                        - D O C U M E N T A T I O N -

                                             vbAY v2.2 by Random/Concern Chaos
                                                       http://www.chaosite.com
                                                           cha0s@cybermail.net

  vbAY is the DOS (up to v1.6) and Windows (v2.0 and up) player of .VTX, .AZX
and .PSG files. Originally it was done just to test the sound emulation of R80
Spectrum Emulator by Raul Gomez Sanchez (see 'http://www.chaosite.com/r80' for
more information), but then the project got a little bit out of hand and vbAY
became a separate program.

  DOS version of vbAY supports playlists. Just type up the filenames of your
modules into the text file with an extension '.pl' or '.pls' (one file per
line). Files can be in different directories, as long as full path to the file
is supplied, vbAY will open them no problem. NO RECURSION is allowed, so don't
get smart and create a playlist pointing to the same playlist. You can only
load VTX and PSG files from within a playlist.

  To install vbAY for DOS simply place VBAY.EXE and LH5.EXE into the PATH of
your system or your AY music directory. That's it. You're ready to go.

  To install vbAY for Windows just unzip the vbAY executable anywhere you
want and run it.

  vbAY emulates AY-3-8912, that explains 'AY' in the name. DOS version
requires a computer with the Sound Blaster compatible sound card if you want
the real time sound output or lots of free disk space if you want to prerender
the WAVE files to use them somewhere else. It supports sample rates of up to
45454, stereo/mono. vbAY is be able to render the sound in high res.

  Windows version supports most of the features above, except for wave dumping
because you can use the dos version for that. Especially since there're
playlists supported.

  Here're the options that you can use in DOS version:

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  syntax: vbay [options] musicfile

options are:

  --wavedump           |  dump the output to the wave file

  This option will output the emulation to the wave file instead of the sound
card. In this mode you don't need to have a sound card (or SB16 if you want
to listen to 44khz stereo AY emulation).

  --volume:XX          |  volume of the output (00 to 15)

  Volume control. 15 is max, 0 is silence. This option will affect the volume
of playback of all songs in the playlist (if there's one).

  --highres            |  high resolution of the rendering

  This option will render the sound with 8 times the sample rate resolution,
filter and downsample it. Default is identical to the sample rate resolution.

  --mono               |  mono sound

  This option will produce mono sound. Very useful on the SBPro compatible
cards when need to use 44khz. Default is stereo output.

  --acb                |  ACB standard

  Different way of placing the channels. Useless in mono mode. Default is ABC.

  --44khz              |  44khz sound (only for SB16)

  Use sample rate of 45454 hz. Will not work with stereo on SBPro. Default is
22khz.

  --nonrandom          |  psuedo random noise generator

  Use different way of generating a white noise. Default is system's random().

  --lh5                |  use internal LH5 decoder

  Use internal LH5 depacker. I would use this one if some modules weren't
playing up with internal LH5. It doesn't seem that there's a working C/C++
source for depacking LH5 archives. If you have one, please send it to me.
AR002 doesn't work properly, it's exactly what's used internally. If you
don't have very large modules, you probably can use internal LH5.

  --visual             |  show all the information about the music

  Visual mode. It will display real time information about the module, the
AY registers, progress of the track, size of the track and so on. recommended.

[x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-]

  There're also few control keys that you can use during playback (disabled
in WAV writing mode):

1      - toggles channel A
2      - toggles channel B
3      - toggles channel C
down   - slow the playback down   (*)
up     - speed the playback up    (*)
left   - rewind                   (*)
right  - fast forward             (*)
space  - pause                    (*)
escape - skip this module
alt x  - quit the vbAY
enter  - restart this module

  Control keys with asterix (*) next to them will work only in VTX mode.

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  Todo (mail me your suggestions):

  midi controls [five-o-five]
  cut-off and resonance filters [random]

[x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-]

  Versions:

  vbAY v2.2 from Thursday, 6th of April, 2000

  [!] now using external LH5.EXE just like a DOS version
  [!] playlists are back
  [+] you can adjust the speed of the playback
  [+] pseudo random noise is improved [Phnx^RA/#z80]
  [+] AZX player fixed once again (loads longs in AMiGA format, as Mac Buster
      wants, uses accurate tact timings, digital effects now work)
  [*] volume for the middle channel adjusted to Pentagon's standard (67%)
  [*] highres is gone due to the near perfect approximation

  vbAY v1.666+ from Thursday, 6th of April, 2000     [important update]

  [+] AZX player fixed once again (loads longs in AMiGA format, as Mac Buster
      wants, uses accurate tact timings, digital effects now work)
  [*] volume for the middle channel adjusted to Pentagon's standard (67%)
  [*] highres is gone due to the near perfect approximation

  vbAY v2.1 from Monday, 27th of March, 2000

  [!] now using just 5% of CPU!
  [+] improved anti-aliasing
  [+] AZX player fixed (AZX format has been changed due to the problem with
      End of interrupt flag)
  [*] bug with users clicking PLAY/STOP repeatedly [Laesq/#z80]
  [*] clicking removed [paul.pavlov/icq]

  vbAY v1.666 from Monday, 27th of March, 2000       [important update]

  [+] improved anti-aliasing
  [+] AZX player fixed (AZX format has been changed due to the problem with
      End of interrupt flag)
  [*] clicking removed [paul.pavlov/icq]

  vbAY v2.0 from Tuesday, 21st of March, 2000

  [!] windows version

  vbAY v1.6 from Thursday, 16th of March, 2000       [development complete]

  [!] preliminary AZX format support
  [*] AY hasn't been reset between songs
  [*] playlist had some random errors

  vbAY v1.5 from Tuesday, 14th of March, 2000

  [!] vbAY doesn't need a sound card if you render the musicfile into the WAV
  [+] added a wavedump option (try it with highres, stereo 44khz) [MacBuster]
  [+] added a volume control option [MacBuster]
  [+] improved sound emulation engine (clicks and skips removed)
  [*] BLASTER variable wasn't processed if it was in lower case. [Wolf/Scene]
  [*] updated FAQ with brand new questions and answers
  [*] external LH5 was crashing at times [pROF/#z80]
  [*] exit without playing the playlist containing just one file
  [*] program crash when user has no soundblaster card [d00rsfan/#z80]

  vbAY v1.4 from Monday, 13th of March, 2000

  [!] first public release