Targhan has released Arkos Tracker v2.0.0a5 for linux, windows and mac.

• Better UI
• Midi in
• Midi import
• Minimalist player, ROM players
• Z80 source converter (for any assembler!)

Targhan has released Arkos Tracker v2.0.0a5 for linux, windows and mac.

• Many graphics improvement, including even more space for the pattern viewer.
• Midi in: plug your keyboard and have fun!
• Midi import: import your Midi songs.
• New AKM (minimalist) player: more compact and powerful than the Lightweight!
• Source converter: convert the music and player source to any assembler (winape, sdcc, pasmo, vasm, etc.) automatically, thanks to Disark, a new tool (for which I'll create a new thread...)!
• ROM players: by setting a flag, the players will not use auto-modification anymore, but a small buffer to put in RAM, whereas the player itself can be put in ROM.
• Support for specific hardware:
  • PlayCity (9 channels)
  • Spectrum Turbosound (6 channels)
  • SpectrumNext (9 channels)
  • MSX Darky (6 channels)
  • MSX FPGA (6 channels)
• ... and many other improvements

8bit music played by an symphony orchestra ? It's the 15th June at Hull (United Kingdom), for more informations check 8-Bit Symphony's site.

• teaser, first half
• teaser, second half

An interview of Barry LEITCH who is a composer and graphist for several 8bit games like Hero Quest for example.

Avec en prime un remake de la musique d'Hero Quest par SuTeKH/Epyteor.

Results of the oldskool demo compo at Révision 2019 are out. There are two Amstrad CPC demos, one at the 3rd place, see below :

• The Seniors - Rivalry - C64 new SID (In the "Commodore audience", this wins!)
• Hooy-Program - The Brexecutable Music Compo Is Over - ZX Spectrum (2nd place!)
• Overlanders - Gloire a Piou! - CPC-6128 (3rd place!)
• Pulpo Corrosivo - Octopus Pocus - CPC-6128
• Fenarinarsa - Latecomer - Apple ][
• ZOO - We are the Chimpions - C64 new SID
• Moods Plateau - Twenty - KC 85/4
• Chemtrailer Boys - Edison 2019 Invitation - C64 new SID
• The Pets Mode - ROBOTTO - MSX1
• Desire - 1E78 - Atari 7800
• BinaryCounter - Hello - SNES
• resource+singular - The 21st - C64 new SID
• TRSI - TRSI 4 Nordlicht - Atari 2600
• Molive - SNES-NICCC 2000 - SNES
• Titan - MD-NICCC - Sega Megadrive

You can see all the démos/musics on Twitch.

The music of Pinball Dreams by Batman Group is available on soundcloud. It was written by SuTeKH/Epyteor and converted on Amstrad CPC by McKlain and RaFT/TRSI.

What is the common point between the PC speaker and the Amstrad CPC : Fantasy World Dizzy.

In a interesting article on Habr, we learn how the simple PC speaker is allowed to make music despite its obvious limitations.

Targhan has released Arkos Tracker v2.0.0a4 for linux, windows and mac.

Arkos Tracker V2.0.0a4 released! (01/11/18)
Finally! After 5 months of work, here is it. It includes some cool features, such as:

Breaking changes:
- The Z80 assembler target now Rasm (by Roudoudou). Minimum effort are needed to convert them to SJasmPlus though.
This was required to implement the player configuration feature (see below) in a better way.
Please check the "players" page on the website to find tricks on how to use it on any assembler.

New features:
- Copy/cut/paste in the Pattern Viewer.
- Added a contextual menu in the Pattern Viewer.
- Changes in the keyboard shortcuts in the Pattern Viewer (transpose, octave, instrument, solo, mute, etc.).
- Added an Arpeggio Generator in the Pattern Viewer. Enter notes, select them, right-click and generate an arpeggio from them!
- UI changes:
- Changed the location of the Meters, now besides the Linker. More space!
- Changed the layout of some pop-ups to make them more small-screen friendly.
- Player configuration:
- "Player configuration" source files can be created when exporting songs or sound effects.
Using such files, the players only compile what the songs require (CPU and memory gain!).
- Done for AKG and its sound effect player.
- Done for Lightweight and its sound effect player.
- Done for AKY (Z80 version only, "normal" version (accurate/stable not done)).
- Song optimizer: on export, the Songs are more optimized (will introduce "clean song" options in the UI in later releases).
- Added a Vortex Tracker 2 import (.VT2/.txt).
- Added a Chip'n'Sfx import (.CHP).
- YM Analyser tool: load and play YMs, extract sounds from them.
- YM are now exported with digidrums.
- Atari ST:
- The AKY Player has been converted to 68000 for Atari ST, by GGN. A huge thanks to him!
- Added an option in the AKY export to encode all label references relative to the beginning of the song (useful for Atari ST players).
- Sample export:
- Added a fade out option to prevent clicks, for non-looping sounds. It can go to 0 of to the middle value.
- The padding value can also be 0, or the middle value.
- Added an option to export only the necessary length.
- Source profile:
- Added a mnemonic for strings.

Bug fixes:
- Corrected a big bug when inserting/deleting an item in Speed/Event Tracks (the wrong track could be changed).
- Corrected a source compilation problem when exporting samples in AKG format (thanks Hicks).
- Corrected a bug making the "export samples" dialog disabled, if in AKG/RAW export, export samples was off.
- Corrected a bug with the "source to Orgams" Python converter (thanks Hicks).
- Improved/corrected how the Retrig in instruments is exported (AKG, Lightweight, sound effects).
- Corrected a small UI bug about the selection when collapsing tracks.
- Corrected how the PSGs are addressed on SpecNext (stereo wrongly applied) (thanks Emook).
- Limited the export binary to 4 digits (#ffff) max. Handled correctly out-of-bounds assembling.

Seen on OursoN Retrogames Youtube channel, here is a speedrun of Cauldron 2 in 11 minutes and 38 seconds.

And after that, maybe listen to a remake of Cauldron 2 music by Ömer Aydin (Noisywan).

The last version of UZ80, a Z80 assembler by CNGSOFT is available (20181025-1445).

In June 2019, 8bit music will be played (1 hour and 40 mintes) by an orchestra at the Hull Philharmonic Orchestra.

After the orchestral version of Barbarian (at 3 minutes and 42 seconds) and Cauldron, here is one of Deflektor (original music by Ben Daglish.

Ben Daglish is a musician and composer for 8bit games (Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, C64 and well the 16bit Amiga).

The youtube video with Ben Daglish took place at the London "Underground" pub on the 15th of October 2016 where he performed with Fastloaders two music tracks, The Wastelands loader and The Wastelands theme (Last Ninja game on C64).

The last version of CHIPNSFX tracker+player suite by CNGSoft is out since the 8th August 2018.

There is also a new version of the Z80 assembler UZ80.

I won't write eight different news, so head to OverClocked ReMix to listen to eight remix of Amstrad CPC musics : Robocop, Ghosts'n Goblins, Space Harrier, Cauldron 2, Arkanoid (2 remixes), Dizzy the adventurer and Lemmings.