README for the Windows version of SIDPLAY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ February 10 version (1997) This file isn't meant as a complete manual, simply as a brief description of the features of SIDPLAY/Windows What is SIDPLAY/Windows? SIDPLAY is a music player and SID chip emulator written by Michael Schwendt <3schwend@informatik.uni-hamburg.de>. For info on SIDPLAY and SID files, go to the SIDPLAY home page at http://www.student.nada.kth.se/~d93-alo/c64/Sidplay SIDPLAY/Windows is a port of SIDPLAY to the MS Windows environment. The Windows port and user interface is written by Adam Lorentzon . INSTALLATION Simply copy the SIDPLAYW.EXE file to a directory of your choice, add an icon to it and you're done. If you wish to run the 32-bit version under Windows 3.1, you will need Win32s. It can be obtained from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/ . The 32-bit version is almost twice as fast as the 16-bit version. If you want SIDPLAY/Windows to start playing a file when it is double-clicked, you need to associate the file extension (usually .dat) with SIDPLAY/Windows: Windows 3.1: In the File Manager, choose File|Associate, enter the extension, press Browse, browse to where you put SIDPLAYW.EXE and press OK. Windows 95: In the Explorer, hold the shift key and right-click on a file with the extension you want to associate. Choose Open With, press Browse, browse to where you put SIDPLAYW.EXE and press OK. USAGE - DESCRIPTION OF THE MENU The file menu has five entries: Open, Save as, Conversion, Properties and Exit. File|Open: (Shortcut - Alt + O or Ctrl + O) Opens a standard Windows file open dialog, from which you can choose a sid music file to open and start playing. File|Save as: (Shortcut - Ctrl + S) Asks for a filename and the type of file to be saved. If no extensions is specified, the extension corresponding to the chosen file type will be added to the filename before saving. If the Windows PCM file format is chosen, a WAV file is saved using the settings in the Settings|Wav dialog box. During the creation of the WAV file, a progression dialog will show how much is done. It also has a cancel button, which if pressed will abort the save process and delete the partially saved WAV file. (Note that the old shortcut for saving WAV files, Alt + W, still works although the explicit menu option is removed.) File|Conversion: (Shortcut - Alt + C) Dialog for converting sid files to a specified format. For example, suppose you've got a dir full of sid files in DAT+SID format. Use the filter to show all *.dat files, set destination directory to the same as the source, convert all files with the overwrite option, making the PSID files (.dat) overwrite the old .dat files, and the delete source files option, removing the old .sid files and you've replaced all DAT+SID files with a corresponding DAT file in PSID format. Be a little careful with the overwriting and deleting though, make sure you have a backup if something goes wrong. File|Properties: Shows information about the file currently loaded. File|Exit: (Shortcut - Alt + X) Terminates the program. --- The view menu controls which windows apart from the main window that are shown. It has four entries: Mixer, Filter, Directory-based UI and Playlist. View|Mixer: In the mixing dialog, you can control the volume level and the Left-Right panning of the individual SID voices here. Panning is not available in mono. If HQ mixing mode is selected you only have limited control over the panning, a sort of blending of the left and right stereo channels. Switching off the mixer uses a somewhat faster algorithm. View|Filter: This window controls the three parameters to the adjustable SID-filter emulation. You can also switch off the filter to gain speed. View|Directory-based UI: (Shortcut - Alt + D) Toggles a file-selection window which looks like the main window in SIDPLAY/DOS. Use the mouse or the arrow keys to select a drive, directory or file and press enter or double-click to change to the selected drive/ directory or start playing the selected file. Backspace takes you up one directory. Entering an alphanumeric key highlights the first entry that begins with that character. Repeated use of the same key will highlight the next entry beginning with that character. Pressing the Filter button lets you choose which files that will be shown in the directory window. If you press the delete-key when a file is selected, a confirmation box will appear, and if you select Yes the file will be deleted. View|Playlist: This window shows the current playlist. Double-click an entry to play it. Press the Edit button to open the Playlist Edit dialog. --- The settings menu is for configuring the program and has five entries: Play, Wav, Emulation, Extensions and Device. Settings|Play: Controls the quality of the sound: frequency, resolution and channels: Frequency can be chosen between 4000 and 48000 Hz. 8-bit or 16-bit output. Mono or stereo output. The number and size of buffers can be increased if the music is stuttering, and there are gaps in the music when you're running other programs. If you want faster response time, lower the size of the buffers. Higher frequency, stereo and 16-bit output all increase the CPU demand, so you might have to do with a little lower sound quality if you have a 486 or a slow Pentium. Settings|Wav: Here you set the type of WAV file that will be written when you choose File|Save as WAV. You also choose how long the WAV file will be in seconds. Be careful not to record too long files - the required filesize is shown at the bottom of the dialog. Settings|Emulation: Memory model: This option controls how the bank-switching works. Full bank-switching is just like the real commodore. The other options are provided for compatibility. Clock speed: PAL and NTSC commodores plays some sids at different speeds. Without the force clock speed option checked, this setting doesn't matter (actually, for sids that use the CIA timer, the speed will differ with a factor of 1.038). SIDPLAY will play the sids as the composer intended them to sound. If you want to hear the music at the same speed it played on your commodore, choose clock speed and check the force play speed option. For more information about the emulation settings, please visit the SIDPLAY home page. Settings|Extensions: This dialog lets you specify which extensions SIDPLAY/Windows will use for the different file formats. These extensions will be used in the File|Open, File|Save As and File|Conversion dialogs. (AWB stands for Amiga Workbench icon + ASCII info strings) Settings|Device: If you have several audio devices installed on your system, you may want to select the one with the best audio capabilities. Here you can choose between the installed devices. --- The help menu has only one entry: About. Help|About: Shows information about the program, such as authors, whether it is the win16, thw win32s win32t version, and what date it was created. USAGE - OTHER A filename can be given on the command line, so associating SIDPLAY/Windows with the .dat extension might be a good idea. If you have SIDPLAY/Windows open you can drag a sidfile from the File Manager (Explorer in Windows 95) and drop it on the main window and it will start playing. PLAYLIST EDITOR: To the left is the directory window. Use this to navigate to the sidtunes you want to add to the playlist. To the right is the playlist. Adding sidtunes to the playlist: To add sids to the list, mark them in the directory window and press the [Add] button. Double-clicking a single sid will also add it. Press the [Add all] button if you want to add all the sids in the directory to the list. If the "Add subsongs" checkbox is marked, adding a sid with subtunes will add an entry to the list for each subtune. If there is a number in the "Default playtime" edit box, the added entries will have the same playtime as in the box. Removing sidtunes from the playlist: Doubleclick an entry, or highlight it and press [Remove] to remove it from the list. [Remove all] will empty the list. Ordering the tunes in the list: Highlight a tune and press the [Up] or [Down] button to move it towards the beginning or the end of the list. List properties: If the "Repeat" check box is marked, the list will start playing from the beginning of the list when it has reached the end. Otherwise it stops. Normal play order means that the entries are played in the same order as they are in the list. Random order means that each time there is time to choose a new entry, it is randomly chosen from the list. List entry properties: Highlight a list entry to see its properties: the filename of the sid file, the name, author and copyright of the sid, the subsong that will be played and the time it will be played. The subsong and playtime can be edited. Loading and saving playlists: Straightforward - press the [Load] button to load a new playlist or the [Save] button to save the current list. NOTE: when a new list is loaded, or the program is terminated, the changes made to the playlist will be lost unless they're saved first. No warning will be issued! TABLE OF SHORTCUT KEYS: Alt+P = Play/Pause Alt+S = Start/Stop playing Ctrl+O = Open file Alt+O = Open file Ctrl+S = Save as Alt+W = Save as Wav Alt+C = The conversion dialog Alt+D = Show/Hide the directory window Alt+X = Terminates the program Alt+Left = Previous entry in playlist Alt+Right = Next entry in playlist Alt+Up = Next subsong Alt+Down = Previous subsong GLOBAL HOTKEYS: (works even when SIDPLAY is in the background) Ctrl+Alt+P = Play/Pause Ctrl+Alt+S = Start/Stop playing Ctrl+Alt+Left = Previous entry in playlist Ctrl+Alt+Right = Next entry in playlist Ctrl+Alt+Up = Next subsong Ctrl+Alt+Down = Previous subsong --- DISTRIBUTION SITES For the latest version of SIDPLAY/Windows, look at these places. The WWW page will have the new version first, as well as the past and future of SIDPLAY/Windows. It also contains PSID files for use with SIDPLAY, and links to other SID resources on the net. WWW: http://www.student.nada.kth.se/~d93-alo/c64/spw FTP: ftp://frodo.hiof.no/pub/c64/sidmusic BBS: Point of No Return Node 1 (28k8) +49-6039-95934 Node 2 (ISDN) +49-6039-95935 For extensive SIDPLAY and sid music information, like the file formats supported by SIDPLAY, information about how to rip SID music from games or demos and much more, don't miss the original -= SIDPLAY WWW Home Page =- at http://www.student.nada.kth.se/~d93-alo/c64/Sidplay For the greatest collection of SID tunes on this planet, get The High Voltage SID Collection at http://www.dhp.com/~shark/c64music/ --- THANKS TO Michael Schwendt for everything All betatesters for finding bugs, making suggestions and general motivation Jonathan Hunt for drawing the nice icon All C64 composers for the groovy tunes Sid rippers and sid collection organizers for making them available (esp. Agust Arni Jonsson and The Shark of INC) --- CONTACTING THE AUTHOR If you have questions, comments, suggestions or bug reports, don't hesitate to mail me at d93-alo@nada.kth.se . The C64 WWW Games page at http://www.student.nada.kth.se/~d93-alo/c64/ has links to most C64 resources on the net. Try it! Be well! / Adam Lorentzon