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Pseym

Pseym (parameter setter for YM2612) is a retro-style instrument editor for the Yamaha YM2612 FM sound chip (or the functionally equivalent YM3438), found on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. Its keyboard-driven user interface aims to make the editing process more efficient.

The inspiration comes directly from Hexter's "retro" editor (http://smbolton.com/hexter.html).

The program's source code repository can be found at https://github.com/M374LX/pseym.

Keys

Alphanumeric keys: Preview the sound on different musical notes (Z for C, S for C#, X for D and so on; Q, 2, and W for the same notes one octave higher).

=/-: Increase/decrease octave for note previewing.

Arrow keys: Move the cursor around the parameters on the screen.

Home/End: Move the cursor to the top/bottom of the screen.

Shift+Home/End: Move the cursor all the way left/right.

Page Up/Down: Increase/decrease the value of the selected parameter by 1.

Shift+Page Up/Down: Increase/decrease the value of the selected parameter by hexadecimal 10.

Ctrl+Page Up/Down: Set the value of the selected parameter to the maximum/minimum.

F5: Save the current instrument to the file "pseym-instr.eif". At present, Echo's EIF is the only supported format. The file was named simply "instr.eif" on Pseym version 0.1.

Esc: Quit

Instrument loading

If a file named "pseym-instr.eif" (in Echo's EIF format) is present on the directory Pseym is started from, it will be automatically loaded. Otherwise, it will default to a simple sine wave. The file was named simply "instr.eif" on Pseym version 0.1.

Register reference

A full explanation of each parameter on the screen is out of the scope of this document. A reference can be found at https://plutiedev.com/ym2612-registers.

SSG-EG is currently not supported.

Building from source

Building the program from source requires the SDL2 library. On Debian, the package is libsdl2-dev. For building on Windows, the library can be downloaded from the section "Development Libraries" at https://libsdl.org/download-2.0.php (only MinGW has been tested).

On Linux, just run make. The resulting executable is called pseym. The makefile assumes the C compiler is GCC. If this is not the case, the makefile needs to be modified.

On Windows, it requires MinGW with mingw32-make. The makefile assumes MinGW is installed at C:\MinGW. To build the program, run mingw32-make. The resulting executable is called pseym.exe.

It has been tested with GCC version 9.3.0.

License

Copyright (C) 2020-2022 M374LX <wilsalx@gmail.com>

Pseym is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

Pseym is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
with Pseym; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.