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oric:wave:wave_samples

WAVE Samples

WAVE Samples are held in an 8K block of memory from $5672 to $76CC.
Up to 7 Samples can be used and based on the speed and size this provides just over 3 seconds of sound.
Samples are rapid writes of real sound nibbles to a Volume register.

Each Sample is always played at 5Khz 4 Bit and is stored to memory in the Propriatory LHL format.
This format permits two sample entries per byte held in the low(first) then high(second) nibble before progressing to the next byte. However if the new byte is 0 then this marks an end to the Sample.

Unlike the first version of Wave samples cannot be tuned to the note frequency neither can they be looped.

Samples are played concurrently to the Tracker Editor and any SID currently playing.
By default a Sample is assigned to Channel C (as in the original Wave version). However applying a Sample Command to a channel will assign the Sample to that channel.

It must be emphasized that Samples consume alot of cpu time and any music played with them will not be able to run at the same time as a BASIC program but as a independant player that will interrupt the BASIC program until it finishes.
The player will consume approximately 39% of CPU whilst playing Samples. If SID is also played during this time then the CPU load will increase to between 75 and 80%.

Importing Samples

The easiest way of importing samples is using an Emulator on Windows or Linux.

  • 1 One must first locate the samples required and then convert (if not done so already) to 5Khz 8 Bit Mono Unsigned Raw. Ensure the sample is no longer than 8K otherwise the Sample Compiler utility will reject it.


  • 2 Convert the sample to a TAP file using OSDK's HEADER application. The syntax is currently (for version 0.001) “HEADER -a0 -h1 Sourcefile destinationfile $2000” . Ensure the destination filename has the .TAP extension.


  • 3 Copy the file into the Emulators Tape folder.


  • 4 Now repeat steps 1 to 4 for all samples required incrementing the sequence number (should start at 00).


  • 5 Boot up Euphoric with the WAVE Systems disk and select TAP2LHL utility from the menu. Select option 1 and Enter each Tape filename in turn and the utility will convert each one and save with the LHL extension.


  • 6 Within the same utility select option 2 to save the compilation as a WVE file. Now you will be able to load the file directly into WAVE 1.0 or above.
oric/wave/wave_samples.txt · Last modified: 2009/11/30 10:11 by twilighte