PROPHET64 & MSSIAH Userforum

What you recognized is one of the thinks that makes the SID famous, so that PROPHET/MSSIAH got wanted: using the only three oscillators (not tracks!) effectively and intelligent. Sure, both are much more the skills of the musician, and so you, than of the SID. I can't give full explanation, but some essentials how to get deeper in the world of SID tuning your own:

(Maybe only once) Arpeggios and Staccatos on the C64 were often the result of necessarity, not the goal: You could - and you HAD to - compress/combine different instruments or "tracks" on one oscillator. So one oscillator can be less or more than one track: Today, a track is mostly understood as used by one instrument (in Cubase, for example), but polyhonic. That means you can record many pressed keys, which cause many synthesized tones, which create a full harmonic like Dmaj7 with repeated notes every octave. Every specific tone needs one oscillator at minimum, but often the combining of several ones. All work at one time. This way a full song can consist of up to thousands of oscillators played a time. The SID has only three oscillators, that means, only three tones a time! - The SID-"solution" was to shorten the length of a played tone to have place for another tone following. So a very sole oscillator can play at a beat, one after another:

(1) "Kick" (noise)
(2) D (saw)
(3) F (saw)
(4) A (saw)
--> (2)-(4) makes the arpeggio of D minor, and appears for the human ear as harmonizing.
(5) D "bass" (rectangle)
(6) "bass drum" (rectangle)
(7) A (saw)
(8) C (saw)
(9) E (saw)
--> (7)-(9) makes the A minor arpeggio harmony.
(10) "clap" (noise)
(11) A bass (rectangle)
(12) "pling" (triangle ("sine") with ring and sync on makes "noises" relative to the tone of the related oscillator)
...

This tones in the right place/at the right time makes a harmonic with a beat and several instruments. Ergo: One SID oscillator is many tracks!

So theoretically, you could create a song only with one oscillator of the SID! OR: You have two more oscillators for a steady lead and a "reserve" for more details and depth. Hint: Percussion elements are (generally, but especially in SID tunes) very short and can easy be combined with the oscillator which is used for the bass. Both, a short "clap" and the bass tone afterwards, appears for the human ear simultaneously. Another trick is to play a sample over the three oscillators playing by varying the SID volume. So you have actually four simultaneous "tracks": the three oscillators and a sample track for percussion. Chris Hülsbeck, if I remember right, used this for the intro in turrican II. But this way is seldom and not supported by the 8580 and MSSIAH.

Study the demo songs! And be aware of the fact, that it could be time consuming to integrate the wanted details in the three oscillators. This is the job that makes musicians on the c64 respectfull - IMO.

Last edited by CassandraX (2011-12-19 15:43:34)

You misunderstood me entirely! There aren't 4 "tracks" in all the music on the c64, only three oscillators! Your understanding of "track" is misleading. The main difference between MSSIAH/PROPHET and other ("old") SID software is ONLY, that it has ADDITIONALY an graphical interface, which makes it much easier to program, if you already know cubase from pc! The conclusion is, that YOU must use the three oscillators so that it APPEARS there are more! That was also the task and the achievement of Chris Hülsbeck, Rob Hubbard and Co., who makes the SID famous. They had almost the same possibilities like you using MSSIAH! But once they had to program this with columns of hexadecimal numbers. You have not. So, be happy!

(The trick with the "4th track" I mentioned above is hardly to cap, used in maybe 3 songs, doesn't work on many c64s (that's the reason why it is used only in few songs) and is IMO unnecessary. ONLY THIS MSSIAH is not capable.)

Last edited by CassandraX (2011-12-19 21:02:12)