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2024-09-15 22:32

Tommy

Registered: Sep 2024
Posts: 11

Amiga musician thinking about composing on C64

Hi there!

Back in the 90's I was active as a composer in the Amiga demo scene and mostly made chip music (I also made the music for a few PC productions in the 90's and early 00's). I primarily used ProTracker and AHX.
I've decided to (finally) try to make some music on the Commodore 64. I've played around a little bit (with a huge emphasis on little) with Goat Tracker many years ago but never finished or released anything.

If you would start out brand spanking new right now and would pick an editor, which one would you choose?
It seems to me like the two most obvious choices are either
1) Goat Tracker / GTUltra, or
2) SID Factory II.
What are the pros and cons with either choice?
Would you pick something else? If yes, what and why?
It's probably not a bad idea to learn multiple editors, but I'd rather focus on one while I learn to crawl.

When you save the songs as Commodore 64 machine code is it worth the effort optimizing the patterns in the editor yourself beforehand, or do the editors generally do a good job of optimizing the patterns for you (cut out empty sections etc)?

If you pick Goat Tracker, are there any benefits using GTUltra instead? Is GTUltra purely a different UI, or are there any other differences? Are the songs you make in GTUltra fully compatible with Goat Tracker?

In Goat Tracker I've noticed that there's quite some delay between hitting a key and an instrument playing (seems to be true in the other editors as well). Even if I'm running the program with the /B1 argument there's a very noticeable delay. Do you have any tricks on how to minimize the delay so that jam mode actually becomes usable?

Do you have any technical tips or tricks worth sharing when it comes to for example dealing with the ADSR bug? I'd like to minimize the duration of any silence on each channel before triggering a new note. I'm sure this is very dependent on how the ADSR envelope is set up on an instrument, but any help would be appreciated.

I know that I'm asking a lot of questions, but any help would be greatly appreciated before I jump into the rabbit hole.

Best regards, Tommy.

2024-09-16 00:46

CreaMD

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 3057

A lot of good insightful questions actually. I don't use these editors so I will just wait and read what skilled users of these editors will answer.

2024-09-16 04:10

acrouzet

Registered: May 2020
Posts: 97

Hi, I've heard some of your AHX work. Good stuff!

Keep in mind that no matter what you choose, SID tracking in general is more involved than using other trackers. Editing sounds requires the use of "tables", which are like lists of effect commands without much abstraction to guide you along. You can also set the length and speeds of individual channels independent of each other, which can become a bit hard to manage if you attempt it.

While I only know GTUltra, I find it quite comfortable, and its workflow is quite similar to Amiga MOD. (Hint: clicking on the labels above the tables will expand them into a more human-readable form). The only difference between GTUltra and GT2 is the interface. To me, it seems GT2/U removes unused table entries and patterns upon export, but doesn't optimize much else.

I believe SID Factory II is based on JCH's old music editor, which has its own slightly different workflow (especially regarding pattern management), but it does have some more capability than GT2 (such as full 12-bit cutoff control and arpeggio tables). It also has different music drivers you can select that each have a different amount of capability and resource usage, but overall its standard driver seems to use a bit more resources than GT2/U.

The latency is something that doesn't seem to be avoidable (at least on my PC), probably because SID emulation is quite involved.

The way to minimize the silence between notes can differ between editors, and it can depend on what kind of sound you want, as there are multiple ways to do it. In GT2/U, the least buggy way to do it is to set HR/Gate to either $01 or $82. This will result in only 1 frame of silence between notes. $01 will result in a "harder" attack, while $82 will result in a "softer/looser" attack. You can remove the silence altogether by setting the 1st Frame Wave to something other than 0/test, but that may result in glitches.

Good luck composing! I'm looking forward to hearing what you come up with on the SID.

2024-09-16 07:44

spider-j

Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 498

Quoting acrouzet

To me, it seems GT2/U removes unused table entries and patterns upon export, but doesn't optimize much else.

In GT2 you can manually run the "optimize" process without exporting by hitting SHIFT + ESCAPE.

That said: of course manual optimisation will always be better. But I wouldn't bother too much with this unless you make music for a demo / intro.

It's quite common these days to have tunes with 6-8 KB or even more in music competitions. Especially from the top notch artists that deliver complex compositions and sound design.

Regarding editor / player: I found it very helpful to start with SID-Wizard on a real C64 and trying the PC emulation based trackers afterwards. It's way more easy to differ between user error and emulation limits this way. Even SID-Wizard in a recent VICE I think is a little more accurate than SF II or GT2 and its forks when it comes to the details. Because of this Cadaver made GoatTracker V2.xx Tweak Utility as an option to tweak your GT2 tunes on a real machine.

2024-09-16 14:13

chatGPZ

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11386

Is there still no gt2 build with a recent resid? why? :)

2024-09-16 20:12

Tommy

Registered: Sep 2024
Posts: 11

Quoting acrouzet

Hi, I've heard some of your AHX work. Good stuff!

Thanks.

Quoting acrouzet

Keep in mind that no matter what you choose, SID tracking in general is more involved than using other trackers. Editing sounds requires the use of "tables", which are like lists of effect commands without much abstraction to guide you along. You can also set the length and speeds of individual channels independent of each other, which can become a bit hard to manage if you attempt it.

I don't find that part difficult, actually. I'm more concerned about dealing with the technical details of the SID.

Quoting acrouzet

While I only know GTUltra, I find it quite comfortable, and its workflow is quite similar to Amiga MOD. (Hint: clicking on the labels above the tables will expand them into a more human-readable form). The only difference between GTUltra and GT2 is the interface. To me, it seems GT2/U removes unused table entries and patterns upon export, but doesn't optimize much else.

Ok, good to know. Thank you.

Quoting acrouzet

I believe SID Factory II is based on JCH's old music editor, which has its own slightly different workflow (especially regarding pattern management), but it does have some more capability than GT2 (such as full 12-bit cutoff control and arpeggio tables). It also has different music drivers you can select that each have a different amount of capability and resource usage, but overall its standard driver seems to use a bit more resources than GT2/U.

The interface of SID Factory II seems a bit less claustrophobic to me.
Anyone got any idea about how much the driver for GT2 and the drivers for SID Factory II differs when it comes to CPU utilization? I assume it is heavily influenced by how many commands my song is executing during each frame, but anyone got a ballpark estimate?

Quoting acrouzet

The latency is something that doesn't seem to be avoidable (at least on my PC), probably because SID emulation is quite involved.

So would it be better if I was running for example a HardSID? I have an old one that is a PCI card I believe (bought in the 00's) so I can't use that, but if I could get hold of a more modern one that is running off of USB (if I'm not mistaken?) then it would be better? The SID chips should be fine so I should be able to transfer them to a new card/device.

Quoting acrouzet

The way to minimize the silence between notes can differ between editors, and it can depend on what kind of sound you want, as there are multiple ways to do it. In GT2/U, the least buggy way to do it is to set HR/Gate to either $01 or $82. This will result in only 1 frame of silence between notes. $01 will result in a "harder" attack, while $82 will result in a "softer/looser" attack. You can remove the silence altogether by setting the 1st Frame Wave to something other than 0/test, but that may result in glitches.

This is very helpful information, thank you.

Quoting acrouzet

Good luck composing! I'm looking forward to hearing what you come up with on the SID.

Thank you. It will probably take a while before I make anything decent enough, though.

2024-09-16 20:19

Tommy

Registered: Sep 2024
Posts: 11

Quoting spider-j

It's quite common these days to have tunes with 6-8 KB or even more in music competitions. Especially from the top notch artists that deliver complex compositions and sound design.

Well, I guess it's a good thing that I'm not in the club, then. =)

Quoting spider-j

Regarding editor / player: I found it very helpful to start with SID-Wizard on a real C64 and trying the PC emulation based trackers afterwards. It's way more easy to differ between user error and emulation limits this way. Even SID-Wizard in a recent VICE I think is a little more accurate than SF II or GT2 and its forks when it comes to the details. Because of this Cadaver made GoatTracker V2.xx Tweak Utility as an option to tweak your GT2 tunes on a real machine.

Ok, good to know. Thanks. I doubt that I'm gonna do anything technically fancy just yet, so any songs that I produce shouldn't be in much need of tweaking.

2024-09-16 20:20

chatGPZ

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11386

Quote:

Anyone got any idea about how much the driver for GT2 and the drivers for SID Factory II differs when it comes to CPU utilization?

Generally GT2 is a bit less heavy on CPU. That said, i wouldn't bother too much about it - they are both fine to use in demos (if that is the plan).

2024-09-16 23:28

spider-j

Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 498

Quoting Tommy

I doubt that I'm gonna do anything technically fancy just yet, so any songs that I produce shouldn't be in much need of tweaking.

When you already consider tinkering with hard restart that is "something fancy" in my book :-)

2024-09-19 08:04

Abynx

Registered: Jun 2024
Posts: 2

I use SDI, but I do use my breadbin and don't have full access to a PC.

2024-09-20 13:00

Stinsen

Registered: Feb 2012
Posts: 76

Cool, hey Tommy! Probably around 30 years since we spoke last, you would remember me under a different handle back then. ;)

Would really love to hear some SIDs from you! For the topic on hand I don't have much advice to give, but if you decide to go for GT I gathered a few of my song sources in a pack, could maybe be interesting:
Song Pack #1

BR,
Stinsen (AKA "Mindshadow" back in those days :D)

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