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The Songs page features recordings of Sidplayer songs played on a Commodore 64 computer. The recordings are available as compressed audio files that can be downloaded.
In 1982, Bob Yannes designed the SID (Sound Interface Device) chip that was used in the Commodore 64 home computer to produce sound. The SID chip advanced the state of the art at the time, but its capabilities are quite limited by today's standards. The SID chip can produce only three simultaneous tones, and the tones are limited to pulse, triangle, sawtooth and noise waveforms. Stereo songs require a second SID chip. It is a challenge to make music using only three or even six voices of limited timbres, yet from severe limitations, artistry can emerge.
Twenty years later, there is still an active community supporting the Commodore 64, but most people do not have convenient access to one. Fortunately, programs that emulate a Commodore 64 and the SID chip can run on today's PC's and Mac's. There are also websites that provide Sidplayer song files for use with these emulators. See the Links page for other websites that offer emulators and Sidplayer .mus files.
Although the programs that emulate the SID chip do a remarkable job, they do not yet faithfully reproduce all of the SID chip's special features, such as the sync mode. Many of the early Sidplayer songs intentionally made use of some of these features, and are not accurately reproduced by the emulator programs. Also, some users may not want to install emulator software on their system in order to hear Sidplayer songs.
To provide faithful reproductions of Sidplayer songs in a convenient format, the Songs page offers recordings of Sidplayer songs played on one of the Commodore 64 computers that was used to develop Sidplayer. The recordings are available as audio files in popular compressed formats such as MP3 and Microsoft Windows Media Audio. Files in these compressed formats can be downloaded faster and played on any computer.
It is important to note that there are no MP3 files of any commercial recordings on this website. The MP3's available for download here are of recordings of 1980's-era computer music, and they are offered for historical purposes.
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