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Synthesizers, Commodore 64 Style
A reader writes: "Elektron, a little company in Sweden, has been selling a MIDI synthesizer module based on the MOS 6581 SID chip pulled out of old Commodore 64 Computers, called the Sidstation. It's pretty slick looking, and makes some pretty amazing bleeps and blurps. Its complete with an operating system which controls a huge number of features of the SID chip, and even a little built-in sequencer. They've been manufacturing these things for almost 2 years now, but but they are about to stop production (roughly a little over 100 units left), due to the lack of SID chips around."
...to base your product on a limited supply of resources, no? I think it would have been better to reverse engineer or have more of the SID chips made first!
Err... correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that there are SID chips still in stock? Not sure if those are being manufactured, but I think they still exist as spare parts.
At least here in Finland, I recently heard people were able to buy MOS 6581s or 8580s from local electronics retailers.
(Then again, Commodores were astronomically popular in Finland back then... and there are still many active hobbyists who use the machine, myself included.)
::WWWWolf plays Deetsay's tune "MOS 6581, 125 mk"::
Old synths, however desirable or simple to make, tend not to come back. Take the Roland TB-303 for example (that's the squelchy acid bass-line synth/sequencer). It's made of transistors and possibly small-denomination ICs (nothing that would involve hard-to-find chips), yet is in short supply. Original units cost thousands from collectors, and nobody has made a 303 clone. (The rack-mounted MIDI bass synths don't count, as they don't have the tweakable step-sequencer interface, which makes the TB-303. A black box with a MIDI port that makes 303 sounds is not a 303.)
You'd think there'd be a market for it, with at least some entrepreneurs building 303s from the original schematics, if not someone devising a 303-on-a-chip that allows mobile phones with acid-squelchy ring tones and plastic My First 303 toys for ravers' kids; but no. (And ReBirth doesn't count, as it's software.)
I've heard there's a part on the C64 motherboard that has a limited lifespan - a programmable logic chip or something like that - and so some of the older C64s are dying anyway.
Besides, didn't Commodore make something like 22 MILLION C64s from 1982 to 1992? (I've heard they were STILL manufacturing them for the Eastern Europe and developing countries markets up until the day they went out of business.)
And above all, if we're gonna anthropomorphize the C64, why wouldn't a C64 rusting in a closet WANT to live on in a useful fashion, by donating an organ to a synthesizer some musician is gonna love and cherish for years?
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
Not only are the melody and the bass line both from the same sound source: they're also the same SidStation patch. "The bass sound is also a SidStation, it's the same thing through a filter."
Sound on Sound is here but you need a subscriber account to read the latest articles. There's a SidStation article here
Baz
It is an interesting synthesizer. However, it is difficult to program (it has an almost-noexistant user-interface), and has some stability problems. My friend tried upgrading the OS on the unit. Things got so fried, that he had to ship it back to Sweden to get it fixed.
Before this, the unit lost its memory, losing all of the synth presets on the unit. My friend was cheerful about it--he figured it was an oppertunity to learn synthesizer programming.
Keep in mind, also, that those old SID chips are really noisy.
Personally, I would go for an Andromeda from Alesis if I wanted to get a brand new genuine analog synthesizer.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
There are several SID emulators out there, most notable Sidplay. There's also the High Voltage SID collection for those seeking some nostalgia on the old games.
--
The Track title was Zombie Nation, the artist was Kernkraft 400.
The crowd goes wild ever time I play it....
Wierd - I've got the 12" in my bag right now - that Artist is listed as Kernkraft 400.....
Ah...Vince Clark would use anything outdated and antiquidated simple because he wants to have an excuse as to why his records aren't selling anymore :-) Seriously, he goes for the Controled Voltage instead of Midi as he thinks it more accurate...I would agree under ideal circumstances, but I think he just likes the old ways.
As for SID, I build an old midi interface for my C64 back in the days. Even after I got sick of the Dr. T's software and programmed my own sequencer and then finally got around to getting a real system (486sx...that was a smokin' music system), I kept the midi'd C64 around so I could play the SID directly from the synths or sequencer. Nothing beat the sound of that box...
clif
Two words:
ebay
google
Yeah, I hacked my C64, I hacked a couple of VIC-20s, built an Apple-II clone, etched my own circuit boards, yadda yadda. Nobody does this anymore because all the chips and components are SMD, the bus frequencies run at multiples of 33MHz (and the CPU is basically a tiny microwave oven), and the circuit board traces are too small and too close together.
Back when the ICs were all DIPs with 0.1" lead spacing, you could tell the resistors and capacitors apart (and tell them from grains of sand) and you could debug the signals with a cheap 10 MHz 'scope, that kind of hardware hacking was fun.
Of course now I'm sounding like my father, grousing about winding his own coils and finding the sweet spot on a galena crystal.
-- Alastair
You have it exactly in reverse. "KernKraft400" by Zombie Nation. See http://www.zombienation.org/.
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
The first song I'd play on one of these would have to be Kraftwerk's Pocket Calculator.
Yeah.. his name is Al Charpentier. Both the C64 SID chip and the Ensoniq Mirage mirage are mentioned in this history timeline of electronic music: http://megs.com/neworld/tmeline1.htm
> Why design a product around an obsolete chipset?
Feel free to ask Intel and AMD.
"Don't mind me cutting myself on Occam's Razor"
I found this today on the Analogue Heaven mailing list:
Paraller port SID synthesizer
The schematics are kinda sketchy but it's a neat idea. The guy who built it coded also a patch editor and step sequencer for the thing.
Using these synthesizers? :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The TinySID player has a Linux version.
Haven't tried iut, but here it is.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
Something funny like a typo.
Here it is
10 Think
20 post
30 read
40 correct
50 read
60 goto 10
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
free experimental electronic music netlabel at www.viablehybrid.com
Probably not. There are more softsynths for Windows than the Mac, I'd say. There are probably at least thirty or more free VST softsynths.
Does anyone know of any software synths for Linux?
Have a look at this site. Its a mirror, but the original gets swamped
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
free experimental electronic music netlabel at www.viablehybrid.com
Emulation of a SID just doesn't cut it. IIRC SID's used a mixed analogue/digital design that gave it that unique sound that it has. Emulation & chips like the EMU10k have a hard time doing the analogue stuff without it sounding weird. The very best way to get SID sound, is to use a SID.
Why they can't just build more though, is another question.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
With just a few lines of BASIC and some filter tweaks, I made this random explosion generator that just *rocked*. The code has long since rotted away on a 5 1/4" disk somewhere, and I have yet to do anything similar on a PC with so little effort.
Yet another reason I wish I hadn't gotten rid of my C-64.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I used to connect my soundcard to my stereo system whilst playing games. There was a replacement Win 3.11 MIDI driver, and I also downloaded a couple of OPL3 drivers for some of my games - the one for Civilization was wonderful - far better than the sounds from my then Wavetable MIDI card (something made by Orchid, I can't recall which model).
It's just not the same... The SID chip had analogue components in it. If you listen to the purists, no DSP is ever going to sound like a piece of analogue kit... something about the sound being sterile, or something...
Of course, there are the purists... and, for the most part, you can't tell analogue from a good DSP once the instrument's in the mix... But we're talking musical instruments here. If you look at it more along the lines of vintage wines/cars/guitars it'll make more sense than looking at it as buying an obsolete sound chip.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Was I the only one who also bought that two-octive keyboard and synthesizer software for it? IIRC, the keyboard plugged right into the RS-232 port on the back, and the software had all the on-screen controls to mimic the dials of the Moog synths.
Last month, I found out that my parents still had all that long-lost hardware in their basement. I hauled it all over to my house, and plan on firing it up again for old time's sake. If it all works, I'll probably play around with it until I get bored and then sell/give it to some younger, more ambitious hacker.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I have used the Sidstation (sometimes two of them) in many of my tracks. Please take a listen!
- True analog, which is used by most vintage synthetizers such as the Minimoog
- Virtual analog, which is consists of emulating the above synthesis
- Wavetable, which consists of storing fixed waveforms in either ROM or RAM during execution. This is the most popular. As at the beginning General MIDI only accessed the pitch, velocity and sound bank, it evoluted according to 2 standards :
- Frequency Modulation (FM) was used by the famous DX-7 synthetizer
- Formant Shaping: was the real successor of the above even though it was (IIRC) only used in Yamaha's FS1R synthetizer which production was stopped some time ago despite the numerous excellent reviews (I owe one and love it
:-). It has now become a collector as it has very good sound abilities (hear the Free Software Song Remix in my .sig for a demo).
- Specific synthesis. This is used by any synthetizer hacked around some specific unfrequent hardware component. It opens new opportunities in terms of control and sounding. The SidStation was one of these.
As a musician, I have to urge buying one- GS (Roland)
- XG (Yamaha)
which allow a more living sound to be extracted from a wavetable as tons of others parameters like cutoff, resonance, etc. can now be manipulated through the MIDI.--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
And if any of you have heard "Kernkraft 400," by Zombie Nation, the original version was created mainly using a SIDStation. Great 8-bit sound according to an interview in this month's Sound On Sound.
Gareth 'bigbro' Eason : "Big Brother Is Watching You!"
In other words, for every one of these that is manufactured, another Commodore 64 must be destroyed. In fact, this company is making money out of destroying as many Commodore 64s as they can and will go out of business when they don't have any more to destroy.
Doesn't sound like anything a Commodore enthusiast would find very appealing.
Can't they design an inexpensive ASIC to do the same thing as the SID chip, or are they truly just chop artists?
Hay thar.
...can't really be emulated that well because the emulation is flawless, and the chips themselves aren't. You miss out on all the character. The SID Stations do *not* use WinCE, they OS was custom made in assembly, and they release far more of the potential of the SID chip than a C64 can. I've had one for some time now and it really is worth it if you're a serious musician :)
Love,
Zoe.
www.fsckem.com
Being swedish and old C64 freak and all that, I just had to have a Sidstation. So actually I was the first guy in the world to order one. Think I ordered it 20 minutes after I got the first pressrelease from the Electron guys. Ser: B90100019-81 it says if you turn it around. Meaning #19 ever made. So what does it sound like? It sounds like raw nasty, disted, lo-tech crunchyness. :-)
I've made some incredibly fat sounds on it and it can produce some serious wierdness if you play around with it. A must have in your studio! /Bjorn Fogelberg
http://www.mp3.com/bjornfogelberg
Search for it on you favourite file sharing service - this track was *massive* in the clubs last year and even entered the UK single charts at number 2.
The original mix had the main riff played on a SIDstation.
But! The actual hook was stolen from a the soundtrack to the classic C64 game 'Lazy Jones' - Dave Whittaker is Getting a fair chunk of royalties from the 'cover version'.
I hear there are rock bands who have done covers of C64 tunes also.... check out remix.kwed.org for more info
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
I've owned one of these for about 6 months now, and it's the most unique, interesting synth I've ever owned. It can produce sounds you will NEVER hear another synth make. The noise from the chip is bad, but I use a noise gate or I sample it and use Cooledit to remove the noise. Either way it's definitely worth the ~$500. And Elektron is seriously one of the coolest companies I've ever had the pleasure of dealing with. The guys who designed it are on the mailing list and are incredibly helpful and friendly.
As for some of the complaints (memory loss, flakiness) most of those can be contributed to bad power supply. It doesn't come with one, and some people go out and pick up the cheapest one they can find. the Sidstation requires a reliable power supply. I got a nice AC adaptor and surge protector and haven't had a problem yet.
And for the people saying it's hard to program I only say "WHERE DO I GET WHAT YOU'RE SMOKING!??!" Seriously, this synth is so incredibly easy to program. The only thing that took me awhile to get used to was the tables, because it's an idea I've never heard of/played with before. Once I got used to it, making sounds was easy. Of course, even if I never use it again, it's still worth it for me, cuz I loved the Commodore64, and the Sidstation makes a nice addition to my 5 functioning C=64s :)
Anyway, I really can't say enough good things about Elektron and the Sidstation. I'm just anxiously awaiting the Machinedrum (their next product)
corey
PICs are pretty powerful these days.
But they're not an analogue/digital hybrid! You need custom silicon for that.
Of course, you can emulate the entire C64 in software now anyway, wo why not just build a small PC into a C64 style case?
Because you can't perfectly emulate the C64! You can only approximate it in a digital-only system! In fact, all current emulators are flawed - C64 coders can tell, in software, whether you are using a real C64 or an emulated one.
Does my bum look big in this?
You should have a HardSID card in your PC. Because sometimes, emulation just doesn't cut it.
http://www.hardsid.com/
Having blown up my own SID chip at the age of 11 while trying to wire it directly to an amplifier (to avoid the distortion caused by the RF mod/dem stages of the TV), I can claim to be a true fan of the sound these chips make. The emulation you'll find now is pretty good, but very CPU-intensive. Still, nothing beats the real thing.
P.S. I don't get money from these guys; I don't even know them. I just think it's cool.