SID 6581 profile picture

SID 6581

About Me


Latest News:

A SID Tune has been hidden in two Line6 bass amplifiers, the Lowdown 150&300 (http://www.line6.com/lowdown) by one of their DSP engineer. Press DEEP + A + D on power up to start the tune.

The tune is called 'Pepita' as covered by Glenn R.Gallefoss / Geir Tjelta (original Amiga .MOD song was composed by Janne "Tempest" Suni).

----------------------------------------------------------

I'm the first real home computer synthesizer chip, product of engineer Robert "Bob" Yannes, from MOS Technology ( Owned by Commodore ).
I am famous for being the "sound of the Commodore 64".
Early demos & scene ? Yeah, i was definitely part of all that!

Just to brag a little, i'm kinda proud to say that I was named by "Byte Magazine" as one of the 20 most important chips in computer history !

Even today, my warm electronic flavors are still praised.

I blip, I blop and I still rock :)

My Interests

The 6581 Sound Interface Device (SID) is a single-chip, 3-voice electronic music synthesizer/sound effects generator compatible with the 65XX and similar microprocessor families. SID provides wide-range, high resolution control of pitch (frequency), tone color (harmonic content), and dynamics (volume). Specialized control circuitry minimizes software overhead, facilitating use in arcade/home video games and low-cost musical instruments.

FEATURES

o 3 TONE OSCILLATORS
Range: 0-4 kHz
o 4 WAVEFORMS PER OSCILLATOR
Triangle, Sawtooth,
Variable Pulse, Noise, various Combinations
o 3 AMPLITUDE MODULATORS
Range: 48 dB
o 3 ENVELOPE GENERATORS
Exponential response
Attack Rate: 2 ms-8 s
Decay Rate: 6 ms-24 s
Sustain Level: 0-peak volume
Release Rate: 6 ms-24 s
o OSCILLATOR SYNCHRONIZATION ( "Hard-sync" )
o RING MODULATION ( as a product of an oscillator being a 50% square and an other one being a triangle )
o PROGRAMMABLE FILTER ( Analog State Variable )
Cutoff range: 30 Hz-12 kHz
12 dB/octave Rolloff
Low pass, Bandpass,
High pass, Notch outputs
Variable Resonance
o MASTER VOLUME CONTROL
o 2 A/D POT INTERFACES
o RANDOM NUMBER/MODULATION GENERATOR
o EXTERNAL AUDIO INPUT, routable thru the filter

I'd like to meet:

Paula, from the Amiga 500 Commodore computer. If i'm the father of chiptune music, she's definitely the mother of MOD music.

Music:

Gosh, i'm all about music ! Just search the web a little bit and you'll find thousands of tunes that i can play for you :) Dozens of thousands of songs have been written with me ! No kidding ...

Books:

On the Edge: the Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore.

Heroes:

Bob Yannes (my dad) & Al Charpentier.
In fact, i have hundreds of heroes : all the musicians that use me for their art !