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Initial revision
author Matti Hamalainen <ccr@tnsp.org>
date Tue, 03 Jun 2003 10:23:04 +0000
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1 xmms-sid - SIDPlay input plugin for X MultiMedia System (XMMS)
2 ==============================================================
3
4 XMMS-SID is originally by Willem Monsuwe.
5 Additional fixes, features added were added by
6 Matti "ccr" Hamalainen of Tecnic Software productions (TNSP),
7 who also nowadays maintains this package.
8
9 !! NOTICE: Please do not contact Willem about this version,
10 since the bugs and quirks are probably made by me (ccr) now. !!
11
12 General Introduction
13 ====================
14 XMMS-SID is a plugin for XMMS (X MultiMedia System) which provides
15 support for playing the so-called "SID tunes". For the actual playing,
16 XMMS-SID uses the excellent libsidplay SID-chip/6502 emulator engine.
17 (See "INSTALL" where to get libsidplay)
18
19 If you are not familiar with the term "SID tune" or "SID" concept at
20 all, a short (yes it is! ;-) explanation follows:
21
22 SID is the sound chip that was used in many of the old 8-bit home
23 computers manufactured by Commodore Inc. in 1980's. Best known of
24 those was the Commodore 64 home computer (aka C64 or CBM64, also
25 known as VIC-64 in some countries).
26
27
28 The Sound Interface Device (SID) was one of the most advanced sound
29 chips at the time. It's capabilities surpassed all of the other chips
30 on the 8-bit home computer market and even most of the ones used in
31 arcade game systems. Thousands of games were produced for C=64 in
32 1980's and beginning of 1990's, many of them having excellent musical
33 score. Best of those tunes are still regarded at least legendary,
34 such as songs by Martin Galway (for games Arkanoid, Green Beret,
35 Yie Ar Kung Fu 1 & 2, Parallax...), Rob Hubbard (Commando, Auf
36 Wiedersehen Monty, Monty on the Run, Warhawk, Sanxion, Delta...),
37 Ben Daglish (Jack the Nipper 1&2, Way of the Tiger, Cobra, Avenger...)
38 and numerous other legendary composers. Some of them quit their
39 composing quickly after the 8-bit period, but some are still working
40 in the computer music business. (Like Maniacs of Noise, Chris
41 Huelsbeck, Richard Joseph and ex. MON member Charles Deenen who
42 worked with Fallout 1's musical score)
43
44
45 Today, years after the decline of 8-bit computers, many composers
46 (mainly from C64 demoscene) continue to compose tunes for SID and
47 get most amazing things out of it -- things that the designers of
48 the SID would have never believed.
49
50 For example: SID has only three sound channels, but there are tunes
51 that use special techniques to "multiplex" them to sound like four
52 or even six channels. Also these three channels are "limited" to
53 synthesized sounds, kind like the FM sounds produced by old Sound Blaster
54 cards on PC. But again, using a certain 'bug' in SID chip, composers
55 were able to push the limits farther ... Martin Galway's very famous
56 piece on Arkanoid game was the "first" (later it has been proven that
57 Chris Huelsbeck's Bad Cat was the first but was released later) to
58 feature DIGITIZED SAMPLES like speech, etc.
59
60 ...
61
62 So this is the story in short. The "SID tunes" are usually understood
63 to be the files that contain the C64 machine code and data that plays
64 the music. SID players (or emulators) are programs that emulate the
65 SID chip capabilities and other parts of C64 hardware to produce
66 almost authentic re-creation of the original music. SID-files (aka
67 SID tunes) can be created by ripping the music routines and data from
68 some game or just composing the music with some editor.
69
70 XMMS-SID is interface for one of those emulators, probably the best
71 one: (lib)SIDPlay by Michael Schwendt.
72
73 ...
74
75 Hopefully I didn't make you bored with my chit-chat :)
76
77 -ccr/TNSP
78
79
80 Where to get SID tunes?
81 =======================
82 There are many collections of SID tunes on the Internet, but
83 probably the best one and best known one is the High Voltage
84 SID Collection aka HVSC.
85
86 It is available at: http://hvsc.c64.org/
87
88 HVSC contains the tunes ripped from all legendary C64 games,
89 loaders, etc. And more. There are over 15,000 tunes in the
90 HVSC version 4.0 and more are coming. HVSC also contains the
91 STIL database (SID Tune Information List) that contains lots
92 of information about many of the tunes included in HVSC.
93 XMMS-SID supports the STIL database and info about the playing
94 tune can be viewed with the "XMMS fileinfo" window (CTRL+3).
95 STIL information can contain comments from composers, information
96 about if the tune is a cover and historically interesting facts
97 about games, etc...
98
99
100 Usage
101 =====
102 Using the plugin is quite simple, if you are familiar with XMMS,
103 then you already know how to use XMMS-SID. The configuration of
104 the plugin should be quite self-explanatory and the default settings
105 are usually satisfactory. The only thing that you probably
106 need to touch in the config dialog is the "STIL-database path"-setting,
107 if you have the HVSC-collection and want to use STIL-database.
108
109 Simply point the STIL-db path to "STIL.txt"-file that resides
110 under "DOCUMENTS"-subdirectory of HVSC-rootdir. For example,
111 I use the following path: "/usr/src/C64Music/DOCUMENTS/STIL.txt".
112 (My HVSC resides under "/usr/src/C64Music")
113
114
115 Notes
116 =====
117 * If the plugin doesn't recognize your sidtunes, try checking the
118 'Determine filetype by contents' option in the xmms-sid config window.
119 This is horrendously slow if you're reading a 10000-tune playlist,
120 though.
121
122 * For those who don't know it: Autopanning and stereo are not native to
123 the original SID chip on C64&all, but are extra options implemented in
124 libsidplay. So if you think that the tune does not sound as it sounds
125 on the real C64 (or other SID using machine), use the Mono setting.
126
127 * xmms-sid's configuration panel has been enchanged (from v0.6)
128 to have the libsidplay's SID filter configuration parameters. You
129 can tune them if you know what you're doing and maybe want to make
130 xmms-sid sound more like your own C64's SID (as some of you may
131 remember, the original SID 6580 had the infamous filter bug that
132 made every chip sound somewhat different!). If you don't know what
133 to do with these settings, just press the Reset Values button to
134 get the working defaults of libsidplay.
135
136 * The "kb/s rate" box is actually the play rate in Hz, so you can
137 see if it's an NTSC or PAL song (if you haven't set the Force Speed
138 option).
139
140 * Read file "README.songpos" for additional fun.
141
142
143 Contacting and where to get new versions
144 ========================================
145 New releases of this plugin should be available at TNSP's WWW
146 homepages, see below for address. Bug reports, suggestions,
147 patches, etc. should be sent to ccr.
148
149 ccr's e-mail: mhamalai@ratol.fi
150
151 OR : ccr@iobox.com (if the one above does not work)
152
153 TNSP's WWW : http://www.tnsp.org/
154
155 TNSP e-mail : tnsp@iobox.com
156