January 22, 2023 - sounds

Important: For the included se_* wav files, please refer to the file
'sound/wav attributions.txt' for the details about the
source, author, and licensing.

There were old aiif versions of some sound samples distributed
in uuencoded form in earlier versions of NetHack: bell.uu, bugle.uu,
erthdrum.uu, firehorn.uu, frsthorn.uu, lethdrum.uu, mgcflute.uu,
mgcharp.uu, toolhorn.uu, wdnflute.uu and wdnharp.uu.

Those had been removed in commit 217671e00f626e53d314757b4687950466efb360
in May 2019, at the same time built-in speaker support was removed.

Some of those original files have been converted into wav files starting
with NetHack 3.7. The pitch variation versions offer a chance for very
simple tune playback on platforms that offer a basic play-sound function
call, which many do. There is no need to manipulate the underlying sounds
with those, although sound library interfaces may certainly produce
music in more elabote and pleasing ways. Contributions are welcome.

While they make the distribution larger, they offer a more immersive
experience while playing locally on many platforms or with many
sound libraries. Also, file/distribution size is not the same
concern in 2023 that it might have been in 1995 or 2003.
 
This is the note that accompanied those original sound files.

------------------------------------------------------------
README for the AIFF files:

These files are sound files for the instruments in NetHack.
There are 11 sounds, one for each distinct instrument.
The sounds are in 8-bit 22kHz AIFF format, which should be
readable by a broad range of platforms. Since the sounds
came from Rolands S-750 sample library (most of them) there
should be no copyright on them when we treat them like we
do here (as instruments) - indeed, the sample library I
got from Roland didn't even bear a (c) symbol.

Some of the sounds are very adequate (Drum of Earthquake,
Wooden Flute, Magic Harp) while some are less true to the
original name (how does a Frost Horn sound?) Actually, I
don't know what a Bugle is (Bugle horn?) so I took a trumpet
sound for that. Correct me if I'm wrong.

What does this have to do with the main code? Well, nothing
so far. There are some places that are #ifdef MAC and calls
mac_speaker; that function takes an object and a tune (in
capital letters A-G) and plays the tune with the given
instrument. When playing a specific tune, that tune is of
course used. For "improvise," I use middle "C."

Ideally, we should do something equal with sound that we
have with displays, so we can use one common set of calls
in the main code, and have ports do whatever seems appropriate
for the available hardware.

Any comment on the sounds or their use is welcome:

						Jon W{tte
						Mac Team
						nethack-bugs@nethack.org