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...and I've found most of the music sounds the same. The same type of beat, the same sounds. It seems like 1996+ the songs get a little bit more diverse. But most of the time artists have the same sound.

Why do you think this is? Even back in the day when I made music on FL3 I never really had a single type of sound, not until people started paying me to make them (this type of track).

So I'm sitting here wondering why, and I think i've come across why. Trackers.

Yes, trackers. I'm all for trackers and what you can do with them. But its a very mechanical and almost like the artist is demanding what comes out, rather than a more fluid workflow with the computer.

Your thoughts?

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California

I don't think it has anything to do at all with the fact that the songs were created with trackers, if they even were. If anything it would probably be the relatively limited sound options with the C64 or maybe the culture of the C64 music scene. If you only have a few basic waveforms, a filter, and 3 simultaneous notes total to work with you're just not gonna be able to have the same diversity of sounds as you could in Fruity Loops (I assume that's what you mean by FL3), and if you hang out with people who make a certain type of music you might start to make that type of music as well.

But a tracker doesn't force you to make classic video game chiptune songs any more than a DAW or sequencer forces you to make EDM.

Last edited by VCMG (Dec 28, 2014 12:51 am)

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Joliette, QC, Canada

Maybe the sounds looks similar because of the limitations of the SID soundchip...but every songs sounds the same ?!
I can clearly see a BIG style difference between guys like goto80, wiklund, Jeff, GRG, Randall, Cadaver, etc...

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like 80% of demoscene music in the last 5 years has been wubwub nonsense so maybe it is just what the culture (everyone is a nerdy white man from northwest europe) and competitive aspect of the scene (must win compo!!) does to musicians, factor in that the sid chip can make like 10 different sounds and you have got a recipe for boring

there is a lot of cool stuff in there if you dig enough though, just like there's some cool music in the current demoscene too

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nonsense to say it's a software problem though

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TSSBAY01

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I understand what you all are saying.. the SID has its limitations I get that.

But why does it seem from 96+ we see more diverse types of music? I can understand that anything from the late 80's early 90's is gonna be basic scores.. thats a given. But why the mid 90's does the SID/ chiptune scene on HVSC seem to explode into other "genres" of music?

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Arad, Romania
sandneil wrote:

factor in that the sid chip can make like 10 different sounds

You have no idea what you're talking about.

SID songs doesn't sound any more similar compared to one another than Game Boy or NES songs do. There's plenty of stuff to do with the chip in terms of sound design. The SID is a proper synthesizer despite its limitations. Some artists are lazy\don't care about sound design.

Edit: The early stuff was more basic because people were just learning to code on the C64. The first few artists had to write their own software for making music or they would basically compose the thing in machine code. It got way easier when people started making\releasing trackers.

Last edited by qb (Dec 28, 2014 8:14 pm)

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Toronto, Ontario, Canada
okori wrote:

But why does it seem from 96+ we see more diverse types of music? I can understand that anything from the late 80's early 90's is gonna be basic scores.. thats a given. But why the mid 90's does the SID/ chiptune scene on HVSC seem to explode into other "genres" of music?

Ah! I see your point! 1996 is when trackers went extinct and people started writing SID tunes on staff paper instead. The correlation is hard to ignore.


In all seriousness, I don't think I've noticed the same lack of diversity that you have. It is possible to see a change in popular SID styles which often mimmicks popular styles of mainstream music but there was always a lot of quirky stuff being done, right from the beginning. Over time people got better and better at using and abusing the SID chip so the music did get more complex as you got into later years - especially the pioneering of sample playback using $D418  - and all of that might account for some of what you're hearing.

Last edited by jefftheworld (Dec 29, 2014 3:31 am)

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I'm taking a stab in the dark here, but by 1996 trackers were pretty much what they are today. PC trackers were around by then and capable of a lot. Maybe it was nostalgia of c64 sounds and being inspired by what trackers were capable of on PC that brought people to want to push c64 to its limits? Maybe by 1996 trackers on the c64 were mature enough to really push the SID to its outer limits and give people a broader range of expression? Maybe seeing cracktro/keygen tunes on amiga and pc brought some people to their scene roots back on c64.

I definitely believe some interesting tunes were put out pre-1996. Nothing crazy like what you can find today with speech synthesis and all that, but I definitely feel there were plenty of people doing unique SID stuff back then.

the resident scene historian goto80 would probably have something more concrete and worthwhile on the subject.

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well if you listened to 100% of the music that came out in 1996 id bet you say it all sounds the same. Id cherry pick the artists you like out of the hvsc and only listen to them.

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Brunswick, GA USA
okori wrote:

So I'm sitting here wondering why, and I think i've come across why. Trackers.

The SID music as we understand it begins with people like Hubbard and Galway around 1985-86, they wrote their own editors and routines that led to what we now call trackers, but those were nothing like the trackers that on Amiga. I think any similarities lie in the music that was fashionable at the moment combined with the limitations of the chip itself.

Much SID music predates the casual internet connection we take for granted today, and the really important stuff predates the internet at all, so while I don't think these artists created in isolation, there was definitely a fragmentation compared to what happened with PC trackers by the late 90s and it's nothing like what we can do today.

herr_prof wrote:

well if you listened to 100% of the music that came out in 1996 id bet you say it all sounds the same. Id cherry pick the artists you like out of the hvsc and only listen to them.

I agree with this too. 1996 is not the year to look for groundbreaking SID work, by then a lot of Amiga had taken over and PC trackers were being developed.

Last edited by chunter (Dec 30, 2014 3:28 am)

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Warwickshire, UK

I've heard a lot of diversity in SID music in the 80's, let alone the 90's. The replay routines were bespoke to each composer. As an example, Galway didn't use drums much at all until he was playing samples sounds. Stylistically the composers, I feel, were very different. Unfortunately some of the composers tended to write the same tune over and over again, but that's the case these days too. You could argue that as time goes one, most styles are invented which people use as inspiration to base their own music on? Back in the early SID days there wasn't really a lot of good electronic based music to listen to. Jarre, Tangerine Dream, Larry Fast, Tomita, Carlos, Vangelis etc.... but even in the 90's you started getting swamped for choice.

I've got a lot of respect for these guys. I tried so hard to write decent C64 music, keeping in mind I was 11-15, but I could not get my head around the limited software available - and ended up using ElectroSound. Jeroen Tell however, a year older than me, was writing superb stuff at the age of 15.

When you open your mind to what trackers can do, you work around the limitations. Most people just write in 4 beats to the bar, but you can swing, do 6/8, whatever you like. You can go completely mad if you like - check out some of Heatbeat's Amiga stuff like https://soundcloud.com/demoscenedelight … cykl0pedia - samples yes, 4 channels yes.

And the SID is one of the most flexible 'chiptune' devices out there, like everything, it's what you do with it.

m

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okori wrote:

But why does it seem from 96+ we see more diverse types of music?


This medium is very contingent on communication over the internet. As more people around the world started to talk to each other online, the genres diversified. It's easier now more than ever to see a genre term thrown around, find music in that style, and find a tutorial on how to make it all within 24 hours.

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I'm not sure trackers have much to do with it, we had trackers in the '80s.  It comes down to how much people can be bothered to play around with instruments  (see the ton of Future Composer or Sound Monitor tracks with the same arps), or diverge from the standard "hard-restart" stuff that was popular in the late '90s.   As with real music you do get a 'glut' of similar tracks for a couple of years. (if there was a popular demo in one style you'll find a lot of music in that style too.  See the Drax/Dane clones when Krestology arrived or all the tech tracks when the Polish scene was knocking out demos)  But there were plenty of people doing wild stuff in that era.  Mid-'90s was when the c64 demoscene started kicking back into gear again when the OCS Amiga stuff was fading out.

Off the top of my head, looking at that era if you want really varied sounds go listen to Ed, BluesMuz/Kjell Nordbo, PVCF.

Speaking of editors, each has it's own weird quirks and trying to do the same instruments in two different editors can yield wildly different results.  When trackers moved mostly to table-based instruments it got a bit easier to do identical sounds, but there are still differences because the SID is a quirky piece of kit.   Which order registers are triggered in, how fixed notes or portamento is implemented and so on.   If you're really bored run SIDid on the HVSC and see what editors were popular.  I tried it a while back and got this:

Detected players:
128bytes_Tiny            1
256bytes_Tiny            10
20CC                     224
8bitDigi/THCM            13
Alexander_Kirsch         3
ALiH                     5
A-Man/5_Dimension        37
Adam_Gilmore             46
AMP                      218
Andrew_Colin             3
Andrew_Rodger            18
Android                  14
Anthony_Crowther         13
Anthony_Lees             8
Anvil                    20
Ariston                  33
Arne/AFL                 48
Artlace                  17
Artline_Design           46
Ash&Dave_Digi            3
Ashley_Hogg              14
Asterion_V1.x            63
ATMDS_1.x                5
ATMDS_3.x                12
Audial_Arts              95
Audial_Arts/Cody         5
Audial_Revolution        3
Bappalander/Spacelab1    5
Barry_Leitch             25
Basic_program            279
Ben_Daglish              120
Ben_Daglish/WEMUSIC      10
Ben_Daglish_2            2
Berkeley                 2
Bob_Landwehr             8
Bubble_Bus               3
Bug/NCI                  5
Bug/NCI_Digi             14
Burgstaller_B            16
Pretzel/Soundscape       3
Cadaver_Musicdriver_7    2
Cadaver_Musicdriver_10   2
Censor_Digi_1            8
Censor_Digi_2            6
Charles_Callet           2
CheeseCutter_2.x         3
Chris_Cox                17
Chris_Grigg              8
Chris_Huelsbeck          11
Chris_Walsh              2
ChristopherJam           5
Chubrocker_V3.x          100
Colin_Davies             4
Colin_Porch              2
Colleen                  4
Comer/Digi               4
Comer/NMI_Sample_5       29
Comer/Sample_Studio      17
CRD_Tracker              3
CRL/Jay_Derrett          24
Cyberbrain_Digi          6
Cyberlogic_SoundStudio   121
CyberTracker             120
CyberTracker_exe         113
Cycleburner_Digi         29
Dane                     16
Dave_Kelly               6
Dave_Lee                 8
Dave_Lowe                13
Dave_Warhol              12
David_Dunn               40
David_Green              7
David_Thielat/Epyx       7
David_Whittaker          114
Deadbeat_Digi            4
Dick_Van_Riemsdijk       64
Digital_Systems          3
Digitalizer_V3.0         84
Digitalizer_V2.x         670
DMC_Vx.x                 7599
DMC_V5.x                 2118
DMC_V6.x                 10
DreamComposer/Tendance   3
DrumEditor               5
Dutch-USA_Team/ProDrum   7
Dutch-USA_Team/MC        3
Dutch-USA_Team/86        2
E_Determann              2
Ed/Wrath                 64
Ed/Wrath_Digi            2
Ed_Bogas_V1              4
Ed_Bogas_V2              7
Electro_Sound            230
Electronic_Speech_Sys    20
Element114Studio_1.0     16
Element114Studio_1.2     6
Element114Studio_2.0     15
EMS_V7.03                133
EMS/Odie                 42
Odie/Cosine              5
ElectronicArts           4
Entropy_Editor           2
Equalizer                39
FAME                     49
Faith_Sample_Mixer       10
Flash_Inc_V2.0           4
Flash_Inc_V3.0           10
Flash_Inc_V4.0           27
Frank_Hammer/Sharon      27
Frank_Tout_V1            5
Frank_Tout_V2            2
Fred_Gray                52
GalBard/ATOO             15
Games_Creator            14
Gavin_Raeburn            10
Gavin_Graham             4
Geir_Tjelta/SIDSys_1.0   40
Geir_Tjelta/SIDSys18.4   31
Geir_Tjelta/SIDSys18.6   43
Geir_Tjelta/SIDDuzz'It   718
Geir_Tjelta_digi_1       3
Geir_Tjelta_digi_2       2
GeniusComposer           34
Georg_Brandt             12
Ghost/SampleMon          8
Gilles_Soulet            4
Glover                   13
Golem                    4
GMC/Superiors            414
GMC_V2.0/Superiors       3
GoatTracker_V1.x         1302
GoatTracker_V2.x         1764
Goto80/DefMon            27
Graffity/Grabowsky       8
GRG                      11
GRG_tiny                 9
GRG_tiny2                9
Griff/Chromance          44
Groo/Psygon              4
Groovy_Bits              69
Guy_Shavitt              79
Hans_Siemons             7
Harald_Rosenfeldt        10
HardTrack_Composer       1147
Heathcliff/DigitalArts   53
Henrik_Jensen            19
Hermit                   2
Hermit/SidWizard_V1      58
HCL/BoozeDesign          5
Holger_Gehrmann          7
HouseDesign              5
ICC/TheVoice             8
ID_3.x                   6
Ivan_Del_Duca            7
Jason_Briggs             5
Jason_Brooke             21
Jason_Page               8
Jason_Page/Jay           3
JCH_DigiPlayer           3
JCH_NewPlayer            3370
JCH_NewPlayer_V21        224
JCH_Protracker           91
Jeff                     180
Jeff/BullSID             3
Jeremy_Hall              3
Jeroen_Kimmel            32
Jeroen_Koops             20
JFK_Digi                 10
Jim_Baguley/SolarSoft    3
Jim_Cuomo                4
JITT_1.x                 3
John_Hancock             3
John_Player              162
KB/TOM                   5
Keith_Wood               4
KingFisher_Digi          4
Kosa_Protracker_V1       10
Kosa_Protracker_V2       3
Kris_Hatlelid            9
Kyle_Johnson             3
Lars_Haard               4
LFT                      13
Loadstar_SongSmith       16
LordsOfSonics/MS         459
Madhacker_Digi           3
Maduplec                 26
Marco_Scheepers          5
Mario_Kriwanek           5
Mark_Clements            12
Mark_Cooksey             37
Mark_Cooksey/Neil_Bate   5
Mark_Tait                28
Mark_Wilson              45
Martijn_Schutten         8
Martin_Galway            50
Martin_Galway_Digi       3
Martin_Walker            16
Martin_Wheeler           2
Master_Composer          569
Mat/MDA                  7
Symphonica/MDA           2
Mat/MDA_digi             11
Matt_Furniss             6
Matt_Gray                34
Matthias_Weber           7
Mcee_digi                6
Megastyle                3
Michael_Delaney          14
Michael_Winterberg       91
Microtracker             2
Micropearl/Fitzpatrick   18
Mike/LSD                 27
MiniMusic/Gentlemen      9
Mixer                    7
MoN/Bjerregaard          117
MoN/Deenen               113
MoN/FutureComposer       3352
(MoN/Deenen_Digi)        1
Music_Assembler          5621
Music_Works              3
MusicShop                88
Neil_Baldwin             11
Neil_Brennan             28
Neil_Crossley            6
Network                  6
Nick_Jones               3
Nigel_Grieve             7
NinjaTracker_V1.x        17
NinjaTracker_V2.x        18
NordicBeat_Editor        37
OdinTracker              148
Oeyvind_Jergan           8
Olav_Moerkrid            32
OmegaSupreme_digi        9
Oliver_Buettner          2
Oliver_Kirwa             3
Oliver_Klaewer           9
Ozzy_Oldschool_V1        7
Ozzy_Oldschool_V2        4
Paradroid/Lameplayer     21
Patrick_Payne            2
Paul_Butler              8
Paul_Hughes              40
Paul_Norman/Cosmi        10
Peter_Liepa              2
Peter_Thierolf           2
PollyTracker             62
Power_Music              33
Prophet64                4
Mssiah                   7
Prosonix                 98
PVL/Rhythmic_Lunatics    33
Rabbi                    14
Rabbi/Playstar_V2.0      1
Radarsoft                18
Randy_Glover             2
Rastelin/Bones           3
Reflextracker            133
Reiter_Digi              8
Richard_Joseph           9
RiffQuick                12
Rob_Hubbard              269
(Rob_Hubbard_Digi)       1
Roel_Bosch               20
Roland_Hermans           53
Rolf/Shape               7
RoMuzak_V6.x             484
RoMuzak_V7.x             20
Rule3_Digi_2             2
Russel_Lieblich          11
Ryo_Kawasaki             25
SadoTracker              21
Sanyo_digi               4
Shaun_Southern           5
SidFactory/Laxity        22
Sidplayer64              18
SidWinder                99
SkylineTech/Badger       27
SkylineTech/Boogaloo     13
Slaygon                  20
SoedeSoft                822
SoftwareAutomaticMouth   4
Soft_Tune_Composer       1
Song_Writer              7
Sonic_Graffiti           30
Sosperec                 80
Soundbooster             34
SounDemon                7
SoundMaker_V3/UA         22
SoundMaker_V4/Arne       44
SoundMonitor             2746
SoundWriter_2.0          8
Sound-Tracker_64         16
Stephan/Bytemare         20
Magic_Man/Crazy          3
Stephen_Biggs            7
Stephen_Legg             6
Stephen_Ruddy            35
Steve_Bak                5
Steve_Barret             25
Steve_Day_Digi           2
Steve_Rowlands           12
Steve_Turner             7
Steven_Baumrucker        3
Stuart_Taylor            11
SynC                     89
System6581               63
Tamas_Revbiro            2
TBB/SideB                47
TFMX                     20
TFMX/MasterComposer      5
TFMX/TimeComposer        12
TFX                      230
TIC/Artworx              3
TheTracker/Hitmen        1
Toaster_Digi             12
Tom_Snyder               3
Tonal_Kaos               7
Toni_Luode               29
Torpex                   3
TrackPlayer_V3.0         22
Trident/Active           58
Tim_Gibson               2
Tiny/Sound_Images        19
Twynn                    5
Ubik's_Music             256
Ultimate                 5
US_Gold/Novaload         14
Uzzy/Entropy             13
Van_Styer_Digi           6
Vibrants/Laxity          194
Vibrants/JO              109
Volker_Struebing         17
Wally_Beben/Ariston      38
Walt/Bonzai              99
Walt_Digi_1              6
Walt_Digi_2              5
WizPlayer_1.0            1
WizPlayer_2.0            4
Wyndex/ISEQ              3
Wyndex/Blahtune          10
Yip_Megasound            72
Zardax/SoundKiller       40
Zardax                   67
Zod_Digi                 4
Zyborg                   9
?Unknown_1               8
?Unknown_2               3
?Unknown_3               2
?Unknown_Kane            2
?Jim_Andron              2
?Bob_Vieira/Epyx         9
?Summergames/Epyx        1
?Epyx_3                  6
?Infogrames              3
?Edge                    2
?Howard_Boles            8
?Unknown_digi_1          2
?Unknown_digi_2          2
?ArgusPress              3
?MSB                     8
?Alligata/Quicksilva     8
?Lieblich&Evans          3
?Source                  2
?Paul_Hodgson            8
?US_Gold_90              2
?Russel_Lieblich_2       3
?Jim_Simmons/Capcom      7
?1001                    2
?Dataapan                2
?Tork/Pulsar             2
?Song9                   20
?Hoernell/Players        9
?CBS                     3
?Lieblich&Grigg          3
?Macsen                  2
Digi-Organizer           28

Last edited by 4mat (Dec 31, 2014 2:50 pm)