Elektron Musical Instruments

hi all,

I'm just a newbie trying to get my head around the paradigm of the
SidStation.

As I understand it, in poly mode we can have 3 independent notes playing.

1. are they all of the same instrument sound?
2. big question: since my MIDI sequencer will be triggering notes on one
MIDI channel, how does the SidStation allocate the 3 voices?  Does it just
turn off the first of the notes and start playing a new one?

Finally, I love all the old c64 tunes which obviously have percussion and
bass and lead all at once.  Is it a real nightmare to write one of these
using a MIDI sequencer, because there's only one MIDI channel?  (I'd buy a
SidStation right away but I'm concerned about this...)

thanks!

- Brendan

> 1. are they all of the same instrument sound?

yes.

> 2. big question: since my MIDI sequencer will be triggering notes on one
>    MIDI channel, how does the SidStation allocate the 3 voices?  Does it
just
>    turn off the first of the notes and start playing a new one?

I think that is the way it does it.

> Finally, I love all the old c64 tunes which obviously have percussion and
> bass and lead all at once.  Is it a real nightmare to write one of these
> using a MIDI sequencer, because there's only one MIDI channel?  (I'd buy a
> SidStation right away but I'm concerned about this...)

Yeah, this is done by using "tables", it sort of a mini-sequencer that
control how a patch should sound. personally I would recomend to do the
bass line, drums and lead separately and then sample the drums & bass
and use the sid-station for the lead alone (so one could tweak a bit).

The sidstation is fun, but a very diffrent instrument - I personally use
it alot (in almost all my tunes) but often in a sampled fashion. The
filters in the sid is remarkable, but for at least, a bit hard to handle.

cheers,

mga

On Wed Aug 16 2000, Magnus Ahlden <mga@...> wrote:

> > Finally, I love all the old c64 tunes which obviously have percussion and
> > bass and lead all at once.  Is it a real nightmare to write one of these
> > using a MIDI sequencer, because there's only one MIDI channel?  (I'd buy a
> > SidStation right away but I'm concerned about this...)
> 
> Yeah, this is done by using "tables", it sort of a mini-sequencer that
> control how a patch should sound. personally I would recomend to do the
> bass line, drums and lead separately and then sample the drums & bass
> and use the sid-station for the lead alone (so one could tweak a bit).

But this makes the song you are composing very limited. The same drums
and bassline thoughout the entire song. I would never make a tune that
way.

What I feel is lacking in the sidstation today is the option to use
three different midi channels to control each of the three voices. But
Elektron has made their decision, either a monosynth with three
oscillators or a three voiced polysynth using one oscillator per
voice. On one midichannel.

Now, are there any hackers around? Make your own OS! Flash it! :)

> The sidstation is fun, but a very diffrent instrument - I personally use
> it alot (in almost all my tunes) but often in a sampled fashion. The
> filters in the sid is remarkable, but for at least, a bit hard to handle.

I've never heard anything that sounds so
distorted/evil/broken/wonderful straight out of the box. It has the
sounds that people use lots of effects to get, but without the need of
anything else!

/Janne

-- 
Janne G:son Berg, d3berg@...   http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~d3berg
              "nu \ufffdr man ett \ufffdmkligt kr\ufffdk som dricker vichyvatten"

> But this makes the song you are composing very limited. The same drums
> and bassline thoughout the entire song. I would never make a tune that
> way.

try making several patches of the same wavetable, then modify them
individually for different song parts!

> > But this makes the song you are composing very limited. The same drums
> > and bassline thoughout the entire song. I would never make a tune that
> > way.
> 
> try making several patches of the same wavetable, then modify them
> individually for different song parts!  

excuse my ignorance, but does this mean you write your song, with varying
bassline or whatever, as a whole bunch of little patches which have
varying tables?  and then the MIDI sequencer triggers one patch after
another?

how long does one patch's table go for?  was it 64 steps (at user-defined
tempo)??

sounds pretty complicated, compared to just having 3 midi channels :)  but
if this was how the sid was really designed...

it 64 steps (at user-defined
    tempo)??
    
    sounds pretty complicated, compared to just having 3 midi channels :)  but
    if this was how the sid was really designed...
    
    

Hi,

I spoke with Daniel about this too , because I think it's a very good option to have.
He told me that it's not impossible but require rewriting a big part of the actual OS.

So MAYBE one day :)

PS: Yeah ... and I need local OFF too! :)

Rgds

Erik

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

one more question -- did all the original C64 music (like the soundtrack
to Commando, which I love) use this table concept to get their polyphony?

I guess I'm wondering whether the complication of tables for polyphony is
a result of the sid itself or the sidstation, so I'm wondering where it
originated from..

thanks

- Brendan

> one more question -- did all the original C64 music (like the soundtrack
> to Commando, which I love) use this table concept to get their polyphony?
> 
> I guess I'm wondering whether the complication of tables for polyphony is
> a result of the sid itself or the sidstation, so I'm wondering where it
> originated from..

I'm no expert - but as far as I have understood, the table thing is there
to recreate what the very talanted sound *programmers* did on the c64, but
tables never really existed on the c64, they where instead using assembler.

read in the manual for a better description.

/mga

> > one more question -- did all the original C64 music (like the soundtrack
> > to Commando, which I love) use this table concept to get their polyphony?
> > 
> > I guess I'm wondering whether the complication of tables for polyphony is
> > a result of the sid itself or the sidstation, so I'm wondering where it
> > originated from..
> 
> I'm no expert - but as far as I have understood, the table thing is there
> to recreate what the very talanted sound *programmers* did on the c64, but
> tables never really existed on the c64, they where instead using assembler.

hmm.. I wonder whether the SID chip itself demands the use of tables?
Anyone know?

On Thu Aug 17 2000, Brendan Reville <breville@...> wrote:

> I guess I'm wondering whether the complication of tables for polyphony is
> a result of the sid itself or the sidstation, so I'm wondering where it
> originated from..

It's the Sidstation. Elektron chose this sound architechture on
purpose. The sid-chip does not have any tables or anything like
that. Everything has to be implemented in software, like they did on
the C64.

Still noone who is going to hack their own OS for the Sidstation? :)

/Janne

-- 
Janne G:son Berg, d3berg@...   http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~d3berg
              "nu \ufffdr man ett \ufffdmkligt kr\ufffdk som dricker vichyvatten"

> > I guess I'm wondering whether the complication of tables for polyphony is
> > a result of the sid itself or the sidstation, so I'm wondering where it
> > originated from..
> 
> I'm no expert - but as far as I have understood, the table thing is there
> to recreate what the very talanted sound *programmers* did on the c64, but
> tables never really existed on the c64, they where instead using assembler.

I agree...the SID is nothing but a bunch of registers...it takes an
intelligent programmer to organize the code to get sounds from it.  Then,
it takes another layer of intellgigence and organization to get songs from
the instruments.  

There have been many song-writing programs for the SID (can anyone get me a
copy of PME?), taking slightly different approaches.  Now, they're very
different from the SIDstation though, because the SIDstation is designed
-I would assume- to be an instrument, whereas the SID editors were designed
to create entire songs.  

It *is* possible to write entire SID tunes on just a SIDstation,
with or without software updates.  However, for the raving majority of
us, it makes more sense to write the songs on a DAW.  

-N

btw, recently I've been researching the technologies of sound
chips.  My preliminary document
"Home Computer Sound Chip Round Up" is  at http://gweep.net/~shifty/music    

Of course, SID is listed in there, alongside old favorites like ColecoVision,
Atari ST, Apple //GS and so on.  Enjoy!  And try not to laugh at the
folly of some of the cheesy chips out there :)

On Thu Aug 17 2000, shifty@... <shifty@...> wrote:

> I agree...the SID is nothing but a bunch of registers...it takes an
> intelligent programmer to organize the code to get sounds from it.  Then,
> it takes another layer of intellgigence and organization to get songs from
> the instruments.  

An interview with a guy who managed that bit quite good actually can
be found here:

http://www.analogue.org/network/

/Janne

-- 
Janne G:son Berg, d3berg@...   http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~d3berg
              "nu \ufffdr man ett \ufffdmkligt kr\ufffdk som dricker vichyvatten"

> > I agree...the SID is nothing but a bunch of registers...it takes an
> > intelligent programmer to organize the code to get sounds from it.  Then,
> > it takes another layer of intellgigence and organization to get songs from
> > the instruments.  
> 
> An interview with a guy who managed that bit quite good actually can
> be found here:
> 
> http://www.analogue.org/network/

awesome!

Final questions -- am I right in guessing that the polyphony tables were
implemented to allow for really fast effects like Rob talks about?
Effects that are too fast for MIDI to trigger?

How fast can the tables be "executed" on the SidStation?  From a quick
look at the manual, it looks like it can be three times faster than
playing 1/64 notes?  (if speed is set to 1, going by the oscillator/pitch
table on page 20)  am I right?

thanks

- Brendan

>How fast can the tables be "executed" on the SidStation?  From a quick
>look at the manual, it looks like it can be three times faster than
>playing 1/64 notes?  (if speed is set to 1, going by the oscillator/pitch
>table on page 20)  am I right?

all i can say is that you can play tables at speeds faster than...god
knows what... *bloody* fast anyway!!

And you can set the tablespeed for each DCO!

-skomm

Hi all,
 
Ordered my SID! (might even arrive today :-)
 
I am a little confused though...:
Reading the SidStation site, it states that both the C64 and Amiga used the
MOS6581SID chip.
But reading the Rob Hubbard article, he mentions that the Amiga uses a much
more advanced chip called Portia ("the Amiga's rathermore impressive sound
chip").
 
Any comments?
 
Thanks for having me,
Richard

-----Original Message-----
From: Brendan Reville [mailto:breville@...]
Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2000 2:12 PM
To: elektron-users@egroups.com
Subject: Re: [elektron] multivoice



> > I agree...the SID is nothing but a bunch of registers...it takes an
> > intelligent programmer to organize the code to get sounds from it.
Then,
> > it takes another layer of intellgigence and organization to get songs
from
> > the instruments.  
> 
> An interview with a guy who managed that bit quite good actually can
> be found here:
> 
> http://www.analogue.org/network/ <http://www.analogue.org/network/> 

awesome!

Final questions -- am I right in guessing that the polyphony tables were
implemented to allow for really fast effects like Rob talks about?
Effects that are too fast for MIDI to trigger?

How fast can the tables be "executed" on the SidStation?  From a quick
look at the manual, it looks like it can be three times faster than
playing 1/64 notes?  (if speed is set to 1, going by the oscillator/pitch
table on page 20)  am I right?

thanks

- Brendan



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