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t.iv stefano 3
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INTERVIEW WITH STEFANO TOGNON
SIDIN magazine Editor
http://digilander.libero.it/ice00/
tsid/sidin/index.html
PART 3 of 3.
CF. Can you describe the Sids unique
characteristics?
ST. The unique characteristic of the
chip, compared to the other chips of
the same periods, is that it was
developed as a high-quality true
synthesizer with lots of unique
features. It has tree independent
frequency oscillators of up to 4KHz
frequency (8 octave) that can use four
kind of waveforms (sawtooth, triangle,
pulse & noise even combined
together).It has three envelope
generators that performs ADSR
(Attack/Decay/Sustain/Release), tree
ring modulators & the ability to
synchronize the oscillators. It also
has a programmable filter that can be
applied to the voices. As it was
developed in only 5 months & there
were some problems to fit the chip
into the silicon surface, many more
features were not inserted (like 32
voices) or the use of a better filter.
Sid it already so great, can you just
imagine what would have been produced
if it was created as the creator
planned it...
CF. The Sid chip does suffer some
design flaws can you describe them
briefly to our reader, also some
composers have used these flaws to
there advantage can you comment on
this?
ST. One point was mentioned before:
ADSR bug (a flaw affecting the restart
of internal chip logic). Many old
school composers were able to produce
wonderful music simple by setting the
appropriate ADSR values to the sid for
avoiding this bug & I can assure you
that this is not an easy task (I
worked on my Driller cover for many
weeks trying to avoid the ADSR bug
just changing those values: something
terrible to achieve especially as you
have to make the right timbre to your
instruments & you cannot freely
change those values...) However, many
solutions were taken for bypassing
this problem by musicians/editor
programmers without having to modify
your ADSR settings: the use of
hard-restart the note. There are many
way for restarting a note (just to
mention that one is even sometimes
called sexy-hard restart) but I don't
want to describe them all here, maybe
I could write up about them in a
future issue of SIdin magazine.
The main flow of the 6581 sid chip is
that there is a (spurious) continuous
offset voltage value that can reach
the internal 4 bit D/A converter when
resetting an oscillator. I think that
you know how this flow is manifested:
POKE 54272+24,15 & you have the
answers... When you change the volume
of the sid you get a click from the
speaker. Blahh, something that is very
annoying. But this is a key for having
something very interesting... you just
need to change the volume of sid with
some "logic" & with some fixed
"frequency". In other words you can
play sample based music with 4 bit
resolution at the frequency (something
like from 4KHZ to 8KHz for example)
that you choose to use. And now the
SID can even speak and sing :)
The first applications of this
technique for generating sound from
the SID was used around 1983-85 for
generating speech synthesis. You
probably remember the SAM (Software
Automatic Mouth) program and maybe
those games: Impossible Mission
(1983), Slapshot (1984), Beach Head II
(1985), Ghostbusters (1984) that have
speech inside them (using the speak
synthesizer from Berkeley Systems).
But it is in 1987 that Martin Galway
created Arkanoid music, adding some
real-time generated drum sound inside
his music. A little time after that
(even if it was ready before Arkanoid)
Chris Huelsbeck's Bad Cat music that
contains the first ever real sampled
based music into it.
Many composers used this new
technique, even was music produced
using only samples, without the use or
the power of sid sound generated
sound. For example today there is the
Polly Tracker editor that can use more
that one sample (with 8 bit quality)
and mix them in real-time. Before
putting it with 4 bit resolution to
the volume of sid. We could speak
about samples more and more (for
example, the resolution of 4 bit can
be increased using other techniques),
but the 8580 version of the chip had
the flaw (partially) removed and so
you can listen to the samples only if
you apply a hack to it.
CF, Do you have any favourite sid
musicians past and present?
ST. Just four: Matt Gray, Gray Matt,
the author of Last Ninja 2 music and
the author of Tusker music ... :) I am
joking!! Sure Matt Gray is my
favourite musician. Even if many
people think that his sound is just
bass and drums, I find his tunes are
true masterpieces: Last Ninjia 2,
Tusker, Driller, Vendetta ... tunes
that are absolutely fantastic. I like
the Matt instruments, his style and
the "atmosphere" he creates. Martin
Galway is another composer I admire He
has squeezed lot the power from SID
chip creating some sounds that are
memorable like : Parallax, Yie Ar Kung
Fu II, Green Beret, Times of Lore,
Arkanoid, Rambo II and so on.I think
that I could add many more composers
("old" and "new")but I will just
nominate some others (in sparse
order):Richard Bayliss (has a style
that I like: I listen to his tunes for
hours), Luca/Fire (his tunes have the
best filtered 8580 sound ever for me),
Turtle (he hasnt released many tunes
from him, but the sound is very
attractive for me), Chris Huelsbeck
(Giana Sister music is a
must),Jonathan Dunn, Dane, Cadaver,
Thomas Danko, Soede brothers,
Agemixer,Tel Jeroen, Rob Hubbard, ...
and I will have to stop here or the
list would take up to much space... :)
CF. Do you have any other comments you
would like to add
ST. I would like to thank all the
musician/composers out there that even
today are still producing sid music
for our happiness. Thanks to all the
people that are working in the sid
area (like HVSC crew for example) as
this work is always appreciated by me.
For all the readers here: if you have
some ideas for realizing something in
the C= world, start it. Don't
hesitate. All the C= community is
behind you...
Finally, I can be reached via the
email address ice00[at]libero.it
Best regards to all the people around
... and thanks Nigel for the interview
for your great magazine.
Visit: http://digilander.iol.it/ice00
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