#drums
- Channel interleaving (one channel, two jobs) techniqueWhen channels are scarce, interleave: bass note on every even 16th, melody notes on the odd ones. Played fast, the ear separates them into two lines — a bassline and a lead — from a single channel. The same idea works …
- Instrument design beats note count techniqueA lot of "chiptune magic" is in the instrument, not the pattern: a fast pitch drop at note start makes a kick out of any voice; a couple of frames of noise before a tone makes a snare or a pluck; a tiny downward pitch …
- Multisampling and drum-kit instruments techniqueOne sample cannot cover a keyboard: transposed more than a few semitones it sounds artificial — ±7 at the very most, often only ±1 (source: s-tw084-perfect-samples-the-piano ) . Multisampling records several keys and …
- Randomization and probability (MayBe, RandomiZe) techniqueLetting the tracker decide: notes that play only sometimes, table hops that happen with a probability, and command values with a random offset. Cheap variation for hi-hats, fills and long loops — every pass sounds …
- Retrigger and resync techniqueRe-playing the current note at a fixed tick rate without new note rows: drum rolls, ratchets, stutters, and — with a falling volume — a one-channel echo. "Resync" restarts the sound generator itself at a very high rate, …
- Reverb and compression (offline, in the sample editor) techniqueA tracker mixes samples dry. Room, depth and punch therefore have to be baked into the samples beforehand in a sample editor (Airon's examples are Cool Edit and Sound Forge), or faked inside the tracker with extra …
- Wavetable programming (waveform / arp tables) techniqueChanging a voice's waveform (and pitch) every frame from a table — the way C64 instruments get their attack transients, percussion and arpeggios. A couple of frames of noise before a tone makes a snare or a pluck; a …
- Commando (C64, 1985) songrob-hubbard 's soundtrack for Elite's Commando — Newman's worked example of multiplexing on three voices. Channel 1 carries the lead melody and noise/tom hits, channel 2 the arpeggiated chord backing and ring-modulated …
- Sanxion (C64, 1986) songrob-hubbard 's music for Thalamus' Sanxion . Newman's example of a noise transient on a pitched instrument : channel 3's pulse-wave bass "is augmented with digital noise in its attack", so a 16th-note bassline "appears …
- chipmusic.org — Noise snare / Complete Drum Kit on Noise Channel threads (2014) summaryTwo chipmusic-org threads from late 2014 on making drums in lsdj 's noise channel alone, with concrete instrument settings and tables from several members, and the recurring advice that drums are best spread over …
- Defense Mechanism — LSDj Noise Channel Tutorial (v9.2.L) (video, 2022) summaryWritten because the noise channel was rebuilt in 9.1.0 and the standard reference no longer applied: "there's a tutorial by Bowie Meets Robot about the noise channel for version four and it's really good … but it …
- Defense Mechanism — Making every LSDJ kick I can think of (video, 2024) summaryA compendium: every kick he can build, one per channel and per method, on LSDj 9.4.0 — the newest version any source in this wiki uses. The project file is offered in the video description.
- Getting started with LSDj with Infu (course) summaryA single-page beginner course in fourteen sections by infu (CC BY-NC 4.0): setup and emulators, the sequencer, the ENV envelope, commands, three noise drums, a snare table, a wave kick and bass, the synth screen, and …
- GitHub realdmx/c64_6581_sid_players — Cybernoid II in Deenen's MUSICFILE, the MoN SFX player, the Driller listing summaryA GitHub collection of "original and reverse-engineered music players for the C64", converted to the ACME assembler so that "every assembly file should produce a .sid file". Its Tel_Jeroen_MON/Tel_Jeroen_Cybernoid2.asm …
- Intense Tech #10 — Get your Kicks with Version 6, Part 1 (Defense Mechanism) summaryWave-channel kicks in lsdj 6, expanding a video tutorial: why the wave channel, the new P/L/V instrument setting and its DRUM mode, a robust kick table, the "Kyoto kick" attack, and two ways to go from kick to bass. A …
- Intense Tech #11 — Kicks Part 2: Kick Heaven in Version 7 (Defense Mechanism) summaryThe second kick lesson of intense-tech : what lsdj 7 changed for DRUM pitch, wave snares, drums on the pulse channels, the PU1 hardware sweep, noise kicks and layering channels ( defense-mechanism ).
- Intense Tech #17 — The Joys of Noise (Defense Mechanism) summaryA deep dive into lsdj 's noise channel by defense-mechanism ( intense-tech ): how the shape byte maps onto the LFSR's octave and divisor, short-loop versus long-loop mode, how S , P , C and transposes act on shapes, the …
- Intense Tech #18 — ADSR Makes Life Easier! (Defense Mechanism) summarydefense-mechanism on the pulse/noise ADSR that lsdj 8.1.0 introduced and the switch from hardware to software volume in 8.8.0: how the stages are written, how the speeds compare, instant decays, percussion transients …
- Matt Gray's Dominator subtune 6 source (PLAYER V4.2, 1987) and the Reformation driver competition summaryThe only C64 driver in the wiki published by its author: matt-gray 's own 6502 source for one dominator subtune, released under Creative Commons on 2014-11-26 as a gift to SID composers and the basis of a composing …
- Pain Perdu — Hidden LSDJ Tricks EP3: \"Isometric\" save-file walkthrough (video, 2016) summaryOne song taken apart screen by screen — his lsdj cover of Madeon's Isometric , used as a live opener. The framing is worth keeping: "when you have covers you don't have to focus on actual composition, you have to focus …
- realdmx: Charles Deenen's two test tunes — an undated MUSICFILE build and the 'Scoop designs' Maniacs of Noise player summaryTwo of charles-deenen 's own sources in the realdmx collection ( s-realdmx-sid-players ). Test Tune is the musicfile code base — the same routines, labels and table formats as the Cybernoid II file, in a slightly …
- realdmx: Johannes Bjerregaard's own player — the James Bond 3 demo (a Maniacs of Noise commission) and Myth summaryTwo of johannes-bjerregaard 's own Turbo Assembler sources from 1989, in the realdmx collection ( s-realdmx-sid-players ) under Bjerregaard_Johannes_MON — but the player is his, not charles-deenen 's musicfile : nothing …
- realdmx: Jonathan Dunn's Daley Thompson '88 and Ocean Loader 5 in Paul Hughes's Ocean music driver summaryTwo original Ocean Software sources from 1988 — not reverse-engineered — in the realdmx collection ( s-realdmx-sid-players ): the Daley Thompson '88 soundtrack (six tunes) and the loader tune HVSC calls Ocean Loader 5 , …
- realdmx: Reyn Ouwehand's Armada (MUSICFILE, 'Special version for Reyn Ouwehand', 1989) and Dutch Breeze (the 1990 MoN player) summaryTwo original Turbo Assembler sources of reyn-ouwehand 's in the realdmx collection ( s-realdmx-sid-players ). Armada (1989) is charles-deenen 's musicfile — the Cybernoid II code with a longer banner: "Scoop Designs …
- realdmx: Rob Hubbard's driver — McSweeney's Monty on the Run disassembly and the Commando title summaryTwo files from the realdmx collection ( s-realdmx-sid-players ) hold the 6502 driver rob-hubbard used, per the header, "(with small modifications) for his first approx. 30 tunes": Anthony McSweeney's commented …
- realdmx: three smaller drivers — Fred Gray's Mutants (song as code), Jeroen Kimmel's 'Red's music player' (1989) and David Whittaker's Panther driver summaryThe remaining three players of the realdmx collection ( s-realdmx-sid-players ), each a different answer to the same problem. fred-gray 's Mutants is not a sequencer at all but a song written as code — 26 hand-written …
- realdmx: two scene players with their own sources — Francois Prijt's Audial Arts 'zong player' v1/v2 (1991) and Adam Bulka's FAME 'Sound Routine f 4.1.0' (1988) summaryThree original Turbo Assembler sources in the realdmx collection ( s-realdmx-sid-players ) from the demoscene rather than the games industry: Francois Prijt's "zong player" for the Dutch group Audial Arts (two versions, …
- RVG Interviews: Matt Gray (2016) summaryA forum-sourced interview whose value is one answer on technique: matt-gray on the "note or chord plex", pulse-width sweeps on chords, drums by waveform switching, and the fact that "even putting a vibrato on a sound …
- Sabrepulse — Getting started with LSDJ tutorial (mirror at Adventure Kid) summaryA beginner's walkthrough of lsdj by sabrepulse that builds one small song — bass, lead, kick, snare and hats — screen by screen. Adventure Kid mirrored it because the original "seems like it is falling off the …
- SIDin #14 — Inside Matt Gray's Dominator player (Tognon's commented PLAYER V4.2 and the musician's guide to composing in it, 2015) summaryWritten for the Reformation driver competition ( s-matt-gray-dominator-source ): Tognon takes matt-gray 's released dom6-public.asm , comments every line, explains 64tass syntax to non-programmers, walks through the …
- The SID Homepage — Interviews with Rob Hubbard (Commodore Zone, Happy Computer 7/86) summaryTwo interviews with rob-hubbard reprinted on the sid-homepage : a commodore-zone question-and-answer by Waz and Kenz (answered "within 24 hours", from Electronic Arts, about 1997) and a short Happy Computer interview …
- TW #118 — Reverb and Compression (Airon) summaryAn "info-for-trackers" tutorial on the two studio effects a tracker can only apply offline , in a sample editor (Cool Edit and Sound Forge are the examples): what the parameters mean, numbers for a small club, …
- TW #15 — Advanced Tracking Tips II (Necros) summarynecros adapts Jim Aikin's "Demo Tape Workshop" (Keyboard, June 1995) to tracked music: six lessons on structure, dynamics, melody, drums, harmony and samples.
- TW #87–#97 — Music Theory: A Modern Approach (The Modsquad, seven parts) summaryThis is satire , the sequel to the chiptune "seminar" of #77–#81 ( s-tw077-chip-off-the-block ): fake gear lists ("$450 TB-202", a Speak & Spell), "musical DNA", Elvis, juggling raves, a prison inmate given …
- TW #94 — Stereo Samples with Impulse Tracker (Zinc) summaryWhy and how zinc uses stereo samples instead of panned mono ones.
- uCApps MIDIbox SID — Wavetable Sounds Tutorial #1 (Thorsten Klose) summaryThorsten Klose's tutorial for the MIDIbox SID (a DIY MIDI synthesizer built around real SID chips) shows how to take a drum sound out of a SID tune and rebuild it as a "wavetable" — in the C64 sense of the word: "a …