chipmusic.org — C64 Music for Dummies (ant1's SID-Wizard 1.0 tutorial, 2012)

A forum tutorial that takes a complete beginner from starting sid-wizard 1.0 (released 2012, on SourceForge) to an exported .sid, by making three instruments, a pattern, an orderlist and a SID-Maker export; updated the following week with "corrections and suggestions from Hermit (creator of SID-Wizard, and a very friendly guy) himself". Jellica: "lots of good info that can be applied to almost any c64 tracker".

Key claims#

• Setup: SID-Wizard was chosen because "it runs on a real C64 … (for everyone else there is VICE)" and has "the right mix of ease-of-use and power"; needs hexadecimal, basic synth terms, a C64 or vice; .d64 (with c1541 to extract files) or .prg (files save as .P00, exports as .S00, converted by SWMconvert — "runs on Windows or GNU+linux"); the manual is on CSDb.
• Three screens: pattern editor F5 (three columns = three SID channels; Tab in VICE / CONTROL on the C64 switches columns), instrument editor F7 (sections: main settings, WFARP, PULSE, FILT.), orderlist F6 (Shift+F5).
• Instruments: default ADSR 00F0 (instant on, full sustain, instant off — "no dynamics"); older versions needed the HRTY setting 2 (a square symbol) so the gate resets between notes — newer versions do not. WFARP rows are WW AA: first digit waveform 1 triangle, 2 saw, 4 pulse, 8 noise (add to combine, e.g. 3, 7), second digit control — 1 gate on, 3 sync + gate, 5 ring + gate, 7 all; AA = semitones up (0C = an octave); each table row lasts "a 50th of a second (or a 60th in NTSC-land)"; FE xx loops a table (also to itself). Absolute pitches 81–DF in the arp column (a kick attack that stays fixed followed by relative bass rows), downward shifts E0–FF ("100 − the value"), the green DT column detunes (01 slight … FF a lot). Pulse table: 8x xx sets the width — 80 10 "very thin", 88 .. square — and instruments with the pulse waveform are silent without a row here; 01–7F xx sweeps (time, then speed/direction — FF slow down, 81 fast down); the purple KT column is key tracking. Filter table: 9F 30 = mode 9 low-pass, resonance F, cutoff 30; modes 8 off, 9 LP, A BP, B LP+BP, C HP, D LP+HP, E BP+HP, F all; SID-Wizard filters the channels whose instruments have a filter table, a blank row (.. ..) makes an instrument "filtered, but not control the filter".
• Patterns and orderlist: note keys zsxdcvgbhnmq2w3er5t6yu ("two piano keyboards, one above the other"), Ctrl/C= + 1–8 = octave, RETURN = note-off, space toggles edit mode ("if you want to avoid adding all these notes while you are testing instruments"), instrument number in the second sub-column only where it changes; F1 play, F4 (Shift+F3) stop, F3 play the shown patterns; copy/cut Ctrl-C/Ctrl-X from the cursor, Shift-C marks the end, Ctrl-V pastes. Orderlist rows start .1 FE, .2 FE, .3 FE; insert a column, type 04 05 06, select a number and press RETURN to open the new pattern; FE stops, FF (optionally FF xx) loops — per channel, so put it on all three; B0–FD sets a track tempo; pattern effect 10xx sets the tempo in frames per row (default 08, "the tempo will not effect the speed of instrument tables").
• Saving and export: F8 menu; in 1.0 "you cannot overwrite files … you will lose any changes" — save new versions under new names and delete old ones with c1541; SID-Maker (load from the .d64 after a hard reset) → SID/SEQ, keep the relocation address, pick the SID model, name the file; extract with c1541 image.d64 → extract; from the .prg version convert the .S00 with SWMconvert.
• VICE: SID engine/model in Settings > SID Settings; "the 6581 from the original 'breadbox' C64s, and early versions of the C64C, and the 8580 chip from the later C64Cs"; each 6581 behaves uniquely, the 8580s "will sound almost the same"; the 6581 filter reaches lower cutoffs and distorts more; "most people seem to prefer the 6581"; engines FastSID (fastest, least accurate) < ReSID < reSID-fp (most accurate, most CPU) — 4mat: reSID-fp for "filter distortion, compression, general ADSR accuracy"; HardSID/Catweasel if owned; keep aspect ratio for full screen; VICE swaps the +/- keys used to select instruments.
• Replies: ant1 "abandoned gt2 since i found this"; iLKke links WitchMaster's book (CSDb 112754/112755); rumpelfilter (2014) asks for "a cheat sheet of some sorts for all the commands and codes"; gotoandplay's exported .sid detuned some arpeggios until a "noob arp error" was fixed; questions about SD2IEC use and 1.7 save problems on a C64C with a SwinSID (2014, 2016) got no answer.

Practical takeaways#

Three beginner instruments with exact values — saw lead (00F0, 21 ..), octave-flick (21 0C / 21 ..), pulse kick (0800; 41 30 / 41 20 / 41 10 / 41 0C / 41 ..; pulse 88 ..; play in octave 1), hi-hat (0400 closed / 0800 open, 81 .., optionally a pitch in the arp digits) — and the workflow order: instruments → pattern → orderlist → save under a new name → SID-Maker.

Notable quotes#

"Each row of the tables in a C64 tracker lasts for a 50th of a second (or a 60th in NTSC-land). By using multiple rows in the tables, we can make complex instruments."

Relevance#

The first non-manual source for sid-wizard's early versions and a beginner's path through instrument-design on the SID; VICE engine advice for vice; the 6581/8580 split in a musician's words for sid.

Pages touched#

sid-wizard · vice · instrument-design · tracking-workflow · sid · filter-programming · pulse-width-modulation · ring-modulation-and-sync · instrument-tables · orderlist · sid-format