BETTER PROGRAMMING!

Let’s talk about sound effects in programs. It is very important in a game to have good sound effects as well as good graphics. Good sound effects improve the “quality” of a game. It makes it more exciting, more “professional”. It is also important to choose the right effect: a metallic sound for a game with robots in it, space sounds for an “Invaders” type of game, etc…This month we will talk about the metallic sound effects.

Remember, avoid putting too much sound effects, it tends to be annoying especially sharp notes.

Now let’s see how we could make a metallic sound effect. First the effect will need two Channels, one for the main sound and the other to create the effect. The sound effect is created by adding or substracting 1 (or more) to the value of the “FINE” tune of Channel “B”. (SEE CHAPTER “Sound and Music” of your user manual)

The following programs are found on the cassette after this magazine.

10 SOUND 7,60;8,15;9,15;0,10;1,5;2,11;3,5
20 PAUSE 0

This program can be modified to play music:

10 FOR z=1 TO 18: READ a,b,c
20 SOUND 7,60;8,15;9,15;0,a;1,b;2,a+2;3,b
30 PAUSE 10*c:SOUND 8,0;9,0: NEXT z: STOP
40 DATA 92,4,4,…,…

There is also another program on the cassette, same as the first one but with moving graphics.

Well that’s it for this month, join us for chapter 2 of the SOUND EFFECTS. We will discuss about sound effects using the envelope generator.