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This page is an archive for music generated by the ZX Spectrum, a 1980's home computer from Sinclair Research.

There are many reason's to have this page, number 1 being that there are no other pages dedicated soley to this subject, at least none that I could find. True there's a few very badly encoded MP3's at the back of some Spectrum sites but no true music page with any info or decent quality samples.

The way the Spectrum's basic little beeper was cleverly manipulated by the programmers of the day was a brief and now lost art form in these days of 48 channel CD quality digital sound chips. This page can be a reminder of how game music started.

If you can take the time to investigate this site you'll find over an hour and half of the most radest, banging, happening, hardcore beeper, hoojest choons on the web. Down load the streetest ruff cuts and tear it up on the dance floor with local massive! Aye there junglist selectors, the Spectrum is where it's at!

P.S. I apologise for the adverts. They are put in place by Fortune City who host the site. They provide free web space of 100 Meg but the drawback is you have to have these pop-up adverts. Such is life, they have to run a business.

True, there's a certain train spotting geekiness to this subject but so what? It's only one interest in many that I, and the people I know who can appreciate this stuff have. Sound and music can evoke such strong emotions and memories in people. It's great to see that day dream look in someone's eyes as their brain takes a little nostalgia trip to younger, more carefree days after listening to one of the sound samples here. It may not mean anything to the unitiated but those who 'were there' in the 80's should get a small kick from these samples. Music from any source is valid as music wether it's a piano, guitar, bird, river or plastic buzzy computer speaker.

All sounds here were recorded by me years ago direct from the ZX Spectrum through a Technics amp with extra bass to tape and now MP3'd from that tape. No emulators were used in the making of these files to give that genuine sound.

The spectrum sound chip was a one channel 5 octave mono speaker. This means it could only make one noise at one time to one speaker. You could plug stereo headphones into the spectrum and listening to it through both ears but it was still mono because the same one sound was coming out of both ear pieces. To make stereo you need at least 2 channels so that a different sound comes out of each speaker. The spectrum could never do stereo with it's one speaker but it could emulate more channels so that it seemed to be making more than one noise at once i.e a bass line and a melody line so that you can make harmony's and more interesting music.

The spectrum sound chip can only really be on or off. It's how fast you turn it on or off that makes the pitch of the sound. If you do it 261 times a second then you hit the note of middle C. If you do it 391 times a second then you hit the note of G. In the diagram the | represents sending a pulse to the speaker (turning it on and off):

C   - |            |            |            |            |            |            |

G   - |        |        |        |        |        |        |        |        |        |

Now if you were to combine these speaker pulses into one it would seem to the listener like you were playing the notes C and G thus making a cord. So all the programmer had to do was write a routine that would calculate the right amount of time between pulses to make a combined signal such as:

C+G - |        |   |    |       ||        |  |     |      | |        | |      |     |  |

So there you have it. It's all about the time between pulses to the speaker and not what actually gets sent to the speaker.

I've made my own grouping of the tunes by channels. So just go to each page and start downloading.

1 Channel Tunes - The beepers and buzzers
2 Channel Tunes - Music box and Plip Plop
3 Channel Tunes - Celtic and spacey
4 Channel + Tunes - Pushing it to the max

You want more Spectrum related things, here's some starting points.

Looking for a tune? Want to praise/dis the site? E-mail me
My favourite emulator ZX32, although it's not too good on the sound!
Planet Sinclair - For all things Spectrum
The World Of Spectrum Archive - Best source for game files on the web.
Not found a game yet? Try the Sincalir Snapsearch
Your Sinclair Rock And Roll Years - A web version of the best Spectrum magazine in the 80's. I even had a program plus various letters and tips published in it! Sigh, happy days.
Crash Online Edition - Nostalgic look at another old Spectrum printed magazine.

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