Chronos ZX Spectrum (c) 1987 Gremlin

Horizontal shooter that became famous mainly by its outstanding Z80 driven 1-bit multi-channel music by Tim Follin. Video includes 2 more Follin tracks from Raw Recruit and Agent X II. Additional rhytmics generated by AY sound chip.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• chronos
• sinclair
• zx
• spectrum
• gremlin
• tim
• follin
• musician
• horizontal
• shooter
• shooting
• game
• scrolling
• z80
• z80a
• beeper
• multi-channel
• 1-bit
• synthesis
• synthesizer
• ula
• orchestral
• hi-fi
• recording

[newcoleco]

Is there a site somewhere explaining the concept behind this music being possible for a game like this one?

[maiki60fps]

to make things clear.... the music does NOT play when the game is running... it's in the intro screen only... you would need another Z80 CPU for in-game playback

[newcoleco]

ok, but beside that... is there technical information about how this music is generated?

[maiki60fps]

I haven't searched around the net so I can't really tell... but basically to produce this music you have to quickly alter the very short beeps... the beep signal on Spectrum is generated in its ULA (Uncommitted Logic Array) video chip (only 1 pin is used for sound I think)

[HikaruNakajima]

@newcoleco You might want to look up "Pulse-width modulation" in Wikipedia for the exact method used. Also, the snare drum effect you can hear in "stereo" is partly generated using the AY-8910-12 music chip (only available in 128K models normally).

[Abrimaal]

@maiki60fps There is a remake of Chronos for Windows on the web named Chronos X. The ingame music is dull, but you can replace it with ZX music in mp3. Try it :)

[Abrimaal]

Maybe you know how it was done that the beeper music in North Star fades at the end. There's no volume control for the beeper and when I opened the wave file in an editor there are at least 4 volume levels. The video is in my profile code _xQOPhAjVcc

[SPINNYFUCK]

Some classic music from Mr. Follin. A good game as well.