[…]
- There is a VERY good implementation of a SID emulation. There is even a
"not so good", but older and not “that” CPU intensive one. Search for
PlaySID and ReSID. For the Windows-Heads out there: There’s a Winamp-Plug
on winamp.com. And then search for HVSC (High Voltage Sid Collection) for a
complete set of old C64 hits.
Listening to SIDs on SIDPlay + RealPlay (a text based UI) all day… 
- IMHO haveing a SID-Player as an API in SDL makes just very little
sense.
I agree.
Would be nice to have to make all those “classic conversions” a
little more authentic,
I’m not really focused on “conversions”, but rather on taking the real time
music synthesis model to a level where it can be considered a serious
alternative to mp3 and CD tracks in games.
The idea is basically to run the engine as a synth together with
Cubase/Cakewalk/Logic/, and then just throw the
MIDI files into the game along with the synth. Of course, the bonus feature
that connects that to where this thread started is the option to “abuse” the
synth for sound effects as well.
but even though I like the sound very much, it
make’s (IMHO) no sense to have all that “Emulating C64” overhead.
Right; there are ways to get even very authentic SID sound without the cost
of true emulation. Why emulate the CPU and the CPU/SID interaction, for
starters? It makes no difference to the sound whatsoever; it’s just handy if
you’re into playing original C64 music…
On the
AMIGA (Oh that good ole times), we had a program which was able to recreate
the C64 sound to the fullest, but kept the song files free from "useless"
C64 code. It used some simple form of Wavetable synthesis,
That’s basically what all virtual analog synths do; very few actually
generate waveforms algorithmically on the fly, as the SID and most other
chips (analog as well as digital) do.
How about the filter, BTW? The SID and practically every real synth has one
or more resonant filters, but virtually no computer sound chips do; the
Amiga included. (No big deal nowadays, but on the Amiga, you had to drop the
hardware “resampling” and do everything in software - and a 7.14 MHz 68k
isn’t really up to that…)
some kind of
"Micro sequencer" (to emulate the WaveSequence feature of SID, or however
that was called)
That’s not a feature of the SID, but just a synthesize method that was almost
forgotten during the SoundTracker style tracker era. It’s supported by some
trackers, as well as the SidStation and some “normal” professional synths.
and a very nice and easy tracker interface. It was called
THX (later renamed into AHX for apparent reasons) and is also available as
a winamp plugin and as an obscure SDK for Windows. Unfortunately I haven’t
been able to track it down (all servers seem to be down) until now, but
that would be definitely cool
Well, I’m not particularly fond of tracker style interfaces nowadays, but the
rest is basically what talking about here.
As to a professionally usable version, that would be a MAIA plugin project,
but I haven’t really started, as the API is yet to be finished. (Oh, there is
SoftSynth/DUSS, of course, but that’s hardly usable at all… as the new name
"Dave’s Useless Soft Synth" implies. 
It’s just a fun hack I’ve been
playing with to try the lowlatency stuff out.)
//David
.- M A I A -------------------------------------------------.
| Multimedia Application Integration Architecture |
| A Free/Open Source Plugin API for Professional Multimedia |
----------------------> http://www.linuxaudiodev.com/maia -' .- David Olofson -------------------------------------------. | Audio Hacker - Open Source Advocate - Singer - Songwriter |--------------------------------------> david at linuxdj.com -'On Thursday 08 March 2001 17:34, Jan Krutisch wrote: