NEW: 2SID and 3SID tunes are now supported. Each keyboard will automatically combine to host an entire chip (i.e. 3 voices). The square voice buttons will toggle entire SID chips ON or OFF when playing these types of tunes.
If the playback is choppy, try increasing the buffer size. Smaller values mean faster and smoother updating (default is 1024 which is the lowest possible) but also require a fast computer with a nifty web browser.
The top right waveform legend explains the colors of notes on the keyboards. Red is pulse, green is triangle and blue is sawtooth. Gray is noise. Waveforms may be combined, but 31, 61 and 71 are only audible on the 8580 SID chip.
The numbers above the bars are hexadecimal. Pulse width has 12 bits and goes from 0 to 4095. The triangle indicates that it's most audible in the middle. The filter cutoff has 11 bits and thus goes from 0 to 2047.
The small yellow bar is the filter resonance. It can go from 0 to 15 (maximum resonance). Resonance is a peaking effect which emphasizes frequency components at the cutoff frequency of the filter, causing a sharper sound.
RM is ring modulation (non-harmonic overtones) and HS is hard synchronization (complex harmonic structures). Both effects require two voices – the previous voice as the carrier and the current voice as the modulator.
Sometimes the use of gate bit (i.e. when the piano key is depressed then later released) make notes too quick to sense, or it may in some cases even hide them. Turning it off with the toggle button in top can amend this.
Click the green buttons to toggle voices ON or OFF. You can also type
1, 2 and 3 or alternatively q, w
and e. (You can also use 4 and r for digi if you are using
WebSid, but it is not reflected on this page.)
If you want to "solo" a voice, hold down Shift while pressing the hotkey.
This tab will show release lists and pages from CSDb as you click SID files.
CSDb, short for The Commodore 64 Scene Database, is the largest and most comprehensive database about C64 releases pertaining to the demo scene. It's where all the cool dudes go to hang out.
This does not work in Compute's Gazette SID Collection as CSDb has almost no data for it.
This tab will show links to game entries in GameBase64 as you click SID files that were used in at least one C64 game, released or unreleased (these are listed as a preview).
GameBase64 is a large database for C64 games with credits, details and screenshots.
This does not work in Compute's Gazette SID Collection.
If available, this tab will show information about the editor/player that made the song.
This tab will sometimes show one of two things depending on the SID collection you're browsing. It will display the same contents as the first tab in the box just above the player controls.
If you're clicking a song in the High Voltage SID Collection that has a STIL entry, this will be shown here as well as in the box. Any sub tunes mentioned have green buttons that you can click.
STIL stands for SID Tune Information List and contains information beyond the standard TITLE, AUTHOR, and RELEASED fields. This includes cover information, interesting facts, useless trivia, comments by the composers themselves, etc. The STIL, though, is limited to factual data and does not try to provide an encyclopedia about every original artist.
For more information about STIL, please refer to this FAQ.
If you're clicking a song in Compute's Gazette SID Collection that has lyrics, this will be shown here and in the box.
Technically, lyrics are always added in a separate WDS file that accompanies the MUS file that contains the actual music data. However, not all MUS files have a WDS file. Roughly one third of the MUS files in the collection have lyrics.
If you click a SID file that has been remixed into modern forms, this tab will show those entries from Remix64.
Remix64 is a portal to the unified world of Commodore 64 and Amiga music remixing, containing news, reviews, charts and chat. Remixes can be uploaded and rated here. It's maintained by Markus Klein, also known as LMan.
This does not work in Compute's Gazette SID Collection.
DeepSID is an online SID player that can play music originally composed for the Commodore 64, a home computer that was very popular back in the 80's and 90's. This computer had an amazing sound chip called SID.
The SID chip was really ahead of its time. Although it only had 3 voices, it offered oscillators of 8 octaves, ADSR, four waveforms, pulse width modulation, multi mode filtering, ring modulation, and hard synchronization. It really was like a tiny synthesizer, and you could even make it play digi samples along with the SID voices.
Jens-Christian Huus (Chordian)
http://chordian.net/2018/05/12/deepsid/
WebSid by Jürgen Wothke (Tiny'R'Sid)
http://www.wothke.ch/websid/
https://github.com/wothke/websid
https://github.com/wothke/webaudio-player
jsSID by Mihály Horváth (Hermit)
http://hermit.uw.hu/index.php
Howler by James Simpson (GoldFire Studios)
https://github.com/goldfire/howler.js
High Voltage SID Collection #71
https://www.hvsc.c64.org/
Compute's Gazette SID Collection #136
http://www.c64music.co.uk/
Stone Oakvalley's Authentic SID Collection
http://www.6581-8580.com/
Remix64 API by Markus Klein (LMan)
https://www.remix64.com/
Hosting by Jan Lund Thomsen (QED)
http://remix.kwed.org/
The images for composer profiles come from all over the internet. I have tried to be fair and not use images that the composer did not already have available on a personal web site, social media, interview, or another public place.
If you feel you should be credited, let me know and I will add you to this section. Also, if you don't like an image of you here, just let me know and I will of course remove it. You are also welcome to send me a replacement image.
SIDId by Lasse Öörni (Cadaver)
http://csdb.dk/release/?id=112201
SIDInfo by Matti Hämäläinen (ccr)
https://csdb.dk/release/?id=164751
https://tnsp.org/hg/sidinfo/
Chartist.js by Gion Kunz (GitHub)
https://gionkunz.github.io/chartist-js/
jQuery custom scrollbar by Manolis Malihutsakis (malihu)
http://manos.malihu.gr/jquery-custom-content-scroller/
The user name and password boxes are used for both registering and logging in. To register, just type the user name you want. If it is available (a status message tells you) then type a password and hit the button.
I wanted to make an awesome online web player for SID tunes and I believe I have accomplished that. It was never my intention to make an app or an offline player. An online player gives me immediate access to e.g. HVSC and CGSC without having to download anything first. Just everything ready to play, search through and rate no matter if I'm on my desktop, on my iPhone or on my iPad.
However, it's possible to use an offline player with DeepSID. Just select the
Download option in the top drop-down box and start clicking rows. Make sure you
associate your offline player with automatically playing the tunes.
You need to be using a mouse to create and manage playlists. This cannot be done on a mobile device (although you can enjoy your existing playlists there). Also, you must of course be logged in (in the top, not Disqus).
Published playlists appear further up in the root and can be seen by everyone (even those that are not logged in) but you're still the only one that may edit it. When you enter a public playlist, you can see who made it.
It's where you choose a handler for the SID files. Some are JavaScript emulators, some are real C64 recordings played with a normal audio player, and one can use your favorite offline player.
| Handler | Description |
|---|---|
| WebSid emulator | The default option is the JS emulator originally used by Tiny'R'Sid. It emulates standard SID as well as digi tunes, 2SID and 3SID, and even MUS files in Compute's Gazette SID Collection. |
| Hermit's emulator | Hermit's jsSID emulator is extremely compact and can play standard SID as well as 2SID and 3SID. Unfortunately it can't do digi tunes, but it makes up for that by being a steadfast emulator. |
| SOASC R2, R4, R5 | These are real C64 recordings streamed from Stone Oakvalley's Authentic SID Collection. R2 is bright filter, R4 is deep filter (think drowning radio) and R5 is 8580 with its improved filter. |
| SOASC Automatic | This option automatically chooses the recording type that is correct for the SID tune. R2 is chosen for 6581 tunes and R5 is chosen for 8580 tunes. |
| Download SID file | This makes the browser download the tunes. This is especially useful if an offline player has been associated with automatically playing it. Then it's like having an extra play option. |
Note that for the SOASC options, playing SID tunes may be delayed 1-3 seconds due to handshaking with a download script on Stone Oakvalley's server. Also, none of the emulators can play BASIC tunes as that requires ROM code.
That's by design, actually. Only the player pane is supposed to be visible on mobile devices because of the limited screen space. This right text area is only really available for desktop computers.
You can achieve the same thing by selecting the Shuffle option in the sort
drop-down box.
Yes, if you type e.g. 3- for a search for ratings, you will get a list of all the
SID tunes and folders you have rated three stars or more. If you type 1-, you will
see all of your ratings.
Yes. Use keys 1, 2, 3
and 4 or alternatively q, w, e and
r. The first three are for the normal SID voices and the fourth is for toggling any
digi stuff (WebSid emulator only).
If you want to "solo" a voice, hold down Shift while pressing the hotkey.
In the piano view, you can also click the green number buttons.
Hit p in desktop web browsers to pop up a tiny version of the player.
Hit s to toggle minimizing or restoring the sundry box.
You can hold down the key just below the ESC key to fast forward.
If you hold down Shift while clicking rating stars, you will clear them. (However,
it's usually easier just to click the same star again if you want to clear the rating.)
The audio handlers all use an API called Web Audio which is not supported by Internet Explorer. You need a modern web browser to use this site.
See that blue bar just below the top box with the title, author and copyright lines? It's the C64 memory, from $0000 to $FFFF. The dark blue blob that appears there is the SID tune as it takes up space. If you hover your mouse pointer on it, the tooltip will tell you the memory boundaries in hex and the size in bytes.
The following URL parameters currently work:
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| file | A file to play or a folder to show (use full root paths for both) |
| subtune | The subtune to play; must be used together with file |
| emulator | Set to websid, jssid, soasc_auto,
soasc_r2,soasc_r4, soasc_r5 or download |
| search | A search query (just like when typed in the bottom) |
| type | Search type; fullname (title), author,
copyright, player, stil, rating,
country, new (HVSC or CGSC version number) or
gb64 (game) |
| tab | Set to csdb, gb64, remix, stil, visuals,
disqus, about, faq, changes or settings
(the gear icon) to select that page tab |
| sundry | Set to stil (or lyrics) or scope (or osc) to select that sundry box tab |
| player | Set to the ID of the player/editor page. Use a permalink from one to get it right. |
| csdbtype | Set to sid or release to show a CSDb entry;
must be used together with csdbid |
| csdbid | Set to an ID value to show a CSDb entry;
must be used together with csdbtype |
| mobile | Set it to 0 on a mobile device to use desktop view, or 1 on a desktop computer to use mobile view |
An example to show a specific folder:
http://deepsid.chordian.net?file=/MUSICIANS/J/JCH/
An example to play a SID tune:
http://deepsid.chordian.net?file=/MUSICIANS/H/Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid&emulator=jssid&subtune=2
An example to show a CSDb entry:
http://deepsid.chordian.net?tab=csdb&csdbtype=release&csdbid=153519
FORUM link in the top, listing a few interesting forum threads
from CSDb. These threads have been adapted with "plinks" whenever possible. Click
the FORUM link for more about this.SOASC Automatic now shows a magenta color instead of black in the time bar.