You really only need the 1541-Ultimate if you're trying to play Maniac Mansion and run a BBS. uIEC/SD + JiffyDOS and a couple others like it are the best option. If you need maniac mansion you can get Easyflash to use with it. I think SID Wizard is the best DualSID option, MSSIAH editing is a bit of a hassle using joysticks or mice and MIDI isn't the best arrangement option(only single instruments per channel). Really makes the whole workflow take longer too. Cybertracker's great for single SID arrangements and user friendliness. No memorizing arbitrary hex-values, no clunky input device navigation. I suggest getting Dirmaster and making your own custom SID Wizard .D81 disk with everything loaded onto it off the .D64 disks. Learn the tracker and make badass tunes.

uIEC is excellent.  While it may not emulate a disk drive in a true sense, it works fine for saving your music and running 95% of games/apps out there (anything music related).  And it's only $60 or so, 1541 Ultimate is 4 times that :-)  Of course the 1541U is better, but I don't think someone new to C64 music creation will want to drop that kind of money right out of the gate (nor do they need to).

SID-Wizard is a great tracker, plus it's under current development.  There is also a dual SID version of it if you intend to add a second SID.  IMHO the best choice if you want something for free.  Also good is SID-Wizard's ability to export very tiny files for use within C64 demos or games, if that's your eventual goal.  Since SW is a current-gen tool, the interface and keyboard commands make more sense to modern users, at least I think.

If you have money to spend, MSSIAH is awesome.  Especially if you want to integrate your C64 into a modern studio setup.  Mouse-driven sequencing, and a bunch of MIDI enabled standalone SID instruments all in one package... it's worth it.

Both applications have EXTENSIVE documentation, which was/is key for me!

If you want to use the real c-64 then I would STRONGLY suggest getting a 1541-ii ultimate.

As for software the most commonly used trackers today are goattracker (pc), sid-wizard (native) and Sid Duzz It (native)

Personally I would recommend defMON (native) but it is far from being the easiest to get into

You will want to learn about the SID chip first.
Things like hardrestart, adsr bugs, etc. http://csdb.dk forums are a good place to do that, after you've read through ant1's thread linked above.

Who says I'm not?

I'm also looking into MSSIAH, but more so for straight up MIDI based music.

Cynthcart is my favorite thing ever

Ah, my bad. Still pretty useful though.

lol another noob who think he can make chipmusic withoyt gameboy XD

uIEC is not a disk drive emulator.

^this. It's probably also worth it to buy a disk drive emulator like uIEC or 1541 Ultimate if you want to use SIDWiz or other native programs on actual hardware. (plus you can play lots of games with it as well )

Unless you are dead set on using cynthcart try SID-Wizard in an emulator or goattracker first!

Thanks

The search bar, also:

http://chipmusic.org/forums/topic/8104/ … -tutorial/

I'm currently looking into using a commodore 64, but I really know nothing about the computer or what to look for...
Could someone help me out?