why-bloopsaphone

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 :$: bloopsaphone :$:
  `''''''''''''''''`

for writing chiptune-style songs in c or ruby. you know: the sounds of ataris, gameboys and the like.

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-$- ABOUT

this is a small c library for sending chiptunes through portaudio, which is a rather light cross-platform audio lib. http://www.portaudio.com/

right now i'm only including ruby bindings. you are welcome to contribute code to hook up to other languages, though.

i wrote this for h-ety h. http://hacketyhack.net/

i don't have binaries ready for this yet, so if you're on windows or os x, you may have to wait until HH comes out at ART AND CODE. the tribulations you face.

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-$- THE BLOOPSAPHONE THEME SONG (in ruby)

  require 'bloops'

# the bloops o' phone
  b = Bloops.new
  b.tempo = 320

# melodious
  s1 = b.sound Bloops::SQUARE
  s1.punch = 0.5
  s1.sustain = 0.4
  s1.decay = 0.2
  s1.arp = 0.4
  s1.aspeed = 0.6
  s1.repeat = 0.6
  s1.phase = 0.2
  s1.psweep = 0.2

# beats
  s2 = b.sound Bloops::NOISE
  s2.punch = 0.5
  s2.sustain = 0.2
  s2.decay = 0.4
  s2.slide = -0.4
  s2.phase = 0.2
  s2.psweep = 0.2

# the tracks
  b.tune s1, "f#5 c6 e4 b6 g5 d6 4  f#5 e5 c5 b6 c6 d6 4 "
  b.tune s2, "4   c6 4  b5 4  4  e4 4   c6 4  b5 4  4  e4"

# and away we go
  b.play
  sleep 1 while !b.stopped?

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-$- BUILDING FOR RUBY

If Ruby is in your path and PortAudio 1.9 or greater is installed:

make ruby

To install PortAudio 1.9 under Ubuntu:

aptitude install portaudio19-dev

Under MacPorts, you may need to add /opt/local to your make settings:

make CFLAGS="-I/opt/local/include" \
     LDFLAGS="-L/opt/local/lib" \
     ruby

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-$- THE IDEALS,

-1- ASYNCHRONOUS. You send it a song and it plays in the background. You'll get an event when it finishes.

-2- SMALL. This is just a toy, I don't want it to be very big and comprehensive. Just to play little tunes with a nostalgic arcade sound rather than the CASIO-stylings of most MIDI.

-3- CUSTOM NOTATION. Someone told me about Nokring, iMelody, numbered musical notation and I did some reading. They're little languages for texting yourself a ringtone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_Tone_Transfer_Language http://homepage.mac.com/alvinmok/ericsson/emelody.html

  Bloopsaphone uses a variation on RTTTL.

  Instead of commas, I use whitespace.
  A rest is simply a number. A plus sign
  moves everything up an octave. A minus
  down an octave.

  The Simpsons' Theme, for instance, would be:

    32 + C E F# 8:A G E C - 8:A 8:F# 8:F# 8:F# 2:G

  Which translates into:

   * a 1/32nd note rest.
   * change one octave up.
   * C quarter note.
   * E quarter note.
   * F# quarter note.
   * A eighth note.
   * G quarter.
   * E quarter.
   * C one-quarter note.
   * change one octave down.
   * A eighth.
   * Three F# eighths.
   * G half note.

  The colons are optional. They are there because you
  can place an octave number after each note. Somehow
  "8B6" (an eighth note of B at the sixth octave) looks
  more confusing than "8:B6". I guess I figured that
  the timing "8" is conceptually separate from the
  actual tone "B6", even though they both comprise
  the note itself.

-4- SERIALIZE SOUNDS. To accomodate passing instruments between ruby and c, bloopsaphone comes with a tiny file format for describing sounds.

  You can find examples of these in the sounds/
  folder in this distro. Possible sound types
  are 'square', 'sawtooth', 'sine' and 'noise'.
  All other settings go from 0.0 to 1.0.

  The 'freq' setting is only used if the sound
  is played without a tune.