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.

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.

The original music of the Amstrad CPC game Thrust is written by Rob Hubbard, and it is played on a synthetizer by CPC Moments.

Sadly, it is the last video by CPC moments, which are all from two years ago.

The original music of the Amstrad CPC game Prohibition is written by Charles Callet, and it is played on a synthetizer by CPC Moments.

The original music of the Amstrad CPC game Platoon is written by David Whittaker, and it is played on a synthetizer by CPC Moments.

3D Fight is a shoot them up in 3D on Amstrad CPC by Vincent Baillet (code) and Michel WINOGRADOFF (music). It's a great classic that I finished if my memory is good. You can find an interview in french in the issue 19 of Pix'n Love.

You can see two videos :

• 3D fight longplay by Amstrad Maniaque
• 3D Fight music played on a synthetizer by CPC moments

Captain Space Debris is an Amiga original music written by Markus Kaarlonen, which was adapted on Amstrad CPC by BSC for the demo Digital Orgasm by Prodatron. So Vincent GR mixed both of them but even if there is a Youtube video of the mix, he prefers that you listen to the soundcloud version due to audio and video compression.

In 30 minutes on Twitch with Le Daron about the Sapiens game with one of its progammer : Didier Guillion and the author of the music : Gilles Soulet. Dont miss it !

Targhan has released the second alpha of Arkos Tracker for linux, windows and mac.

After releasing Pentomino last year, Shining got many feedback of people who liked the music. And as a big ay-chiptune fan and also a big fan of n1k-o, who is the composer of the Pentomino-music, he decided to do a music-disc, featuring only songs from him : : NQ!-Music disc

After getting the permission from n1k-o, the music-disc finally plays 26 songs, choosen by him. Because of the very crooked different frequency of the ay in the sinclair (where all the tunes come from), they sound not always the same on our Amstrad and many of them, he had to fine-tune. Some, which he wanted to use, were nearly impossible to convert, so the choosen-ones are not the 26 best, in his opinion, but the 26 best he could get up and running on CPC.

Since he joined forces with HAL6128 again, the great gfx was completely made by him. As only playing the songs is a little bit boring, and he wanted to play around a little bit with the crtc and the plus, he implemented the CRTC-register 3 equalizer (he thinks this will not work on TFT but on original monitors. Also the picture in Winape shakes a little bit, in JavaCPC it's ok.).

The pictures use 32k-Overscan and because he wanted to be compatible with 64kB, he had to reload some stuff, to arrange everything in the memory. But when you use the cartridge version or something like the M4, this doesn't matter at all.

As mentioned above, he wanted to play around with plus-sprites, so the demo detects if it is running on a plus and then enables (randomised) one of 4 different note-movements. 3 of them use 14 multiplexed plus sprites at the same time, so that you can see 28 notes on screen.

The last version of CHIPNSFX tracker+player suite by CNGSoft is out since the 13th January 2018.