Archives of Genesis8 Amstrad Page from 1999 to 2024 about music, page 2 / 13







Mod Master XT v1.0 for your PC XT, listen to musical modules files

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The version 1.0 of Mod Master XT by FreddyV is available on Vogons.

This msdos utility lets you hear a lot of music modules formats on any PC even a PC XT (CGA), for example an Amstrad PC 1512/1640 or a PPC 512/640...



Nebulus and Cauldron by carlc27843 on Pico-8

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Carlc27843 has written for PICO-8 an Amstrad CPC AY-3-8910 sound chip emulator using undocumented 5512Hz 8-bit mono PCM channel, to compose or convert Amstrad CPC music by Dave Rogers.

And I just tumbled on his two other creations : a remake de Nebulus and a demo about the game Cauldron on Pico-8 of course. Hit the links so you will able to see a video of the game and the demo.



CPCDiskAdapter by LambdaMikel

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CPCDiskAdapter by Michael Wessel is an universal Floppy Disk Drive Adapter for the Amstrad CPC. It's a PCB which lets you connecting disk drives other than the standard Amstrad DD1 / FD1 drives to the CPC via the disk controller, which usually requires some floppy cable mods. Moreover, these mods usually fix the drive to either being CPC A or B drive.

With this adapter board, one can flexibly use the DIP switches to select 2 out of 3 possible disk drives, and flexibly determine which one is A or B. Moreover, no more (destructive) cable mods are required with this board.

The following drives can be used:

  • the standard Amstrad DD1 / FD1 3" floppy
  • standard PC 3.5" floppy (with READY signal if possible)
  • 5.25" floppy (with READY signal if possible)
  • Gotek floppy drive

If the drive does no emit the READY signal, then it can be "faked" by grounding the READY line with the corresponding READY DIP switch (this is a standard CPC floppy cable hack)

CPCDiskAdapter's PCB

disk drive cable

Amstrad CPC's disk drive tower

Amstrad CPC and disk drive tower



The MIDI converter (in python) by LambdaMikel is available

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The python converter of MIDI music files written by Michael Wessel in python is availabe. It let you play MIDI files on an Amstrad CPC with two hardware expansions :

Source of the MIDI player in Z80 assembly is available.



Symamp v4.1 by Prodatron for SymbOS, a musical player

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Symamp by Prodatron is a musical player for SymbOS which let you play these formats :

  • MOD (4 canals)
  • SA2 (Surprise! Adlib Tracker 2)
  • SKM (compiled Starkos modules)
  • ST2 (Soundtrakker 128 modules)
  • PT3 (ZX Spectrum Protracker/6channel Vortex Tracker)
  • MP3

It supports the following sound cards/chips (all internal sound chips of course) :

  • Dave soundchip of the Enterprise 64/128
  • CPC Playcity expansion
  • MSX Darky catridge
  • Dk'tronics AY soundcard for the PCW
  • any MP3MSX compatible MP3 decoder on any platform
  • OPL4 (MoonSound, MonsterSound, OPL4 Shockwave, Dal So Ri)
  • carte Willy de Pulkomandy


First looks at the Ultimate CPC MIDI Sound and MIDI Interface Card by Amstrad Noob

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I am not alone to be interested by using MIDI on Amstrad CPC : blog Amstrad Noob did write about it some days ago : First looks at the Ultimate CPC MIDI Sound and MIDI Interface Card.

A video is now available.



Play MIDI music on Amstrad CPC with a Python converter and a player by LambdaMikel

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Michael Wessel (LambdaMikel) has written a python converter of MIDI music files which can then be read on an Amstrad CPC with a player with at least 2 hardware expansions (with 512 Kb support and soon 4 Mb support) :

MIDI was the ultimate sound during the msdos era before windows 95 and the coming of audio card with samples like the Gravis Ultra Sound, it is time that MIDI arrives on Amstrad CPC.






A musical album made by Keen On Keys with an Amstrad Fidelity CKX100 (MIDI keyboard)

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The Amstrad Fidelity CKX100 is the one and only music keyboard made by Amstrad, for more informations see this page and this other one.

Keen on Keys has made a musical album with this Amstrad CKX100 and also made a test of the MIDI keyboard on Youtube and a short preview made before the long test.

If you are curious enough, you can actually buy one being sold on Le Bon Coin.

Thanks to PulkoMandy for the information.



Mod Master XT beta 27 for your PC XT, listen to musical modules files

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A new version of Mod Master XT beta 27 by FreddyV is available on Vogons. It lets you hear a lot of music modules formats on any PC under msdos even a PC XT (CGA), for example an Amstrad PC 1512/1640 or a PPC 512/640...



Soundtracker DMA v2.0 by Zik for Amtrad CPC+

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Soundtracker DMA v2.0 by Zik (Futurs) is released. It's a music composition software for Amstrad CPC+. It takes advantage of CPC+ audio DMA lists to allow AY-SID and AY sample sounds while keeping CPU load low. You may have heard of it before as the musics of CRTC3 demo by Roudoudou was done with a preliminary version of the tool. It needs 128 Kb of RAM, so 6128+ is needed.



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