound (yeah yeah, NES was mono... so?) Would it possible for the next incarnation of ZSNES to have these kinds of options? I hear that the sound core is being completely re-worked. Yeah, I know that a plugin for Winamp is a whole helluvalot different from an emulator's capabilities in reproducing sound, but... there was once also a guy by the name of Scherzo who put out a version of Nester for the Dreamcast that used NotSo as its sound output, so maaaaaaaaaybe some of the clever folks who put together Zsnes could try working in SnesAmp-esque options into the new Zsnes?

[Rashidi]

I also like the seperate pitch & speed controls,

but I take it speed control very likely can't be implemented
as the music/sound need to be synch-ed with overall emulation.

[paulguy]

Yeah, there's probably no way to get "bit-exact" output while having any kind of adjustments like that, without having like, 2 S-CPU/DSP cores, with probably very distinctly different sound, and potentially no compatibility with certain games with the adjustable one. I do agree it wuold be neat, but I don't think it's a priority for anybody nowadays, unfortunately.

[I_am_dumb]

Meh, even little things like having the Stereo Separation slider or a slider to adjust the level of reverberation would be nice. I wasn't -expecting- anything like the ability to crank the quality past 44100hz or from 16 to 32 bit, I was just rattling off features that are present in SNESAmp is all.

[Gil_Hamilton]

The stereo controls on the NES are fundamentally impossible on the SNES since each channel has a panning control available to the software. I suppose you COULD give that control to the user, but it'd mess up the sound stage something fierce.

[paulguy]

It could be as a multiplier or something. An average of the set value in software and the user's selection with some kind of slider from 0 to MAX, witb 0 to 1(no panning adjustment) being a full half of the slider and 1 to MAX being the other half. Of course maxing it out would just have anything with any kind of panning simply panned hard to left or right, but may as well let users shoot themselves in the foot rather than not, right? :p Not saying it'd be a useful or even good feature to add to an emulator, but just saying that the feature could be done, given a straight per-channel panning value.

[I_am_dumb]

I reiterate, I am not expecting anything. Was just listing off the features of those two particular chiptune playing plugins. But I still think the Stereo Separation slider would do nicely without ''breaking'' the sound, I mean a lot of SoM's tracks have persistent left and right panning on certain instruments, even with the Separation slider in SnesAmp set up to 80 it still sounds fine. And sure individual user defined panning on SNES instruments would maybe be a open invitation for the user to screw up their own experience, but so what. That's what Reset to default is there for, right? Volume sliders for channels or bass and treble adjustment for the sound within the emu, how bad could those things be? But yeah, emulator vs. a dedicated plugin meant to play those files with tricks and treats that weren't available on real hardware, so I guess it really isn't feasible or necessary and the last thing on the developers' minds.

[Gil_Hamilton]

I reiterate, I am not expecting anything. Was just listing off the features of those two particular chiptune playing plugins.

Listing off a feature in the feature request forum?

And sure individual user defined panning on SNES instruments would maybe be a open invitation for the user to screw up their own experience, but so what. That's what Reset to default is there for, right?

No, not really. Reset to default is in case you somehow hose things up terribly and have no idea what you did. Not to disable features that were explicitly designed to hose things up.

My first thought to the random list that isn't a feature request at all was Chrono Trigger's final battle music. It's a strong example of a channel that's in constant motion, and I'd argue the panning is strong enough that it's a major part OF the piece.

[I_am_dumb]

You mean that synth stab that's constantly hopping channels when you're battling Lavos' Final Form? Yeah, listened to it in SNES Amp, then loaded my save of that and listened to it in Zsnes, doesn't sound to me like SNES Amp is breaking anything... and some Secret of Mana tracks have that constant bouncing as well, like Leave Time for Love, that little tinkly bit and also lots of channel hopping in Thanatos' theme. Doesn't sound like anything is being broken to me. If anything, it sounds like the panning is more pronounced. It only starts to sound like it's losing something when Separation is cranked up to like 80, 90, 100...

Oh and something I noticed while I was listening to the Last Battle in Zsnes, as it plays out, that bouncing synth stab starts to fizzle and cut out, I tried turning off the Surround, fiddled with the various Interpolation settings, but it still does it, in SnesAmp it sounds just fine but then again it also isn't having to play any of the sound effects from attacks either. Oh, and the Ice Country music has always had this slight tinge of static regardless of what settings I was using, but SnesAmp also lacks this too, again probably because it doesn't have to play any sound effects... I'm not saying "I'm never going to play a game again and I'm just going to listen to the SPC's." Just pointing things out.

http://s16.postimage.org/5l55g0fs3/Snes_Amp.png

[Gil_Hamilton]

I think we're on different pages. I was talking about NES-style "force different channels to different stereo pans", not "amplify the SNES' existing stereo separation"

Oh and something I noticed while I was listening to the Last Battle in Zsnes, as it plays out, that bouncing synth stab starts to fizzle and cut out, I tried turning off the Surround, fiddled with the various Interpolation settings, but it still does it, in SnesAmp it sounds just fine but then again it also isn't having to play any of the sound effects from attacks either.

It doesn't fizzle and cut out on a real SNES either, so I'mma go ahead and blame ZSNES.



Ditto for Secret of Mana sounding static-y. I'm going on fairly old memories of that one, and it's a less familiar game in general(I replayed CT ENTIRELY too many times), but I'm pretty sure that static was NOT among SoM's issues and the fault lies with ZSNES.

Though wholesale dropping of channels was quite prevalent on real hardware since all eight channels are used for music. Sound effects consequently have to steal a music channel(or two or three, depending on how many sound effects you just set off), and this channel is the main track of the music more often than not.

[I_am_dumb]

Though wholesale dropping of channels was quite prevalent on real hardware since all eight channels are used for music. Sound effects consequently have to steal a music channel(or two or three, depending on how many sound effects you just set off), and this channel is the main track of the music more often than not.

Oh yeah, like how whenever you'd just get done doing a dash, or when you were running and your chars would make that "thumping" sound that's supposed to be the trodding of their feat, or when you'd be charging a weapon attack - there's a drop out of an instrument. I don't remember whether or not that sort of thing wss present before either, as I haven't played SoM on an actual Snes since the first time I was exposed and addicted to it when I was 12, lol. And I've replayed SoM and Sd3 entirely way too many times. CT's good, but I'm a sucker for Zelda-ish, real time battle, walk around and kill things kinda games. Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma, Crusader of Centy etc.

[Gil_Hamilton]

The drop-outs are on teh original hardware. Basically, Secret of Mana was being developed for the SNESCD, and when it was killed, Square was left with a lot of money sunk into a game for a system that no longer existed. It was intended to use CD audio, and the music engine theyw rote for it was... well, probably rushed and a little slapdash.

[grinvader]

It just does the same as many, many other games - whenever a sound effect has to be played, channels 6 and/or 7 are killed for said SFX. Since most tunes also use those channels...


Anyway, a spc plugin is a bit closer to what's in an emulator than what you think since a spc file is just a datablob that makes no sense without a complete apu+dsp emu. However, we don't plan on using snesamp.
An interesting request, although pretty complex (any per-channel stuff has to be core-implemented, for one).

To compare with graphic filters as you did, note that they work on the complete picture (unless someone implemented my old per-layer filter idea, not like I keep track of that). An equivalent would be working with the raw data output by the core - no way to separate channels, no easy negating builtin echo/noise/pan, and all that. Enabling that means implementing the core with these features in mind.

Crusader of Centy

Yes.

[Gil_Hamilton]

It just does the same as many, many other games - whenever a sound effect has to be played, channels 6 and/or 7 are killed for said SFX. Since most tunes also use those channels...

When most games use all 8 channels for music, they keep the most important parts of the music on channels they aren't using for effects.

I'm just sayin'...

[kode54]

Then there are games that use fully dynamic channel mapping. Those games' sound drivers often sort channels by priority and drop voices that are the least likely to be noticed.

Zombies Ate My Neighbors uses a rotating channel allocation order, and I'm not sure what priority scheme it may use.

Both Tales of Phantasia and Star Ocean use variations of the same driver, which supports 16 hard mapped channels, which are then dynamically mapped to the 8 hardware channels.

The following games use the SLICK/Audio driver, which also features dynamic channel allocation, and depends on proper APU emulation to sound correct:

AAAHH!!! Real Monsters (E)
AAAHH!!! Real Monsters (U)
Ballz 3D (J)
Ballz 3D (U)
Bass Masters Classic (J)
Bass Masters Classic (U)
Bass Masters Classic - Pro Edition (E)
Bass Masters Classic - Pro Edition (U)
Battletech 3050 (J)
Big Sky Trooper (E)
Big Sky Trooper (U)
Bobby's World (U)
College Football USA '97 - The Road to New Orleans (U)
College Slam Basketball (U)
Demolition Man (E)
Demolition Man (U)
Earthworm Jim (E)
Earthworm Jim (J)
Earthworm Jim (U)
Earthworm Jim 2 (E)
Earthworm Jim 2 (U)
Emmitt Smith Football (U)
ESPN National Hockey Night (U)
ESPN Speedworld (U)
Fever Pitch Soccer (E)
FIFA 98 - Road to World Cup (E)
Frank Thomas' Big Hurt Baseball (E)
Frank Thomas' Big Hurt Baseball (J)
Frank Thomas' Big Hurt Baseball (U)
Head-On Soccer (U)
Izzy's Quest for the Olympic Rings (E)
Izzy's Quest for the Olympic Rings (U)
Jim Lee's WildC.A.T.S (U)
Justice League Task Force (E)
Justice League Task Force (J)
Justice League Task Force (U)
Lion King, The (E)
Lion King, The (J)
Lion King, The (U)
Madden NFL '96 (U)
Madden NFL '96 - Reviewer Version (U)
Mask, The (E)
Mask, The (J)
Mask, The (U)
Mechwarrior 3050 (E)
Mechwarrior 3050 (U)
MoHawk & Headphone Jack (E)
MoHawk & Headphone Jack (U)
Ms. Pac-Man (E)
Ms. Pac-Man (U)
Mutant Chronicles - Doom Troopers (U)
NBA Hang Time (E)
NBA Hang Time (U)
NBA Jam - Tournament Edition (E)
NBA Jam - Tournament Edition (J)
NBA Jam - Tournament Edition (U)
NCAA Final Four Basketball (U)
NCAA Football (U)
NFL Quarterback Club '96 (E)
NFL Quarterback Club '96 (J)
NFL Quarterback Club '96 (U)
NFL Quarterback Club (E)
NFL Quarterback Club (J)
NFL Quarterback Club (U)
Porky Pig's Haunted Holiday (E)
Porky Pig's Haunted Holiday (U)
Primal Rage (E)
Primal Rage (U)
Spider-Man (E)
Spider-Man (U)
Super R.B.I. Baseball (U)
Wayne Gretzky and the NHLPA All-Stars (U)

[I_am_dumb]

However, we don't plan on using SnesAmp.

Even if that plug in would be impossible to implement from inside the emulator
similarly to how Scherzo was somehow able to integrate NotSoFatso into his
port of Nester for the Dreamcast, would it not be possible to at the least,
tack on some more features to the audio options tab? I mean, you've
got the Surround Sound option in there, pretty certain that the SNES
didn't have that originally... yeah? Even Bass and Treble sliders, or
some more ways to alter the way the output sounds would be nifty.

[Gil_Hamilton]

However, we don't plan on using SnesAmp.

Even if that plug in would be impossible to implement from inside the emulator
similarly to how Scherzo was somehow able to integrate NotSoFatso into his
port of Nester for the Dreamcast, would it not be possible to at the least,
tack on some more features to the audio options tab? I mean, you've
got the Surround Sound option in there, pretty certain that the SNES
didn't have that originally... yeah? Even Bass and Treble sliders, or
some more ways to alter the way the output sounds would be nifty.

The surround option effects the final output AFTER it exits the emulated system, and based on what Kode said in another thread should more properly be labelled "wide stereo" than "surround".
Bass and treble would happen post-emulation as well, but would be better adjusted OUTSIDE the program, since the desirable values for those settings are going to be global across the system.


Also, the SNES IS capable of producing surround sound, if the game is designed carefully. Jurassic Park brags rather prominently about the fact that it does Dolby Surround.

[odditude]

Also, the SNES IS capable of producing surround sound, if the game is designed carefully. Jurassic Park brags rather prominently about the fact that it does Dolby Surround.

King Arthur's World, too.