Spectrum Computing

Cds Pool and Bonkers, both released in 1983 by different companies, use the same sound effect.

Cds Pool @ 0:36
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ3MOkxa-UQ

Bonkers @ 26:23
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxBNJ_pLXu8

I posted this same topic on WOS and got only one reply saying it was probably a common sound effect. Was it? It seems too specific (to me) to be a coincidence. If there are other games that used this effect, please let me know. I've always associated it with Cds Pool, and was surprised when I heard it on a different game while watching the Spectrum show.

I wondered if they might have used the generated zap noises from the DKTronics SoundFX generator (1982), but both games use slightly different riffs on the same theme to make the sound.

Making a zap or a crash noise like this is easy to do using a short bit of machine code toggling the speaker and varying the delay loop, it’s not surprising that so many coders reached a similar effect via slightly different routes.

Sounds pretty generic to me. Similar sounds were described in the ZX Spectrum+ User Guide I think.

Skool Daze and Back 2 Skool are in the same ballpark.

Spud wrote: ↑Fri Jun 01, 2018 4:31 pm Sounds pretty generic to me. Similar sounds were described in the ZX Spectrum+ User Guide I think.

I've just fact checked myself and the sounds are vaguely similar but not really similar enough.

Thank you. Cds Pool was one of the first Spectrum games I played, and the noise and music are stuck in my head.

I haven't disassembled these games, but these effects sound like the speaker being flipped at a fixed frequency by a routine running in contended memory (which seems likely as these are both 16K games) - just like the bell and lines-giving sounds in Skool Daze and Back to Skool.

In other words, the most basic possible sound you could produce on a 16K Spectrum without using the ROM beeper routine.

There are only so many algorithms you can use to make beeper effects without getting really complicated. For the 'noise' effects in Buzzsaw+ I wrote a routine that fills a buffer with random numbers and plays that back, which does give good white noise. But for The Haunting of Waterbelle End I wrote a quick routine that reads numbers from a patch of the ROM and uses those as semi-random delays between switching the speaker high/low, and the end result sounded particularly familiar. Which is why opening a treasure chest sounds just like Optimus Prime standing up in Transformers!

Reminds me of deathchase.

Reminds me a Wheelie. Or at least my memory of Wheelie.

Steve

I like this sound effect, it indeed seems to be more of an "early" sound. I mean, you rarely heard this kind of effect in games from later years (like towards the end of the 80s and after). Hearing this certainly gave me great Skool Daze flashbacks

I'm sure there are one or two games with that sound that I can't remember now.

This gives me Dynamite Dan 1 or 2 vibes. Sure it was in an earlier "How to program Machine Code in the Spectrum" book or something so.