RhinoDevel's Musical Keyboard v1.4

The only musical keyboard for Commodore PET/CBM 8-bit machines with live recording functionality, vibrato and more.

DOWNLOAD current release v1.4 for BASIC v2 and v4, here!

DOWNLOAD current release v1.4 for BASIC v1, here!

Why?

This is no tracker (yet?), it is a musical keyboard using the one single sound channel the PET/CBM user port offers via CB2.

Apart from the 6502/Commodore programming experience for me personally, this musical keyboard is useful for:

• Making beautiful, beautiful music!

• Doing something new with your PET/CBM (sure, there are a couple of programs to make music I know of, but I don't think there is software with features like live recording, vibrato effect, etc.).

• Record your melody in realtime (instead of using a tracker or something), save it to tape and integrate it into your own software/game as background music via a simple IRQ routine (the recording frequency equals the IRQ's 50/60 Hz).

Features

• Dynamic note length: As expected from a musical keyboard, a note will be played as long as you hold down the associated button (if it is the last note button pressed, see "smooth note transition").

• Smooth note transition: If the buttons for two musical notes are held down at the same time, the last pressed button's note will be played.

• 17 different sounds: Choose between all seventeen sounds distinguishable by the human ear and producible with the shift register.

• Effects: Enable effects like vibrato (in addition to the 17 sounds).

• Record music: Just play a melody and it will be recorded to memory.

• Playback your recording: Let the application play your recorded melody.

• Increase playback speed: Playback your music with 1x, 2x, 3x or 4x speed.

• Loop playback mode: Let the CBM playback your recorded melody in an infinite loop.

• Visual feedback:

  The screen shows the buttons used for the musical keyboard as arranged on your CBM (an exception is the PET 2001 with the chiclet keys).

  The application also shows, which buttons are pressed and which functions are currently enabled.

  The selected bit pattern is displayed as graphic.

  The currently playing note is displayed as timer hex value.

  The count of currently stored notes (and pauses) in memory is displayed as hex value and also the maximum possible count of notes/pauses storable in memory of your CBM.

• Save tunes to tape: Save your recorded melody to tape (#1 and #2).

• Load tunes from tape: Load tunes from tape (#1 and #2).

• No special hardware: If your CBM has an internal beeper or you connected (e.g.) an audio amplifier and speaker to CB2 at the user port, you are good to go.

• Single binary application: The same PRG can be used for all supported CBMs/PETs, 40 or 80 columns, BASIC 2 or 4.

• Additional BASIC 1 support: A special BASIC 1 PRG file is available.

• Re-entry / no reset:

  You can exit the application and re-enter it without loosing your recorded tune.

  In addition, resetting the machine before doing something else with it is not necessary.

Ideas for future improvements

• Add check, if there is enough memory to record further.

• Show numbers in decimal.

• Add effect: "Arpeggio" (press two note buttons to let the associated musical notes alternate quickly).

• Optionally save records together with an IRQ-based background music player to be able to run and play records on their own. I already got an IRQ-based player ready (needs some polishing before release).

• Let user modify vibrato effect.

• Add tracker functionality to edit your recorded tune, etc.

• Create library with tunes (maybe with YOUR help?). Playing and recording melodies from C64 games would be cool..

• Reduce screen updates to avoid "snow" on the PET 2001.

• Chiclet keyboard layout support.

• Reduce binary size by improving source code.

Successfully tested with

• 🥰 CBM 3032 with BASIC v2. 🥰
• 😍 CBM 8032-SK with BASIC v4. 😍
• 👍 VICE emulator. 👍

Please have extreme fun with RhinoDevel's Musical Keyboard !!!