The best programmers came out of the 80s. It was a matter of necessity as they had severely limited resources compared to today. A little known fact. 1) The guy who programmed DOOM for the SNES did so without access to the source code, ID software hadn't released it to the public yet. He rebuilt the engine from scratch. 2) The SNES wouldn't have even been able to run DOOM had it not been programmed in assembler. Using a higher level language and compiling it lacks the efficiency of direct assembler programing. 3) The programmer had learned his craft programming games on the C64, which required assembler to achieve any real speed in execution. 4) The programmer's name is Randal Linden. 5) He later went on to create Bleem, a PS1 emulator for PC that he made while the PS1 was still in full swing. Again, made from scratch. 6) A court case ensued from Sony and they lost because his code was original. 7) We can thank Randal for us being able to legally have emulators today.
@@Formula_Zero_EX to use a simple analogy. There are people that know adding red and blue together makes purple, then there are people that know WHY adding red and blue together makes purple. When you truly understand a science at it's most fundamental level, you can wield it in ways others cannot.
@@tcscomment Basically, it's related to the sample playback in the C64, and in a very simplified way, a "fail" in the chip will generate a virtual 4th channel. Many composers exploited this. Jeroen Tel might be the most prominent case with Hubbard, but Tim Follin also made use of it in Peter Pack Rat.
@@madmodders Thanks for that, but can you link me to a website that says that? I've tried searching, and I want to actually see what others have to say about it before just doing it blind
This was my generation's punk rock: obnoxious noise that drove my boomer parents up the wall, while I appreciated the musical complexity, tuning in to every counter melody
OMFG, this song is forever burned i to my head. growing up playing this gane on c64. leaving this screen on just to hear this song.... didnt care about the 5 minute load time, this was well worth it! thank you foe this gem!!! I'n gonna whip out my mini c64 and mess Poser Pete up in Joust!!! lol
OMG, I thought I was the only one who did this. I would be getting ready for school and having this play just because this was so incredibly cool to listen too. My sister would complain along the lines of, "Every day it's Skate or Die!"
"Instructions unclear: I tried to skate but I instead accidentally caused an electric guitar & same waves to go crazy making music" - Rob Hubbard probably, 1987
My favourite part is 0:51 for 25 seconds. It sounds like the climax of a fricking Queen song. Keyboards nailing those chords, bass repeating it's tonic riff, locomotive drums, and that syncopated high-note in electric guitar. I feel like I could start to levitate with my controller during this part. So epic.
This song sounds like something Jammer would make, just with how much action is going on in each channel it's impressive this came out long before anything like Hot Mamas or 80squares did because it's on that level.
You probably were playing a NTSC import on a PAL machine. Rob actually programmed the music routine for each release so it would play at the same speed on both PAL and NTSC. The NTSC version has flashing black and white borders (PAL doesn't), so easy to tell if you're playing that (imported) or not. I had a PAL original, and this is as it plays on a PAL machine. In any case I had Rob himself verify the speed of both to be correct, and in HVSC, you can set the PAL/NTSC flag of your SID player, and it plays the right way for each flag too.
On real hardware all other sound is somewhat muted when the guitar is being played. this version the volume of the other three channels is unaffected by the digi trick.
@acrouzet You can improve the oscilloscope view adding frequency. One screen instead of four lines. Low basses at the bottom, high frequencies at the top. Measured as average of a period of time, for example 0.1 sec. With smaller interval, the channels will jump over the whole screen. You can also display waveforms in colors, from the softest sine wave in violet or blue, to the sharpest sawtooth in orange. Square waves from cyan, through green to yellow, depending on the duty, triangle wave in red, purple. Low volumes in dark, high volumes in bright colors. Noises, as closer to the perfect white noise, in greyscale adding the base waveform color. Is this simple or complicated to implement?
How...did...he...pull...that...off? There's no denying that Hubbard could do things with the C-64 SID that the original engineers probably never DREAMED of!
He had a driver that let him modify the global volume register, and playback the samples made in software. Maybe not the best method to playback samples, but this song is ridiculously well composed :3
The original SID had a bug where changing the master volume caused a little pop. If it was changed fast enough with the right timing it could be used like a PWM generator, creating a virtual 4th voice. The next generation SID greatly reduced the bug so the 4th channel is too quiet to hear (without some programming trickery). In this piece, the electric guitar is a sample played on the 4th channel bug, but it can't be heard on the later 8580 SID.
@@TheSmart-CasualGamer For example, the first part of The Mansion is a rip of Tangerine Dream - Alchemy of the heart, and later there's a part from The Last Ninja Wastelands track. But it's different and creative enough to be considered a different piece of music.
It's supposed to be running that way. NTSC and PAL versions of the game purposefully differed their speed to match their respective machines, to run at the same speed to each other. If NTSC game was in a PAL machine (like many other uploads here on CZcams), it would be too slow, if vice versa, then it would be too fast.
Ok. Simple question form a musically-illerate 80's 8-bit kiddie. All these other oscilloscope ones show the C64 as I remember it. 3 voices. Each you could set a pulse, sine, saw tooth or noise, and the ADSR etc. But why does this show 4 voices?
@@acrouzet I don't understand how that answers his question though. If 4-bit Samples are being played through the volume register, then how is it that none of the other voices are affected? The SID only has ONE volume register, after all. Is it timing? Are all the voices inactive during the PCM play, and it's just going too fast to see?
@@bozimmerman As far as I understand it, it's tied to one voice, the arpeggio one that is constantly running, therefore not being affected by the rapid volume changes.
The original SID had a bug where changing the master volume caused a little pop. If it was changed fast enough with the right timing it could be used like a PWM generator, creating a virtual 4th voice. The next generation SID greatly reduced the bug so the 4th channel is too quiet to hear (without some programming trickery). In this piece, the electric guitar is a sample played on the 4th channel bug, but it can't be heard on the later 8580 SID.
@@bozimmerman That I really don't know. It seems like it would considering the master volume affects the main 3 voices. It seems like we'd hear the music wavering in its volume whenever the bug was used. Maybe it's just varied so fast we can't detect the change in volume with our ears (seems like it would show up in the oscilloscope view, though; I don't entirely understand how it works).
@@RichardM-kv4uu he's probably referring to the NES Skate Or Die 2's Title theme, which has 7-bit PCM for the guitar and voices. Either way the two do have similar motifs but are completely different enough that insertion of the NES's vocal track would not work at all.
![Jeroen Tel - "2400 A.D. (C64) - Main Theme" [Oscilloscope View]](/img/n.gif)
The best programmers came out of the 80s. It was a matter of necessity as they had severely limited resources compared to today.
A little known fact.
1) The guy who programmed DOOM for the SNES did so without access to the source code, ID software hadn't released it to the public yet. He rebuilt the engine from scratch.
2) The SNES wouldn't have even been able to run DOOM had it not been programmed in assembler. Using a higher level language and compiling it lacks the efficiency of direct assembler programing.
3) The programmer had learned his craft programming games on the C64, which required assembler to achieve any real speed in execution.
4) The programmer's name is Randal Linden.
5) He later went on to create Bleem, a PS1 emulator for PC that he made while the PS1 was still in full swing. Again, made from scratch.
6) A court case ensued from Sony and they lost because his code was original.
7) We can thank Randal for us being able to legally have emulators today.
@@delscoville The programmer was from the 80s
@@delscoville plus one for your name. -1009 for comprehension.
Don't forget Yu Suzuki. He created the best-looking games of the '80s and '90s.
Damn, Randal made an emulator while the PS1 was in its early stages? That’s incredible!
@@Formula_Zero_EX to use a simple analogy. There are people that know adding red and blue together makes purple, then there are people that know WHY adding red and blue together makes purple.
When you truly understand a science at it's most fundamental level, you can wield it in ways others cannot.
Rob Hubbard created this electric guitar sample thanks to a bug in the C64 SID processor... simply a GENIUS
@@tcscomment
Basically, it's related to the sample playback in the C64, and in a very simplified way, a "fail" in the chip will generate a virtual 4th channel.
Many composers exploited this. Jeroen Tel might be the most prominent case with Hubbard, but Tim Follin also made use of it in Peter Pack Rat.
My C64 has the 8580 SID so I can't hear it :(
@@Wflash00 You can make it audible by adding a 300k (ish) resistor between pin 14 and 26.
@@madmodders Thanks for that, but can you link me to a website that says that? I've tried searching, and I want to actually see what others have to say about it before just doing it blind
@@ConnorR.mp3 found it, thanks 👍
Maybe I didn't search the right term back then
This is ridiculously well composed.
Hubbard is God
Seriously. It’s like way too difficult to program this into a computer VS playing in a band
That's Hubbard's middle name!
well if you look at 1 channel at the start is goes squ trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu trisqu tri
This was my generation's punk rock: obnoxious noise that drove my boomer parents up the wall, while I appreciated the musical complexity, tuning in to every counter melody
Absolutely amazing to see this on an oscilloscope. It looks and sounds like about 7 voices.
I thought the same ring modulation?
@@carlopepi The 4th channel is playing pre-recorded guitar chord PCM samples
Yep. How to get 7 voices out of a 3-voice Sound chip, plus a hardware bug. Robb Hubbard was an absolute legend with the SID chip.
recorded organ in separate chords like minor, major, minor 7, or whatever.
2 people didn't skate and died.
I'm not a skater at all but I didn't die.
now 4
i prefer wether Skate or Death, but in the time i was young i liked this game a lot
now its 5
@@emilia-tan3635 well now that i liked it it's back to 4 >:)
I think that would be the absolute max you can get out of a C64.
This should not even be possible.
OMFG, this song is forever burned i to my head. growing up playing this gane on c64. leaving this screen on just to hear this song.... didnt care about the 5 minute load time, this was well worth it! thank you foe this gem!!! I'n gonna whip out my mini c64 and mess Poser Pete up in Joust!!! lol
OMG, I thought I was the only one who did this. I would be getting ready for school and having this play just because this was so incredibly cool to listen too. My sister would complain along the lines of, "Every day it's Skate or Die!"
Tandy 1000 could do this in the PC world as well! My generic clone PC friends were SO jealous!
This is one of the best C64 pieces of music ever! Rob Hubbard was a master of the SID.
EPIC Sid Tune.
Man, that bass line is so fucking jazzy. Just absolutely legendary :)
this is a masterpiece
100% agree
Proud to say I've never heard this before and Rob kicks SID right up the arse! What a tune,that bassline is fecking brilliant!
"Instructions unclear: I tried to skate but I instead accidentally caused an electric guitar & same waves to go crazy making music"
- Rob Hubbard probably, 1987
Am I the only one having tears listening to this music?
me too with Goosebumps, love the changes in the track.
Yes, only you, look the other way! :°)
My favourite part is 0:51 for 25 seconds. It sounds like the climax of a fricking Queen song. Keyboards nailing those chords, bass repeating it's tonic riff, locomotive drums, and that syncopated high-note in electric guitar. I feel like I could start to levitate with my controller during this part. So epic.
One of my all time favorite tunes from the C64. Amazing.
I guess I’ll skate then
Another epic tune by the man himself
God dam Legend. WOW what a great track this is. phew.
This is the best version!
GOD BLESS THE SID CHIP!
80s programmer is the real full stack programmer.
Good headphones...that's all I got to say. 🤘
"Wow, this song is perhaps the zenith of C64 achievement, this is gonna be the best game ever when it loads..."
Oh shit bro c64 love it
I have aidio tactile synesthesia and this song... it does things to me!
This song sounds like something Jammer would make, just with how much action is going on in each channel it's impressive this came out long before anything like Hot Mamas or 80squares did because it's on that level.
Would be later remade in the NES for SoD2.
that version sucks compared to this
Setting the playback speed to 0.9 makes it sound so much better - and much closer to how I remember it.
probably PAL/NTSC speed differences
So this man armonized the noise wave
Okay lol how
4-bit PCM sampling, created by manipulating the 6581’s volume register. You should read more about it, it’s pretty interesting.
SID chip baby. That thing was badass. Could play multiple waves on one voice
@@mikemurphy8714 looped WAV audio.
I literally wrote Rob Hubbard Oscilloscope and I actually got it...
What do you mean?
@@quadpad_music He was probably looking for this, but couldn't remember the game's name.
@@ExtremeWreck - Oh ok thanks, I don't know how I didn't understand that :/
Insane talent these early PC composers had
Genius use of samples, how the hell does he make the sampled guitar in the beginning sound so cool at 2.5 KHz?! Not to mention all the sample loops!
NTSC? This ran much slower on my old PAL C64's and sounded a bit dreary. Much prefer this tempo.
Yeah, this song was from later in his career when he moved to the USA, so it was composed on an NTSC C64.
Yes, it does sound better sped up like this.
P1XL Games Nice piece of trivia. I was thinking, but Hubbard was british surely its PAL - but then, I didn't know that Hubbard moved to the USA.
You probably were playing a NTSC import on a PAL machine. Rob actually programmed the music routine for each release so it would play at the same speed on both PAL and NTSC. The NTSC version has flashing black and white borders (PAL doesn't), so easy to tell if you're playing that (imported) or not. I had a PAL original, and this is as it plays on a PAL machine. In any case I had Rob himself verify the speed of both to be correct, and in HVSC, you can set the PAL/NTSC flag of your SID player, and it plays the right way for each flag too.
@@zawtowers There must have not been very many PAL versions made. Lol. All i can find of the PAL version is the slowed down version.
when the music fills the house you know its loaded up in there
On real hardware all other sound is somewhat muted when the guitar is being played. this version the volume of the other three channels is unaffected by the digi trick.
Jesus H christ this is good
Rob Hubbard Forever.
Damn , i thought they were the Genesis, its a c64 !!!!! Brilliant!!!!
When the NES sounds so good, the vast majority of the comment section thinks it's a C64! Even though the actual C64 version sounds better!
This is the C64 version but ok
This sounds like the same sample set from Arcade Classics.
@acrouzet You can improve the oscilloscope view adding frequency. One screen instead of four lines. Low basses at the bottom, high frequencies at the top. Measured as average of a period of time, for example 0.1 sec. With smaller interval, the channels will jump over the whole screen.
You can also display waveforms in colors, from the softest sine wave in violet or blue, to the sharpest sawtooth in orange. Square waves from cyan, through green to yellow, depending on the duty, triangle wave in red, purple.
Low volumes in dark, high volumes in bright colors.
Noises, as closer to the perfect white noise, in greyscale adding the base waveform color.
Is this simple or complicated to implement?
How...did...he...pull...that...off?
There's no denying that Hubbard could do things with the C-64 SID that the original engineers probably never DREAMED of!
He had a driver that let him modify the global volume register, and playback the samples made in software.
Maybe not the best method to playback samples, but this song is ridiculously well composed :3
skate or pie
This pushesthe c64
Took forever to load on my c64 but hearing this s*#$&@+)$?;" eventually was so worth the wait!
Wow, Hubbard did this one too?
Yes
Fucking insane.... O____o
4 channels from a 3 channel chip. Woah.
The original SID had a bug where changing the master volume caused a little pop. If it was changed fast enough with the right timing it could be used like a PWM generator, creating a virtual 4th voice. The next generation SID greatly reduced the bug so the 4th channel is too quiet to hear (without some programming trickery). In this piece, the electric guitar is a sample played on the 4th channel bug, but it can't be heard on the later 8580 SID.
After this, find Fast Loaders version of this tune. Kicks lots of ass!
NOPE.
I'm getting VERY strong Last Ninja 2 - Central Park vibes from this. Especially in the first bit, the melody is almost IDENTICAL!
The guy that did Last ninja 2 famously ripped off lots of other composers though.
@@RichardM-kv4uu I've never heard that before. Who did he steal from?
@@TheSmart-CasualGamer For example, the first part of The Mansion is a rip of Tangerine Dream - Alchemy of the heart, and later there's a part from The Last Ninja Wastelands track. But it's different and creative enough to be considered a different piece of music.
I remember... one day, I've listened beyond :215 and was amazed... However, this doesn't seem to be the original speed.
It plays at different speeds between NTSC machines and PAL machines. PAL is 50Hz and plays a little slower than the 60Hz NTSC.
@@00Skyfox Pirate versions played at the wrong speed on PAL, the official release sounded like this - I know because I had this!
I believe it only plays at the wrong speed if you play ntsc game on pal c64 and vice versa.
If anyone can point to the version by Jochen Hippel (Mad Max), I'd like to hear from you ! Preferably on YT since I can't play SNDH on linux :(
Remixed version: czcams.com/video/YhFPvXNpuvc/video.html
What's that beeping sound coming from the 2nd channel? A triangle wave?
yes, it's alternating between square and triangle
I love this song. Btw its running too fast.... by about 20% give or take
It's supposed to be running that way. NTSC and PAL versions of the game purposefully differed their speed to match their respective machines, to run at the same speed to each other.
If NTSC game was in a PAL machine (like many other uploads here on CZcams), it would be too slow, if vice versa, then it would be too fast.
Ok. Simple question form a musically-illerate 80's 8-bit kiddie. All these other oscilloscope ones show the C64 as I remember it.
3 voices.
Each you could set a pulse, sine, saw tooth or noise, and the ADSR etc.
But why does this show 4 voices?
Clever programmers could produce a “forth voice” of 4-bit PCM samples by exploiting a bug in how the SID’s volume is handled.
@@acrouzet Thank you. That explains why it's only been on Tetris and Skate or Die that I've seen here. The sampled ones.
Advanced programming trickery.
@@acrouzet I don't understand how that answers his question though. If 4-bit Samples are being played through the volume register, then how is it that none of the other voices are affected? The SID only has ONE volume register, after all. Is it timing? Are all the voices inactive during the PCM play, and it's just going too fast to see?
@@bozimmerman As far as I understand it, it's tied to one voice, the arpeggio one that is constantly running, therefore not being affected by the rapid volume changes.
oh welp here i go *dies*
The SID only had 3 channels, how is it that we see four?? Did he some how emulate a fourth?
The original SID had a bug where changing the master volume caused a little pop. If it was changed fast enough with the right timing it could be used like a PWM generator, creating a virtual 4th voice. The next generation SID greatly reduced the bug so the 4th channel is too quiet to hear (without some programming trickery). In this piece, the electric guitar is a sample played on the 4th channel bug, but it can't be heard on the later 8580 SID.
@@00Skyfox Thanks for this explanation. How come the master volume adjustments to create the 4th channel don't also affect the main 3?
@@bozimmerman That I really don't know. It seems like it would considering the master volume affects the main 3 voices. It seems like we'd hear the music wavering in its volume whenever the bug was used. Maybe it's just varied so fast we can't detect the change in volume with our ears (seems like it would show up in the oscilloscope view, though; I don't entirely understand how it works).
good but i still prefer the version with lyrics some should insert the vocal into the beginning of this lol
What?
@@RichardM-kv4uu he's probably referring to the NES Skate Or Die 2's Title theme, which has 7-bit PCM for the guitar and voices. Either way the two do have similar motifs but are completely different enough that insertion of the NES's vocal track would not work at all.
@@forple8930 Oh right. Didn't realise there was a follow up!
Just listened to SoD2 on youtube, all I'll say is, glad I never knew it existed, now I'll try and forget it.
This needs a seizure warning
He deserves a copyright