What is so great about the SID chip?

[Arkhan]

even bands built around it. Check out Crystal Castles.

Or don't.

I once messaged that guy in the band and he had NFI what I was talking about when I mentioned SID/C64.  That instantly made what they were doing seem pretty meh and fake as far as I care.
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Don't think the original Mac had sound, and ST had the same inferior Yamaha chip as 8 bit Sinclair/Amstrad units. NES had rubbish sound, SNES sounded a bit General MIDI extra cheese on the side style too. So is there any wonder compared to the competition that of all the mass market machines people generally only remember the two from Commodore!

Eh.  The SID is great for music, but really sucks for games most of the time.  Look at how many games either have SFX OR music.  (Armalyte, R-Type).  

So many games have decent music, but then the blaring noisy SFX kick in and ruin the hell out of it.....  if your work around is omitting SFX, then you've done it wrong.

There are always exceptions to this.  Parallax for example does music and SFX good.  So does Myth, and Neverending Story 2 for example.

Also:
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--The NES didn't have rubbish sound.  Don't be crazy.
--The MSX has great FM music.  Don't leave it out.  Add in the Konami SCC, and there you go.  Mix in the stock AY chip, and you have 17 channels of chip-music to be had.
--In the same vein as SCC, is the PC-Engine.  That soundchip never disappoints.  R-Type sounds like crap on Amiga in comparsion.
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I think there is plenty of remembrance for stuff other than Paula and SID.


The reason the SID chip is "so great" though, is that it is an actual synthesizer, rather than a PSG.   You generate waveforms and filter/shape the sounds just like you would with say a Roland SH-101 (which you can make sound exactly like a SID, so the SID isn't exactly unique).

Other chips of the time were just bleepbloopers, while the SID was a shweeeepshwooooooper.  It set it apart in a good way from other computers.  Honestly, if the SID wasn't there, alot of the games would suck.

Though I really think the people that go all out of their way to make DIY synths out of SIDs are going a bit overboard, esp since the SID is pretty accident prone.  A roland or moog is way more reliable.

[Arkhan]

Good music is good music, technicalities aside. To me though all NES games were plinky plonk rubbish, and SNES games are very orchestral/General MIDI sounding. The artistic talent just isn't there like some of the great SIDs or stuff like Ghouls n Ghosts on Amiga. It's not a cultural thing because games like Vulcan Venture have awesome soundtracks in the arcade and the Sony chip in the SNES is technically good too. Yes Ghouls n Ghosts IS a crap conversion on Amiga (thanks to idiots hired by US Gold AGAIN!) BUT the music is light years ahead of the rubbish on the console versions. Limiting factor for Amiga games music was the floppy disk, but then cartridges have unlimited memory, With a hard drive on an A600 you could use all 1mb per level nicely without worrying about how many disk swaps would happen.

Well, Ghouls and Ghosts had the same tunes throughout all systems.... except for the Amiga, which had some cracked out disaster that was not like the arcade one at all.   Even the NES's Ghosts n Goblins had the right tracks lol.

Also the Amiga one had no sound effects, which is another big WTF.  

I much rather prefer the "plonky" / "cheesy" stuff that resembles the arcade ones as opposed to Soap Opera sounding background music and ambient noises or wonky sounding stuff that sounds like it belongs at a carnival.  So calling the home ones that aren't Amiga rubbish is basically calling the arcade one rubbish too....

If you want an awesome arcade to home conversion of GnG.. see Daimakaimura for Super Grafx.   Perfect soundtrack done w/ 32-Byte waveforms, and crisp visuals.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0NNXwvndjg

and you can also check out the Megadrive one which has more arcade like FM tunes.

Both are excellent.

The arcade machines usually rocked the FM like a motherfudger anyway, and it often suits the games better.   Then the home machines have similar hardware and sounds, and everyone rejoices at similar home versions of arcade games...

Amiga's Golden Axe was also guilty of this lack-of-proper-soundtrack business.  I don't like swinging swords around to dance club music.  

Usually it is 2 not 1 though as far as music quality goes, music and effects together has always been tricky on most home computers due to limited total numbers of sound channels. You can't really help it

Japanese consoles/games never seem to have this problem.  MSX, NES, SMS, PC-Engine.... they all handled the sound limitations like a champ.  It's commonplace on these systems for the music to be playing and then a sound effect comes on, toggles one of the channels off to play the sound effect.... and then the music picks up right where it left off.  Perfectly blending sound effects and music without sacrificing anything.......

The omitting one or the other maneuver seems like something you only see on the C64 and sometimes (rarely) the Amiga.  I never understood why.   It really kills a game to not get both, especially if the arcade one had both...

Like R-Type for C64!