|~~ |~~
| |
:$: bloopsaphone :$:
`''''''''''''''''`
for writing chiptune-style songs
in c or ruby. you know: the sounds
of ataris, gameboys and the like.
~
-$- ABOUT
this is a small c library for sending
chiptunes through portaudio, which is
a rather light cross-platform audio lib.
<http://www.portaudio.com/>
right now i'm only including ruby
bindings. you are welcome to contribute
code to hook up to other languages,
though.
i wrote this for h-ety h.
<http://hacketyhack.net/>
i don't have binaries ready for this yet,
so if you're on windows or os x, you may
have to wait until HH comes out at ART
AND CODE. the tribulations you face.
~
-$- THE BLOOPSAPHONE THEME SONG
(in ruby)
require 'bloops'
# the bloops o' phone
b = Bloops.new
b.tempo = 320
# melodious
s1 = b.sound Bloops::SQUARE
s1.punch = 0.5
s1.sustain = 0.4
s1.decay = 0.2
s1.arp = 0.4
s1.aspeed = 0.6
s1.repeat = 0.6
s1.phase = 0.2
s1.psweep = 0.2
# beats
s2 = b.sound Bloops::NOISE
s2.punch = 0.5
s2.sustain = 0.2
s2.decay = 0.4
s2.slide = -0.4
s2.phase = 0.2
s2.psweep = 0.2
# the tracks
b.tune s1, "f#5 c6 e4 b6 g5 d6 4 f#5 e5 c5 b6 c6 d6 4 "
b.tune s2, "4 c6 4 b5 4 4 e4 4 c6 4 b5 4 4 e4"
# and away we go
b.play
sleep 1 while !b.stopped?
~
-$- BUILDING FOR RUBY
If Ruby is in your path and PortAudio 1.9
or greater is installed:
make ruby
To install PortAudio 1.9 under Ubuntu:
aptitude install portaudio19-dev
To build from source isn't too bad.
Download PortAudio 1.9 and build it.
<http://www.portaudio.com/archives/pa_stable_v19_20071207.tar.gz>
Like this:
$ tar xzvf pa_stable_v19_20071207.tar.gz
$ cd portaudio
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install
Then go back to Bloopsaphone and do
a `make ruby`.
~
-$- THE IDEALS,
-1- ASYNCHRONOUS.
You send it a song and it plays in
the background. You'll get an event
when it finishes.
-2- SMALL.
This is just a toy, I don't want it
to be very big and comprehensive.
Just to play little tunes with a
nostalgic arcade sound rather than
the CASIO-stylings of most MIDI.
-3- CUSTOM NOTATION.
Someone told me about Nokring, iMelody,
numbered musical notation and I did
some reading. They're little languages
for texting yourself a ringtone.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_Tone_Transfer_Language>
<http://homepage.mac.com/alvinmok/ericsson/emelody.html>
Bloopsaphone uses a variation on RTTTL.
Instead of commas, I use whitespace.
A rest is simply a number. A plus sign
moves everything up an octave. A minus
down an octave.
The Simpsons' Theme, for instance, would be:
32 + C E F# 8:A G E C - 8:A 8:F# 8:F# 8:F# 2:G
Which translates into:
* a 1/32nd note rest.
* change one octave up.
* C quarter note.
* E quarter note.
* F# quarter note.
* A eighth note.
* G quarter.
* E quarter.
* C one-quarter note.
* change one octave down.
* A eighth.
* Three F# eighths.
* G half note.
The colons are optional. They are there because you
can place an octave number after each note. Somehow
"8B6" (an eighth note of B at the sixth octave) looks
more confusing than "8:B6". I guess I figured that
the timing "8" is conceptually separate from the
actual tone "B6", even though they both comprise
the note itself.
-4- SERIALIZE SOUNDS.
To accomodate passing instruments between
ruby and c, bloopsaphone comes with a tiny
file format for describing sounds.
You can find examples of these in the sounds/
folder in this distro. Possible sound types
are 'square', 'sawtooth', 'sine' and 'noise'.
All other settings go from 0.0 to 1.0.
The 'freq' setting is only used if the sound
is played without a tune.