New Stuff For Old Stuff :: Blog

T his isn't perfect but it's getting better. I've made a way to convert my own music to a cut-down MIDI format that my driver reads and plays. The sound here is being captured from a real Vic and it doesn't sound bad. [update 21 Apr 21] I've updated the video embedded above. I did more work on my driver and ironed out some problems with the timing. As a result it sounds way more solid. I've also added a little percussion using the fourth (noise) channel of the VIC chip. As before, the sound is captured from a real Vic. This music is for my Yvonne game (still in progress).

 T his is another performance using my new "MIDI input" music driver.  This is another piece of original Dual-SID music. I've tended to like intros that start simply and build but I'm starting to doubt the wisdom of writing long ponderous intros. I may experiment with form and try something that dives straight in and uses the thin bits in the middle. My 16-channel MIDI to 6-channel SID voice music player is improving. The sound in the video is captured straight from my sixtyclone which you can see in the video. I realised later that I had failed to remove the sound from the separate video footage and so you can hear a faint strange echo and room ambience. The music is actually being generated by Logic Pro on a Mac (I can use anything that generates live midi events) and sent to the C64 via my Datel MIDI cart. This setup is working really well. Composing using the piano roll in Logic is great, it allows me to really fine-tune the length of the notes (or selectively ove...

T his year I decided to rewrite my music driver.  That's going well, and by combining that driver with my ' Knottifier ' which allows you to play the SID via a MIDI keyboard or instrument, I've come up with this. It receives MIDI data via a MIDI cartridge, with up to 16 channels. It allocates a free voice (if there is one), applies whatever sound patch you've chosen for that channel and plays the note. One channel typically carries all of the percussion with each drum being a different note. Some channels such as the piano and guitar here, may play chords, ie more than one note at a time. Canyon.mid is not my music, in case you don't know it. It's very complex, it has around 10 tracks, with multiple simultaneous notes on many of them. This is well beyond even dual SIDs, so I've taken out a number of the tracks and edited down the remaining ones a little. More work on this particular track and my sound patches could improve this rendition a bit.