C64 FASTFINGERS Lead Synth TO BE RE-RELEASED

[techristian]

Hi I'm the 1984 designer of Fastfingers. It is a mono lead synth for the C64 with over 256 THICK 3 voice sounds. However I have noticed that Vice 2.2 is NOT in tune. My software is perfectly in tune on a real C64. It's not just as simple as just changing the CPU speed. The pitch is all over with Vice. I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed a tuning problem with Vice.

Anyway , if you want to check it out go to http://musicinit.com/fastfingers.php

P.S. It also worked with the Mattel Intellivision piano keyboard.

Dan Laskowski
Author

[LMan]

Welcome Dan,

thank you for this, Fastfingers is definitely a hugely overlooked synthesizer. Fantastic sounds and the architecture was ahead of its time.

Great work!

[techristian]

Thanks LMan. I want to add some new features to it, but believe it or not, I left very few comments in my source code. I tried to use descriptive labels which does help but one called "Mystery" doesn't help at all.

Anyway I want to have a different arpeggio mapped to every key. That is one for sure that I want. The other is to "save" with different filenames so that many can be saved on a single disk.

Lman, do you think that this announcement should be on the main Remix page?

Thanks again
Dan Laskowski

[LMan]

Yes indeed. I put up an announcement.

Mystery:

[techristian]

Yes indeed. I put up an announcement.

Mystery:

Thanks!

Dan

[techristian]

Just an update.

I'm currently recording Fastfingers sounds to the Korg Kaossilator. It is difficult to get the hum out, but I wired the SID chip DIRECTLY to a new RCA plug on the outside of my C128. Next I will unplug the wires that run to the display.

Dan

[LMan]

There's a way to remove the noise from the SID:
http://www.bigmech.com/misc/c64mods/noisereduction.html

[techristian]

There's a way to remove the noise from the SID:
http://www.bigmech.com/misc/c64mods/noisereduction.html

So I must do surgery again? I spent 2 hours yesterday trying to get the shielded cable "just right" in the C128 case. I have never utilized the SID INPUT ,so I guess that I can just short the AUDIO IN to pin 14 (GND) of the SID ? I'm assuming that the article isn't refering to the POTX AND POTY inputs, because I use these for the Mattel keyboard, through the joystick ports.

If I remember correctly, the C64 had DIGITAL GROUND and ANALOG GROUND. If you connect to the wrong one, you may pick up different noise.

The picture below to show what I did. I also had to remove a small part of the C128 shield to route the cable behind the expansion port.



Dan

[LMan]

I'm afraid I don't understand very much about this, I just remembered the article...

Anyway good luck with the soldering

[techristian]

I have have had this opened back up TWICE since you posted the "fix".

This post will help anyone willing to put their C64 or C128 "under the knife"

What worked for me in the end was that I piggybacked 2 6581 SIDS on top of each other. Pin 27 (Audio out) no longer touches the circuit board. The pins are lifted away and soldered to the center conductor of 2 shielded cables. Shorting Pin 26 (Ext IN) to GND worked fine for some non filtered sounds, but killed other sounds. I have instead CUT OFF Pin 26 so that it doesn't pick up noise from the PCB. If you need to plug your guitar into the SID, then this won't work for you. The SHIELD of the 2 shielded cables are connected to Pin 14 (GND) which I must admit is awkward. The other ends are connected to a stereo pair of RCA phono plugs.

So what is the result?

First off, MUCH LESS NOISE !! My SIDS never sounded so good.
Second some of the sounds with heavy filtering or Noise sound like STEREO !! I guess that this is because each SID will produce a different set of random numbers for the NOISE wave. Also I used SIDS from 2 completely different batches. One was a very early one, housed in CERAMIC with gold pins and the other was in PLASTIC, from 2 different batches with at least 2 years between. Because of this, the filter cutoff characteristics were slightly different.



These old C64 sounds are AMAZING in the Korg Kaossilator , clean and clear in Stereo!

I can't do much more hacking to these SIDS. I might kill them with too much heat, but the next step would be to create a new CS (chip select) signal for the extra SID so it sits in a different memory location. Then I would reprogram FASTFINGERS so that it sends every other note to each chip.(not killing the RELEASE that way.)

Dan

[techristian]

March 20 2011
Ok. Today I have created a whole new FREQUENCY table which will make Fastfingers even more IN TUNE, but everyone will also get the original frequency table because this may change the sounds somewhat. I haven't heard it yet but theoretically it should be more in tune. I'm getting this fine tuned now. It wasn't very serious. It may have been out less that 1 CENT for U.S. and Canadian C64 computers. The North American table in the Commodore 64 Programmers Reference Manual was based on a 1 mhz clock and the clock isn't really EXACTLY 1 mhz. I punched in the new NTSC numbers. Next I'll have to create a Table for our European friends.

Special thanks to Wilfred Bos.

[techristian]

I'm ready to ship.

Check it out at http://musicinit.com/fastfingers.php

Dan

[techristian]

Starting to do real REMIX stuff now with C64 sounds in Korg KP3 and Kaossilator PRO.



Dan

[Analog-X64]

Cool sounds, how the heck did I miss this post the first go around?

[techristian]

Cool sounds, how the heck did I miss this post the first go around?

Thanks !!

Dan