AVR-AY

[farvardin]

hello,

I think this cool project might interest some of you, it's:
- a arduino player for YM2149 / ay-3-8910
- a windows application for playing YM files (and supports many other related formats)
- the recreation of the AY chip inside an ATMEGA8 chip, which you can use also with an other arduino player. So you can stream YM / AY music from an sd card and make it work from a battery or solar power for example.

I've built the atmega emulator, it's very cool

The homepage is http://www.avray.ru/

A demo on youtube (this version streams from the windows player): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUTNtUz8tGQ

[farvardin]

I've soldered a board with the emulator last week-end. There is almost nothing on the board, but under it there are quite many wires. I've put the atmega8 chip under the arduino nano. I'd like to make a PCB for making more boards like this.

Here is a new video with the new board:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzpGbokxwZ4

and a picture of it:



So there is a sd card reader connected to the arduino which read the data, then pass it to the atmega8 which is the sound chip recreating the ym2148.

[farvardin]

Here is a recording of the Xenon 1 music from an YM dump, on the AVR-AY emulator:

http://picosong.com/HUGM/

Just a bit lower than the original version but it sounds nevertheless good. (It's possible to get the correct speed and pitch if we reflash the atmega8 chip)

[matej]

Hello.

Very nice project!
I wrote you on Chipmusic.org. Is possible to run it from battery to have small portable YMplayer like MP3player?
Also can be there switch? I want to make Atari ST door bell? Will be PCBs layout+scheme freeware?

[farvardin]

yeah, you can power it from an usb charger (or batteries as well), like any arduino devices, on the video the green thing is a charger.
The switch you can see on the picture is for skipping track, but you can program it for something different. I'm sure it'd be possible to program it in such a way it can trigger a door bell or something like that!

You can find everything on http://www.avray.ru/ and especially on this page:
http://www.avray.ru/playing-yrg-rsf-fil ... -emulator/
There is a schematic but some parts are missing (which is probably not a problem for most people at ease with electronic, i.e. not for me). I've made a more complete schematic and also I want to make instructions for flashing the chip (which is easy once you have the correct schematic). I have no experience with PCB but a friend told me he could help for that.

[McKlaud]

@farvardin: well, I made my AY-3-8912 drop in-replacement based on this avray.ru project. To be honest I am not an Atari man, I am from the enemy camp called Spectrum. So I tested my board in a Spectrum clone and it worked suprisingly well.

THT version in the real hardware


If anyone would like to hear differences between sound generated by the AY-3-8912 and the emulator v24.6 with various ATmega chips with different clocks, samples are there:
http://fotogalleria.info/pub/ZXSpeccy/AYEmul/Audio/Emul_24_6/

The emulator's creator, Evgeniy published the newest version (24.7) of the AVR-AY emulator on his website a few days ago. I am impressed with his works. Therefore I've decided to go further with my PCB and design new one using SMD components. The render of the updated board:


The new board should be ready for tests by the end of the month or so Then I will post an update how it works.

If anyone has any question, feel free and ask.

[FedePede04]

thx guys for sharing this cool stuff

[farvardin]

@McKlaud that's very cool! Spectrum is not the enemy you know, only Amiga is (and honestly, Atari is better and more fun).

I'm still thinking about how to make a PCB for my YM player, kicad is too difficult for me and the one I made on fritzing is not good enough at the moment.

[McKlaud]

Thanks a lot.

I'm still thinking about how to make a PCB for my YM player, kicad is too difficult for me and the one I made on fritzing is not good enough at the moment.

If you posted the schematic I would be able to help you with the PCB.

[farvardin]

I've looked again Fritzing, and managed to progress in the creation of the PCB. I'm still working on it, it should be ok.

[Smonson]

Wow, that's awesome! The sound quality is much better than I expected.

[farvardin]

here is the schematic (I'll post the sources soon, but I have to check the connections again):

[farvardin]

I've ordered the PCB, it should arrive soon.

Some more sound examples:

- http://picosong.com/wseMn/ (Cauldron / Amstrad)
- https://soundcloud.com/memento-somniare/sidarduino-test (C64 SID synth)
- http://battleofthebits.org/arena/Entry/ ... ter/26509/ (personal creation, for zx spectrum)

there is still some noise and hiss when recording from the breadboard, but it might be some bad connections or ambiant interferences, I think it won't be present in the final version. (I don't remembered having this on my prototype board)

It can then play chiptunes without the need of a complete Amstrad, ZX spectrum or Atari ST! A pocket emulator.

but more than this, this board has:

- a low pass filter
- arduino nano
- SD card reader
- Midi DIN-5 connector

So we can use it for the creation of other projects:

- Mozzi synth (see here: https://sensorium.github.io/Mozzi)
- SID player and synth emulator
- 1-bit music player
- no AY-synth at the moment, but we can use a photoresistance for turning it into a noise and random music generator!

I'll sell the PCB card alone (if it works as expected), for a cheap price, and also some complete kits and assembled product.

The github project:
https://github.com/farvardin/garvuino

[McKlaud]

Will you have any spare PCB? I would be interested in buying it.

[farvardin]

Will you have any spare PCB? I would be interested in buying it.

Yes, it should be possible. Anyway, if I sell everything, I'll order more, and try to improve the boards. Some components are not very intelligently placed, it's difficult to imagine before having the real board in hands.

Also, because of the conception (serial mode), using the midi input to drive the AY chip might be very difficult. It should work better with parallel mode, and this mode in addition allows to use a real AY chip. I'll try to do that on a breadboard.

The board looks pretty nice in blue:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BY6k1jtB9Mw ... by=garvalf