Remembering 8-Bit : Commodore 64 Sound by Barry Handler

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Back in the mid 80s, The Commodore64 computer was the dream item on every pre-pubescent boy’s (and many girl’s) Christmas list. Once unwrapped and firmly planted in front of the family TV, this little beige box was the tool responsible for sparking the imaginations of ten-year-olds around the world. Now it was possible to see Samantha Fox’s body in glorious 8-bit colour before she converted to Christianity; be an ancient Ninja Warrior, fly a World War II bomber, as well as an enormous amount of other scenarios – all from this revolutionary little machine with only 64kb of memory. Unlike other home computers of the mid 1980s, an enormous number of C64 games stood out for the striking quality and original nature of sound effects and music. Although quite crude initially, gradually the quality of in-game sound effects and music improved, and composers such as Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway, David Galway and Ben Daglish began to push the boundaries of what was possible with the early sound hardware. The MOS6581 SID-chip, a three-voice subtractive synthesizer with proper filters and variable amplitude, was the chip responsible for the distinctive C64 music that was, and still is, loved by so many. By scouring numerous fan web-sites of this revolutionary home computer, it becomes quite obvious that the majority of its users remember most vividly how affected they were at the time by the captivating game soundtracks since until that point, the most that could be squeezed out of home computers and game machines were singular blips and simple melodies.

In 2000, Zombie Nation had a massive hit with Kernkraft 400, a tune that utilises the main melody from David Whittaker’s theme for the game Lazy Jones (Terminal Software, 1984). Labels such as Beige Records, Erkrankung Durch Musique, Enduro Disks, and Monotonik, have all released products which they hope will both expose the sounds from the C64’s past, and present them in a manner which is relevant to electronic music as it currently stands. Similarly, Elektron Industries’ SIDStation is a completely new synthesiser that uses the actual MOS6581 SID chip. Elektron Industries have repackaged the tiny sound processor within a midi-enabled drum-machine styled case, complete with real-time control functions. Other hardware projects based around the SID chip include Hard Software’s Hard SID card for PC computers, and the SIDsyn, which is similar in nature to the SIDStation. Audio software developers reFX have also recently released the QuadraSID 6581 VST instrument, which enables Cubase and users of a vast array of computer-based sequencers and softsynths to incorporate the sounds of the 6581 chip into their music.

Barry Handler sent emails to a number of people active in today’s electronic music scene who still hold the sensibilities and the memory of the old 6581SID sounds close to their hearts, and who still attempt to incorporate some of these sounds into their work, about their experiences.

Bochum Welt
(http://www.bochumwelt.com/)
Gianluigi Di Costanzo has recorded as Bochum Welt for many different labels including Rephlex, Hymen, Sony Music Japan, Darla, and is also working for Thomas Dolby’s Beatnik Inc.

CD : What was it about the C64’s music that made it so special?
Vintage C64 music was warm and had a unique avant-garde charm. Sometimes I still use an Emulator 2 sampler which is a fascinating machine even if it’s a 12 bit one.

CD : Do you think the sounds of the C64s SID chip are still relevant today?
I think we are really directing the music production on software products, and computers have an absolutely primary role, so the C64 is still relevant.

CD : What was your favourite C64 game tune?
To be honest I’m not that familiar with specific C64 tunes, although sometimes I’m really impressed by recent videogame soundtracks.

CD : How much of an inspiration was the old game music from C64 days?
Science and computers have always fascinated me, so my music takes inspiration from vintage synthesizers and computers. I try to merge them with romantic and deep compositions.

8-Bit Rockers
Finnish producer Sami records as ‘8-Bit Rockers’ and has a 12″ on Bunker Records.

CD : What was it about the C64s music that made it so special?
The unforgettable melodies. It’s amazing how the composers got those sounds and melodies from that machine when the music programs and programming languages weren’t that intuitive back then. It would have been a lot of hard work.

CD : Do you think the sounds of the C64’s SID chip are still relevant today?
Well, we have seen how Zombie Nation made a hit with an old c64 riff lifted from the game Lazy Jones. So I guess it’s quite hip to have all those C64 bleeps and blops in contemporary popular music. People often tend to think that this is a new innovation and they don’t know anything about the roots. That makes me sad sometimes. But yes, they are indeed relevant, SID is a really powerful chip.

CD : What was your favourite C64 game tune?
It’s really hard to choose only one favourite game tune, Monty On The Run, Thrust, Commando, Cybernoid 2, Samurai Warrior: The Battles of Usagi Yojimbo.

CD : How much of an inspiration was the old game music from C64 days?
I can’t deny its influence on my music. C64 music & the atmosphere of those tunes are influencing popular music today more and more. I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing, I guess it’s a logical progression. As I said before, I hope that people would also respect the roots of C64 music…

Vim!
(http://www.vimster.demon.co.uk)
Keith Baylis records as Vim!, and has had numerous releases on net-label Monotonik as well as a full-length album, Linden : Home Of The Hits on Australian label Surgery Records
CD : What was it about the C64’s music that made it so special?
For me it was the unique sound. No other computer at the time could touch it, it was just so flexible. Phat basses, that nice swishy sound I now know to be phase-shifting.

CD : Do you think the sounds of the C64’s SID chip are still relevant today?
Well, perhaps for a small group of people who have fond memories of the system, and perhaps in a retro-ironic way, but no, not in the context of the Commodore 64.

CD : What aspect of the SID chip’s sound do you think makes people want to come back and use it [ either via hard-SID or SIDstation ] in conjunction with more sophisticated sound technology these days?
Definitely the sound is redolent of the 80s. For a generation of mainly men, that sound just brings it all back, the evenings on The Last Ninja etc. So I suppose it’s the unique sound, but one with the C64 label. I’m surprised more people haven’t used the SID to make non-C64-sounding tunes.

CD : What was your favourite C64 game tune?
Basically anything by Tim Follin (Bionic Commando, Ghouls And Ghosts, Black Lamp). He just sounded like no-one else, his use of chords just blew me away, and when I’d recovered, I felt inspired to try it myself.

CD : How much of an inspiration was the old game music from C64 days?
Huge! I sometimes fire up SIDplay and go through some tunes, just to get a spot of inspiration. Okay, so not all SID music is any good, far from it, but when it’s good, it’s superb. And the limitations the programmers/composers had to work with, you have to take your hat off to them. Young people today have it so easy.

The 8-Bit Construction Set
(http://www.beigerecords.com)
The 8-Bit Construction Set is DJ Cougar Shuttle and Rick Stryker. They have recently had a 12″ released on Beige Records (BEG-004), and forthcoming is the Bodenstandig in America 10″ (BEG-005) featuring both the 8 Bit Construction Set and also Bodenstandig 2000.
CD : What was it about the C64’s music that made it so special?
DJCS: The sound of the SID chip, the way that it’s controlled and the fact that millions of people had high-quality synthesizers in their homes.
RS: Yeah, the implementation of a dedicated sound chip in a home computer
system was rare at that time.

CD : Do you think the sounds of the C64’s SID chip are still relevant today?
RS: What is still relevant today is the process of creating music on a C64, i.e. assembly language/tracking/low level control and communication with the machine. Now everything is hidden behind Flash 5 timelines and VST plug-ins and whatnot, and people fail to understand the aesthetics of the very medium within which they work. They are controlled by corporate software, and the DIY spirit of investigation and learning about computers that existed so much within the early home-computer scene is all but gone.
DJCS: Ask the 2000+ people who bought the first record – yes. And it will become more relevant.

CD : What was your favourite C64 game tune?
DJCS : Aztec Challenge, followed by the “Mystery” demo on Music Maker.
RS: Hard to pick. I’m a Rob Hubbard fan (of course) and particularly like Crazy Comets and International Karate. The tunes for Last Ninja 2 (Matt Gray) are also awesome…some tunes that never get mentioned which I really like are Legacy of the Ancients and Epyx Super Cycle (classic
Epyx sound – I don’t know the authors).

CD : How much of an inspiration was the old game music from C64 days?
DJCS : Some of the old game music is pretty bad. Some of it’s great. What’s inspiring is the way that the programmer/musician has to understand the machine – the 6502, the SID – to write the music. The features and limitations created a unique style of composition impossible in other media.
RS: Yes, the imagination of the good game composers who were forced to be as creative as possible within the constraints of their technology is an obvious influence, but what was more inspiring for this record were the machines themselves and the way in which they were asked to be used. You have to remember that the first thing a person ever saw when they booted up their C64 or Atari 800xl was the BASIC command line. If you take a step back and think that the built-in interface to the machine was an actual programming language, it’s so much more conceptually attractive and computationally efficient than today’s Windows crap…asking the user to use and understand the computer instead of being used by the interface or suckered into clicking on ‘sign up for AOL’ icons.

There are a number of records out now that are trying to capitalize on the sound of the SID or the nostalgia of that period without really understanding what they’re doing…like there’s some big C64 record that uses SIDStations and other 8-bit style records that are just samples and people messing about in Pro Tools or something. To us, these records are very fake and only deal with the surface of the time and are not very interesting. The 8-Bit Construction Set record doesn’t care about surface for its own sake, it just cares about being true to yourself and your machines.

Erkrankung Durch Musique
(http://www.erkrankung.net/html/SIDmusique.htm)
The label Erkrankung Durch Musique recently released the compilation SID Musique, an electro homage to the sounds of the C64. Label head Emanuel G’nther answered a few questions.

CD : What was it about the C64’s music that made it so special?
Well, the sounds this chip produces are very rough and “cheap”-sounding, which co-relates with the 8-bit sound quality of the chip, but there’s a lot of frequencies that just go crazy, because the chip produces so much power with sinewaves, or other frequencies, it’s totally banging! You could never find any other sound like this in the universe. It has its own very special quality of sound that you can recognize immediately.

CD : Do you think the sounds of the C64’s SID chip are still relevant today?
There’s been so many other releases now since the SID Musique compilation that use SID-sounds, that are all influenced by it. And of course there’s been lots of releases before as well! I think, although the sounds are so cheap, people conSIDer it as high-tech at the moment, its totally hyped.

CD : What aspect of the SID chip’s sound do you think makes people want to come back and use it [ either via hard-SID or SIDstation ] in conjunction with more sophisticated sound technology these days ?
As I said before, there are frequencies that are so big, so rich in sound, something people are always looking for when doing producing. A few years ago, people used Moogs or Theremins to get big, fat bass sounds, now they use SID-sounds. And it sounds very computer-y, very digital in a way, not as warm as a Moog or anything. It’s definitely a sound that is new and fresh musicians always look for new sounds, so…

CD : What was your favourite C64 game tune?
Oh, there are a few…Lazy Jones, of course, but also Way Of The Exploding Fist, Chip Wars, Demons First and Dexion Ranking.

CD : How much of an inspiration was the old game music from C64 days?
Very big. You know, a friend of mine, Bassdroid, played me a tape with C64 sounds he had recorded while playing a game, that was years ago. All my friends went crazy about it, then another friend of ours brought a CD-rom with all the 25,000 tracks from the net, with the proper emulator.
Splank (the other part of Zombie Nation) and me got through the CD for a whole week, it went to a point, where we were about to go nuts. We loved the sounds, and sampled a lot of stuff, the song Kernkraft 400 is the most famous one, though.

Bodenstandig 2000
www.bodenstandig.com
Dragan Espenschied is one half of Bodenstandig 2000, whose album Maxi German Rave Blast Hits 3 was released on Rephlex.

CD : What was it about the C64’s music that made it so special?
It was a fully developed music style. Also there was no MTV or whatever back then (in Europe, without cable) and video games or coder demos offered full sensory experiences.

CD : Do you think the sounds of the C64’s SID chip are still relevant today?
I do not like the nostalgia context that home computer music is presented in nowadays. People like to think of home computer music as something that reminds them of the great days of geeking out when they were young, and that is only because this musical style is not present in today’s computer games anymore. Today’s game soundtracks sound just like usual electronic or rock music, or movie soundtracks.

To me, the whole concept of home computer music is that you have control over a quite small and clearly arranged system, very much like playing an instrument. Not like today’s WindowsME or
Macintosh or whatever that hides everything behind icons or simulated wheels or interfaces that try to resemble “natural” synthesizers or multitrack tapes. This is not computer music, it is graphical user interface music. You do not get to see the computer below. The computer is only used to emulate things but does not present its own character.

CD: What aspect of the SID chip’s sound do you think makes people want to come back and use it [ either via hard-SID or SIDstation ] in conjunction with more sophisticated sound technology these days ?

Because they threw away their C64, like Cubase and are too lazy to get a new one and learn how to make it play.

Also you can learn a lot of the chip tunes if you like minimal music. If you only have three channels you have to play around and these tricks can be used in other styles too. Recent crossovers like micromusic.net, Mikron64, Lektrogirl or my humble band Bodenstandig 2000 show that minimal music, home computer music, home recording and songwriting can be very fruitful and forward-thinking, not like the nostalgia movement that is mostly carried by hardcore people from the coding scene.

CD: What was your favourite C64 game tune?
There are many good tunes. Lightforce is great, Bionic Commando, LED storm, R-Type title track… Other systems had hot tunes too, you should not forget ATARI, AMIGA, and video game consoles by SEGA, Gameboy, PC Adlib sounds …

Speaking of SEGA, they have a distinguishable style of music that developed from classical video game sound. Their general midi metal tunes are just mad. Nintendo was keeping their bleepy Donkey Kong style up to the day of N64, let’s see what they will do with their new Cube.

CD: How much of an inspiration was the old game music from C64 days?
To me home computer music has the same level as electro, acid house, German new wave, dancehall, any style of music. It just was not popular a long time and people felt embarrassed because this was the sound of geek boys that would rather buy a computer than a motorbike and type “listing of the month” from computer magazines all night instead of dating girls.

Elektron
www.SIDstation.com
Elektron is an electronic synthesizer developer established in Gothenburg in 1998, and they manufactured the SIDStation synthesizer which presents the original C64 sound chip in a new midi capable box with tweakable controls and a powerful operating system. Daniel from Elektron speaks:

CD: Do you still conSIDer the SID chip to be relevant today, and if so – why?
The SID-chip is by all means very relevant today. The techniques used to design and produce the SID is unique. This combined with the methods for programming it, originating from years of development in the C64 hacker scene, makes it one of few truly original musical instruments. There are few sound sources that have their undoubtedly unique sounds. The SID-chip in the SIDStation is one of them.

CD: What has the general response to the SIDstation been ?
The response has turned from initial surprise, amusement and skepticism to respect and devotion.

Sub Bass Snarl
www.snarl.org
Luke Dearnley is one half of Sydney based Sub Bass Snarl.

CD: What was it about the C64s music that made it so special?
For me the amazing thing about it was the richness and complexity of the sound that came from the C64 compared with other computers at the time. It had three voices with multiple waveforms, filters, envelope shaping, ring modulation and so on. Most other computers could only beep! It was like having three digitally controlled analogue monosynths in one computer!

CD: Do you think the sounds of the C64s SID chip are still relevant today?
Absolutely. There was something unique about the SID chips timbre that’s hard to put a finger on. It has a ‘sound’ to it that makes it a unique instrument – like the 303. It was designed by some guys who went on to set up legendary synth company Ensoniq so it came from good forward-thinking minds. Its the only computer sound chip I know of that was so musical/unique-sounding that a group of maniacs have made a synth based round the chip itself – the SIDStation by Elektron – crazy stuff…. MIDI controlled SID chip!!!!

CD: What was your favourite C64 game tune?
Damn that’s a hard one. I had about 1100 C64 games eventually. Mega-apocalypse was really catchy and had some great percussion sounds (and even a drum solo!). I seem to remember the Sanxion loader music was a fave – but its been so many years…. I liked the sound design in Paradroid (Andrew Braybrook) – it didn’t have music as such – rather pulses and throbbing drones and so on that really suited the mood of the game. A lot of the songs now sound kinda cheesy with wailing lead synth-lines but we must remember – it WAS the eighties….

CD: How much of an inspiration was the old game music from C64 days?
Well Seb’ll tell ya I’m always trying to drop in a cheesy wailing lead synth line over our set…. seriously though I’m not sure – I’ve always felt drawn to the computer game sound aesthetic but I’m not sure if C64 game music was as big an inspiration as numerous other things, but it certainly was AN inspiration.

CD: What was the name of your cracking group ? [special sub bonus snarl question] Well myself, my brother and a mate of ours called ourselves Ozhak. My handle was Ransak. We traded cracks with forks in Norway, Ireland, the UK and other places in Europe, by posting boxes of five and a quarter inch floppy disks round the globe! Ha ha ha haa! It seems so crazy now what with the internet n’all. We made a bunch of demos showing off various video chip hacks and funky graphic effects, most of which had music and some graphic elements I’d ripped out of games. I was well into hard core machine code programming – you had to get back there to get things to work with exact timing. I new the C64 inSIDe-out, hardware and software – pretty funny to think back on it nowadays. I still get very distracted if I see certain numbers like $D012 and so forth…. heh….

T’li S’ndor [ Hard Software ]
www.hardSID.com
T’li S’ndor has recently released a hardware card for PC computers called the ‘HardSID’ :

CD: What was it about the C64’s music that made it so special?
I think that the SID chip has its own personality. I can’t name anything that sounds exactly like it. I don’t know anyone who one heard the SID and didn’t have any emotions about its sound. You either hate it or love it, there’s no middle way.

CD: Do you think the sounds of the C64’s SID chip are still relevant today?
It has very serious capabilities even if you compare the SID to a modern analog synthesizer. If you use it together with other instruments (using HardSID MIDI) you’ll hear the power of it. I recommend the 8580 for MIDI purposes. It has a lot better sound quality. Anyway, both SID versions are wonderful.

CD: I imagine that the Hard-SID project has been a great success?
Well, it was a big success, because people were pretty much interested in it, but it’s not a financial success, since we’re not a big company with lots of money to spend on advertisement and mass production.

CD: What aspect of the SID chip’s sound do you think makes people want to come back and use it [ either via hard-SID or SIDstation ] in conjunction with more sophisticated sound technology these days?
It’s simple: The unique SID sound. Even if today’s sound technology is more professional, the SID sound can be still used in conjunction with it.

I don’t want to compare the HardSID (Quattro) to the SIDStation on public forums, I think they’re great guys. If anyone is interested in the differences and features, they can be compared by downloading their documentations.

CD: What was your favourite C64 game tune?
Uh.. I had lots of favourite C64 tunes. I was mainly listening to demo tunes, so it’s easier to select from game tunes I was listening to. For example: Turrican II (title tune), Last Ninja 2, Logo, Tube Madness, etc……maybe it’s not as easy to select even from game tunes’

CD: How much of an inspiration was the old game music from C64 days?
The good old C64 game music was the only inspiration; that was why we wanted to make the HardSID.

Couchblip
www.couchblip.com
Luke Killen and Melinda Taylor record as Disjunction Reunion and Robokoneko respectively for the Australian label Couchblip.

Disjunction Reunion
CD: What was it about the C64s music that made it so special?
The sound. and accessibility. It was also repeated 2000 times per day as you played the games.

CD: Do you think the sounds of the C64s SID chip are still relevant today?
It certainly has a nostalgic value. The C64 was really the first generation of ‘budget’s consumer multimedia computing. Parents bought them for kids to do home work, while they only wanted to play games.

C64 Music left us open to later accept ‘ACID’ in music. I think C64 sounds are acceptable to us today because of the technological limitations they imposed upon us in the past.

I still play plenty of new SIDs on an emulator some of the new ones are amazing. The sampled SID covers are funny too.

CD: What was your favourite C64 game tune?
Crackdown is a fav from the games section of the SID archive. Typical looped tune, but its so beautiful.

CD: How much of an inspiration was the old game music from C64 days?
I love the fuzzy bass sounds mostly, and the grain, and I’m forever butting pristine 24bit audio through bit and rate reducers, so something happened. I Didn’t have a C64, or any computer, so I’d go to my mates house and play games until his mum would call him for dinner, hoping to be invited back to play some more halfpipe on California Games. God bless the Turbo Tape!

Robokoneko
CD: What was it about the C64s music that made it so special?
Pass! – to me it’s now all nostalgia, I can’t even remember what type of music I was in to back then…..Thompson Twins,…….Howard Jones… -but one thing I do remember is C64s had that huge big bulky but ergonomically pleasing keyboard!

CD: Do you think the sounds of the C64s SID chip are still relevant today?
Definitely!! All sounds are relevant today its just whether or not you like to listen to particular sounds. Personally when I hear a song which contains a C64/Atari-esque old-school sound its nostalgic and that’s what gets me and makes me smile. I’m sure that part of old computer game music sentimentality is definitely for people of that generation….most kids these days are upset if they only have an SBlive – 16 bit bah….

CD: What was your favourite C64 game tune?
I always liked the music that came in Pitfall when you got to the crocodiles….or maybe they were alligators….hard to tell with those pixelated graphics – but it was scary. And I still have my Pacman Fever 7″ – now that song sucked!

CD: How much of an inspiration was the old game music from C64 days?
I often listen to the old C64 SIDs and play my old Atari games and listen to them amazed,’ Wow, that’s a great tune.” In fact I sampled the Atari game Karateka to make my song called…..errrrr….’Karateka’…..Ultimately anything I listen to that I like inspires me so….add…..errr…Boney M to the influences list right next to Aphex Twin.

Originally published at Igloo Magazine(www.igloomag.com)
Cyclic Defrost remix with additional content, Barry Handler, 2002

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Seb Chan founded Cyclic Defrost Magazine in 1998 with Dale Harrison. He handed over the reins at the end of 2010 but still contributes the occasional article and review.

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