Over the course of this year together with streamer friend Jacob's motivation (and occasional lending of his voice) I put together these tunes, some original and some renditions of beloved favourites from over the years, using only the Commodore 64's SID sound chip and modest use of effects.

It's been fun working within the limitations of this dusty old microcomptuer that is older than me (and something I once despised being 'stuck' with for way too many years past it's expiry) and I'm excited to share them in a nice neat little EP package. 

In some ways it's been one of the most roughest years of my life, and in others, one of acceptance, gratitude and even humility. I like to think those emotions are reflected in these tunes and hope you get a giggle at the very least out of them!

Some further technical info:
Multiple instances of the 6581 and 8580. Each given their 3 voices and filter per track to express their extensive, panoramic and digital-analogue-hybrid glory.

The resonant filter sounds are from the later 8580 SID chips that were indeed capable of such things, but rarely used in any games, as each SID chip often sounded wildly different from the one another, making the filter considered too unpredictable for production use.

On paper the SID chip is a very capable paraphonic synthesizer, and I wanted to see how far I could push it with the small amount of knowledge I have gained over the years about synthesis in general. It's nice to prove that the SID is capable of these sounds, but you could argue some of what makes the SID unique (brain-scrambling arpeggiated chords, constant swapping of waveforms, drum sounds overriding melodies and forfeited amp envelopes to squeeze every bit of polyphony out of the 3 voices) are not present in these tunes. Making music within those limitations is a skill in itself and I hope to be able to make something within those boundaries one day!

Time Is Up.

Fun remakes and remixes of retro games as inspired by my favorite streamers. Tunes marked (SID) were made using the Commodore 64's SID chip - usually multiple instances and effects.

Time Is Up.

DragonAudio