Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Maryland
Posts: 29

BeatPlus Sound Synthesizer Springboard

For all you springboard gadget hounds out there:

http://www.hscjpn.co.jp/english/e-beatplus.html

Registered: Mar 2000
Location: NYC
Posts: 287

Re: BeatPlus Sound Synthesizer Springboard

quote:

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Originally posted by dhelfrich
For all you springboard gadget hounds out there:

http://www.hscjpn.co.jp/english/e-beatplus.html

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It all started way back in February 2000 with a Blue VDX.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Waterloo, IA USA
Posts: 10

They need to ship a version of a nice music composition program with this thing. I would LOVE to have a nice handheld synthesizer. It should load, play, and save MIDI files and come with a nice drumbox application. I'd pay the $79.95 for this pup in a minute if it had this software.
And I like the idea of it playing Visor system sounds, too.

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Connecticut USA
Posts: 2682

James posted this news item about the BeatPlus on Wednesday. In it is a link to the Developer Support page where the SDK is available for download. It contains a utility for converting 8khz/16bit/mono WAV files to ADPCM format for use with the BeatPlus.

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God bless America, my home sweet home...

Registered: Jan 2001
Location:
Posts: 28

All I can say is its about time! I've been waiting for a speaker springboard to come out. The headphone jack is the icing.

Registered: Mar 2001
Location: North Calolina
Posts: 38

FM function

Does anyone know about the FM function? This seems like a great module

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Posts: 415

If you think 'FM' means 'FM radio' you'll be dissapointed. 'FM' is just a way of modulating frequencies, in this case, sound frequencies. It means that this module can essentially act like on the visor like a soundblaster does on a PC. The only way a visor can currently make noise is via 'Pulse Width Modulation' or 'PWM'

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-thorin

I have a webcomic. You should read it, or I may do something rash. <b><a href=http://driveby.keenspace.com/>Drive-by Loitering</a></b> is updated every monday, wednesday and friday.

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Registered: Mar 2001
Location: North Calolina
Posts: 38

thorin,

Thanks for the clarification!

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Waterloo, IA USA
Posts: 10

Music, music, music

Just saw the news item that minimusic's Notepad 1.1 supports the BeatPlus module, and immediately ordered both! I hope this is at least as much fun as composing music for the SID chip was on the Commodore 64.

Registered: Dec 2000
Location:
Posts: 24

oh oh oh ! tell me all about it

hey hey! I wanna hear all about it when you recieve it!
Can the software/hardware play all 16 channels simultaniously and easily? how does it sound? does it have all the musical capablities you could want? plz share the juicy details.
-Fagan

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Waterloo, IA USA
Posts: 10

Just Received the Beat Plus!

Received my Beat Plus 1/2 hour ago from PalmGear. Played the Zap game immediately and got better sound than a GameBoy, by far! The mono internal speaker is about the same volume as a GameBoy, which is to say just about enough for the player to hear 'good enough'. But with stereo headphones the sound is out and out AWESOME! The game hung my Visor Deluxe after playing 3 games, requiring a hard reset, but that's a minor point for now, and might be due to the fact that I was banging multiple keys fast and hard.
I immediately downloaded the demo version of minimusic and played the demo song. Looks like minimusic supports 4 voices,not all 16. But the sound is tremendous. The combination of minimusic and Beat Plus is a real winner. I am totally satisfied. Okay, I still want all 16 voices supported, but this is a great start. I've already ordered the full version of minimusic, and will hit them with an email ASAP telling them how much I love this,and begging for full Beat Plus support.
BTW, Beat Plus comes with ONLY the Zap 2000 game and the module driver. You can't do a darn thing with it without minimusic or writing your own software with their SDK. As cool as this module is, though, I'm sure we'll see LOTS of support for it.
It looks like my wish has come true - this is every bit as much fun as programming the SID chip on my old Commodore 64, and then some!
Now back to playing music!!!

Registered: Dec 2000
Location:
Posts: 24

sweet!

sounds really fun! perhaps when minimusic or whatever supports 16 channels...maybe I'll ask for it for xmas this year.... ok well thanks for the cool info!
edit: oh! some support from TealMovie (my movie program of choice) would rock! I bet the movie audio would sound way better from the beat plus