[LAU] SID chip emulation?

James Stone jamesmstone at gmail.com
Thu Apr 19 15:08:47 EDT 2007


On Thu, Apr 19, 2007 at 05:48:10PM +0200, Sebastian Gutsfeld wrote:
> Hi James,
> 
> "James Stone" <jamesmstone at gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > Does anyone know of a linux based synth that emulates the sound of the
> > C64 SID chip? I would love to use that sound in some pieces, but I
> > have never been able to find anything very usable.
> >
> > Perhaps something could be used from the libsid/libsidplay libraries??
> 
> Sidplay2 uses ReSID for sound emulation. There are two other programs I
> know of that use this library:
> 
> * Goattracker (http://cadaver.homeftp.net) but you have to be familiar
>   with a tracker interface and some SID internals
> 
> * VICE C64 emulator (http://www.viceteam.org)
> 
> Try Paul Slocum's Cynthcart (http://qotile.net/cynthcart.html) or the
> good old JCH editor (http://chordian.dk/files.htm?c64) with its cool
> polyplay mode for realtime play on the computer keyboard.
> 
> Another option is Legasynth
> (http://www.reduz.com.ar/cheesetronic/index.php?section=4), but I don't
> think this sounds very close to a real SID.
>

Thanks for these suggestions.. They all sound quite sensible. I
will look into them all.. sound like nice ways to generate good
samples.

Legasynth is closer to what I was envisaging though.. Although I
have never managed to build it successfully.. I keep going back
to it thinking "I've been using Linux for 6/7/8/9.. years now.. I
_must_ be able to get it to work now" but with no success..
Perhaps I will go back and try again. IIRC, it depends on a load
of old libraries that are not too common. If it doesnt sound much
like a C64, I'm not so interested though.

What I was really envisaging was a nice realtime synth with midi
input and pref. jack output to generate some nice 8 bit sounds
and some decent glitchy dirty sounding noises. I imagine
something could be built under PD, but I don't really know where
to start.

I will also look into the vst plugin, which is probably closer to
what I wanted, but I really object to using non-native audio
stuff on Linux.. I have got stuff working before, and it always
seems much more resource hungry, and less stable than it really
should be.

James



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