wAxScore Music Data Entry Plug-In

[chysn]

As I finish my current game, I needed a way to enter composed music data into memory, for transfer to my cross-assembler. The format needed to be lightweight and flexible, and the player needed the same attributes.

I built the scoring tool, wAxScore, as a plug-in for wAx. This is likely how I'll approach new development tools for the foreseeable future, since wAx already has a comprehensive set of data management stuff in place, with a simple API.

The music is entered with a step entry system that uses

Code: Select all

 2 3   5 6 7
Q W E R T Y U I

to enter notes, and SPACE to enter rests. Note duration is selected with f1 (eighth note), f3 (quarter), f5 (half), f7 (whole). Durations can be dotted by pressing the period key. You can dot multiple times, as in standard music notation. There's an infinite-level Undo function if (when) you make mistakes.

The data format is one byte per note, with the high nybble being the duration and the low nybble being a chromatic degree (1-13) or rest (0). There's also an effect command format that allows for changes to octave, volume, tempo, and whatever else you care to implement in your player.

Once the music data is in memory, it can be transferred out via SD2IEC, or incorporated directly into programs. It can be edited with wAx, of course.

On macOS, my workflow is to (1) Compose the music as written notation, old-school-like, (2) Play it into the VIC via wAxScore, and (3) Save it as a file and then use xxd to turn it into hex data, which I paste into my source code.

Multi-track scores can be supported by the player. I haven't developed a multi-track player yet, but I'll probably make one for my next game.

I can't demo this with screen shots, so here's a video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5iK7hTS5wY

[Noizer]

Amazing work as usual Nice to hear your voice

[chysn]

Amazing work as usual Nice to hear your voice

Thanks!