Hermit (Mihaly Horvath)
Hungarian C64 developer, author of sid-wizard and its add-ons (SID-Maker, SWMconvert, sng2swm), and of the SID-Wizard user manual (1.8 edition dated 2018). Website: hermit.sidrip.com (source: s-sid-wizard-manual).
From the manual's credits#
The 1.8 manual thanks: Witchmaster (ebook, testing), Akaobi (Japanese manual), Necropolo, Chabee and Vincenzo (testing, tunes), Spider, Toggle, Adam and Triton (tunes, testing), cOzmo and Uctumi (example tunes), Gaetano Chiummo (2SID and 3SID examples), Unreal (original box art), Leon (splash logos for 1.2 and 1.4), Soci (code help), Ant1 (an online tutorial for newbies), T.L.R (tests, ideas), Conrad (base of sng2swm), Gartenzwerg (NameSoft MIDI), Ian Coog (timing and SID-format hints).
Co-author of the SID-Wizard book#
Creating Chiptunes with SID-Wizard (2nd edition, 2014) is credited to witchmaster "and Mihaly Horvath (Hermit)": chapters 1.1–1.2 and several reference chapters are his manual text, and he answered the author's questions by mail. His own words on the 1st-frame waveform: reset the oscillators with $09 "and get a short 'sexy' start of the sound". He also designed HerMIDI, a MIDI interface on the C64 serial port (build files in the SID-Wizard package, CSDb release 129030), and lists his inspirations as GoatTracker, SDI, X-SID, SID-Factory, JCH Editor, DMC and Hardtrack Composer (source: s-witchmaster-creating-chiptunes-with-sid-wizard).
How users see SID-Wizard#
MeneerJansen on Lemon64 (2020–21) on SID-Wizard 1.8: it "might be one of the most complicated ones for the C64 I've ever seen. It's like a DAW"; "Very complicated but brilliantly designed program!" (sources: s-lemon64-learning-sid-sound-design, s-lemon64-sid-wizard-instrument-recommendations).
Sources released#
SID-Wizard's player source (6502) and formats are documented and WTF-licensed; duet reimplements the 1.97 player from them and verifies register writes against the original (source: s-duet-readme).
The 2008 3SID tracker (SIDin interview)#
Four years before SID-Wizard, Tognon interviewed him about "a tracker that can control 3 sid chips" (source: s-sidin12-hermit-interview):
- Then 25, a Hungarian communications technician working as a telecommunication operator, bass player and singer in a band; a C64 at 14, BASIC and machine-code programs and the "Mirage" music collections until 2000, then Fasttracker and SONAR on PC, until "after 5 years I bought back my first C64 to compose my music with it" — first the HMT-SYNTH, then the tracker; eight C64s in 2008.
- Motive: three tracks were too few for his live music, the only 2SID editors were DMC 4.3 (awkward switching between SIDs) and Prophet64 (only a demo without sequencer), and "double framespeed was important too" — so an all-in-one 3SID composer with multispeed, started in January 2008 and finished "in only 4 months"; usable as 1SID/2SID by leaving tracks empty, with specialised versions planned.
- Inspirations: "Cybertracker, Odintracker, DMC and JCH's editor" (JCH) — compare the list he gave the SID-Wizard book six years later; his own inventions: separate play and edit cursors, one screen, advanced play/stop, pattern-play and loop-play modes.
- Develops on the real machine with cartridge and floppy, vice only when away from it: "SID emulation isn't as fully good as the real. Analogue filter is important, the other important is the note-frequency dependent samplerate"; owns a 3×8580 and a 2×6581 machine and prefers the 8580; best own tune then Earmind; favourite composer jeroen-tel, whose tunes he live-remixes with his band.
To verify#
- Resolved, the emulation half: cRSID is his — the DUET research notes list "Hermit's C64+SID emulation, plain C, WTF license" as
libcRSID, integer-only and usable as a reference renderer (source: s-duet-research-sidwizard). - (unverified) That he has released SID-Wizard tunes in the demoscene under this handle. No ingested source names a release.
The 3SID tracker of 2008#
Before SID-Wizard, sidin #12 (2008-05-24) reported that "Hermit Soft releases in May 2008 a new tracker that can handle 3 sid chips" — driving SIDs at $D400, $DE00 and $DF00 "(yet)" for "9 polyphony, 3 filters. (no need arpeggio to have chords)", in "a modern fasttracker-like editor" with separate edit and play cursors and loop-play on F7 (CSDb release 66065). The news does not say how it relates to the later sid-wizard (source: s-sidin-news-digest).
Related#
sid-wizard · sid · commodore-64
Sources#
s-sid-wizard-manual · s-witchmaster-creating-chiptunes-with-sid-wizard · s-lemon64-learning-sid-sound-design · s-lemon64-sid-wizard-instrument-recommendations · s-sidin12-hermit-interview · s-sidin-news-digest · s-duet-research-sidwizard