Blasphemy! Your favourite C64 SID chiptunes...

[TMD2003]

...put the pitchforks and burning torches down. I SAID, PUT THEM DOWN.

PUT THEM DOWN!

NOW!

Right, now that we've restored some decorum, and the playground arguments about the relative merits of Sir Clive's wonder machine (or at least the Investrónica-Amstrad-upgrade version) versus the Bread Bin, I've at least got to admit to some admiration for the other side. I have never really liked the sound of the SID chip - it was always rather harsh and strident to my ears, and this I now know is due to its use of pulse-width modulation that could make it range from crudely simulating an electric guitar to fingernails run down a blackboard, and everything in between.

For every David Whittaker that we had in t'old days or Yerzmyey in the Homebrew Era, the Bread Bin had someone like Jeroen Tel or Chris Hülsbeck to make it sing like Pavarotti accompanied by Jimi Hendrix (and Bill Bailey on spoons and theremin). What I intend to highlight here is some games where we were either fobbed off with a lesser soundtrack to the Bread Bin version (maybe because it was still pre-1986 and there was no AY-equipped 128K model yet, or the Spectrum was being pushed to its limits and there was no way to implement it), or we just didn't get the game at all.

Feel free to add to this list, but remember to say ten Hail Clives and donate 75p and a packet of Rolos to the SC hosting fund afterwards.

And anyone who wants to use this list for inspiration to, say, remake any of these for AY, you certainly didn't get that idea from me, oh no you didn't.

PRESS PLAY ON TAPE
(wait for 29 minutes... no, really, I calculated it)
READY


Myth: History In The Making - by Jeroen Tel
It's a missed opportunity that was particularly galling, this one, because Myth was a 128K game, had AY sound effects, and could so easily have accommodated an AY version of this title tune, if only someone had thought to convert it. And it was 1989, so not quite the era of near-impossible or just plain lazy down-conversions of Amiga/ST titles. How hard can it be? Evidence, of some sort, follows...


Wizardry - by Graham Jarvis and Rob Hartshorne
We all know this one, because even though Wizardry never made it to the Spectrum, this tune did - to the opening titles of Fairlight... but only via the 48K beeper! By the time Fairlight was upgraded to 128K, this top-banana tune was swept away in favour of the vastly inferior (albeit by the same authors...) in-game tune from the C64's Fairlight. What a waste!


The Great Giana Sisters - by Chris Hülsbeck
We never got this one, and the how, who, why, what, where, when of the was-it-real-or-wasn't-it Spectrum version has been lost to the mists of time (until someone with more money than sense pays £10K for a C90 with a barely-loadable screen demo that appeared in the pages of Crash). Whether or not we would have been treated to an AY version of a chiptune so well admired that Machinae Supremacy made their own cover version of it will also remain a mystery.

I was also going to put something from Turrican in here, but Chris Hülsbeck didn't compose the soundtrack to the C64 version, only the 16-bits. I was hoping to mention the differences between the SID and AY when the Amiga and ST versions of the Turrican and Turrican II soundtracks were compared just to speculate what a Turrican soundtrack might have been like on the Spectrum, but there's not really any point as the game really wasn't suited tot he Spectrum's hardware at all. So I'll move on to this:


Monty on the Run - by Rob Hubbard
It's 1985, and the 128K Spectrum either doesn't exist yet at the release of this game, or was only available in Spain. But OH GODS WHY did we have to be fobbed off with the 48K beeper soundtrack that we had, instead of some valiant attempt at one of Rob Hubbard's masterpieces? Admittedly he did get a bit of help from "Devil's Galop".

Fortunately, by the time Auf Wiedersehen Monty was released, both the 128K Spectrum and C64 shared the same soundtrack. Here's what it sounds like on the Bread Bin for comparison, but it's not officially in my list because OMFG BIAS ALERT I'll always prefer the Spectrum's AY version.


Wizball - by Martin Galway
I'll admit, this was a tricky one. Not just because that opening note is pretty much single-handedly responsible for some of my reactions to the sound of the SID chip, but also because I discovered the 16-bit version of the game first and that, ACKSHYUALLY, has my favourite of all the Wizball theme tunes. This one, though, after that initial note, bursts into the greatest guitar solo never to be played on a guitar (at least until Perturbator came along). And what did we get? A game whose entire concept didn't work on the Spectrum, and a completely different title tune.


Supremacy - by Jeroen Tel
This was a discovery from earlier today - and when put up against Jeroen Tel's other contribution to the top of this thread, it starts in a noticeably similar way. Seems we didn't get this game either, though as it was released in 1991, if we did, there's no good reason it wouldn't have had a conversion of this soundtrack... right?

Over to you lot. Any bullets flying my way will be shot clean out of the sky by The Riviera Kid *Spanish guitar trill*.

[MatGubbins]

I enjoyed playing with the Delta Mix-e-load that was on the Zapp64 cover tape, it never loaded a game so it would go on for hours - oh the great tunes I 'created' back it the day.


The music to Game Over (from the proper breadbin Sid chip), yes a great tune, crap game.

Wizball was my fave soundtrack, every tune was a masterpeice, even pausing the game during the bonus round for that extra tune. I loved the guitar riff and the calypso high score tune.

[TomD]

Ok I'll admit to being a big SID chip fan In my opinion Cybernoid 2 is probably one of the greatest 8bit tunes ever, Jeroen Tel again:



and no C64 music list can be complete without the amazing Rambo First Blood Part 2 Ocean Loader:



TomD

[1024MAK]

Throw them all off the forum

Make them join Lemon64 forum

Or at least get them an Acorn BBC with a BeebSID...

Mark

[1024MAK]

...put the pitchforks and burning torches down. I SAID, PUT THEM DOWN.

Four candles coming right up, right down on the counter, Sir!

Mark

[Stefan]

One of my favorite SID tunes from the demo scene:



I was going to say that this is less blasphemous since composer Geir Tjelta has also created demos for the Speccy.
But I confused him with Darklite's Neon who's real name is also Geir, just with a different surname... must be a sort of Norwegian John.

[TMD2003]

Here's one I was thinking of posting but didn't, but I will now...


Factory Action from Turrican 3 - arranged by Tufan Uysal, Søren Lund & Tammo Hinrichs, from two originals by Chris Hülsbeck
I've had an MP3 of this on my 15-year-old Sony Ericsson W810i as its alarm signal for most of its life, after first hearing it as the only soundtrack to Turrican 32K, a PC port which did genuinely fit into 32 kilobytes, but needed Windows 98 (or was it XP?) and DirectX to run it, so... not quite that tiny, overall. I tracked it down to a fan-made C64 Turrican 3 from 2004, which bears no resemblance at all to the Amiga port of Super/Mega Turrican from the SNES and Mega Drive. Still, what this combines is "Factory Action" and "Second Level" from the Amiga version in a Bread Bin package (and, unless I am very much mistaken, there might be a fragment of a third tune in there as well).

[Vampyre]

Monty On The Run without a shadow of a doubt. It's a masterpiece.

[Oloturia]

Despite I've never played it, I find the tune of Adidas Championship Challenge quite catchy.

[Gooeyblob]

Technically amazing the sounds you can get out of the SID, listen to some of LMan's recent tunes!

[akeley]

Commando High Score music is probably my favourite tune of all time.



I think the Spectrum AY main Commando gameplay tune holds its own against C64 but this piece is sadly not included (just the main theme plays over HS too).

As for Jeroen Tel... the saying "never meet your heroes" applies perfectly. Sometimes they will rob you blind

[catmeows]

Comic Bakery


Ghouls'n'Ghosts


Sanxion


Golden Axe

[catmeows]

Sorry, I can't help myself:

[p13z]

The Top Gun/Dangerzone ripoff music for Ace 2:
I used to love this back then, not sure I'm too keen on SID music in general though.

[Stefan]

Commando High Score music is probably my favourite tune of all time.

I think the Spectrum AY main Commando gameplay tune holds its own against C64 but this piece is sadly not included (just the main theme plays over HS too).

The Lords’ conversion is, as always, brilliant. Quinquagesima has both tunes.