DeepSID: Online Commodore 64 SID Player

It's incredible how that chip still holds up well today, and people are still using it to create music. There was a particular tune I wanted to link to, but can't find it unfortunately.

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross used a SID (in an Elektron Sidstation) on the soundtrack for THE SOCIAL NETWORK, https://reverbmachine.com/blog/trent-reznor-social-network-s...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraft_400

"Kernkraft 400" (English: Nuclear Energy 400) is a song performed by German techno artist Zombie Nation and the first single from their 1999 debut album Leichenschmaus. A remix of the SID track "Star Dust" by David Whittaker, from his 1984 Commodore 64 game Lazy Jones, it peaked at number 22 in Germany in February 2000 while becoming a top-10 hit in the Netherlands and Belgium's Flanders region a few months later

---waiting to create sid tracks, stable diffusion style, to sample cut and layer in the future.

Here's one I was looking for, an electronic album available on c64 cartridge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGWsPEC341Y A riff on skype: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnIiui46ggY

Some more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Slf7YjsXidM

Still can't find the one I wanted to share....

Last Ninja 2 (1988) for me is still my favorite SID music ever made. I was blown away by it then and I am blown away by it now.

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/$LaLa%20Tape%20-%20Last%...

(sounds like this player is doing funky things from time to time)

To me, it's Steve Rowlands. No composer ever got anything close to Retrograde or Creatures 2:

So: https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/R/Rowlands_Ste...

Many: https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/R/Rowlands_Ste...

Different: https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/R/Rowlands_Ste...

Styles: https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/R/Rowlands_Ste...

The SID can play on 3 channels simultaneously. How many can you hear on the tracks above? Now that's genius. Not to mention the great songwriting.

“Multiplexing” the three channels by playing short and different sounds on an individual channel, makes it seem there are more tracks.

Not sure if it’s been used here but you can squeeze another two channels in by playing samples.

Using the volume level you can play 4-bit samples on the NMI.

There’s some good source code examples on GitHub.

One of my "back of the head" idea is to build a nerual net that could translate the SID commands into the sound it produces. Anybody know what would be the most suited NN architecture to do that (I've looked around a bit, but didn't find anything "ready-to-use")....

That sounds challenging - I'd love to see how you get on. I had a kind of related idea - train a model on a particular synth, then when passed a sample with a synth sound in it, it would try to suggest the patch settings that would most closely emulate the sound.

You could finally create a SID spare part which sounds just like the original. (In fact, which sounds exactly like one individual chip!)

If you train it on entire library and use real SID, maybe ? There is plenty of quirks in the chip that not all songs use

Definitely have to try on an entire library and you could also on top of that feed the chip random (but recorded) input.

These players work in a perhaps surprising way, they emulate the complete machine to run the part of the original code that programs an emulated SID chip. So it’s not like MIDI or something where the storage is a stream of commands in sequence.

Damn, this is awesome work. Grew up with the C64, always wondered as a kid what these 'scene' intros to tapes my dad bought at swap meets were, of course later learning about the talented individuals in the demo scene.

Nice to have this part of the culture and history preserved and presented in such a way.

Barbarian will always be my all time favourite C64 soundtrack: https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/$Best%20of%20Games%20198...

I'll always remember a certain chiptune cover of the Axel F theme, which for my money sounds way better than the actual song:

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/0-9/20CC/van_S...

Great on Android mobile as there are no decent SID apps for that platform.

Droidsound-E plays SID format nicely for me, among others.

I found SidAMP to be rather good actually, nice app

In the 90s, early 2000's, there was a resurgence of the SID music scene that may not be widely acknowledged. During this time, new SID editors/players and techniques were developed, introducing a fresh sonic landscape with previously unheard sounds coming from the SID chip. Here's a few of my favorites from this era:

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/C/Carlos_Breez...

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/F/Fanta/Bombs_...

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/J/Jeff/Svend_D...

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/M/Mitch_and_Da...

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/P/Peet/Harvy.s...

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/T/Taki/Reynbow...

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/F/Fanta/Challe...

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/D/Dr_Voice/Sit...

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/J/Jeff/Rectumo...

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/M/Mitch_and_Da...

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/B/Blues_Muz/Sp...

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/D/DRAX/KickAss...

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/T/Tjelta_Geir/...

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/G/Greg/Magyar_...

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/D/Dr_Voice/Yea...

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/B/Behdad_Arman...

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/D/DaFunk/Art_o...

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/T/The_Syndrom/...

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/B/Bakewell_Dwa...

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/M/Merken_Vince...

I had to restrain myself from posting more, but I believe these examples will give you an idea. The C64 demoscene is still very much alive, by the way, with great SID tunes being released even today.

Interface seems convenient.