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For many (myself included) the Commodore 64 was ‘the’ greatest home computer ever. Upon release in 1982, it cost almost twice as much its direct rival the ZX Spectrum and wasn’t quite as popular because of it. But at the end of the day, you got what you paid for.
The sound chip in particular, the “SID” 6581, was a class above any other home computer at the time. With 3 channels, 4 waveforms, low pass filter etc it was joy to hear.
Musicians and Programmers soon began to harness the power of the chip and started to make it sing whilst the Spectrum was still popping, farting and beeping through its internal speaker. (not biased at all am I?)
The music on the C64 became that good, that the musicians creating it became almost as, if not more famous than the programmers creating the games. Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway and Jeroen Tel became popular figures after creating the music for games such as ‘Thing on a Spring’, ‘Monty on the Run’, ‘Wizball’, ‘Parallax’, ‘Cybernoid’ and ‘Hawkeye’.
Since the demise of the C64 there has been particular effort put into cataloging all the music ever released on the machine, be that from commercial games or demos by old skool hackers and crackers. The project in question is called “High Voltage SID Collection (HVSC)”, which has now accumulated and cataloged over 42,000 C64 SID tracks since its inception 15 years ago.
High Voltage SID Collection Website
Over the years, there have been a plethora of “SID Players” and “SID emulators” for virtually every machine with the Windows and OSX versions obviously being the most popular downloads. Hell, I still fire it up on my PC from time to time for a little reminiscing.
The great news is that there is an Android version of “SID Player” and it can be found in Play Store for FREE.
SID Player on Google Play
Its quite a simple affair (search and play), but it does contain all 42,000 tracks from the HVSC mentioned above. Because of this its a 55MB download and uses the same amount on your phone/device when installed.
While we are on this C64 nostalgia trip, it would be silly not to mention probably the best Commodore 64 website; Lemon64.
Lemon 64 Website
My favourite C64 tracks? Tough one, how about the following 5 for starters.
If you want some other inspiration where to start, here’s arguably the “Top 100”: The HVSC Top 100 List
How about you? What are your C64 favourites, recommendations and memories?
Click here to view the item
The sound chip in particular, the “SID” 6581, was a class above any other home computer at the time. With 3 channels, 4 waveforms, low pass filter etc it was joy to hear.
Musicians and Programmers soon began to harness the power of the chip and started to make it sing whilst the Spectrum was still popping, farting and beeping through its internal speaker. (not biased at all am I?)
The music on the C64 became that good, that the musicians creating it became almost as, if not more famous than the programmers creating the games. Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway and Jeroen Tel became popular figures after creating the music for games such as ‘Thing on a Spring’, ‘Monty on the Run’, ‘Wizball’, ‘Parallax’, ‘Cybernoid’ and ‘Hawkeye’.
Since the demise of the C64 there has been particular effort put into cataloging all the music ever released on the machine, be that from commercial games or demos by old skool hackers and crackers. The project in question is called “High Voltage SID Collection (HVSC)”, which has now accumulated and cataloged over 42,000 C64 SID tracks since its inception 15 years ago.
High Voltage SID Collection Website
Over the years, there have been a plethora of “SID Players” and “SID emulators” for virtually every machine with the Windows and OSX versions obviously being the most popular downloads. Hell, I still fire it up on my PC from time to time for a little reminiscing.
The great news is that there is an Android version of “SID Player” and it can be found in Play Store for FREE.
SID Player on Google Play
Its quite a simple affair (search and play), but it does contain all 42,000 tracks from the HVSC mentioned above. Because of this its a 55MB download and uses the same amount on your phone/device when installed.
While we are on this C64 nostalgia trip, it would be silly not to mention probably the best Commodore 64 website; Lemon64.
Lemon 64 Website
My favourite C64 tracks? Tough one, how about the following 5 for starters.
- Rob Hubbard: ‘Thing on a Spring’ and ‘Commando’
- Martin Galway: ‘Wizball’
- Matt Gray: ‘Last Ninja 2’
- Jonathan Dunn: ‘Platoon’
If you want some other inspiration where to start, here’s arguably the “Top 100”: The HVSC Top 100 List
How about you? What are your C64 favourites, recommendations and memories?
Click here to view the item
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