Stone Oakvalley's Authentic SID Collection (SOASC=)
The automated Commodore 64 SID music to MP3 recording project based on the High Voltage SID Collection (HVSC)
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FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions: 
There are bound to be people asking themselves why I did it THAT way?
Or just people beeing incredible critical, just because they have a sound system that
are 20 years newer and can TODAY bring forward that awful static noise, and details you'd never
heard before in authentic Commodore 64 music!This FAQ below will logically answer ALL those questions.  Q: "SID Emulation today is perfect, so why bother?" Q: "Cool, real hardware is the way to go, but what chip revisions & batch are you recording on?" Q: "Hey, my favourite tune sounds wrong, I can't remember this version! Q: "Hey, my favourite tune is missing 1 to 0.5 second (start or end), and the looping is not perfect!" Q: "Hey, my favourite tune is having a click/pop audio problem somewhere!!!!" Q: "Hey, almost all tunes have an annoying click in the beginning!!! WTF?" Q: "Hey, Have you guys deleted some recorded files, where are the "_PSID" recordings?!" Q: "What actions did you take to ensure recording of PAL/NTSC based tunes? " Q: "Why the 224Kbps, mono and CBR MP3 coding?" Q: "Why MP3? and not OGG, FLAC, Plain WAV or "that other personal favourite" format, dude?" Q: "Do you have any verification possibilities that the file I downloaded is 100% complete?" Q: "Hmm, I'm not really impressed...I can hear static noise in the recordings!" Q: "Why not build or buy dedicated newer hardware for the purpose, such as HardSID?" Q: "But why do you do it? What is the gain? What's the use, its outdated material and old!" Q: "What is a SID file anyway? How does one create a SID file? How does one rip it? I wanna learn!" Q: "Can I use the MP3 files for anything else than listening to them?" Q: "What do the future hold for the SOASC= project?" Q: "Do you guys earn any money on this? And, you know what...you could by adding banners!" Q: "Are there any world records involved in this project?" Q: "SID Emulation today is perfect, so why bother?" A: No, its not. The keyword is "emulate". It means to simulate or reproduce something in another environment that its original environment. An artificial environment. Is this real then? No. Therefore, the music MUST be recorded from the real environment to ensure the authentic and genuine sound of the C64. Recording from hardware cards or software emulators of the newest kind is NOT authentic. That's the easy way, I do it the hard way..so there! But, don't get me wrong. The work done for the software emulation of the SID chips are really a incredible task. Respect! Another thing is that the SID chips have incoming capacitor lines which are made out of natural elements, and this means that the filters are impossible to simulate on a computer 100%. And do rememeber that 2 similar chips and C64's will NEVER have the exact sound on both! The filters are based on nautral ingredients (which are of the analogic world) and therefore there will naturally be deviations from emulation, clones vs the real thing! C64 is not living in a digital filter sound world... and thats why the sound is so incredible and this also apply for a lot of old synthesizer equipment from the 80's... like the Roland TB-303. Pure analog sound which is NOT comparable to software clones of today. (But that's another battle story...) Q: "Cool, real hardware is the way to go, but what chip revisions & batch are you recording on?" A: The chips used for recording is: "MOS 6581R4 3387 14" (Yes, no AR markings!) "MOS 6581 2383" and the "C= CSG 8580R5 2689 25". No chips were damaged in the making of the SOASC= recordings. Here are some sexy looking pictures of the chips, including HI-RES pictures to drool at.    Q: "Hey, my favourite tune sounds wrong, I can't remember this version!" A: In most cases the tune are authentic and is exactly how it sounded when played on a real C64 with 6581 or 8580. Remember that composers designed tunes to be perfect on the 6581, and when 8580 came out a few years later the damage was of course not possible to fix. They could not have known that the filters was changed on the 8580. This is the most important part to remember. Tunes ARE and WAS specifically designed to that of the composer had in his machine. But how the hell can you know what the composer intended? I many cases, you don't - so please use the guidelines below for help! Guidelines for choosing the correct MP3 version to download/listen to: 1: Make sure you download the MP3 file (either 6581 or 8580) as suggested by HVSC and also indicated in our database. If still not sounding okey, proceed to step 2. 2: Download the SID file instead. Tweak settings in SIDPLAY2w to force 6581 or 8580 model to use. If the same problem (missing sounds or channels) is there, then the SID file is supposed to sound like that on the opposite model or the SID is a bad rip (difficult to determine). 3: There are known differences between 6581 and 8580 recordings. For instance the sample playback on 8580 may be low or missing. Please try the 6581 version instead. Even between revisions of the same chip the sound can be different, so remember that! 4: Please try and remember what kind of C64 you heard the tune on originally "back in the days". Download the appropriate MP3 file, and that should be it. 5: Also, to confuze you even more. The MOS6581R4 used for recording has some really strong filtering, so if that is not pleasing or you can't remember, a safe say would be that the MOS6581R2 version is the one you seek! 6: Download all MP3 versions (6581 and 8580) and choose the most suiting one for your ears and stick to that! General: The sound of C64 is analogic and sounds differently on each chip and even between the same revisions! So a quick estimate from me: 1982-1988 = Go for the 6581 versions (100%) 1988-1993 = preferred model unknown 1993-2007 = preferred model 8580 (but still not 100% trustable) BUT also remember that tunes made 1982-2007 WITH samples will not sound correct on 8580 (in most cases) so that too is a little bit confusing I'm afraid. If the problem is still there and you are certain that something HAS gone wrong during the recording, please post the bug and we shall investigate and give feedback. Why we didn't do this intially during the pre-recording process is simple: People was used to the music they heard on whatever model they had regardless of what the tune was originally composed on "back in the days". So, if a tune was suggested to be played with a 6581 model (like tune 9 in Last Ninja) it would have a special filtersaw string in the background. But, on a 8580 the same sound would not be present. So, for people only listening to tune 9 in Last Ninja on a 8580 model, they would not have recognized the "new" filtersaw string in the background if they downloaded the 6581 MP3 version of today. So, it was a easy decision: We HAD to record everything on both models to suit everybodys childhood memories: ) Q: "Hey, my favourite tune is missing 1 to 0.5 second (start or end), and the looping is not perfect!" A: The tune lengths were extracted from HVSC own songlengths.txt file which do not contain that much of precision. Furthermore, it is well known that a number of song lenghts are really wrong. The songlengths.txt is a beta project still. But in time, HVSC will probably take care of this, and even adjust the lengths to more precise numbers. Its rounded to the nearest second. I have added about 0.8 second to the recording in my SIDREC software to compensate. This means that your favourite tune or sound effect will either be perfect, missing 0.2 second or having 1.3 second too much making a seamless loop not possible. The other thing you have to remember is that the SOASC= recording is an AUTOMATED process and there is NO WAY I could load each tune into Adobe Audition and manage this for approx 95000 tunes. That is IMPOSSIBLE. BUT, of course such things are irritating, so requests for re-recordings and manual mastering is an option through our FORUMS! Q: "Hey, my favourite tune is having a click/pop audio problem somewhere!!!!" A: Some of the SID tunes played on a real C64 contains peaks beyond what you could believe. Its a analogic world on the C64 and things CAN get out of hand. I have not used any software to prevent clipping as this can destroy certain elements of sounds in other tunes probably. Furthermore, the audio in recording volume is ONLY about 25% of the REAL signal. This should prevent clipping in 99.8% of the songs. After the recording a NORMALIZE function is performed on the tune, maximizing it to the fullest volume possible. If the peaks are already recorded with 25% volume, the peak will naturally still be there. The click/pop problem is a minority of the tunes. You should try the 6581 or 8580 version to determine if the problem is on both of them and report back to the FORUMS. Maybe even request a re-recording where the clipping is manually removed by us. And again, remember the SOASC= project is an automatically based project, no human involment to fine tune each SID song. Some sacrifices will be present, but all things can be fixed. There is hope, "keep hope alive" (C) TCM! Q: "Hey, almost all tunes have an annoying click in the beginning!!! WTF?" A: Yes, this is the actual software INIT being done by PSID64 for the SID chip. Its just the same click you will hear on a real Commodore 64 if you were to start the actual game or demo yourselves. I tried to fine adjust the recording to avoid this, but there are some minor milliseconds to which to work on, so a lot of tunes were chopped off about 0.1-0.5 seconds in the beginning instead. So, I decided to adjust it back to make sure the tunes were not chopped off in the beginning. Sorry for this, its just the nature of the SID chip....and since the SOASC= is authenthic I guess it have to be in there...uhh. But maybe it wont play on all MP3 players both hardware and software, depends on how for instance you have the fading between songs (ie crossfading in WinAmp) or that your ipod ignores the first 0.1 seconds and skips it...you never know :). Q: "Hey, Have you guys deleted some recorded files, where are the "_PSID" recordings?!" A: The _PSID are files that were back in the Amiga days hacked to be played perfectly with samples when using Amiga PlaySID. Today, the result (when played on a real Commodore 64) is sample playback missing or totally screwed up etc by using PSID64 (which the entire SOASC= was used for). I think there are possibilities to record even the PSID files by using MMC64 or another dedicated SID player on the C64 itself, but this has not yet been researched upon. But, as a strict rule for the SOASC= collection *ALL* indications of _PSID is either deleted, ignored or avoided in all my tools and recordings. This is also mentioned in HVSC FAQ, and they have intentions to re-rip all _PSID tunes and make them real C64 ripped files which will be played correctly on a real C64. They are not really suitable and can't be trusted at all, so we filter them out!. Today, most tunes are duplicated with both the PSID and the regular SID format anyway, so this question will be null and void during time. Q: "What actions did you take to ensure recording of PAL/NTSC based tunes? " A: All tunes were played/recorded on both 6581 and 8580 PAL timed machines initally. During mid 2008, I purchased two US machines (old and new C64) and re-recorded those tunes with the correct timing for NTSC flagged tunes and updated the database respectfully with info and MP3 files. Q: "Why the 224Kbps, mono and CBR MP3 coding?" (I used LAME 3.97 Command line version to convert the recorded wav to MP3) The magic line was: "lame.exe *.wav -c -h -m m -b 224 -q 2 --tg 52" A: CBR is constant bit ratio which means that a silent period in the MP3 have the same compression factor as a period with sound in it has. This results in larger size MP3, but size is NOT an issue here, and also it's supported by older equipment (which also represents the 224Kbps ratio) such as DVD players, Car Stereo MP3 players, MP3 players both software and hardware. It IS yesterday's compression scheme for sure, but not everybody are hip enough to follow the bandwagon and be cool and buy all the latest ipod MP3 players and do not care about dowloading the latest MP3 player software. SOASC= is about compability in probably all environments and situations. MONO is of course the only choice when recording C64 music. C64 does NOT play STEREO sound out of the AUDIO/VIDEO connector and for the tech freaks, the CHIP inside (6581 and 8580) has only ONE audio output. Please remember, 3 VOICES OUTPUT (as written in the C64 manual) is not the same as STEREO SOUND OUTPUT, and therfore what good will a STEREO MP3 with the same audio in both channels be any point to consider??! If you are not still convinced why I took this decision, please read the interview with me in the September Issue of CommodoreFree -> www.commodorefree.com That should get you head straight and make you stop and think and stop being so ignorant towards the choice of MP3 instead of OGG or any other format! Q: "Why MP3? and not OGG, FLAC, Plain WAV or "that other personal favourite" format, dude?" A: It was a totally egoistic and personal choice. This is afterall a PRIVATE project intented for my own amusement. MP3: It's the most common format for all kinds of people and hardware. End of story. OGG: Might be better with those "unhearable high frequencies that you would NEVER miss if you had nothing to compare too anyway!" End Of Story. FLAC: Why should I? Better go real WAV instead, and also FLAC is a non-typical format that are not "all over" compatible "all over" everywhere. End Of Story. WAV: That would be dream, yes. But it would take 10 times as much space. So 400GB x 10 that is. For the years to come, not an option. But in future, why not! :-) I really can't believe if anybody would be unsatisfied with the SOASC= audio quality of the MP3's. Those higher frequencies you claim to be issue with the MP3 are frequencies in the approx 18000Hz-20000Hz range. Do you know what KIND of sound that is? Wanna listen? Here's 20 seconds of it in wav and mp3: Note that the Hi Freq cutout example was boosted by 17DB, just to get the maximum volume for you to listen too. The Original Recorded WAV (8580) vs The 18000Hz-2000Hz range (you claim you can here this?? Maybe your dog will!) The Processed MP3 Result (8580) vs The 18000Hz-2000Hz range (is there anybody out there at all?) If you have Adobe Audition check for yourselves with the Spectral View. Here is my snapshot of it, so go compare.  And the best of all. If anybody have better recordings, they are free naturally to enjoy those. But why not do the same thing with the rest of the current available C64 music as well... ohhh don't worry...it's just about 90000 tunes of manual processing work for you. See you in another dimension and in a galaxy VERY far from here! Remember that the SOASC= project is an automated process, and can be restarted anytime, anywhere with any sound specification we would ever dream of. There is no more work involved, there is no problem having the computers and C64 record for 90 days straight with an 30 minute break each 3th day to extract the results. If you are not still convinced why I took this decision, please read the interview with me in the September Issue of CommodoreFree -> www.commodorefree.com That should get you head straight and make you stop and think and stop being so ignorant towards the choice of MP3 instead of OGG or any other format! I have no further comments. Q: "Do you have any verification possibilities that the file I downloaded is 100% complete?" A: Either check the MP3 songlength you have in your local file vs the length on our database/web. Or, see if the MP3 filesize matches that of our database/web. If you have tags in the MP3, its probably 100% ok. If not, you have a broken file. To verify such broken files we have provided MD5 checksums for all MP3 files. Use your favourite local tool to verify that against our sum available for each song entry on the database/web. We even provided a MD5 text file for all 3 chip recordings for you to download. It is structured the same way as HVSC'S "songlengths.txt" file. If your sum is a match, you got the 100% file. If it still breaks off, chances are 100% that HVSC's songlength entry is wrong. There is no known bug in the SOASC= songlengths as they are 100% based on HVSC's songlengths entries. Q: "Hmm, I'm not really impressed...I can hear static noise in the recordings!" 
A: Again, SOASC= is about the AUTHENTIC and GENUINE sound from real C64's. Its the key factor!
The SOASC= project records both music played on a 8580 and 6581 SID CHIPS. It records them EXACTLY
out of the AUDIO/VIDEO connector on the Commodore 64 itself...so naturally noise will emerge from
the chips inside.Well, popquiz: Did you really care about the noise back in the days? Did you actually hear it and did you hate the C64 for that? Could you really do something about it? Did it REALLY caused so much of a trouble for you? Do you use the same music equipment to listen to C64 music (MP3 version) TODAY as you did BACK then? No. You were like the rest of us either connected to a crappy television with horrible speakers, or you did actually have a sound system with AUX input. Now....what do you really remember? The NOISE that WAS there (trust me it was, and even more that in the SOASC= recording!) or the music itself? ...the answer is the music of course, so easy! Anyway, when doing tests during the recording, naturally noise was detected. But, by improving the internal grounding and also connect the AUDIO IN on the SID chip to GROUND, the noise apparent in the recordings was "completely" removed. By writing "completely" its actually based on the sound material itself. Further studies during the recording showed that tunes did vary in volume. So lower volume means the "normalize" routine had to boost the final output more resulting in more noise, but if the volume was quite high, the noise would be really totally gone! The picture shows the procedure to be a success on a casual test. Upper recording is without any improved grounding (original C64) and the bottom you see that the noise is gone. You can see that the noise is shown as a line over the top frequencies in the recording. We could of course do some software post processing to remove the noise, humm etc...but we'd never know what a typical all over setting would do to THAT particular tune, so that idea was totally ignored too! Furthermore I DID NOT add the -b option to PSID64 (screen blanking)! There were tips about this reducing noise, yes on the 6581 I noticed so just minorly, but a number of songs were detected to be out of sync completely with this option. (It may be due to defective SID files and was confirmed by HVSC that those tunes I noticed on ACTUALLY had bad bytes in them....typically a lot of the VARIOUS\M-R\Nilsen_Ronny\xx.sid). But since I had already added a better physical grounding as mentioned above, this option did not have any relevance to the SOASC= project and where rejected. Furthermore in the "changelog.txt" for the PSID64 project, it states: "Implemented screen blanking to improve audio quality when using the RF modulated output of your C64.". It specifically mentions "RF modulated" and nothing about the AUDIO/VIDEO out connector! So confusion is here all right. Q: "Why not build or buy dedicated newer hardware for the purpose, such as HardSID?" A: Again, SOASC= is about the AUTHENTIC and GENUINE sound from real C64's. Its the key factor! All the old components and their analogic specifications make up the sound of the C64. Most of the key components around the sound chip is today totally obsolete not to mention the SID itself. You could get 95% close (with hardware) to the real sound of C64, but do I want that? No, I want the 100% real thing and so should others feel too. Do you think the "AUTHENTIC" word is put into the SOASC= (Stone Oakvalley's Authentic SID Collection) just for fun? Ohh, yeah of course you could canibalize your precious C64 and put all the REAL components on a PCB card and play along, but man... you're destroying a C64 for gods sake, and why bother then when SOASC= MP3's is just what you will get anyway without any PCB contructing and insulting the soul of C64? Use common...no IMPROVED sense! Q: "But why do you do it? What is the gain? What's the use, its outdated material and old!" A: For starters, you are missing one word in the end there. It should say; "old school". That is about the things that matter when you grew up, what made you what you are today, your memories and your experiences with the C64 will be back again to say hello with the help of remembering the past and the old school days with crunchy sound and pixels in 8-bit, 16 color. Remember, todays equipment will be old school in 20 years, so its all about remembrance and the joy of "what was". There is no gain, except the result of the real authentic C64 sound:). This was an electronic and inventive challenge that I just HAD to do. Challenges make character, and it is incredible fun to be able to be creative and set no limits, what a boring life if not. Therefore, I just HAD to do it, and also because I have so many good memories from the C64 days that I would like to experience today in other situations and I still get a kick out of it. It's about human exploration and playing with your mind. If you don't understand, you're a zombie and have lost yourself...and that can't be repaired. Sorry. And if you compare and think you just made the comment of the day like; "why have 400GB of C64 music when I can have all the SIDS in 280mb instead" (typical newbie statement), you are REALLY lost and have no idea or concept of the SOASC= project is all about. You are probably one of those guys who start a lot of projects and never finished them....thats not me, so respect that and the AUTHENTIC sound of the SOASC= project! Anyway, apart from that I do not trust ANYTHING else than the real authentic Commodore 64 playing the SIDS. Everything else is either emulated (by software or hardware) and I do not want to listen to music not intended to be played on anyting else than the original Commodore 64's. A lot of people seem to forget this incredible important detail when discovering the SOASC= project in general. It is just the hunt for the real authentic thing, and I stress that too much. AUTHENTIC SOUND IS ALL! Q: "What is a SID file anyway? How does one create a SID file? How does one rip it? I wanna learn!" A: This is only best answered by the gods of SID information! The HVSC team. Visit their FAQ page here! Q: "Can I use the MP3 files for anything else than listening to them?" A: No. The MP3 file you download you are only allowed to listen to there and then. But, to extract parts of it or use the whole music material, use it in multimedia productions etc, you must either use common respect for the Public Domain copyright rules or contact the composers directly about your intentions for the music material. The MP3 file as it is presented with the tags is our property. We created the MP3 file. You are not allowed to modify or change the MP3 tags within it, re-save it in a way that clearly differs from the original MP3 filesize or structure. If the intention of fixing a bad MP3 tag or that you want to improve the copyright information, this is allowed. If you copy the MP3 file to your server and make it available online, you must specify that the MP3 files WAS recorded by the SOASC= project (provide our link the the main site) and the copyright for the music material is the original composers property. This must be taken out of the MP3 tag and placed together with the MP3 file download link on your site. Note that all MP3 tags are based upon those available in the HVSC SID collection, so please contact them for any modification of a wrong copyright tag. They have best control of this, we only base our MP3's on their collection. Q: "What do the future hold for the SOASC= project?" A: The intial goal of SOASC= was to process the entire HVSC#45 archive, and then continue to update the archive whenever HVSC released a new pack of fixes/new tunes. After that, #46, #47 and #48 was recorded and the database updated to reflect the changes and other bugs squeezed. However, the updates needs a very concentrated effort, since I'm dealing with special recordings, triple directories, multiple files instead of just one single .SID file. When I've had enough I guess it's time to stop, but when? I don't know :-) Q: "Do you guys earn any money on this? And, you know what...you could by adding banners!" A: Earn money on this project? Are you out of your mind? Hosting this kind of massive collection online is really easy...if one cared to do it the right way! And so we did, no CRAP - just pure, clean, serious and the tunes ready for download. No strings attached, no nags, no ads, no shit. This is a respectful archival project for the SID fans which includes myself and the website should reflect that. So by bringing in a bunch of Google crap ads, stupid search engines plugins or ANY other kind of third-party webcode/functionalites beyond what I MEAN in my greatest belief would bring my site on a level that would be similar to SO many other archive sites out there is REALLY important. This site should be clean and 100% our design/functionalites only! If something would be added it should benefit the project...like the external embedded link to YouTube movie of the SOASC= project. Just a heads up, that I am VERY aware of what clean and serious concept/projects are all about! Death to banners, commercial ads, google ad crap etc. that DOES NOT benefit the project in question! Earning money on this project (in any way) would be subject to law as we do not own the tunes and are they are of course copyrighted to their respective composers/companies, so there will never be any banners or stuff making us rich on this. NEVER EVER, WE ARE SO CLEVER! In very simple words: WE ACCEPT *NO* DONATIONS : DONATE DIRECTLY TO YOUR FAVORITE COMPOSER INSTEAD! We will never be like *any* other similar site out there, we set an example of what FREE means. Q: "Are there any world records involved in this project?" A: Hehe, well not officially recorded by Guiness Records but I guess my Commodore 64 suffered to most resets in the entire history. Each machine will during the entire recording sequence be reset via the userport about 95000 times..Guess that counts for something :) And not to mention the fact that both Commodore 64's will have played about 1450 hours of music during a 4 month period, and doing nuttin else. I guess its also the worlds longest project the Commodore 64 has ever been put through or even suffered through :) It did run for 24/7 with only a 30 minute break (power off) each 5th day. So did the 4 x PC's involved too...but we don't care about those. They are only workhorses, but the Commodore 64 is preciousssssssss...  |