Starting to want a Sidstation

SID guys, how does the Monomachine's SID emulator stack up against the real deal? How much more real tweakability is in the Sidstation?

i reckon the monomachine's really good at evoking the sounds of the sid, rather than actually sounding like it. in other words, it's often good enough, but comes up short if you give it a starring role in your mix.

i have a commodore that i occasionally use when i want the real deal. if i were really in love with that sound and wanted to use it for more than accents, then i'd consider going the sidstation/hardsid/midibox route - they're considerably more responsive {in that order} and realtime-expressive.

if you opt for hardware, try to effect a combination of 6581 and 8580 SIDs - the latter is a better chip, to my ears, but the former {the one found in the sidstation}, has the more recognisably percussive, lo-fi character. j3rk hacked up his sidstation into a 1-u rack and, iirc, wired it for 6581 and 8580, but he sold it to someone on these boards, and i'm sure he'll be along soon to tell you all about it.

While I like the Monomachine's Sid...it is not the same at all. One Osc vs. 3 osc (in the SID) and no dirt, static, hiss etc...and the MnM's version is alot cleaner...doesn't sound 8-bit.

I like the clean sound better, but you still can't get all the same sounds out of it. The SID's three oscillators can be routed in interesting ways. The MnM allows for some of this (with its RM implementation) but it doesn't come across quite the same. I've always preferred the cleaner sound of the 8580 SID chips, and some of the better digital SID emulations.

I agree...but some may not...when they are looking for that true sid sound.

That's true. However, the SID Station is quite a bit more noisy than an actual C64.

Are we talking gateable noisy, or just plain noise while playing the notes?

Allerian did you see this thread?

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1275359

I think the most powerful sid-based machine is the one you build yourself at www.ucapps.de, next would be the HardSID card. The sid station is mighty cool, but there's lower priced options which seem to offer more features.

Ive never even seen a real SidStation though, so take that FWIW.

Some of the noise can be dealt with. You can gate it, and get rid of some of the ambient noise. However, for some reason (and I haven't yet determined whether it's the 6581R4, or SID Station's fault,) filter is entirely too overdriven in the SS. It gets that way on the C64 as well, but not nearly as much. I love the SID Station, (even more-so with an 8580 SID in it,) but its noise was always a problem for me with a 6581 (where it wasn't on the C64.) I don't think the HardSID cards exhibit any additional noise over the C64, so if you don't want the extra noise, that may be an option. Also, I'm still working on the FPGA SID with SSM clone filter as well with a friend. (they will eventually be available in small quantities, and will be SID compatible with extra features that can be used by things that are able. (We're building a new SID Station, and a SID-oscillator module for my modular using them.) That's a little way off, (we have very little time to work on it currently,) but it is progressing.

Another thing we did to quite down our SID Station Racks was to build a dual power supply that had separate supplies for the analog and digital portions of the SID and SS board. They also had a few ungrounded, unused data pins, which could have been responsible for some extra noise. With all the things we did, it cut the noise down a decent amount, we just never solved the overdriving with the 6581.

waaaait, this isn't you, is it?

http://myhdl.jandecaluwe.com/doku.php/projects:phoenixsid_65x81

edit, fixed typo

Nope. It's almost exactly what we're doing though. I had no idea there were that many people thinking along the same lines. (though it doesn't surprise me) The SID is the coolest sound generation device on the planet (if I may be so bold.)

Quite cool, I'm going to go read through their page, and see how their design differs from ours. We're going to use the SSM clone (like in the MOTM 440 filter.) I wonder if they're using something like that.

I have to show this to my friend.

Ours is going to be pin-compatible with the SID, (which their device may be too, I don't know,) and will not have a USB interface, so there's one large difference. We're using ours in a synthesizer that's based on our SID Station Rack, and just the FPGA oscillator portion in a frac module (because I want SID synthesis in my modular.) We're also going to make it easy to make a cable that will plug into a SID socket, so it could be used in existing SID devices.

have you seen logo 64's frac-racked midibox SID?

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6863/1447/1600/frac.0.jpg

i think it's the white one.

"...a "FracSid" - midibox SID in a modular format with 6 analog CV ins, 8 analog and 2 gate outs..."

Man I cant WAIT to get my prophet64 cartridge!! I might have to sneak a couple games of TheLastNinja in while Im at it:)

That's a brilliant idea. You should also build a dedicated wavetable programmer module to put next to it

geoff farina describes the noise nicely here:

http://www.geofffarina.com/tapeop.html