A few questions:
I'm looking to start doing C64 tracks, and I was wondering what the consensus was in terms of the best tracker?
And also, if I were to get a modded C64, who's the best person to get it from?
Thanks!
-Sam
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United States
On the modern computers there's goattracker. Sid wizard is for native C64 and looks a lot like goattracker.
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South Korea
There is also Deflemask, which might be a bit easier to learn than goattracker.
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Buenos Aires, Argentina
DeerPresident wrote:
There is also Deflemask, which might be a bit easier to learn than goattracker.
Defle! 
Btw, get the pre-v11.1 that is available here. It has a new UI and more news.
Last edited by Delek (Jan 29, 2016 5:06 pm)
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United States
I think a little easier one to understand that's also native for the C64 is cybertracker I tried it on an emulator a couple years back.
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England
i would sincerely recommend trying an emulator/goattracker before forking out for hardware.
why do you need a modded c64? you probably dont need one for general tracker use
i use goat tracker on pc (if you do decided to use GT, drop us a PM or an email, i can share files, saved instruments for learning, even if they are all for 2 sids and silly x16 multispeed)
there is a nice tutorial here:
http://csdb.dk/release/?id=81146
and here for sidwizard:
http://chipmusic.org/forums/topic/8104/ … -tutorial/
john player is nice and simple, but limited by its lack of pattern options.
cybertracker does have a nice graphical interface and clear menus, but i think that this is again at the expense of pattern options.
Last edited by Jellica (Jan 29, 2016 6:10 pm)
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People usually get tripped up by the hex bytes, but in all honesty it is the best way of doing it. Most c64 editors are designed to have a small footprint as their output is used in other products (unlike, say, LSDJ) so being able to store more information in the same byte is pretty handy. Same with the SID iteself where the registers share information. Once you get your head around hex it becomes second nature to decode them, it also makes calculation a lot easier in general. (for example with the oscillator selection : $10 = triangle , $04 = ring modulation . If you want a triangle wave with ring modulation just write $14 
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France
The new Deflemask UI is really great!
Deflemask is rather easy to use, that's true. It's also multiplatform (like goattracker).
Cybertracker looks quite easy to use, I'll give it a try. At the moment, my favorite is sidwizard, the interface is great and it's rather intuitive.
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Matej wrote:
I use SID Wizard 3SID...
How do you do that?
Do you got some kind of devices for putting SID-chips in?
I recall they dont manufacture hardsid4u.
d.
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Denmark
As quite a belated comment, I recommend CheeseCutter. It's low-level with three tracker columns and relies on hexadecimal input like the old C64 editors back in the day, yet runs on new operating systems in a window. It uses reSID for emulation which is close to the real thing. Both CPU and memory usage is very sensible, and you can save to SID and PRG for use in other SID players and by C64 programmers.
http://theyamo.kapsi.fi/ccutter/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/529257460474557/
Because of the low-level editing style it can have a daunting learning curve, but there are some nice video tutorials here to help you get going:
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Mexico
I was having the same question too. I will try all the emulation first before going with the hardware. What kind of laptop do you think it will perfom well with this? I mean a really OLD laptop . maybe reusing the case of a C64 to fit a laptop and it would be super cool.
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edit: sorry misread the question, this answer is about the emulators rather than Cheesecutter.
4mat wrote:
I've run the Vice emulator on an Intel Atom powered netbook from 2009, I think it was even alright with resid-FP enabled to an extent (the really accurate SID emulation) but you can fall back to fast SID which would be fine. Really depends how old a laptop you want to go with, there are the emulators we used in the '90s like CCS64 which runs fine on old Pentiums. But SID emulation has had the most improvements in the last few years really and with that has come a big leap in processor requirements, so I guess it depends how accurate you want to go. Vice's resid-FP is incredibly accurate these days.
The really super old DOS emulators like C64S aren't really recommended because the sound emulation isn't very close to how the hardware behaves, though of course it was fine for the time. (and fast.. you could run that on 486s) Some of them don't even emulate the filters so you'd be missing out on a very important part of the sound.
Last edited by 4mat (Feb 24, 2017 9:43 pm)
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Taichung, Taiwan
If you are using original hardware, I suggest you either make your own power supply or rig a Commodore 128 power supply with a C64 power plug (DIN plug).
Once the C64 power supply goes bad, it will fry your C64.
Last edited by katsumbhong (Feb 25, 2017 3:50 am)