SIDin #12 — Mihály Horváth (Hermit) interview (Stefano Tognon, 2008)

hermit four years before sid-wizard: Tognon interviews him about "a tracker that can control 3 sid chips", written on a real commodore-64 between January and May 2008. The interview gives his real name, age and job, why he wanted three SIDs and double framespeed, which editors inspired him, and his opinions on emulation, the two chip revisions and the composers he admires.

Key claims#

• "My real name is Mihály Horváth, I'm a 25 years old hungarian": electrical qualifications from secondary school, a communications technician working as a telecommunication operator; plays bass guitar and sings in a band; listens to SID music, Seal, Sting, Michael Jackson and jazz.
• C64 at 14 (a friend's machine with a datasette, while his school taught on 386s); BASIC programs including a Ghostbusters game and utilities in 1997, then machine code; until 2000 "many other user programmes, games, music collections (Mirage I,II,III)" and an unfinished Mortal Kombat. He sold the C64 when he got a 386, made music in Fasttracker and later in SONAR with VSTs and recorded instruments on a P4, "but had always problems wit Wi...ws. So after 5 years I bought back my first C64 to compose my music with it. Started to write the HMT-SYNTH, then the TRACKER". In 2008 he owns eight C64s.
• Develops on the real machine "with cartridge and floppy-drive", using vice only when no C64 is at hand.
• Why a 3SID tracker: three tracks were too few for his live music; the only 2SID editors he found were "DMC 4.3 and Prophet64" — DMC "wasn't easy to make 2SID zaks, because of switching between SIDs", Prophet64 he only had as a free demo without the sequencer — "And double framespeed was important too for me. So I decided to write a composer that's all in one for these desires. 3SID was the main new idea … I started it in Januray this year, finished this version in only 4 months." (multispeed)
• Inspirations: his Fasttracker years made him prefer trackers; "Cybertracker, Odintracker, DMC and JCH's editor were the trackers that inspired me" (JCH); his own additions: "separate cursors for play and edit, all in one screen, advanced play-stop functions, pattern-play mode, loop-play mode".
• 1SID/2SID use: possible now "as in Cybertracker, but not specialized. Only leave the other SID-tracks empty"; specialised 1SID and 2SID versions are planned "as the fixed new version will be ready with new functions".
• Other projects: to stop using the PC he runs 64HDD, wants a network card to write e-mail from the C64, follows the Commodore One; his current work is the "Hermit C64 Commander (HC)" file manager for 64HDD, 1541 and later pen drives, "as the Star Commander".
• Emulation: "Vice is a very good emulator, but SID emulation isn't as fully good as the real. Analogue filter is important, the other important is the note-frequency dependent samplerate of the SID (44100 Hz is weak for pure analogue)."
• 6581 vs 8580 (sid): he owns a new machine with three 8580s and an old one with two 6581s; "the 8580 is more accurate, but 6581 has good bass-filter behavior for older compositions. I prefer 8580."
• Own tunes: early ones made with "Light Voices" in the Mirage collections were "very weakly composed"; "Today with my tracker I last composed the Earmind, which is my best SIDmusic now. But I have to train myself on SID a lot."
• Favourites: "The best for me is Jeroen Tel … I started to live-remix his composition and play them with my band in Hungary"; the other maniacs-of-noise members (reyn-ouwehand, DRAX, laxity), rob-hubbard, Shogoon, Thomas Detert, Mark Cooksey, martin-galway, Richard Joseph, david-whittaker, SLD. Best SIDs: jeroen-tel's Rubicon, Wiz, Aspar Grand Prix, Myth, Poseidon, Supremacy, Golden Axe, Eliminator, Cybernoid I and II, Savage; Hubbard's Zoids, commando, International Karate, monty-on-the-run, Star Paws; Shogoon's Fun Factory, Zone of Darkness, Illmatic End, Muza do Dema, Love 2; and Barbarian, Last Ninja, BTTF3, Solitax end, Mysterious World, Stack Up, Krakout, Jackal, Dazzler.

Practical takeaways#

• The design goals that later define SID-Wizard were already stated in 2008: a native editor, more than three voices through extra SID chips, double framespeed, one screen, separate play and edit cursors.
• His argument for the real chip — the analogue filter and a sample rate that follows the note frequency — is the reason the wiki's tracker pages recommend checking every tune on hardware or at least on both chip models (filter-programming).

Notable quotes#

"3SID was the main new idea, and why not do it, if this great C64 can cope with it."

"Everybody! Help us keep C64 alive, and make the feeling of a better world!!! READY."

Relevance to the wiki#

Fills in hermit's biography and the prehistory of sid-wizard (the 2008 3SID tracker, its inspirations and stated features); a 2008 opinion on vice's SID emulation and on the 6581/8580 for sid; another vote for jeroen-tel and the maniacs-of-noise catalogue.

To verify#

• (unverified) The 2008 3SID tracker is the ancestor of SID-Wizard (first released 2012, with 2SID and 3SID builds and up to 8× framespeed); the interview never names SID-Wizard, and the connection is an inference from the shared author and feature list.
• (unverified) "Light Voices" is a C64 music editor; "HMT-SYNTH" is otherwise undocumented in the wiki.

Pages touched#

hermit · sid-wizard · vice · sid · multispeed · jeroen-tel · maniacs-of-noise · cybernoid-ii · chordian · sidin