Commodore Remix

Why is it when you tune into Youtube to watch some guy show off his great little modified C64, does he actually do sod all with it? Take a swatch at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0-wimNN ... re=related

I mean, is this guy taking the liquid for flip's sake? He's obviously done a great job of souping up his 64, but what does he show the world of it? A 3-second riff going over and over that's what, with barely any variety in the waveform to boot. What a waste of an oppertunity and my viewing time.

This guy's wasted his MSSIAH and Prophet-equipped 64s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl11YRvb ... re=related. And just what is all this lad's gear actually for? Not for making any actual music to judge by this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeR6mmcd ... re=related.

Meanwhile, this Commodore 128 owner looked as if he was showing the way in terms of melody and direction, but all he does after the first few seconds is twiddle his twiddlers while the same 2-second riff goes on ad-infinitum: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kuo7PZ9u ... re=related.

Yeah, yeah yeah: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJDM0fnV ... re=related. You've probably only got this far through politeness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p48vXC21 ... re=related. And this is by no means the end of it.

I know that countless other videos of synth players are exactly the same, but given the pride of 64 owners in the sheer power and variety inherent in our format of choice, it's criminal to do so little with it. I know they're just excitedly showing off their gear, but do they have to make a full scale tattoo out of just 3 seconds' work?! Can't they just do 30 seconds-worth of tune at least, to let us know that it was worth bothering with upgrading a computer and making a video of it? (And it's not as if there's not a world of out-of-copyright MIDI files out there to use either.)

Mind you, this guy's not too bad. He's repetitive too, but at least it goes somewhere: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASFUBOcj1oo.

And at last a bit of melody: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flk6oNc2 ... re=related. Perhaps my long journey is over. But what a while it took, and it's not too much then.

What a pity some of the guys on here don't stick up a Youtube video to even the balance. And I've had a decent go at showing off even unmodified Commodoriness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjbBw7ctP-0.

While I couldn't sit through all the videos, I did enjoy the tweaking and grunginess. I'm glad to have seen these rather than see nothing, even if more could be done.

Cool overture demo with the FM expansion, though!

I'm not saying there was nothing to see, just that for what there was the videos were overlong, lazy, boring and repetitive. (And I'm afraid I may end up being even more unforgiving and scathing in this post as once again the forum has already wiped my reply to this topic, put up the Enter Username thing again and I have to re-start.)

I didn't expect any magnum opi, but I expected the ivories to be tinkled to get more for their knobbery. You remember my MSSIAH-equipped c64 picture, http://www.dustybin.org.uk/MSSIAH_MACHINE.JPG? All I did to that was clean it, change the keyboard and slap on some some paint, but when you hear my tracks you know I've done more with it. You've got the right approach with that vocoder-thing on your own blog. Now that is something to watch. So why did those other lads go to all the effort of turning their machines into real sights for sore eyes if they can do nothing for the ear?

I dunno, maybe I'm just being an old man over this.

(Oh, did you find your Commodore PSU by the way?)

A re-cap of some of my own C64/SID-based efforts:
http://www.concept-single.net/cs9_music.MP3
http://www.concept-single.net/cs10_music.MP3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP0Y3Fy9RCc
http://www.concept-single.net/cs14music.mp3

(Analoq's video: http://analoq.noisepages.com/2009/07/iphone-talkbox/)

I have noticed the same thing, and it might just be a case of, let me record and show the world
what cool thing I have.

most of those videos look like they were just shot in the a hurry and no script
or thought was put into it.

I would contact one or two of those people and ask if they have made any
music with that equipment.

If they haven't, than maybe they are lazy and just wanted to make/have something
cool.

Analog-X64 wrote:I would contact one or two of those people and ask if they have made any
music with that equipment.

If they haven't, than maybe they are lazy and just wanted to make/have something
cool.

I think I'll be lazy too and not bother. I'd much rather fire up my own gear and do it myself. I've got some chap's game music to do for a start.

(Or, to be fair to these guys, maybe their talents are in the construction more than the using. I've had lots of fun in the past getting a PC rebuilt and running again, only to find myself at loose end once the thing was operational.)

Analog-X64 wrote:I have noticed the same thing, and it might just be a case of, let me record and show the world
what cool thing I have.

most of those videos look like they were just shot in the a hurry and no script
or thought was put into it.

I would contact one or two of those people and ask if they have made any
music with that equipment.

If they haven't, than maybe they are lazy and just wanted to make/have something
cool.

That was exactly what I was thinking. There was that guy who was eager to tell me that he had bought a complete set of Amiga 500 with display, expansion here, expansion there, HDD and some MIDI equipment and shit on ebay. And I asked what he planned to do with it and HE HAD NO FREAKING IDEA, DAMNIT!!! I was about strangle him with the cord of his competition pro joystick!

Haha! that first youtube video link posted some one commented nice music!!

I think people just put those videos on there to show off their gear - look what I got bet you wish you had it! Maybe but show me what you can do with it!

Commie_User wrote:I'm not saying there was nothing to see, just that for what there was the videos were overlong, lazy, boring and repetitive.

I hear that, and I do think your criticisms are valid. The blogs I frequent like MatrixSynth, Synthtopia and CreateDigitalMusic post a fair share of video content which can be summarised as mere fiddling with simple looping sequences. So for me, these kinds of videos are, for better or worse, what I am acclimated to.

Commie_User wrote:You've got the right approach with that vocoder-thing on your own blog. Now that is something to watch.

Thanks, though I do a fair share of fiddling as well, but I do try to keep those videos from going on too long.

Commie_User wrote:(Oh, did you find your Commodore PSU by the way?)

I'm pretty sure it's in the garage at my father's but that's like finding a needle in a haystack. Gonna try, though.

Your 'fiddling' video doesn't load, but if you do get up to that kind of thing yourself you make up for it with your Freqrexy video.

This guy isn't bad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb7iITAf ... re=related. I can't stand the style, which I would usually slam as bang-bang repetitive, but he's actually composed something substantial and arranged it for his nice shiny PC-interfaced 64.

And perhaps we should invite this guy to the forum, if he's not already here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FngQWn00 ... re=related.

Can't be said that I just complain.

Not C64 but someone is showing something the proper way.

viewtopic.php?p=80670#p80670

Ah, the good ol' NES. Not as flexible a synth as the Commodore 64 was but it still had a very unique sound. I always liked the bass registers, 'phat' I think they call it now.

http://vtatila.kapsi.fi/nes_sound.html - I think this resource may prove useful. The NES and the 64, a nice coupling don't you reckon?
___________________________________________________________________________

(These replace and compliment the dead link on the site above:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls= ... oq=&aqi=g4
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=n ... q=nes+midi

I wonder what the MIDI renderings of, say Super Mario Bros., would sound like on the 64?!)