Commander Keen 4 Sound Effects (PC Speaker)

Doc_Savvy · Post by **Doc_Savvy** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 2:59

Hi all,

I am currently looking for copies of the PC Speaker sound effects for the Keen games (I know not everyone likes them, but they are all I knew from the first time I bounced on a pogo stick), but especially Keen 4. After a couple hours of digging, I did find this excellent thread, in which Levellass uploaded a very nice set of sounds. Alas, they were not the digital, primitive PC Squeaker chirps of my youth.

If anyone could hook me up with MP3 or WAV format sounds, it would be awesome. If not, I will do what must be done to rip them from DOSbox, and post them here so that other lost and desperate souls can find what they seek. Thanks!

StupidBunny · Post by **StupidBunny** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 5:58

I'm not sure how those sounds are stored in memory but, like the Vorticons sound effects, they seem hard to extract as sound files of any sort. Either that or they're no harder to get at and demand really is just that low. I admit they do have a certain charm to them, and given that I rarely play the game with them these days they have kept their nostalgic quality a lot better.

Nospike · Post by **Nospike** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 6:06

I always play Galaxy games with PC speaker sounds. I just like them better.

NY00123 · Post by **NY00123** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 8:30

To anybody who considers extracting, please ensure they sound *correctly*!

As surprising as it may be for some, at the moment vanilla DOSBox does not emulate these in a sufficiently faithful way, at least for the beeps in the Keen games.

To compare, you may simply run Keen 4 on DOSBox, and later on any of the following:
- Directly as a DOS app (assuming an actual working PC speaker). You'd better have WinXP or earlier in such a case.
- Commander Genius.

So, if anyone decides to record these, please use an actual (real hardware) PC speaker. Alternatively, a modified DOSBox with an unofficial patch applied can also be used. Look for "dosbox_patched4.zip" in the following link for a relevant build:
http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.p ... c&start=40

As expected, the same DOSBox build also does its job for the rest of the Keen episodes (in regards to PC Speaker sound effects).

Post by **Levellass** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 10:19

Keenwave can extract PC sounds played i the manner Dosbox does (I was not aware Dosbox was not faithful in this respect. This is a zip archive of the KW extracted sounds in wav format. (Which can easily be made into MP3s.) https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3940020/Keen%20sounds.zip

NY00123 · Post by **NY00123** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 12:40

I suppose the following post is mainly directed to any arbitrary maintainer of KEENWAVE. It should help with obtaining more faithful results.

======

On a relevant note, after an attempt to play and extract Keen 1 and 4 sound effects (PC Speaker only) using KEENWAVE, downloaded from a link given on the bottom of the following page:
http://www.shikadi.net/keenwiki/KeenWave

Here are a few things to do with KEENWAVE itself that (I guess) can be done in order to make the WAV files more true to the real thing:
- OK, I know it's unrelated but: First of all, am I doing something wrong or I cannot scroll through the sound effects with the arrow keys or so? I've loaded KEENWAVE with "KEENWAVE ..\SOUNDS.CK1" for that (from a new copy of Keen1).
- Alright, now for real: When WAVs are actually exported, I guess, the rate can be corrected. For Keen 1-3 it should be approximately... 1193182/8192 ~ 145.65 beeps per second

. For Keen 4-6, 140 beeps per sec.
- For Keen 1-3, each beep should be its own short square wave. For Keen 4-6, though, a sequence of beeps with the exact same frequency should be "fused" into a single long square wave. Right now, you can't spot the difference on vanilla DOSBox. But it is clear on an actual machine (or patched DOSBox).
- Finally, even after applying these modifications: If one wants to play the sounds using KEENWAVE itself, something like the modified DOSBox should still be used if you want a more authenticate experience.

Doc_Savvy · Post by **Doc_Savvy** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 17:12

Levellass, thank you very much for the keen 1-3 wav files. Any chance you also have 4-6?
Also, this is some very good info. Now if I end up getting them myself I will probably use Audacity and Commander Genius. I did try to use Keenwave earlier, but it didn't want to run on my machine. I assumed it was due to my 64 bit OS.

Edit: None can deny that the PC Speaker sound in K4 for getting an extra life is better than the sound blaster version. PCS sounds like a guitar solo. Sb/adlib sounds like Bobby Prince spilled a drink on his keyboard as he was making the last sound effect for the game.

Post by **Keening_Product** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 2:41

Doc_Savvy wrote:Sb/adlib sounds like Bobby Prince spilled a drink on his keyboard as he was making the last sound effect for the game.

A drink of lifewater, maybe?

guynietoren · Post by **guynietoren** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 12:37

All I know is that they had to get creative to use the PC speaker. The end result was sending 2 signals to an AND logic gate to multiplex them onto one speaker. I wonder if there's a way to data log the output of the speaker wires then convert that to wave somehow. That's how I'd guess at doing it and have it sound faithfully. But then again the digital sound of it doesn't capture the actual sound quality/distortions of the PC speaker. Sadly this is all beyond what I could do myself.

Doc_Savvy · Post by **Doc_Savvy** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 15:56

Keening_Product wrote:A drink of lifewater, maybe?

Ha! That's what Romero told him it was, anyway.

guynietoren wrote:All I know is that they had to get creative to use the PC speaker... I wonder if there's a way to data log the output of the speaker wires then convert that to wave somehow... But then again the digital sound of it doesn't capture the actual sound quality/distortions of the PC speaker...

You bring up a good point here about how the PC Speaker was manipulated to create more complex sounds than it was really meant to. I don't think I could log and analyze raw electrical signals either, but I could probably add an audio output inline to a PC speaker that should be fairly accurate. Since it looks like I may be pulling these sounds myself I will dust off an old PC and run the game in DOS over an actual PC speaker to see what kind of variation there actually is.

However, the whole issue may be moot as you pointed out; A regular speaker probably will never be able to accurately reproduce the sounds of a little piezo element pulsing away inside of a computer case. I am a pretty big dork but even I can't see the point of building such a specialized sound system to listen to some game sounds 100% accurately. I would be pretty impressed if someone else built it though.

guynietoren · Post by **guynietoren** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 19:36

Ah right. I was over thinking it. Forget the data logger.
Id first measure the output voltage to the speaker in case it's too much for the computer input. If so it'd need to be converted. Too much in my guess would be something above +/- 5VDC. Even if the input tolerates a higher voltage, your signal may clip at the top and bottom of the waveform. But if it's all square waves that distortion wouldn't matter much.

T-Squared · Post by **T-Squared** » Sat Jan 26, 2013 22:28

Has anyone tried to use Wombat Game Tools?

Back when I had plans for changing its PC speaker engine into a digital audio engine, I was able to play the sounds from Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure rather nicely, and accurately to how it would sound coming from the PC speaker itself. (No simple beeps; that "razzy" kind of sound.)

I was actually able to record that audio as well with Audacity.

Doc_Savvy · Post by **Doc_Savvy** » Mon Jan 28, 2013 15:17

T-Squared wrote:Has anyone tried to use Wombat Game Tools?

Back when I had plans for changing its PC speaker engine into a digital audio engine, I was able to play the sounds from Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure rather nicely, and accurately to how it would sound coming from the PC speaker itself. (No simple beeps; that "razzy" kind of sound.)

I was actually able to record that audio as well with Audacity.

I will definitely try that, and thank you for your insight. If Wombat Game Tools + Audacity doesn't work for whatever reason, I think I will pull the sounds from gameplay using Commander Genius + Audacity, as in my by ear comparison they sound quite accurate. I will use one of the complete lists of SFX that exist in Soundblaster form to try to include as much as possible.

Hopefully I can get it done this week. I will start with ep 4, since that is what I am looking for. If other people show up here looking for the PCS SFX for 5 and 6, I will do those as well. I have lurked these boards for several years. It is a great community and I would love to contribute in some way that my hackneyed art and non-existant modding skills generally would not allow. Thanks for all the suggestions and input in this thread. It has certainly given me a lot of fun ideas.