About SND Player.
SND Player v1.x is a specialized musicplayer for the 16/32bit Atari computers. SND Player can, as the name suggests, play ".snd" files. These are songs using the YM2149 synthesizer which is fitted to all 16/32 bit Ataris and most Atari clones.
The .snd fileformat is short for "SNDH" which is a unified header and calling method for all types of YM-chipmusic. It means that one single player can replay most synth tunes without having a dozen of different players and calling methods.
So what is this "YM2149 synth" ? Well it is that lovely little chip which is producing the "blipp" and "blopp" sounds in the Ataris. However, the Atari chipmusicans have always tried to push the chip further, beyond it's possibilities. Today, twenty years after the ST was released, new techniques to make nicer sounds from the ST are still arriving, much thanks to the effors of Frank Seemann (Tao/Cream), Frank Lautenbach (Dark Angel/Aura), gwEm and Damo.
Latest updates.
March 1, 2006:
- The SNDH file archive previously hosted here is now gone.
The SNDH archive is reborn on this adress: http://sndh.atari.org/
Long live the new archive, it's _much_ improved.
- To comply with the new long filename extension (.sndh) of the new SNDH archive a patched SND Player has been made available. Unfortenly the SND Player sourcecode is lost, and hence cannot be maintained any longer. The above patch was made in a binary editor.. Anyway get SND Player v1.51 here.
April 5, 2005:
-
A little roundup again. Since the last update, just a few months ago things have been moving
on the YM-scene. First out was a new version of Musicmon to v2.1 (download here)
which added Syncbuzzer basses in a way never heared before. Some cool demo tunes are included with the tracker as well.
A bit later Grazey released the SNDH-Editor (download here) which is a compelte program for fixing bad infos in SNDH files and to upgrade them to the brand new SNDH v2.0 fileformat introduced by SNDH-Editor.
In addition to Musicmon 2.1, the classic chiptracker by Big Alec was released in a new spiced up version by Damo / Reservoir Gods, the new version can be downloaded here.
On the emulator side, there are a couple of updates; Audio Overload for Windows, Linux and MacOS X has been updated with claims of better YM emulation. Some quick tests show that the engine is still very poor, perhaps they should try to build on the open source SC68 like so many other? Speaking of SC68, a port of it has been made available to PowerPC Amigas in an app called SC68Mui (download here).
Now, if this wasn't all, gwEm (aka Gareth Morris) has released a new monster tracker (download here) called maxYMiser. This is a killer application that works similar to Fasttracker 2 on PC/DOS machines.
January 4, 2005:
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A short roundup of why this place has been so silent the last couple of years.
Well first up, the SNDH updates has been stalled, delayed and put on hold. The first time becuase we wanted to replace all the register dump SNDH's with a new better replayer and have those files sorted away from the rest. However, after Grazeys fab UMD music demo, we realised that using the native tracks would be much better. So we threw away a few months of work there. But all for the better cause!
After that, we started thinking of new SNDH tags, such as playtime. This is yet to be finalized, but it should be done in a while. And here, Grazey decided to give up the Grazeys Zak Hacks, and instead help working on the new generation SNDH collection. Yes you read correct, the current collection will not be updated, a new, _much_ larger collection will be released during this year if everything goes to plan. There is a tremendeous amount of work to be done, so I wouldn't expect it the first half of the year. Grazey is however working hard on it, including editing tools for SNDH-files. The next generation SNDH collection will move to it's own site, and this place will be the centre for getting SNDH-playing tools instead.
- Speaking of SNDH-playing tools, since 30 months ago when we last updated here, there has been
some advancements in this area. For example SC68 has begun supported SNDH without re-capsulating
into the SC68 container format. SC68 has then been ported to MacOS X so Mac users can now enjoy
SNDH files quite decently as well. Check the "Non-Atari platforms" link for a list
of SNDH players.
- Lastly, gwEm has released SNDH tools for converting various tracker files into SNDH, you can find that under downloads.
April 14, 2002:
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Finally a songs archive update. It's a collection of the chiptunes
released in demos and games over the last year. Not much nostalgic things this time.
Among the highlights one can find the complete soundtrack from Reservoir Gods hit-game 'Chuchu Rocket', music from Alive and UCM diskmags, and a couple of unusual things: Chipmusic from Falcon productions. One tune is from the unreleased 'Raiden' Falcon shoot'em up (sounds like the Jag version but in chip!) and a song from Mind Design Alive Falcon intro.
Go and download!
April 4, 2002:
-
Long time, no update to either SND Player or the SNDH-Archive. Work has been done to completely clean up
the archive, bugfix the YM-converted SNDH-files and of course to include the new songs ripped and released
during the year.
However we're still a bit from finishing this, so we're instead reporting of a MacOSX SNDH-Player called "Audio Overload". We've not yet tested it, but will do so shortly.
Go to the clones page to find download link of Audio Overload.
May 12, 2001:
- The new 1.5 version of SND Player is now available!
- There is a new fullscreen screenshot of SND Player v1.5 together win WinRec to add DSP Effects.
- A new package with SNDH-files is released. 393 new SNDH-files, including many songs from Amstrad CPC and Spectrum 128.
- MP3-file with some of Dma-Sc's best songs with DSP reverb effect added.
November 26, 2000:
- New SNDH-player for Windoze released. Deliplayer can now partially play SNDH-files.
November 3, 2000:
- New SNDH package. Lots of new game music tunes, some FlaySID conversions, some corrected songs and a new dir structure.
September 21, 2000:
- New SNDH-package available. More files than ever before in one update. Over 500 new SNDH files, mainly from old classic ST-games.
September 14, 2000:
- Ooops.. the short-name SNDH-archive released a few days ago has been fixed. There were three folder-names which had 9+3 instead of 8+3 characters, and that gave st-zip the creeps. Both the "all_sf.zip" and "snd06_sf.zip" archives are corrected. Thanks to Nils Feske for reporting this error.
September 11, 2000:
- New large SNDH-package upgrade available. Lots of previously un-heard sid-conversions and many old Mad Max files from the 80's.
August 19, 2000:
- The small counter continued, no ticks for about 9 months so we're back to Dec 1999 values.
August 18, 2000:
- The page has changed host, you still reach it via http://sndplayer.atari.org/ though.
- The page recoded to use PHP instead of JSP.
- New Falcon utility added to the download section: "Iphigeny" - an excellent program for configuring the complex Falcon soundsystem, ideal if you want to mix YM synth sound with digital dma sound or set the matrix for adding DSP effects.
July 11, 2000:
June 26, 2000:
June 24, 2000:
- Some new links added.
June 13, 2000:
- New SNDH pack uploaded! 92 new/patched files available Many classic gametunes from Dave Whittaker and Ben Daglish amongs others.
May 17, 2000:
- New Homepage made, now modular built with JSP code.
May 15, 2000:
- New SND Player available! Now it can fake-play any frequency on Timer-C (esp. Sid Sound Designer VGA songs benefit from this). Also a converter utilty for SSD to SND format has been added.
March 26, 2000:
- New songpack uploaded! Over 100 new SNDH files, many original never released ones from 505 and Mad Max. Also check the remix of Taos "Breath" tune, now featuring a new "pokey" sounding YM-effect!
January, 2000:
- More new SNDH songs uploaded. All tested to work with SND Player. New SND Player v1.3 uploaded with a few bugfixes.
December 15, 1999:
- SND Player v1.2 released, it's a bugfixed v1.1 (TOS4 workaround).
December 4, 1999:
- SND Player v1.1 released. Major upgrade from v1.0, now play most SID songs and many digidrum plus Tao songs. New songpack w ith alot of Tao/SID files included.