Musical tape loaders

Whether it's Mire Mare or a BASIC tape you found in the attic, it needs to be preserved digitally. Post here and experts can help to do so.

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R-Tape
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Musical tape loaders

Post by R-Tape »

This is a mix of preservation and ZXDB Discussion.

Is anyone in touch with this guy? It would be good to get hold of the TZX or WAVs for these and give them a ZXDB ID.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7Bo6t2WpjI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScKKkVtB2lc

And could we list more examples of musical/audio effect loaders, there's probably already enough to justify a group.

This is a fantastic one for starters:

Tap Music.
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Re: Musical tape loaders

Post by djnzx48 »

Now that is pretty cool. It would be even better if it managed to load something 'useful' at the same time though. :) Could this technique be used on non-beeper music as well? Maybe if the baud rate was slowed down a bit, it would be possible to make a loader that detected the frequencies in the melody part of a song and loaded from that. Imagine something like Deus Ex Machina where it loads from the tape while playing the soundtrack simultaneously.
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Re: Musical tape loaders

Post by Seven.FFF »

Hikaru released the source for his Presto loader.

https://intenseofficial.blogspot.ru/
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Re: Musical tape loaders

Post by druellan »

I only remember one game that back in the day somehow managed to do something similar and I think it was Frankie https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=1853 But only repeating a 128k "bell" over and over while the last part was loading.
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Re: Musical tape loaders

Post by bob_fossil »

Patrik Rak made a utility which lets you create musical loaders:

http://www.thefossilrecord.co.uk/wp-con ... icload.zip

I also had this kicking about on my hard drive. Can't give a credit as there's no info in the zip file.

http://www.thefossilrecord.co.uk/wp-con ... loader.zip
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Re: Musical tape loaders

Post by R-Tape »

Cheers chaps.
druellan wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 5:07 pm I only remember one game that back in the day somehow managed to do something similar and I think it was Frankie https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=1853 But only repeating a 128k "bell" over and over while the last part was loading.
Can you elaborate Dru? I've just loaded this and didn't notice anything unusual.
bob_fossil wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 5:34 pm I also had this kicking about on my hard drive. Can't give a credit as there's no info in the zip file.

http://www.thefossilrecord.co.uk/wp-con ... loader.zip
The .WAV sounds nice enough, but I couldn't get SPIN or FUSE to recognize this. Is it supposed to with the ROM (or other) loader?
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Re: Musical tape loaders

Post by bob_fossil »

R-Tape wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 8:47 pm The .WAV sounds nice enough, but I couldn't get SPIN or FUSE to recognize this. Is it supposed to with the ROM (or other) loader?
It works fine in SpecEmu. You do need to turn off 'Auto tape play/stop', 'Flashload standard speed tape data' and 'Edge Detection' in the Tape Options dialog.
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Re: Musical tape loaders

Post by druellan »

R-Tape wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 8:47 pm
druellan wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 5:07 pm I only remember one game that back in the day somehow managed to do something similar and I think it was Frankie https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=1853 But only repeating a 128k "bell" over and over while the last part was loading.
Can you elaborate Dru? I've just loaded this and didn't notice anything unusual.
I'm going to recheck, just in case. Also, there are two versions of this game, one is bundled in a cassette magazine. But if I remember correctly, at some point an AY "bell" starts to sound in the background. Since you can leave the sound repeating over an over unattended, they then proceed to load the rest of the game. It was nothing like a melody in the background, but a nice trick.
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Re: Musical tape loaders

Post by druellan »

R-Tape wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 8:47 pm Can you elaborate Dru? I've just loaded this and didn't notice anything unusual.
Just checked, and yes! It is this game and I can confirm the TAP file on SCUK does the trick, but I was mistaken about the "bell", it is in fact a "click" noise like an explosion during the last block.
Checked on ZXSpin, and you need to have the loading sound enabled to hear it.
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Re: Musical tape loaders

Post by TheShich »

I don't like being touched, but I'm here :)
It's been a long time, but probably I still have tap sources for above videos if you still interested.
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Re: Musical tape loaders

Post by R-Tape »

TheShich wrote: Tue Jun 12, 2018 1:26 pm I don't like being touched, but I'm here :)
It's been a long time, but probably I still have tap sources for above videos if you still interested.
Brilliant! Yes please, I'll send you a PM.

Great work by the way.
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Re: Musical tape loaders

Post by R-Tape »

TheShich wrote: Tue Jun 12, 2018 1:26 pm It's been a long time, but probably I still have tap sources for above videos if you still interested.
Any luck Shich? If you don't have the TAPs perhaps someone could make representative ones from the YouTube vids themselves?
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Re: Musical tape loaders

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TheShich wrote: Tue Jun 12, 2018 1:26 pm It's been a long time, but probably I still have tap sources for above videos if you still interested.
Any luck Shich? If you don't have the TAPs perhaps someone could make representative ones from the YouTube vids themselves?
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Re: Musical tape loaders

Post by TheShich »

I'm sorry for delay. It was 3 PC ago and I'm very disorganized person. But there's a hope still.
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Re: Musical tape loaders

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TheShich wrote: Sun Jul 01, 2018 11:24 am I'm sorry for delay. It was 3 PC ago and I'm very disorganized person. But there's a hope still.
Received with thanks, they will be in the next update. How did you make them by the way? Did you use Patrik Rak's utility I've quoted by Bob below? If not can you explain how you did it?
bob_fossil wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 5:34 pm Patrik Rak made a utility which lets you create musical loaders:

http://www.thefossilrecord.co.uk/wp-con ... icload.zip

I also had this kicking about on my hard drive. Can't give a credit as there's no info in the zip file.

http://www.thefossilrecord.co.uk/wp-con ... loader.zip
Ta Bob, I missed this one. Can you remember where it came from? What song is it? I'm sure I'll kick myself but I can't place it!
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Re: Musical tape loaders

Post by bob_fossil »

After some Googling, I think it's from here:

http://foro.speccy.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=214

The links are dead (for the zips and YouTube video) but it looks like it was written by 'Decicoder'.

As for the tune, the first part sounds like 'Oh Susannah' - more commonly known as 'I came from Alabama with a banjo on my knee'.
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Re: Musical tape loaders

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R-Tape wrote: Sun Jul 01, 2018 7:51 pm How did you make them by the way? Did you use Patrik Rak's utility I've quoted by Bob below? If not can you explain how you did it?
Well, actually no. I did not use any utilities.
The main inspiration was this video and lots of other videos with crazy stuff playing Vader's theme like floppy drives.

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

I thought what if loading noise itself is a melody? My goal was to make a valid piece of data loadable by standard Speccy routines that sounds like a well known tune. It's pity, but I can't load any additional data this way.
To make long story short I read how zeroes and ones are stored on tape. Then I tried to listen to different patterns of zeroes and ones. Then with many trial and errors attempts I hand tuned my "piano". It's relatively easy task, but as far as I know nobody tried to repeat it. There were other people's attempts before, but they sounds unfamiliar.
Now imagine a piano with may notes missing, and remaining notes wrong. I was disappointed. So the music is just stream of carefully chosen bits packed in bytes. Moreover, with Speccy tape encoding every 0 is shorter than 1. That's why empty blocks are loading faster. And I have to count every 1 and 0 and calculate time properly. It was real pain, but I succeeded (I think so). By the way "R tape loading error" was dramatic coincidence because I pause recorder manually.
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Re: Musical tape loaders

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TheShich wrote: Wed Jul 04, 2018 10:02 pm ... Then with many trial and errors attempts I hand tuned my "piano".
...
Now imagine a piano with may notes missing, and remaining notes wrong.
Can you give us some more information ?
What note range is available ?
Do you have a table of Byte » Khz » Nearest Note ?
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Re: Musical tape loaders

Post by R-Tape »

bob_fossil wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 5:34 pm I also had this kicking about on my hard drive. Can't give a credit as there's no info in the zip file.

http://www.thefossilrecord.co.uk/wp-con ... loader.zip
I've converted this to TZX and it plays the tune but I can't get SPIN or FUSE to recognise it as a viable loader, can anyone help?
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Re: Musical tape loaders

Post by Ast A. Moore »

R-Tape wrote: Sat Jul 07, 2018 9:44 am I've converted this to TZX and it plays the tune but I can't get SPIN or FUSE to recognise it as a viable loader, can anyone help?
I get the opposite results: I can fish out the loader, but the payload needs to be converted to CSW or direct recording.

That aside, I don’t quite get the idea behind this exercise. We simply have a series of tones of different frequencies, which don’t translate into data. The only “loader” effect is the border changing color each time the waveform crosses the zero point.

The loader is a variation of OTLA—it uses IN F,(C) and checks for parity (a dubious choice for an actual loader, as pressing any key during loading will corrupt the data). In this case, it works as a sort of real-time digitizer. The irony is that the Spectrum kind of already does that on its own.

I think I’m missing something here. :?
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Re: Musical tape loaders

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Ast A. Moore wrote: Sat Jul 07, 2018 1:58 pm That aside, I don’t quite get the idea behind this exercise. We simply have a series of tones of different frequencies, which don’t translate into data. The only “loader” effect is the border changing color each time the waveform crosses the zero point.
Is it 'Oh Susannah' you don't see the point of, or musical tape loaders in general?

My understanding is that Imperial March and Happy30th do translate into bytes and are worthy of a ZXDB ID, but based on what you say 'Oh Susannah' is only a loader followed by everyday notes that do not translate into bytes and shouldn't have an ID. Sound about right?
I think I’m missing something here. :?
I doubt it!
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Re: Musical tape loaders

Post by Ast A. Moore »

R-Tape wrote: Sat Jul 07, 2018 2:25 pm Is it 'Oh Susannah' you don't see the point of, or musical tape loaders in general?
I have nothing against “Oh, Susanna”—it’s one of the tunes my wristwatch plays! (Yup, it’s from the 80s, and sill going strong). :lol:
I just don’t see how this is a “loader.” It doesn’t load anything; just toggles the border color based on the state of the EAR port. You can feed it any audio signal—even a complex one—and it’ll more or less do the same.
R-Tape wrote: Sat Jul 07, 2018 2:25 pmMy understanding is that Imperial March and Happy30th do translate into bytes and are worthy of a ZXDB ID, but based on what you say 'Oh Susannah' is only a loader followed by everyday notes that do not translate into bytes and shouldn't have an ID. Sound about right?
Yeah, in a nutshell.

For I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee . . .
Every man should plant a tree, build a house, and write a ZX Spectrum game.

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and zasm Z80 Assembler syntax highlighter.
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Re: Musical tape loaders

Post by djnzx48 »

Maybe I'm not quite getting what you're saying here, but the 'Oh Susanna' thing definitely loaded something for me:

Image
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Re: Musical tape loaders

Post by Ast A. Moore »

djnzx48 wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 3:43 am Maybe I'm not quite getting what you're saying here, but the 'Oh Susanna' thing definitely loaded something for me:
I think you mixed up the tapes and left Phil Collins’ But Seriously in the tape player. A rookie mistake.
Every man should plant a tree, build a house, and write a ZX Spectrum game.

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and zasm Z80 Assembler syntax highlighter.
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Re: Musical tape loaders

Post by djnzx48 »

So what exactly makes this 'not a loader' then? It looks like one to me.
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