Stardust Music Recording

Yesterday, Arkanix Labs released 'Stardust Music', my new C64 8580 SID music collection.  Information about the collection can be found here...

I wrote the music using a PC based tool called Goattracker.  The SID's have been recorded using a 8580 SID equipped C64c, run through my Dolby amp.

I've just uploaded a recording to my SoundCloud account; listen to the tune's below. If the player does not appear, hear it on it's SoundCloud page here...

Stardust Music

Arkanix Labs has released my small collection of C64 8580 SID tunes called 'Stardust Music' which are covers of music from the Amiga game 'Stardust'.  The original Amiga tunes were written by Risto Vuori.  The SID's have been released within a little music selector featuring a C64 version of the Stardust logo, that I pixelled years ago, and a new charset font in the scroller.

The C64 code to display this was originally provided by T.M.R and was used for some earlier, simple releases.  On this occasion however, I've actually pulled my finger out, learned some 6502 assembler and added code to detect machine type the music is running on (PAL/NTSC/Drean), key detection to be able to select the tunes and sprite display to show various pieces of information.

The machine detection alters the display and the music played, since PAL and NTSC machines run at slightly different speeds.  It was a nice coding challenge.

Special thanks must go to T.M.R and Moloch for their ongoing 6502 coding mentoring, help and support!

The music collection can be downloaded from CSDb here or direct from this blog here.  Both downloads offer a .d64 disk image for C64, both PAL and NTSC SID 8580 files and the music in it's original SNG Goattracker format.  The download from this blog also contains the graphic files in their original formats.

EDIT: Rudi has added an entry for Stardust Music on Pouët here...

EDIT 2:  It seems someone has taken the time to make a video of this little music selector and put it up on YouTube.  The video should appear below but if not, it's on the page here...

Sgrechian Recording

Yesterday, Cosine released 'Level One', an entry into the 'Crack Intro Creation Competition 2018' on CSDb.  The intro features a new C64 8580 SID tune called 'Y Sgrechian o Jarre' which I wrote a couple of years ago.  Information about the  C64 intro and compo can be found here...

I wrote the music for the intro using a PC based tool called Goattracker.  The SID has been recorded using a 8580 SID C64c run through my Dolby amp.

I've just uploaded a recording to my SoundCloud account; listen to the SID tune below. If the player does not appear, hear it on it's SoundCloud page here...

Level One

Cosine has released 'Level One' today featuring a small SID that I wrote a couple of years ago.  'Level One' is an entry into the CSDb 'Intro Creation Competition 2018' organised by Didi.

From the Cosine website:

"T.M.R's final entry into the 2018 Intro Creation Competition is Level One, a game-flavoured release with full screen scrolling and twenty six characters of text in the two black bands above and below it. The graphics in the centre of the screen were drawn to use Extended Background Colour Mode which reduces the font to 64 characters but gives four possible background colours for each character; this means there's five colours in play but the code doesn't have to scroll the colour RAM."

"Despite being the last ICC 2018 entry produced by T.M.R this was actually the first one started a few days after the competition was announced. The intro was built around prototype versions of the border area code."

As with the music for 'Oldest Style', the music was originally written for the CSDb 'Crack Intro Music Competition 2017', but ended up not being used because it was too long and didn't work well on a 6581 SID; it was written with 8580 in mind.  It has been finished and used here instead

The name of the music is 'Y Sgrechian o Jarre', which is Welsh for 'The Scream of Jarre'.  Named because of the BBC style radiophonic type 'scream' at the start and as I was writing it, some sounds/patterns in it reminded me of Jarre's 'Calypso 1' from 'Waiting for Cousteau'.

The intro can be downloaded from the Cosine website here or it's compo entry page on CSDb here...

You can also download the intro direct from this blog, with the .zip file including not only the demo on a .d64 image, but the music as a .sid file to run through SIDPlay or similar and the music in .sng format which can be loaded into Goattracker, the utility in which it was composed.  Just click here...

T.M.R has also recorded a video of the intro in action and uploaded it to YouTube.  The player should appear below, but if not watch it here...