SND Player v1.5

May 12, 2001



1. Info

   SND Player is a program to play SNDH-format audio files.
   These are using the YM2149 synthesizer chip found in all
   ST/STe/TT/Falcon and most TOS-clone machines.

   The SNDH files  can include any kind  of YM-2149 playing
   routine. Including SIDvoices, Syncbuzzers and Digidrums.
   People who enjoys the  music from old ST-Games will feel
   at home directly with SND Player as  most gamemusic from
   the popular composers are converted to SNDH format.

   In later  years, the YM-2149 songs  have grown from  one
   strength to another by pushing the YM-synth to it's real
   limits. Escpecially  Tao of Cream/ACF and Mad Max of TEX
   have pushed the YM forwards the last couple of years.
   Sounds you never thought was possible on the YM now are.

   Unfortenly, these songs have  always had problems to run
   cleanly together with  an OS due to heavy use of several
   interupts and VBL.  However, Tao of Cream have re- coded
   his replayers  to be perfectly  systemfriendly and still 
   able to play all the  special effects. The same  for the
   tripple- sidvoice  songs from Sid Sound Designer editor.
   The replayer  has been modified to  run happily together
   with the OS.

   For these  changes to have  ny real effect, a slight re-
   design of the SNDH format had to be done, and some other
   additions to SND Player  had to be made.  That's why the
   SND Player has been updated to v1.1 and onwards.

   Naturally  SND Player v1.1+ can still play the SND files
   made for the older versions of the player.




2. Using SND Player

   That is quite simple.  Just doubleklick the prg file and
   load the prefered SND file.
   
   If  it is a non -vbl depending SNDH file, it will  begin 
   playing on  the fly.  Most SND files are non-vbl. If you
   manage to  hit a song that  want vbl,  an alert formular
   appears on screen where you select if you want to run it
   from vbl or  force it  to timer-c.  If you  have a  50Hz
   resolution, the VBL  might be the best option to choose,
   otherwise timer-c will probably give the best result.

   Stop / Play / Pause buttons  are quite  obvious, however
   the "ffwd" button  serves two functions; if pressed down
   the player will fast forward the  current song. But when
   the button is quickly  "clicked" at, it will jump to the
   next snd file in the current directory.
   
   Some snd files  have multiple  songs in them, to  toggle
   between these you have the '+' and '-' buttons.

   On the title-list of SND Player you  can now (from v1.5)
   open two new windows: VU-meters and Spectrum Analyser.

   
   SND Player has commandline support for the startup song.
   It also have AV/VA start drag/drop support.
   
   The SND Player  look is a bit  different from  other GEM
   programs,  which we hope won't  cause any  difficulties.
   The GEM library used allows the colour icons to be shown
   on a plain ST with TOS 1.0.
   
   The main  window now  shows  which  type of  interupt is
   being used to replay the song, and at which frequency. 

   TA=Timer-A, TB=Timer-B, TC=Timer-C, TD=Timer-D. If there
   is a "*" before, it means  that no desired  interupt was
   mentioned in the SNDH header, and that the current type
   of interupt was selected as default.



3. Known bugs.

   The  VU / Spectrum  analszers  sometimes  doesn't  reset
   completely when  you stop a song. And if  you play music
   on the YM-chip from  some other  player, SND Player  VU-
   and Spectrum analysers will still react on those.



4. Contacting us.

   Odd Skancke
   ozk@atari.org
   
   Anders Eriksson
   ae@dhs.nu
   
   SND Player homepage
   http://sndplayer.atari.org/

   Happy chipping!


eof