Back from holidays with a new post

After a very exciting but also exhausting summer time the Kompjut0r blog returns with new posts. I had the chance to take a photo of my current collection and would like to share it. I'm not going to fight for "The Biggest Obsolete Computer Collection" title, it's just a bit of bragging about my stuff because I'm proud of it.

Most of them are in good condition just need cleaning inside and out, but still need to test a few of the C64's since they are newcomers and I never switched them on.

ps: I'm looking for a bigger flat and a huge shelf to store all this stuff


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Today's music: Surprise, just click and pump up the volume

SwinSID V2 - aka. SwinSID Ultimate

I received a SwinSID prototype for testing and after a first round I must say, it's impressive. Very impressive. Waveform emulation (simple and mixed), filter emulation, digi music, everything is there. While this specific SwinSID is meant to be the emulation of a 8580 SID it emulates the 6581 really good as well.

Obviously, there are slight differences but overall it's great. Filter is a bit more open than the original 8580's, white noise is a bit softer. It's highly recommended to get one as soon as the developers are ready with the final version.

Day 5. They still suspect nothing.

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Today's music: Jammer - Foregone Destruction C64 version

C64 SID shootout part 2.

Page has been updated with a nice music player, shouldn't any playback issue appear anymore \o/

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Thank you for all the feedback! Looks like the previous post is a big success so I decided to add some more info and details about the shootout.

The recording chain was 3 C64, connected one-by-one to the input of a RME Babyface soundcard with RCA cable. Recorded with default loudness settings, all input faders were on 0dB. Obviously, there's not much to set on the C64, so the signal simply flew to the input of the soundcard.

Recording software was Adobe Audition 3.0.1 (the best Audition version of all :) ).

In case you were wondering, yes, all of the recordings are clipping a bit - this means the signals from the C64 were too hot but not _that_ much. I wanted to keep the original signal so I didn't limit/compress/lower the volume.

Loudness level is different for each SID, the recorded waveforms are also quite different:

I edited the recordings and chopped them to smaller parts to show the significant differences between the SID revisions. Play the audio previews and listen closely. Each preview plays the same part/melody and I switch between SIDs at even beats.

The order is obviously R2-R3-R4-R4AR-R5 :)

Clip 01:



The second and third part (R3 and R4) sound like the SID is pushed to its limit and it's hard to generate the flute-a-like sound.


Clip 02:



Here, the most significant difference is the snare drum instrument. It sounds quite different in each version.


Clip 03:




Different filtering on the bass. The most remarkable is the last one, which is the 8580 R5 version. The sound is more opened (higher filter cutoff and wider LFO) so the *wow*wow*wow* sounds different a lot.


Clip 04:



Again, the modulation on the filtered bass sounds different. Very. Different. Also, did you notice the loud background noise during the second section? That's the noise of the R3 SID.


Side-note #1:
I'm not 100% sure about the SID revisions I have. According to http://sid.kubarth.com/ my 6581 R2 1485 might not be R2 but R3. But still, it sounds so different to the real R3 1585 that I tend to believe it's a real R2.

Side-note #2:
Please follow this download link if you would like to download the audio files in .OGG format. Let me know if you would like to listen to the uncompressed .WAV files too.

Side-note #3:
Why .OGG compressed audio files? Because they sound better than .MP3's with the same compression rate and need less disk space. Also, for this test the compression doesn't take much information about frequencies, the difference between SID revisions is still well-audible.

C64 SID shootout

Page has been updated with a nice music player, shouldn't any playback issue appear anymore \o/

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Have you heard about Stone Oakvalley? He is the man behind http://www.6581-8580.com aka. SOASC aka. Stone Oakvalley's Authentic SID collection:

"The SOASC= project is an automated recording technique invented by me (Stone Oakvalley) in order to mass-record music from the legendary Commodore 64 and its original SID sound chips (6581 and 8580), including variations of 6581, such as R2,R3 and R4!"

He gave me the inspiration to make a SID shootout and record 1 (one) music with different SID revisions. I was lucky enough to have my hands on 5 different SID, basically I have one SID from each available revision.

Why did I do it?
Because there is a difference in each SID revision's sound - sometimes it's just a slight difference but it's there - and I was curious how one of my favorite music would sound on each.

Brief SID history, copied from Wikipedia:

• 6581 R1 - Prototype, only appeared on the CES machines and development prototypes, has a datecode of 4981 to 0882 or so. Has the full 12 bit filter cutoff range. An unknown number were produced, probably between 50 and 100 chips. All are ceramic packages.

• 6581 R2 - Will say "6581" only on the package. Filter cutoff range was reduced to 11 bits and the MSB bit disconnected/forced permanently on, but is still on the die.The filter is leaky at some ranges and they tend to run hotter than other sid revisions. Made from 1182 until at least 1483. First 10 weeks or so of chips have ceramic packages (these usually appear on engineering prototypes but a few are on sold machines), the rest have plastic packages.
  
• 6581 R3 - Will say "6581" only, "6581 R3" or "6581 CBM" on the package. Had a minor change to the protection/buffering of the input pins. No changes were made to the filter section. Made from before 2083 until 1386 or so. The 6581R3 since around the week 47 of 1985 made in the Philliphines use the HMOS HC-30 degree silicon though the manufacturing process remained NMOS.
  
• 6581 R4 - Will say "6581 R4" on the package. Silicon grade changed to HMOS-II "HC-30" grade, though the manufacturing process for the chip remained NMOS. Produced from 4985 until at least 2590.
  
• 6581 R4 AR - Will say "6581 R4 AR" on the package. Minor adjustment to the silicon grade, no die change from R4. Produced from around 1986 (week 22) until at least the year 1992.
  
• 6582 - Will say "6582" on the package. Typically produced around the year 1986 in Hong Kong.
  
• 6582 A - Will say "6582A" (or "6582 A") on the package. Typically produced around the years 1989, 1990 and 1992 in the Philippines.
  
• 8580 R5 - Will say "8580R5" on the package. Produced from the years 1986 to 1993 in the Philippines, Hong Kong and in the US.

Are you still with me? I hope so because we shall jump into the most interesting part now.

So, based on the WIKI article and the fact that different revisions have different properties, the different SID revisions must sound different. And they do, of course :)

Let the competition begin! The music is "Jeff - Anal'ouge" (HVSC/MUSICIANS/J/Jeff/Anal_ogue.sid), which was composed on a 6581 - as Jeff confirmed he used a C64 with 6581 SID for most of his music.

The computers are Breadbin, Aussie and Blue:

The SIDs are:

01. 6581 R2 - 1485 (Breadbin's original SID)



02. 6581 R3 - 1585 (Aussie's original SID)



03. 6581 R4 - 3387 14 (put into Breadbin)



04. 6581 R4 AR - 4486 14 (put into Breadbin)



05. 8580 R5 - 3991 25 (Blue's original SID)

Conclusion:
This track sounds different on each SID revision :) Even the C64's own noise is different and not equally loud.

My favorite is the 6581 R2, it's rough and dirty and the bass is awesome. However, I like the 8580 R5 as well, it's clean (just listen to the flute-alike instrument at the start) and the bass is softer but somehow this makes the music more ear-friendly to me.

The other revisions sound like they have glitches, the snare-clap is a bit muffled (filtered?), bass is different but not bad at all. The most interesting difference is the already mentioned flute-alike instrument which is kinda distorted/modulated/filtered in a different way on each SID revision.

Which revision is better? Can't tell as it's a question of taste. Pick your favorite.