SIDPLAYER NEWS FILE #1  7/85 11/85 

Welcome to the first news file for Sidplayer, the music system published in 
the book "ALL ABOUT THE COMMODORE 64, VOLUME TWO" by Craig Chamberlain, 
published by COMPUTE! Books. 

This documentation file describes how to use KPLAY, how to hook your Commodore 
64 up to a stereo, how to play a song for two computers, where to submit 
songs, and more. 

The SIDCAT files provide a complete listing of Sidplayer songs in groups of 
fifty. 

These files will be updated periodically to bring you the latest information 
about Sidplayer. 

KPLAY is an enhanced version of the Player found in Volume Two.  It plays all 
Sidplayer songs and features a piano keyboard display.  KPLAY and Sidplayer 
songs may be freely distributed but not sold. 

When you run KPLAY, the program will first ask you for your name.  Type your 
name, up to ten letters long, and press the Return key.  Don't worry about 
upper/lower case. 

After displaying two more screens, the program will list the names of all the 
Sidplayer songs on the disk. (Sidplayer songs are identified by .MUS at the 
end of the filename.) 

To play a song, just type its name (without the .MUS) and press the Return 
key.  The program will load the song, the screen will change to show a piano 
keyboard, some text lines will be printed, and the song will start playing. 

When the song is done playing, the program will return to the screen with the 
song directory.  You can then choose another song. 

To stop a song before it is finished playing, just hit any key, such as the 
space bar. 

To replay a song, type * in place of the filename and press Return.  The 
program will skip the loading process and start playing the song again. 

If you make a mistake in typing a filename, or a requested song is not on the 
disk, the program will print the message "I DON'T KNOW THAT SONG". 

To play songs on another disk, simply insert the disk and press Return for a 
new song directory. 

If no Sidplayer songs are found on a disk, the message "NO MUSIC FILES ON 
DISK" will be printed. 

To save some typing, you can use the wildcard character in the filenames. 
Just type the first few letters of the filename, followed by a '*', the 
wildcard character.  For example, to load and play the song HOMECOMING, type 
HOM* for the filename. 

Be sure to type enough letters to distinguish the name from any others. 
Typing only HO* could cause the program to load and play the song HOLST 
instead. 

Also be aware that using wildcards may make the program try to load a file 
other than a song.  Typing K* might cause the program to load and attempt to 
play the program KPLAY rather than the song K.C.O.. 

When you are done playing songs, hit Run/Stop Restore to exit the program. 

The first time you do this, remember to Scratch the KPLAY on the disk and use 
the SAVE command to replace it with the personalized version. 

If you do this, the next time you run the personalized KPLAY, it will not ask 
you for your name, and will go right to the song directory! 

To change the name or remove it, LOAD the KPLAY program and enter the command 
RUN 100 to start the program at line 100. 

Sidplayer songs are very memory efficient.  Their small size means that they 
can be loaded from disk faster, can be transferred by modem in a shorter 
amount of time, and take less storage space. 

Although the songs are compact enough that you could store as many as a 
hundred on one side of a disk, it is recommended that you not put more than 
fifty songs on a side, since this will make the screen scroll when KPLAY 
prints the song directory. 

Also, the extra songs will not be playable by the MULTIPLAY (MPLAY) song 
player. 

Sidplayer songs sound great, but they will sound even better if you play them 
over a stereo instead of through the cheap little speaker on a television or 
monitor. 

It's so easy to connect your Commodore 64 to a stereo.  Any standard monitor 
cord splits into one or more video lines and one audio line.  Just plug the 
cord into the monitor output of the 64 and connect the audio line to the 
auxiliary input of your stereo. 

You may also want to get a "Y" patchcord to split the signal, so that you can 
hear it through both the left and right speakers. 

An unfortunate limitation of the SID chip is that it supports only three 
voices.  Contemporary songs often need at least four. 

One way to get around this problem is to have a song use two computers, for a 
total of six voices.  This allows the use of a melody line, a bass line, 
chords, and percussion, and opens the door to stereo effects. 

The first Sidplayer song for two computers is the Axel F Theme from the movie 
"Beverly Hills Cop".  The file AXELF-L is for the left speaker and the file 
AXELF-R is for the right speaker.  The two files must be played simultaneously 
on two computers. 

To play two computers together, load and run the Sidplayer Editor on each 
computer, then load the file for the left speaker on one computer and the file 
for the right speaker on the other computer. 

Press the '1' key from the MAIN menu to select the PLAY option, and finally 
press the Return keys of the two computers at the same instant.  The four 
timing beeps at the beginning of the song should be synchronized if the Return 
keys were hit together.  It may take a few tries to get a "good start". 

Adjust the volumes for a good balance (the audio output is stronger on some 
64'S than others) and enjoy the song. 

The simultaneous playing can also be done with KPLAY, but sometimes the two 
computers will not stay synchronized.  Unlike the Editor, KPLAY uses the 
raster scan interrupt, and for some unknown reason the computers may "drift" 
even if they are started together. 

If you try to use KPLAY, turn on each computer, hit Run/Stop Restore on each 
one, then load and run KPLAY.  Load the respective song files, but hit a key 
to stop the playing.  Type '*' for the filename on each computer to choose the 
replay feature, and then hit the Return keys together.  Listen for a while to 
determine if the playing on the two computers stays synchronized. 

One way to tell for sure if the computers stay together is to play the same 
song on both computers. 

An alternate method to start the playing from KPLAY is to release joystick 
triggers together instead of hitting Return keys together. 

Plug a joystick into port two of each computer and have one person hold both 
joysticks.  The person should press and hold down the triggers on the 
joysticks when the Return keys are pressed.  The playing will not start until 
the triggers are released. 

If the playing on the computers does not stay synchronized, try a different 
pair of computers. 

To submit songs, you may send them to the author. 

Craig Chamberlain 
C/O Compute! Books 
P.O. BOX 5406 
Greensboro, NC 27403 

If you subscribe to the Delphi telecommunications service, a more direct way 
to submit your songs is to upload them to the Commodore music database of the 
Micro Artist Network (MANIAC) SIG.  The song will be assigned the next 
available catalog number and be listed in the next catalog.  You will also 
find the latest songs from other people in the MANIAC music database. 

The author can sometimes be found in the Micro Artist Network SIG.  Delphi 
mail should be sent to the username CRAIGCH. 

Here are a couple technical notes.  The version of the player used by the 
KPLAY program has been modified to improve the timing. 

Because of these timing changes, a song with sensitive envelope settings may 
play just a little differently in KPLAY than it does in the Editor or the 
Player from the book. 

The other note is that to change the color of a piano key in KPLAY, use the 
Editor to enter an AUX command on the appropriate voice with a color number 
from 0 to 15.  Do not use values outside of this range. 

The SONGCOPY utility is used to copy several songs at once.  Enter song 
filenames one at a time.  Sorry, but wildcards may not be used.  Hit only the 
Return key for a song directory showing which songs have been selected.  Enter 
the command BEGIN to start the copying. 

The PRINTER utility is a version of the LISTER utility revised to list the 
voices in three columns on a printer, to save paper.  The program will work 
only with a printer. 

See the later SIDNEWS files for more information, including instructions on 
how to use MULTIPLAY, tips on making songs with Sidplayer, and instructions on 
how to use the POLYCON utility. 

*********************************** 

THE PROGRAMS PUBLISHED IN THE BOOK "ALL ABOUT THE COMMODORE 64, VOLUME TWO" 
ARE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT.  THEY ARE NOT IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, AND MAY NOT BE 
DISTRIBUTED IN ANY FORM.  THIS INCLUDES THE EDITOR AND SID.OBJ PROGRAMS.  A 
DISK OF ALL THE PROGRAMS IN VOLUME TWO MAY BE PURCHASED FROM COMPUTE! FOR 
$12.95. 