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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.

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2024-09-21 12:18

Tommy

Registered: Sep 2024
Posts: 11

Quoting Stinsen

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

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

Hi there! It took me a minute, but did you use to visit the Berzan party in Linköping competing in the chip music competition?
I dug deep into some old backup folders and found some old MOD files, does any of these names ring any bell? "dragged.pre-ed", "paradise lost" or "sparkle"?
And just a random thought appeared, did you use to set the black keys to flat notes in ProTracker? :)

Quoting Stinsen

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

Thanks, I'll check them out.

2024-09-23 06:01

Agemixer

Registered: Dec 2002
Posts: 39

One good choice would be Cheesecutter
CheeseCutter 2.9.0

It could be there's newer versions in development, i didn't check

(For the ones who have been waiting for Agentracker: While my hybrid tech AGT DAAW is pretty much frozen on development, for meantime i thought i could make a LMMS-to-SID converter instead, using some of my AGT algos on C64 side? I think that'd be less work, on other hand it needs a specific SID controller vst to be done, which will then be the only instrument noted in a real SID tune on "export", capable to multi/varispeed up to samples. Would be probably a completely different approach, probably never done before. Just one idea)

2024-09-23 20:09

Tommy

Registered: Sep 2024
Posts: 11

Quoting Agemixer

One good choice would be Cheesecutter
CheeseCutter 2.9.0

Thanks for the suggestion. Does this editor have any specific strengths over the others? It looks nice though, and it displays the patterns continuously (like for example SID Factory II) which is nice.

2024-09-23 20:52

chatGPZ

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11386

I wouldn't recommend JCH player to beginners :) Yes its more capable in theory - bit it also requires a deeper understanding of the SID and the player details.

2024-09-25 05:34

Bansai

Registered: Feb 2023
Posts: 49

Regardless of the editor used, SIDDump V1.08 is an excellent companion tool that (accurate enough for most purposes) shows what gets sent to SID.

2024-09-25 12:32

JCH

Registered: Aug 2008
Posts: 200

I wouldn't recommend using CheeseCutter today. It's not being developed anymore, and it uses more CPU time than GT2 and SF2.

As you suggest yourself, I would choose GT2/GTUltra or SF2 if it has to be a cross-platform editor.

GT2 is the more popular option and uses less CPU time than SF2. It's also possible to do multispeed as well as tunes for more than one SID chip, neither of which SF2 currently supports. (Multispeed is being developed for SF2 but is not ready yet.)

Choosing between GT2 or SF2 is mostly a question of what kind of track system you like. If you want the track numbers to be edited in their own table, with sequences displayed one by one, go with GT2. If you like all sequences stacked on top of each other with track numbers in the left side of each sequence, go with SF2.

2024-09-25 14:18

vincenzo

Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 83

Couple of years ago I tested and made music with 12 different music editors. Once I tried SF2, I felt I'm at home and it immediately clicked with me. This means, to my workflow and brain-capacity SF2 is the closest and best thing. Which, in your case might be different.

I'd suggest you to give GT2, SF2, CC and SID-Wizard a testrun, and not only a testrun but use them for a couple of weeks. Then you'll have a feel for one of them, that's gonna be your tool for C64 music. See, if you settle for one that is not right but people said it's the best... well, then you will feel frustration every time you start making music.
(it's kind of similar to picking a headphone, people will give you thousand of suggestions, but at the end you will pick the one that is comfortable and good sounding enough for you)

All of the above mentioned editors have great documentation (also, a SF2 tutorial from me is long due and it's also WIP). If you have any question, we surely can find you the best person to help let it be about GT2, SF2 or any of the music tools.

2024-09-25 23:39

Tommy

Registered: Sep 2024
Posts: 11

Quoting Bansai

Regardless of the editor used, SIDDump V1.08 is an excellent companion tool that (accurate enough for most purposes) shows what gets sent to SID.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check it out.

2024-09-25 23:53

Tommy

Registered: Sep 2024
Posts: 11

Quoting JCH

I wouldn't recommend using CheeseCutter today. It's not being developed anymore, and it uses more CPU time than GT2 and SF2.

Ok, good to know.

Quoting JCH

As you suggest yourself, I would choose GT2/GTUltra or SF2 if it has to be a cross-platform editor.

GT2 is the more popular option and uses less CPU time than SF2. It's also possible to do multispeed as well as tunes for more than one SID chip, neither of which SF2 currently supports. (Multispeed is being developed for SF2 but is not ready yet.)

Choosing between GT2 or SF2 is mostly a question of what kind of track system you like. If you want the track numbers to be edited in their own table, with sequences displayed one by one, go with GT2. If you like all sequences stacked on top of each other with track numbers in the left side of each sequence, go with SF2.

I don't have a preference per say. I've mostly been tinkering with GT2, but I'll probably try SF2 out as well. SF2 seems to do a better job at using screen real estate.
Thanks for the advice.

2024-09-26 00:23

Tommy

Registered: Sep 2024
Posts: 11

Quoting vincenzo

Couple of years ago I tested and made music with 12 different music editors.

12? That's ambitious. :) I'm not gonna be quite that ambitious.

Quoting vincenzo

Once I tried SF2, I felt I'm at home and it immediately clicked with me. This means, to my workflow and brain-capacity SF2 is the closest and best thing. Which, in your case might be different.

I'll agree that the workflow seems nice in SF2 (at least when it comes to the pattern order list and the "sequences stacked on top of each other" as JCH expressed it).

Quoting vincenzo

I'd suggest you to give GT2, SF2, CC and SID-Wizard a testrun, and not only a testrun but use them for a couple of weeks. Then you'll have a feel for one of them, that's gonna be your tool for C64 music. See, if you settle for one that is not right but people said it's the best... well, then you will feel frustration every time you start making music.

Yes, of course you've got to feel comfortable with the instrument. I'll probably start out with GT2 and SF2 and see which one has the most comfortable work flow.

Quoting vincenzo

All of the above mentioned editors have great documentation (also, a SF2 tutorial from me is long due and it's also WIP). If you have any question, we surely can find you the best person to help let it be about GT2, SF2 or any of the music tools.

Thanks for the help, it's appreciated.

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