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TheRyk
Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 2111 |
2 SID music - Hooray 4 Six Channels / Stereo / no good at all
From Comments on Children [2sid]
(sorted from top->bottom in chronological order of posting)
Quote:User Comment
Submitted by TheRyk [PM] on 18 June 2024
One of the few recently done 2SIDs that give me the feeling the guy on the tracker has some idea what Stereo was made for (it wasn't made only for having 3 extra SID channels, believe me!)
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BTT: Overall very well done!
User Comment
Submitted by Nordischsound [PM] on 18 June 2024
I'm not a fan of 100% stereo separtion like @TheRyk, thats why I use it for 6 channel SID's and in my recordings I only pan like 25% to both sides. Great rendtion here. BTW, you could compare this to https://csdb.dk/release/?id=240612, I'm still wondering if robert miles was inspired by the tune Fear Factory by David wise, DCK was released one year before and Robert was at the right age to put his hand on the SNES.
User Comment
Submitted by Frantic [PM] on 19 June 2024
@theryk: In that case, try listening to 2sid tunes in mono? Who said sid tunes are "stereo" just because two sids are used? Now let's have a heated and pointless argument about this!!!"!
Of course we can have such discussion on 2SID music to find out how controversial it really is.
To elaborate on my opinion stated in the comment: I _DO_ have unreal hardware equipped with Stereo-in-SID, but most of the time I'm happy with equipping it with 8580/6581 mixed and jumper it to double mono because to me it adds some surround sound feeling when connected to my very powerful Stereo bought with money I was given to my confirmation (a religious ceremony Christians do at the age of 14, so 35 years ago).
Coming to what was my point:
Why don't I hardly even bother playing actual 2SID music by equipping two 8580 and jumpering to "real" stereo?
Because in many cases I miss any approach to produce surround sound/Stereo/whatever you want to name it and I perceive 2(or more)SID is just done to have 3 (6/?) more channels - which imho could also have been achieved on software level (multispeed, samples, whatnot). There are very few examples where I find the Stereo experience worth being played on real hardware with 2 SID chips.
Apart from Manganoid's Children Cover example I recall
Hexadecimal [2sid]
Please add more examples if you know any.
And now let the "heated and pointless"(?) debate begin!
*ducks and covers* |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11165 |
Stereo SID must be the most overrated expansion ever. Still waiting for one tune that makes me want to listen to it on the real thing (yes i have that, for many years). |
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Count Zero
Registered: Jan 2003
Posts: 1834 |
^^ |
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Frantic
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 1635 |
I was under the impression that the vast majority of 2sid tunes are 6 channel tunes meant to be played in mono, and in that sense I think "stereo experience" has quite little to do with it. Rather than being failed attempts at stereo, they are not supposed to be stereo at all. So the proper way to play that would be to connect both sids to mono inputs, with the panning set to center (or just slightly separated if one prefers, but that's not the main point here). All real data men connect their SID outputs to audio mixers.
(I agree that playing standard 1sid tunes as "double mono" with 8580&6581 equipped and one fully panned LEFT and the other fully panned RIGHT often sounds quite nice, just like you say.) |
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TheRyk
Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 2111 |
Well, so just as in Deep Blue Something - Breakfast At Tiffany's
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ClCpfeIELw
we DO have sth in common :)
Quote:
I agree that playing standard 1sid tunes as "double mono" with 8580&6581 equipped and one fully panned LEFT and the other fully panned RIGHT often sounds quite nice, just like you say
That's the one thing we got! :)
Rest is of course matter of debate/taste, really wanna know more - opinions/examples/...
Just saying: Could the idea of Stereo have sth to do with human anatomy... 2(!) ears (which makes me seriously wonder about 3-SID, 8-SID, what-ever-may-come)? scnr, don't do any Vincent van Gogh moves (Mono) or grow/implant extra-ears (Dolby Surround), please, just to prove your point, I'm just kiddin'
PS: The tune by Dane linked above might be much more fitting to understand what I'm aiming at than Managanoid's cover, for in Stereo it feels like BATHing in SID which I'd call a very good feeling |
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ChristopherJam
Registered: Aug 2004
Posts: 1391 |
I'm basically with Frantic on this one.
A *little* bit of separation can be nice, but please don't stick the lead in one ear and the arps in the other.
Also, even Dane prefers the mono version of Hexadecimal. |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2871 |
Quoting TheRykJust saying: Could the idea of Stereo have sth to do with human anatomy... 2(!) ears (which makes me seriously wonder about 3-SID, 8-SID, what-ever-may-come)? scnr, don't do any Vincent van Gogh moves (Mono) or grow/implant extra-ears (Dolby Surround), please, just to prove your point, I'm just kiddin' Can you elaborate on that? I don't quite get the gist. :)
Our humble 2 ears are perfectly capable of locating sound sources in 3D-space, however. "Binaural" rendering of surround signals to headphones is a thing. =) |
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encore
Registered: Aug 2010
Posts: 65 |
A bit of stereo separation is nice. Just like how I feel on the Amiga platform). I've at least put that into consideration when I did Camel Ohio 2SID, so you don't end up with all the drums in your left ear and everything else in your right, or a similar scenario. |
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4mat
Registered: May 2010
Posts: 65 |
A while back I tried out some code to do smooth panning on single SID tracks with two chips:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni8zQMEPGeM
(well smooth as in 16 positions, and only when a new gate gets triggered)
It wasn't taking into account the ADSR properly but I wonder if something like that could be added to one of the trackers. |
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ChristopherJam
Registered: Aug 2004
Posts: 1391 |
Oh now that's cool - especially the fourth track. Thanks 4mat! |
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DjS
Registered: Jul 2003
Posts: 48 |
Quote: A while back I tried out some code to do smooth panning on single SID tracks with two chips:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni8zQMEPGeM
(well smooth as in 16 positions, and only when a new gate gets triggered)
It wasn't taking into account the ADSR properly but I wonder if something like that could be added to one of the trackers.
This works nicely and should be adequate to make some sort of stereo image, the dynamic placement/automation of your channels is a nice plus and works well with the minimal music type sids I think. Good job, I love it!
Certainly worth it to explore further in my opinion.
Could it be done per instrument/sound instead of per channel by adding an extra panning byte to the note data? That would make it amazing-est as it would enable the composer to set up a virtual stereo stage and move a single instrument around while keeping the rest of the stereo image intact. |
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4mat
Registered: May 2010
Posts: 65 |
Thanks. Yes if it's built into a tracker you could set up a panning table per instrument or a new command. In this demo I only have access to the sid output registers where I'm manipulating the sustain on each chip. |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2871 |
I wonder how much control you have over phase (additionally to volume) using two SIDs, and what the impact of that could be. |
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Bansai
Registered: Feb 2023
Posts: 39 |
Quoting KrillI wonder how much control you have over phase (additionally to volume) using two SIDs, and what the impact of that could be. Test bit is a bit of a sledgehammer, but it seems like it should be able to be used to ensure phase is in sync as of the most recent gate on. As long as frequency updates between corresponding channels on the two SID chips aren't too far apart, I suppose it shouldn't drift appreciably until the next test gate off/test bit...some amount of delay...gate on.
Pulse waveform for the same frequency but not in phase seems like it could get murky sounding with superposition where you have a bit of a step pyramid and get flanging effects. In the worse case at a narrow pulse width, you could wind up with 2x the frequency. |
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ChristopherJam
Registered: Aug 2004
Posts: 1391 |
So far as I'm aware, none of the gate machinery has any effect on phase whatsoever, so as long as you init by setting frequency to zero and blipping all the test bits, then follow every frequency write to one SID with a frequency write to the other one exactly five (or whatever other constant) cycles later, then both SIDs will remain precisely 5 cycles different in phase for the entire track - shouldn't be noticeable at all.
If the track actually uses test bit, you'd have to mirror any changes to that with the same delay of course. |
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Bansai
Registered: Feb 2023
Posts: 39 |
Right, gate is strictly for the ADSR envelope. I mentioned test bit in conjunction with gate because you're probably updating that register anyway.
You do raise a valid point that once initialized, if the corresponding lo/hi frequency register writes are back-to-back across the multiple SIDs, they should not drift apart, however aren't we back to the stable raster bars situation where badline memory accesses (if the display is active) cause those consecutive writes to the SIDs to spread apart over time? |
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Hate Bush
Registered: Jul 2002
Posts: 459 |
don't know if this is on-topic, but several years ago musicians taking part is Silesia 2sid music compo were aware that the playback will be stereo (e.g. not summed, one SID left, one right).
taking this into account, we (Jammer, Conrad, myself...) tried to locate the drums/bass channel in the centre by playing it back simultaneously on both chips, which SHOULD HAVE resulted in L/C/R division impression.
my memory is rusty on further details though. |
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Jammer
Registered: Nov 2002
Posts: 1296 |
That tells me I should really finish an old stereo ambient music disk one day. It rots since 2017 iirc ;) Most of my 2SID tunes are more or less stereo friendly, btw ;) |
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Conrad
Registered: Nov 2006
Posts: 839 |
None of the 2SIDs I did were for stereo... guilty as charged. |
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ChristopherJam
Registered: Aug 2004
Posts: 1391 |
Interesting point about DMA interruptions Bansai - even in the border there could be sprite accesses to worry about.
I might need to bear that in mind for some envelope hacking I'm thinking about, cheers! |
