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Adam
Registered: Jul 2009
Posts: 323 |
SID music software recommendations?
Hi SID freax...
I am wondering what the general opinion is with what
the most popular or most recommended piece of software
is to use to write music for the SID in 2009?
>> Adam/Usagi << |
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PAL
Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 271 |
I am not a music dude, but I would follow GT`s rout abit I guess, he just joined mainiacs of noise and I guess there will be more done to his softwares in the future and his latest release did proove that he has some truly amazing stuff under the hood... Just a wild guess from me this... he he...
PAL
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Adam
Registered: Jul 2009
Posts: 323 |
Sounds promising.. In regards to music editors,
I really loved the way that CYBERTRACKER was
coded, being able to let the user create
nice point tables for filters, waves ect..
It would be great to see more advanced editors
which supported features like that.
>> Adam/Usagi << |
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NecroPolo
Registered: Jun 2009
Posts: 231 |
Sid Duzz'It (SDI) is the finest (and newest) SID music software - so you can create the most updated sounds with that I assume.
Most popular? DMC line is an established music SW for C64. It has a rather quick and effective workflow. Cadaver's Goatie is also pretty awesome /// with the footnote that never forget to test Goatie tunes on your real C64 ///. |
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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
The topic has been extensively covered here:
What editors are PPL using now? |
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Radiant
Registered: Sep 2004
Posts: 639 |
The three (seemingly) most popular: SDI, JCH, GoatTracker 2.
Personally I use GT2, among the native editors I've tried I think I like X-SID best, but I haven't really had enough motivation to learn using it properly yet. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11360 |
and i recommend *everyone* who wants to dig into sid music to write one atleast rudimentary player himself and create atleast one tune with it. all the funny numbers will make a lot more sense after that experience :)
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Kristian
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 126 |
Shuddupyaface. That's a lame ass advice for non-coders like myself :) |
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cadaver
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1160 |
Quote: and i recommend *everyone* who wants to dig into sid music to write one atleast rudimentary player himself and create atleast one tune with it. all the funny numbers will make a lot more sense after that experience :)
Seconded, it can even be a BASIC program. And if that's too much, then testing out pokes to SID in BASIC's immediate mode is better than nothing :) |
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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
Quote: and i recommend *everyone* who wants to dig into sid music to write one atleast rudimentary player himself and create atleast one tune with it. all the funny numbers will make a lot more sense after that experience :)
Nobody becomes a better graphician by coding their own Koala painter prog.
Your argument, is bollocks.
Musicians either have born talent for doing music, or they train hard and learn it, or they suck.
If you learn to use all features of a good editor, you really have no reason to code it yourself.
The best editors were coded by the musician himself, to fit his own needs. The ones made to please all (music maker, prophet64 etc.) are all utter crap! :-) |
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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
Did i mention, Asterion SID Tracker is a really awesome editor. A bit nerdy, but powerfull as hell!
Nobody uses it, "it's too complicated".
Well, how about putting some effort into learning it ?
It's really only a single day, then things start to give meaning.
Why I always recommend SDI, is because it took me just like 2 hours to learn it, and produce my first tune in it, 11 years ago. (sunny morning blues)
However, to get under the hood, and exploit every possible power of it, took.... 11 years :) |
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Stryyker
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 468 |
"Your argument, is bollocks." is bollocks itself. Somehow you know how everyone learns.
I found messing around with music players, coding them etc. helped me learn a lot.
"The best editors were coded by the musician himself, to fit his own needs." - you can read other information in to that. The musician knows how the magic numbers on screen work with the SID registers.
Then again I make rather low quality music so I know nothing about this.
Adam: What sort of editors are you comfortable? Many like the trackers as they give a more visual representation of timing. Some like duration based players like DMC and SYNC (my favourite.) |
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Stainless Steel
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 966 |
Unfortunately, no one can give you a reasonable answer to this question.
It depends alot on your own experience and which editor makes the most sense to you. Try out a few and see which one fits you best.
I tried a couple (Music Assembler, JCH, Voicetracker, Futurecomposer, 20cc Editor, Goattracker) and finally ended up with SDI.
Simply because it had a lot of demotunes to examine and GRG helped me a lot getting started (And it came with lots of recomendations).
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Tim
Account closed
Registered: Mar 2002
Posts: 467 |
Agreed with what Stainless said,
Adding to that:
My advice for first time sidders.. go for a tracker based program! Mostly because it's similar to the logics of other trackers..
You could try DMC of course.. but.. if below does not seem appealing, don't even bother:
snd.01 (sound #1)
dur.04 (duration of note)
c-1 (actual note)
snd.02 (sound #2)
dur.02 (duration of note)
c-5 (actual note)
c-5 (actual note)
snd.01 (sound #1)
dur.04
c-1
etc.etc.etc.
I used if for years, and yet it drove me nuts synching the three channels (and i usually ended up visually drawing out all 3 channels of my tunes onto paper). Same goes for many other players with similar logics.
for the above example a tracker would look something like this:
c-0 01000
--- 00000
--- 00000
--- 00000
c-5 02000
--- 00000
c-5 02000
--- 00000
c-0 01000
--- 00000
--- 00000
--- 00000
the above in a page would contain 3 of these next to eachother, one for each channel, so far easier to visualise what you are working on and how one channel translates to the others 2 time wise.
I'd suggest Goat Tracker, but that's because I do not know SDI to be honnest.
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11360 |
Quote:Nobody becomes a better graphician by coding their own Koala painter prog.
Your argument, is bollocks.
nobody becomes a better musician by choosing the most sophisticated editor either. but as much as every decent painter spends a while on getting familiar with the properties of various types of paint and canvas, it will benefit even a not-yet-terribly-good musician to spend some time on getting familiar with his instrument.
Quote:Musicians either have born talent for doing music, or they train hard and learn it, or they suck.
except this isnt so much about beeing a good musician. it is about learning every possible detail of your instrument to be able to fully use it.
Quote:If you learn to use all features of a good editor, you really have no reason to code it yourself.
The best editors were coded by the musician himself, to fit his own needs.
and don't these two lines somehow contradict each other? :)
i still say, if you want to do good sid music, you gotta know the sid very well. and one very good way to learn about the sid is to write some little programs that make some sounds. (and i never said someone should make his own editor, thats kinda pointless indeed). like cadaver said, even playing around with the basic programs from the c64 manual is a good way to understand many important things.
and to come back to the original question, i always recommend goattracker... not because it has the most sophisticated player, but because it is very easy to use and generally seems to be a good starting point. and you can always switch to SDI (or my secret favourite: sonic's mod of the x-ample tracker) or whatever later once you start hitting the limits of gt, which will almost certainly take a while for a beginner.
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PAL
Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 271 |
I can compose a tune in my head but there is no way I can create a tune with it on a c64. I can imagine an image and I can create the image as good as I am able to in koala... The border to know koala is very much less then the border to know a sid tool or editor in my mind. I meen it must be harder to understand editors that are made up by numbers than an editor where one can move joy and paint in realtime... So this matter is closed for me... I have melodies but when opening a sid tool I am lost even before I start.. I dear a music artist or want to be... to open koala and I guess he will come alot further in less time than I will in a current state of the art sound tool. |
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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
Groepaz: do more tunes
PAL: you dont try hard enough, to get your music from the head, into the music program. :)
Perhaps live playing is better for you. Take real lessons, learn to play. When you are a bit trained piano player, it will be a lot easier for you to make music on a computer. |
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Soren
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 547 |
I can only agree with people who think it pays off to code your own musicroutines. It worked for me, very well indeed. But ofcourse it's not like that for everyone. Some are able to just choose an editor and use it to the max. When I first started making 8-speed tunes, I am quite sure there weren't any decent tools for that. Having 256 steps long wave+freq tables for each instrument, when needed, and things like that. :-)
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Linus
Registered: Jun 2004
Posts: 639 |
Groepaz: I am curious, what are the limits of GT? Still haven't found them ;) |
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Adam
Registered: Jul 2009
Posts: 323 |
Quote: Groepaz: I am curious, what are the limits of GT? Still haven't found them ;)
... and nor have I! I currently use about 3 to 4 different versions of GT (as mad as that may sound) - and be able to sequence digital samples to play along side without any problems - but it seems to be the most comfortable for me to use as I origianly spent my early years composing music on the Amiga using trackers. To me, music editors which are too complex to get a tune out screws up the writing process for me. If i've got an idea, i want to get it out without the hassle.. GT with MIDI support would be a dream come true... Hello Cadaver? ;)
>> Adam/Usagi << |
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Soren
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 547 |
Linus: haven't you complained a few times about things not working too well after packing a GT tune? :-)
A limitation COULD be when doing multispeed, that there is only one wave+freq table, or am I wrong? :-) Still hats off for a very fast player. That has made things easier for demo coders a lot of times :-)
Besides I am quite happy with my shapeable and modulateable vibrato routine :-) |
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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
Quote: ... and nor have I! I currently use about 3 to 4 different versions of GT (as mad as that may sound) - and be able to sequence digital samples to play along side without any problems - but it seems to be the most comfortable for me to use as I origianly spent my early years composing music on the Amiga using trackers. To me, music editors which are too complex to get a tune out screws up the writing process for me. If i've got an idea, i want to get it out without the hassle.. GT with MIDI support would be a dream come true... Hello Cadaver? ;)
>> Adam/Usagi <<
SDI 3 has midi.
Perhaps Geir will tell what it can already do, and what is planned ? |
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Lubber
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 26 |
From the coders point of view, I would also like to know which tracker/player will use the most less rastertime? I only know of JCH NP19 (?). surely it depends on what sid-tricks are used, but beside of the JCH editor, where you can choose the player by yourself, i dont know how other trackers handle this (is there an option to switch off certain code-routines to minimize the player or at least the resulting used rastertime?
(If this has been asked /answered before just redirect me to the according thread please. |
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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
Quote: From the coders point of view, I would also like to know which tracker/player will use the most less rastertime? I only know of JCH NP19 (?). surely it depends on what sid-tricks are used, but beside of the JCH editor, where you can choose the player by yourself, i dont know how other trackers handle this (is there an option to switch off certain code-routines to minimize the player or at least the resulting used rastertime?
(If this has been asked /answered before just redirect me to the according thread please.
Johnplayer uses less raster than most, and i think Ninjatracker too..
SDI 2 can turn on/off some things, this is done in the source when assembling a finished tune. |
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Dane
Account closed
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 421 |
JCH NP19 uses about $0a lines, but with some optimization you can take that down to 6 lines. The other obvious choice would be streaming, of course, but that usually too mem-consuming for democoders. |
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Oswald
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5086 |
Airdance III
last part's music uses 1-2 lines of rastertime iirc. |
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booker
Registered: Jul 2003
Posts: 334 |
Quote: From the coders point of view, I would also like to know which tracker/player will use the most less rastertime? I only know of JCH NP19 (?). surely it depends on what sid-tricks are used, but beside of the JCH editor, where you can choose the player by yourself, i dont know how other trackers handle this (is there an option to switch off certain code-routines to minimize the player or at least the resulting used rastertime?
(If this has been asked /answered before just redirect me to the according thread please.
HardTrack composer uses very low rastertime (check later Shogoon tunes) but unfortunatelly, as for the tracker, you don't get convenient presentation of your patterns and forget about any follow-play either. |
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Linus
Registered: Jun 2004
Posts: 639 |
Jeff: Well, well ... sure, the wavetable size is somewhat small for serious multispeed biz, right. My point is tho ... I don't get why people still think of goat as a very limited editor/player. Some very essential features (for me anyway) like switching filtertype/cutoff/resonance on any frame I want are missing in a lot of other players.
I guess Jammer, Randall, Conrad and others have proven that it is in fact a very powerful toy that doesn't have to hide behind SDI and JCH.
Just for the record: I never tried coding my own player and still know *exactly* what I am doing :)
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NecroPolo
Registered: Jun 2009
Posts: 231 |
Quote: Groepaz: I am curious, what are the limits of GT? Still haven't found them ;)
I could not make it bleed.
...yet... ;)
So... What do you REALLY need to compose music?
A recognisable stlye that sets you apart from all the others. That's all. |
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Soren
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 547 |
Linus: We didn't need fancy stuff like changing filtertypes during a sound back when most of use only used the old chips.
I guess we didn't need that for drums. So some older tools don't have this, ofcourse. :-)
And well, we didn't even need smart editors that didn't fit into the memory of a real c64. To begin with a MC-monitor was enough for me for coding players and doing some sort of "music" :-)
I know times have changed, which is good ofcourse. Still I am pretty happy about the features and way of doing things that I have in my latest players, atleast. Ofcourse I do spend more rastertime on my overall players. But I do customized stuff music from time to time, to please the coders a bit. :-) Once again, not saying that GT is a bad player+editor. You and others have proved that for sure. I will however continue using my own tools, as those work like _I_ want them to work. :-) |
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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
Quote: I could not make it bleed.
...yet... ;)
So... What do you REALLY need to compose music?
A recognisable stlye that sets you apart from all the others. That's all.
Well, style evolves.
I had a very recognizable style in the first 2 years, when i knew nothing about anything, when i got the 4th voice on Amiga, my style changed from first tune i made on Amiga.
400 tunes later and 20 years, i have all styles and none. So i take all my tunes, and try to sort them into similar sounding groups (my CD release schedule).
For me, any tune i make, is a snapshot of the time its made in. Each tune, when listened, takes me back to the moment i made it, and all feels perfect, its nice to have ability to look back into past with total recall.
When i dream about the future, my tunes get too complicated and mixed up in style, when i live in the moment of creation, they become coherent and give meaning.
I certainly wouldnt want to release 30 blues CDs - i would get bored after #3..
Evolution is endless, learn to focus on the now, and you have a way to define who and what you are, and where. |
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NecroPolo
Registered: Jun 2009
Posts: 231 |
@Jan: Your way to go. It is rather about a philosophy of creation than skills. True, if you have the attitude, you can direct that evolution anywhere.
Most of the time I prefer creating some recognisable, style-independent stuff (that means some limitations but still allows much freedom) and stick to that (+ refine) than venturing through exact styles. In my experience, it works better on the long run. But that's my way to go. Everyone has a different road.
Some talk the talk, others walk the walk. For me, your tunes are the proof of that you know what you're speaking about.
/// ...just don't tell that blues-stuff to BB King or Angus Young ;) /// |
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Tim
Account closed
Registered: Mar 2002
Posts: 467 |
Big change for me quite recently was sharing more of my own work, whilst still in creation, with other sidders.. I would really suggest either that, or take the feedback from peers on CSDB as positive criticism.. its priceless!
Ive started sharing some stuff from my work directory a few weeks now, plenty of mixed feedback.. some hard and motivational but overall a lot to think about.. some things you change, some you dont.. but made me realise that in the last 2-3 months Ive probably learned more by listening to others then 19 years of trying to self-teach myself.
For me composing on sid used to be months of frustration poured into a tune (yes, I know you can not hear the hours put into the few things I did release, but trust me I spent months on each tune I put out). In the last 2-3 months its changed 100% to actually really enjoying composing a sid during a few weeks and fiddling around in tweaking here and there. So, one sid finished for a release soon and two in the pipeline :) A quick, but very big thank you to Intensity, Jan -Rambones- Harries, Xiny and Zerozillion for changing my mindset :)
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NecroPolo
Registered: Jun 2009
Posts: 231 |
This thread ran a bit off-topic - but this way the most important thing is dicsussed considering composing. Great ideas in there. |
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Hermit
Registered: May 2008
Posts: 208 |
It's 2011 now, and I might be out of picture in some ways, but I'd like to show my list about the trackers I tried 1-2 years ago...correct me if I know/remember some details wrong, or if they changed meanwhile.
1. GT by Cadaver - I didn't learn it for a long time, wasn't really interested by the DOS-like lookout. But once I had the time and energy to learn it, and since then I use only this tracker. It has many good extra features, the only one I don't like in newer versions is the speedtable thing and the emulated sound. I'm afraid hardrestart can't be switched off in instrument parameters, and only one Hardrestart-ADSR value can be used which is given in config file. Instrument saving/loading is possible.
2. XSID by Jeff - It is very featureful, good playing and pattern handling technique. 4x rasterspeed without tempochange, nice PW and Cutoff value displayers for easier visually aided sound-tweaking. Good keyboard layout, detuning and tablespeed adjustable, different HR-ADSR values. I don't like the command-table approach very much, it is needed because there's only one channel for instruments and patternFX. Good patternFX set BTW. I experienced a positioning bug when I switched between the orderlist view and JCH-like pattern-view.
3. SDI by GT and GrG - this editor (despite the lookout which I don't like much) is very full featured, has many tweak possibilities on sound (e.g. detuning). On the other hand, it requires someone to go deep inside it. For me it was a bit complicated for first time, especially how patterns were handled. 32 instruments plus 32 arpeggios are more than enough. Intuitive file handler with sorting function is good. As I've heard the workfile is not exported directly to playable tune, but a sourcefile which must be translated afterwards. I didn't like this, but it may have been changed since.
4. JCH's editor - seems to be a very sophisticated tool, many sound tweaking possibilities, but we have to know every numbers in the tables what they refer to. I don't think the keyboard layout is well defined (e.g. F6 is delete?!). It has very well invented pattern-display, follow-play function and poliphonic keyboard-jam function.
Drax uses this with Laxity's new player, and he gets out excellent tunes from this editor.
5. Sid Factory by Laxity - very similar compared to JCH's but with other player routine by Laxity. I remember keyboard layout was more standard, and sound quality was good.
6.DMC4 and 5 by Brian/Graffity - These editors are always standard in demotune composing, duration can be set in patterns as far as I remember. In DMC4 and DMC7 I didn't like that tested sound sounded differently in the played tune. (Necropolo said similar about GMC). DMC5 is a very different looking and much more advanced tool, and quite nice sounds could be tweaked out from it. There was a good possibility for filtersweep on patterns/tracks. It has stereo-SID version.
No pattern play (DMC7 had afaik), but it can be tweaked with aid of putting patterns into subtunes first. Thanks to Da Blondie for the tip. Player features sexy hardrestart using $09 waveform. In DMC5 instruments can be saved/loaded.
There's an editor called SYNC which is very identical to DMC5 for first sight...
7.Hardtrack Composer by Longhair - An older tracker with very good sound quality due to sexy hard restart where first frame is heard for very short time (e.g. Shogoon and Longhair tunes). However there's no tone is heard on keypress, so you need to have absolute pitch or just playing again-and-again all tune, because no pattern-play. Nice fast and easy navigation in patterns/orderlist/tables btw.
8.Ninjatracker by Cadaver - This seems to me a very well invented tracker. It has a lot of features similar to Goat Tracker, however player uses even less rastertime and memory. Some restrictions are given of course, like multispeed and channel mute/solo keycuts.
(I remember Cadaver's Sadotracker too, was interesting)
Odintracker and Cybertracker (Fasttracker like concepts) were two tools which looked good, but I didn't like them at the end, they didn't seem to be fast to work with, but maybe I was too lazy to learn them enough.
Soundmonitor is a very old but very well constructed tool which was used by Jeroen Tel and Rambones for compositions afaik.
Wait a moment, I'll share a table which I did when investigated for my favourite tracker among the most preferable ones...anyway, don't take it seriously, it's just a subjective way of decision, not everything is 100% sure to be real now from all point of views.
('ins.sav' refers to Instrument Saving/Loading option.)
('loaderc.' refers to Loader Compatibility mode - not using fastloader.)
Hermit Software Hungary |
