High Voltage SID Collection/Info
Introduction
Brief SID History
What exactly is a Commodore 64 (C64) SID tune? Basically it is music originally generated on the C64, a popular family computer from the '80s. The C64 was undoubtedly ahead of its time offering many advanced features for a relatively cheap price. One particular advanced feature on the C64 was the Sound Interface Device (SID) chip developed in 1982 by Bob Yannes. The remarkable capabilities of this chip caused a revolution in the computer music industry. The chip was so revolutionary in fact that Byte Magazine named the chip one of the Top 20 most important chips in computing history (see Byte's 20th Anniversary tribute edition, 1996).
Although the design of the chip was quite a feat, the true test of technology is what people can do with it. The early musical pieces on the C64 were impressive for that time frame, but the hidden potential of the chip wasn't heard until 1985. Composers began to use audio "illusions" that tricked the ear into hearing more voices than the three-voice chip actually had. The music continued to progress in 1987 when musicians began to utilize a fourth voice which was dedicated for samples. Although many other improvements to SID music have been made over the years, none were as important as the two just mentioned.
More importantly, though, was the release of this technology to the C64 public world. Back then, composers had to also program their own tools otherwise the composers would have to create their music using primitive software. Due to a competitive game musician market, however, musicians were reluctant to share their knowledge. Through reverse-engineering and some eventual leaks, the C64 public soon utilized some of these advanced music tools creating a boom in the amount of quality music available.
Throughout the 1990s, the C64 game industry may have ceased to a halt, but there are still many musicians who compose for demo groups, who still enjoy the challenge of squeezing as much as they can out of the SID chip. Most of these new tunes will hold special memories for people, but in a different way in that you'll remember them from demo X or Y rather than as a game soundtrack.
The HVSC Project
The HVSC Project is an attempt to accurately archive the most popular C64 SIDs into one complete collection. The project was started in May 1996 when a few ambitious people decided to merge the many SIDs collections available on the Internet into one masterpiece. The previous SID collections contained many bugged SIDs, repeats, and inaccurate credits not to mention being highly disorganised. Thus this task was not a simple "copy & paste" unfortunately. An additional challenge for us dealt with being compatible with other platforms. The only way one true collection can exist is if we remain compatible with the major operating systems currently in use.
As we merged the collections we began to realize that many famous SIDs were missing. This led to the HVSC Crew and many others to begin searching various C64 software archives for more SIDs to rip. Due to this effort the collection began to grow at an enormous rate. As we progressed, we then noticed that many inconsistencies and questions started to surface. For example, we would find a music credited to a famous composer yet the style of the music was completely different than his normal style. One sure way of solving these mysteries was to contact the original composers. Over time we gradually tracked several of them down and received a tremendous amount of information. As you may have figured out, we are SID archeologists patiently piecing together SID history with only fragments of information.
The HVSC name, incidentally, came about as part of an early agreement with the makers of the High Voltage CDs, who made CDs full of C64 games and demos (and one of them was actually a member of the HVSC Crew for some time.)
You may be asking yourself, "Why go through so much effort for SID music?" Only a person who never owned a C64 would ask such a question. Many people long to hear these old, classic tunes that they enjoyed in their youth. You don't believe us? Look at the amount of Television sites that recall many a program that as a child you treasured and how much memories you get from that. With SID music, this is true equally if not more so. Thankfully with the abundance of SID emulators this is now possible. What was thought to be lost is now found. Let the tears of joy proceed as you listen to perhaps the most accurate and comprehensive computer music collection in existence.
SID emulators are available for many operating systems such as Linux, MacOS, BeOS, Atari Falcon, Windows (95 through to 7), MSDOS, AmigaOS, OS/2, etc. For a complete list of supported OSes with links see: The HVSC Page: http://www.hvsc.c64.org/
The HVSC Philosophy
The HVSC is a free-ware collection. As tradition with most free-ware projects, the organisers maintain the project in their free time. In order to help the HVSC Crew keep their sanity, we expect everyone helping the project to avoid burdening the maintainers with mundane tasks. What exactly do we mean by this? Well, basically we expect that if anyone emails us with comments, SIDs, questions, etc., that they have first put forth some effort so that we do not have to ourselves. It is all very well stating that certain tunes were composed by a certain composer, but if you can also submit any worthwhile information to support your statement, then we can check this for ourselves as well. One must realise that a tremendous and painstaking amount of man-hours have gone into the project. In order for the collection to continue on, we cannot continue to put forth as much time. Thus, we ask that you take on some of the burden. Don't let that word "burden" scare you too much -- we are only talking about a small amount of work here.
Here are some general, friendly rules to keep in mind:
- Every SID you submit should follow the HVSC credit standard (see Section 3-3).
- Verify claims you make about a SID being bugged by loading the original tune on a C64 _only_. Also, if tunes are missing from a SID, then please let us know which ones (see the BUGLIST.txt file for more information.)
- Verify any credit changes you submit either with the composer himself or by checking the actual software for when it was released. In addition, please justify any credit fixes you wish to make.
In general, the messages are VERIFY and STANDARDISE.
Unfortunately, if you do not follow these simple rules we will either ignore the email or you will experience a long delay until the submitted changes take place. We hope that we are not coming across as rude, but as we have already noted, we have spent years on this collection verifying its correctness. Further, we have spent many a day correcting and re-correcting the credits of SIDs so that we can also serve as a vault of information of SID music. If people do not work with the same level of precision as we would like them to do, the collection will take a regressive step.
Collection Structure
There are several ways in which most SID collections have been organised. To name a few, by Author's first name, by categories such as demos and games, or to have a simple rat's nest of SIDs. We have chosen to arrange the collection by the author's last name or by the author's alias if it was used more frequently. Finally, we usually only give composers their own directory when we have three or more tunes available from them. This then makes it a little easier for you to locate the composer.
Below are a some comments about a few special directories:
/DEMOS/X-X/ - For tunes found in demos in which the artist has less than three tunes.
/DEMOS/UNKNOWN - For tunes found in demos in which the artists are unknown.
/DEMOS/Commodore/ - Mainly files from the C64 manuals or test disks that came along with the various drive models.
/DOCUMENTS - If you are reading this document, then most likely you have already figured out what this directory is for. It also keeps an archive of all the update data files and information texts.
/GAMES/X-X/ - For games first released in which the artist has less than three tunes. Game tunes with unknown artists go here as well (sadly, many an older C64 game had no composer information and we usually have had to contact the programmers themselves also to verify)
/MUSICIANS/X-X/ - Tunes sorted by the composers names or handles (if they are more widely used than their real names)
How Can I Help?
Important Note
If you have anything to contribute to the HVSC Crew, then please feel free to contact us at any time. To help us keep track of incoming emails please put [HVSC] in the start of the subject line of your email, followed by the HVSC-related topic in question. Keep in mind we have archived more or less all emails since the start of HVSC, and we do search that archive now and then to track back how tunes have been modified during the HVSC history. Putting [HVSC] into the subject line greatly simplifies these searches.
Contributing SIDs
We love to receive new SIDs for HVSC. Of specific interest are tunes from games, mainly because the game tunes bring back more memories for the people that played them and they were commercially available, but we'll take anything you have unless the tunes are completely lacking musical skill. It very rarely happens that we reject tunes from inclusion into HVSC, but we reserve the right to do so if you keep sending these one channel BASIC rips from private games that only you and your neighbour ever had access to. ;-)
Don't bother ripping fresh scene releases, we usually keep an eye on it and try to rip all the tunes as they get released into the scene.
What does the HVSC Crew want?
Here are some of the items we are looking for:
- Complete collections directly from the composers (this is most ideal as they will usually have all the information we require, too). If you send us complete collections from yourself, your friends or your former groupmates, please also provide information about the sidmodel (6581/8580).
- Loading/Intro tunes used in games. These are rare since crackers would often not include the tunes along with the cracks. In particular, cassette loading themes would often not make it in a crack (although as you will hear, many of them have been restored)
- SIDs already in the HVSC, but with additional sub-tunes. SIDs with additional sound effects are okay, but we prefer SIDs with more tunes instead. The reasoning behind this is that the extra tunes would have memories from the game for people (particularly any game complete tunes).
- Fixes of SIDs already in HVSC. We have found several tunes that start at the wrong location, have missing voices, with bad samples, etc. Please, wherever possible, check them on a real C64 to ensure they work.
- Real C64-compliant rips
- We DON'T want any Compute Gazette SID tunes. Instead, consult here for a collection that does: http://www.c64music.co.uk/
- We DO NOT, under any circumstances, require any more tunes from Vibrants members _except_ MSK. The HVSC team have all the Vibrants' SID tune archives from their website, and we are in constant contact with JCH and DRAX, and they will be sure to send us any more they may find.
- You will notice groups of tunes where there will be a gap in order. These gaps usually do not mean that we are missing these tunes, but rather we have found them repeated elsewhere.
- We also DO NOT want any SID collections from the Internet unless you are pretty certain none of the tunes are in HVSC. HVSC will most likely already have all these SIDs. If you send us collections from the Internet we expect you to eliminate the tunes we already have and make the credits adhere to the HVSC credit standard.
- Further, we DO NOT want any C64 tune that is just one looped sample playing over and over again. Unfortunately around 1987-88 there were a spate of sample-only tunes that had one 20 second long sample either playing once or infinitely. If in any doubt, ask us first.
Contributing Guidelines
If you have SIDs that you think are not in HVSC, please send them to us! If you already have the SIDs or disk images on your PC, fine, just email them to hvsc (sid) c64.org. If you have them on your old disks and have no idea how to convert them over to your PC, get in touch with us via the same email and we'll work something out for you. Note, to save us some work it would be great if you could adhere to the HVSC credit standard (see below for more information).
Also, within the zip file you should have a text file in the same format which describes the SIDs you are sending in. If you're bombing us with more than 10 tunes, please make sure they are in directory order per section.
Examples:
######### ADDITIONS ######### /HVSC_Path/HVSC_Filename.sid (description of rip. Please name which demo or game you ripped them from.) Example: /MUSICIANS/E/Ed/Only_Ones.sid (From Mobile Art demo by Wrath Designs.)
If a composer made two or more SIDs in the same demo, you can group them together like this:
/VARIOUS/G-L/Imaic/Always_Death.sid /VARIOUS/G-L/Imaic/Chaos_on_the_Head.sid /VARIOUS/G-L/Imaic/Hard_Problem.sid (All three tunes from "Imaic Music Collection 4", released by Commo Bam in 1996. All three are 2x tunes.) ##### FIXES ##### /HVSC_Path/HVSC_Filename.sid (what the fixed rip does correctly the old one doesn't.) Example: /VARIOUS/S-Z/Xayne/Funky_Stuff.sid (Fixes /VARIOUS/S-Z/Xayne/Crest_FLI-Pic_Mover.sid. Tunes #1 and #2 in that are invalid, and it should be LDA #$02, JSR init instead.)
And additionally, if you have any STIL entries for the tunes in your ZIP file, feel free to add them in the text file under the heading:
#### STIL ####
Please refer to STIL.faq before sending in STIL entries for each pack.
Further, if you are sending STIL entries relating to SIDs already in HVSC, please send them directly to the current STIL Administrator:
iAN CooG <hvsc (sid) c64.org>
Please also DO NOT send any attachment that is more than 1 MB without mailing us first to let us know and that you have confirmation from us it is okay to send. It's good netiquette, you know.
Please mail your ZIP file of SIDs to the following address:
hvsc (sid) c64.org (it will reach two people, so you can be assured that your mail will get processed)
And, if you have the data on a C64 disk, but do not have the file transfer capabilities to transfer C64 files to your PC, also contact the people above and we can recommend someone who may be willing to help in the conversion task.
SID Credits
For those of you that rip, below is the standard for labelling SIDs. The standard should be strictly followed. If a few rare cases pop up in which you are unsure how to handle, just do the best you can or mail us first to discuss the credits. We can always advise you if need be.
Please note that of HVSC 5.2, the COPYRIGHT keyword has been replaced with RELEASED. This is mainly for legal reasons, as many of the games which were published in the 1980s are not the copyright of the original software companies anymore, but reside with the programmers. In addition, in a lot of cases, the composer has retained his original copyright for the piece or asked a publisher (such as C64Audio) to do that for them. Also, it should more accurately state when demo tunes were either composed or released into the C64 scene, as many of those demo composers retain the copyright of the tunes themselves.
One important reminder: _ALL_ tunes in HVSC are strictly the copyright of the original authors and/or software companies (if the company still exists). Because of this, use of them at profit is subject to law.
SID emulators will eventually embrace this change, as will SID Editing tools such as SIDedit.
SID Credits Standard
NAME : <TITLE> AUTHOR : <FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME> (<ALIAS>) RELEASED : <FOUR_DIGIT_YEAR> <COMPANY or AUTHOR or GROUP>
Fill in any unknown field with a <?>, apart from the RELEASED (see below). Place a maximum of 31 printable characters per field for compatibility reasons.
Examples:
[All information is completely known]
NAME : Hysteria AUTHOR : Fred Gray RELEASED : 1987 Software Projects
[Author and Company are unknown]
NAME : Blob AUTHOR : <?> RELEASED : 1988 <?>
[Author is thought to be known with a *strong* degree of certainty]
NAME : Cheapskate AUTHOR : David Whittaker <?> RELEASED : 1989 Silverbird
[RELEASED date is not exactly known and crack intro has a date or you know an approximate copyright date. Dates in crack intros, by the way, can often be extremely inaccurate compared to the actual copyright date of the game.]
NAME : Indoor Sports AUTHOR : John A. Fitzpatrick RELEASED : 198? Silver Time/Mindscape
Here is a list of how the RELEASED year is handled for various cases:
- 198? - tune is made in the '80s
- 199? - tune is made in the '90s
- 1988-89 - exact year in which tune was made is not known, but it is known that the tune was made in this range.
- 19?? - tune was made in the 20th century.
- 200? - tune was made between 2000-2009
SID Credit Pointers
(1) Rippers: ABSOLUTELY DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME/ALIAS IN THE SID CREDITS!
(2) You should be at least 80% certain of the field you are guessing. To put incorrect credits rather than a <?> would forever ruin your reputation as a serious SID collector. :) When in doubt, at least follow the doubtful information with a <?>.
(3) Just because a tune uses another author's famous music routine, that is not enough to signify with certainty that the tune is by that author. Sometimes authors lent their routine for another to use. Other times the routine was used without permission. Again, please use <?> if not certain.
(4) Don't make up titles (e.g., TITLE: This Tune ROCKS!). If you are ripping the tune from a demo in which the music was specifically made for that demo, then you can use the demo's name as the title, together with its part or tune number (if known), provided the composer did not give the tune a name. Often the first few characters of the tune reveal the name, so please do check when ripping.
(5) DO NOT PUT A SPACE AFTER THE '=' CHARACTER IN THE SID HEADER! (A space should not be the first character of any credit field)
(6) Try to follow standard English capitalisation rules when inserting the titles into the SID fields. Examples:
- The Way of the Exploding Fist {correct}
- The Way Of The Exploding Fist {incorrect}
Note that if the composer intends some of words in the title to be in lower case, then comply with the composer's wishes (but let us know).
(7) Normally, you should make the default tune of the SID the first tune you would first hear when running the game/demo. This is either the cassette or disk loading theme (if there is one) or the title tune of the game.
(8) We prefer to have the musician's real name in the AUTHOR field. If possible, we like to have both alias and real name for demo tunes. The author's real name should precede his handle.
- Standard -> <AUTHOR's REAL NAME> (HANDLE)
- Examples:
- Torben Hansen (Metal) {correct}
- Torben "Metal" Hansen {incorrect}
At minimum, the name that the composer used in the game/demo should be in the credits. Only if there is enough room should you put his real name or alias. Note also that you should not put the composer's group name in the AUTHOR field. Either put such info in the RELEASED line or do not add the info at all.
(9) At a minimum, make sure to get the C64 publishers in the copyright line for games. DO NOT assume that the programming team would have published the game themselves. We do have access to Zzap! 64 reviews indexes, various large collections of original C64 games that we check and double check to make sure.
(10) The documentation that is included with SIDPlay includes a large quantity of information about how to get C64 tunes working with SID Emulators. However, please note that rips should work on a real C64.
Identifying Mistakes
We know that there still exists several mistakes within HVSC, and we would appreciate any help in correcting the mistakes. (After all, we are only humans who run this collection in our spare time.) In addition, we also would like to have missing information in the SID tune credits (i.e., filling in the <?>'s). If you have some corrections or some additional information, no matter how insignificant, let us know.
Please mail to the following address:
hvsc (sid) c64.org
Verify Your Information
Before you mail us, please verify the information you are sending by either loading the game/demo yourself or contacting the original composer. We have squashed many common beliefs as to who _really_ composed several tunes. You might be surprised to see one of your favorite tunes now with a different author (the correct one we hope). This is why we suggest you first verify the information you plan to send us.
Further, we would like to mention that you should not use C64 emulators to compare to the sound of SIDPlay or to identify mistakes with tunes in the HVSC. Ideally, you should play the music on a real C64 and if then you determine that the sound of the rip is not right, you have a valid complaint. There are few instances, however, where a C64 emulator can be used to show that a sid tune in HVSC is a bad rip. Such cases would include a tune with missing samples or a tune with missing voices.
Please bear in mind that C64 emulators don't always emulate the C64's SID filter correctly (VICE is closest, but the filter is too powerful).
Credit and Initplay Fixes
Any credit fixes you send should also be to HVSC credit standards. This means it is easier for the HVSC Administration to place your fixes in the next available update. The following standards should be used when submitting credit fixes:
Use the # character at the start of a line to indicate your comments.
If you have more than one credit fix under the headings of CREDITS (NAME, AUTHOR, COPYRIGHT) you can place them all with one heading.
Use CREDITS when two or more of the three fields in the SID credits needs changing:
CREDITS /HVSC_Path/HVSC_Filename.sid Name Author Released
You can use a * to indicate that the field should remain unchanged. Examples:
(#1: All fields changed, with comment #)
CREDITS # confirmed by Steve Barrett to be his /GAMES/M-R/MagicLand_Dizzy.sid Magic Land Dizzy Steve Barrett 1990 Codemasters
(#2: Two fields changed, other one left intact)
CREDITS /GAMES/A-F/Deneb.sid * Chris Ammermüller(Beat Machine) 1989 Magic Disk 64/CP-Verlag
Use TITLE if you only want to change the Name field of the SID. This will often involve renaming the SID filename (see MOVE command later on.) Example:
NAME /Deek/Main_Jingle.sid Ooletimin'
Use AUTHOR if you need to change the Author field of the SID. If the author is completely different from the one originally credited, you may need to MOVE the SID to another directory (see MOVE command)
AUTHOR # confirmed with the original instructions. /GAMES/M-R/Mugsys_Revenge.sid Neil Brennan
Use RELEASED if the release date or whom released the SID requires a change. Quick example:
RELEASED /Cooksey_Mark/Gremlins_2-The_New_Batch.sid 1990 Elite
Use MOVE if the CREDITS, NAME or AUTHOR fix involves a move of file name or directory.
MOVE /Source_HVSC_Dir/Filename.sid /Destination_HVSC_Dir/Filename.sid
(note: you only need to use the destination filename if it's different from the original filename.)
Examples using the credit fixes above:
MOVE /Deek/Main_Jingle.sid /Deek/Ooletimin.sid /GAMES/M-R/MagicLand_Dizzy.sid /Barrett_Steve/Magic_Land_Dizzy.sid /GAMES/M-R/Mugsys_Revenge.sid /Brennan_Neil/
(In the last example, the SID filename would still be Mugsys_Revenge.sid)
If you need further information on credit fixes, please consult the Updatexx.hvs files in your DOCUMENTS dir of HVSC for further examples, and if you require more information on the file format of the .hvs file, feel free to email the < HVSC crew > at any time.
As of HVSC 4.6 (Update #31) there is also a new command, INITPLAY, which takes care of invalid init and play addresses in SID files. Often it has been found you can correct just these addresses to make the SID more C64-compliant.
INITPLAY new init address (hex), new play address (hex)
Note that 0000 in the play address means to use the interrupt handler that is set up during the init routine (if necessary)
Some examples:
INITPLAY /Brennan_Neil/Judge_Dredd.sid F180,0000 /VARIOUS/S-Z/Simon_Laszlo/Animate.sid 1000,1085
PSIDv2NG Fields
As of HVSC 5.0, HVSC has adopted the PSIDv2NG file format. For more information on the format itself, please read sections 7 through 10 of the HVSC FAQ.
The below shows you how to submit corrections to SIDs where the PSIDv2NG fields require setting for a SID to play more accurately.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Only set any of these fields if you are absolutely sure you have the correct information! If in doubt, please ask us.
Again, like credit fixes, you can use a # to indicate your comments if you wish to do so.
Use the FLAGS directive where two or more of the extra flags PSIDv2NG uses (the first one could already be set by the old PSID v2 format). The flags are, in order:
MUSPLAYER (whether a Compute! Gazette music player needed or not. Will hardly ever be used for HVSC) PLAYSID (if rip is C64 compatible or PlaySID specific) CLOCK (set the video clock speed to PAL or NTSC if known) SIDMODEL (to set which SID chip the SID tune is preferred to be played on)
So, for example:
FLAGS /Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid 0 0 PAL 6581
This would indicate (in order) that the tune has its own player, it's C64 compatible, plays on a PAL machine with a 6581 SID chip.
You can also use * for any field that you are not setting, so the below would also work (the first two flags in this case are already zero):
FLAGS /Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid * * PAL 6581
Use MUSPLAYER when you wish to set whether the C64 tune has its own player (0) or it's a Compute Gazette SID tune (1)
So, for example:
MUSPLAYER /Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid 0
Use PLAYSID if the SID has any PlaySID-specific instructions, such as the PSID sample methods. 0 means the SID is C64 compatible, 1 means it's PlaySID specific. Some examples:
PLAYSID # song has PlaySID digi samples /Hubbard_Rob/BMX_Kidz.sid 1
Normally you should then also do a MOVE command to rename the SID filename to have _PSID.sid at the end of its name. But remember the filename limit is 26 chars plus the .sid extension! Using the example above:
MOVE /Hubbard_Rob/BMX_Kidz.sid /Hubbard_Rob/BMX_Kidz_PSID.sid
Use the CLOCK command to set the video clock speed of a SID. Although mostly you'll know if it was made on a PAL or NTSC C64, there are occasions it may be unknown, or the SID tune works happily on both formats due to some clever code in the music player. Examples:
CLOCK /Hubbard_Rob/Hunter_Patrol.sid PAL /Warhol_Dave/Realm_of_Impossibility.sid NTSC # we intend to find out which one soon. /Joseph_Richard/Defender_of_the_Crown.sid UNKNOWN # demo has PAL and NTSC compatibility /Connolly_Sean/4k_Digi_Competition_Entry.sid ANY
Use the SIDMODEL command to set which SID chip a tune should be played on. Some composers used the 6581, some used the 8580, or they may work well on either SID or be unknown.
Btw, any SID made up to and including 1985 _has to be 6581_. This is because the C64-C with 8580 SID chips in them weren't released until late 1986. HVSC 5.0 already has those SIDs set.
Some examples:
SIDMODEL /VARIOUS/S-Z/Waz/Tunnel_To_Freedom.sid 6581 /VARIOUS/S-Z/Vip/Fairad.sid 8580 /GAMES/A-F/Big_Game_Fishing.sid UNKNOWN /Leitch_Barry/R-Type.sid ANY
Ripping SID tunes
Much information about ripping is provided at our Help page. http://hvsc.c64.org/Help/index.html
One rasterline has exactly 63 cycles on a PAL machine. Hence, the total amount of cycles available on a PAL C64 is 63 * 312 scanlines = $4CC8 Thus, the correct algorithm to get the CIA timer values for multispeed tunes (PAL timing!) would be
( $4CC8 / n ) - 1
with n being the speed setting of the tune (n=2 if doublespeed, etc.) Subtract one from the final result because the CIA timer is counting backwards to zero. So if the CIA timer value is set to $2663 it actually counts $2664 cycles until it reaches zero. Double that and you end up at the original $4CC8.
Note, ripping SIDs requires some assembly language knowledge. Thus, it's not always an easy task (but it isn't always hard, either). The point we are trying to make is that if you do not plan to rip the SID the correct way, then do not even bother ripping the SID. In particular, do not cut off the end of the music data too early, as this often means that the SID will fall out of synch either in a portion of the tune, or on restart.
Update Information
The HVSC will be constantly maintained by providing zipped update files. These updates will add new tunes to HVSC so that you will always have the most accurate SID collection around. To handle deletions, renaming, moving, etc. of files, we will also provide a 'sweeper' program that upon execution will clean up your collection for you.
It is therefore important that you keep the HVSC structure and filenames as is, otherwise the sweeper will fail to work properly.
The updates will be announced at the HVSC web page as well as other locations. There is no set time as to when the updates will be available. The frequency of updates will depend on the amount of new tunes and corrected information we receive. The current rate of updating is every six months or thereabouts, but as we now have 41,200+ SID files, the likelyhood of finding more does diminish with every update.
The HVSC Page: http://www.hvsc.c64.org/
Also, if you wish to be added to the HVSC Update Announcement list, which means you get an email the moment the URL above is updated announcing the new HVSC Update release, then please email HVSC Update Subscribe <hvscupdate-subscribe@scenelists.com> or use the link at the HVSC web page.
Included Documents
The following lists the documents that reside with HVSC (/DOCUMENTS):
- BUGLIST.TXT
- A list of bugged SIDs in HVSC. Hopefully you'll see fewer entries after each update. (We do try and add as many fixes as possible.)
- CREATORS.TXT
- Information about the HVSC Crew, creators of the collection.
- HV_SIDS.FAQ
- Answers to frequently asked questions about the collection. You should read this before emailing the HVSC creators with questions.
- MUSICIANS.TXT
- A list of most of the musicians who ever composed more than 3+ SIDs on the C64. We would appreciate any help in fixing errors in this list. Further, we would also like to know artist's real names for the sake of possibly identifying other tunes by these artist. That is, some artist composed tunes under an alias as well as their real name (e.g., Neil Baldwin = Demon).
- STIL.FAQ
- STIL Frequently asked questions and STIL format issues are discussed in this file. Further, a list of STIL HEROes are in this file too. Do you have what it takes to be a STIL HERO?
- STIL.TXT
- A text document listing information about the SIDs in the HVSC such as original composer's name, comments from the SID composers, and interesting trivia.
- UPDATExx.HVS
- A list of fixes and additions that are performed to each update. If you want to know exactly why certain SIDs were replaced, this file will likely have the answer. The xx in the file name will increase sequentially as new updates are released.
Acknowledgments
Thanks go out to these musicians for their help:
- Adam Dunkels (Trident) (for verification and sending us a ton of your SIDs)
- Adam Gilmore (thanks for all the tune credit information)
- Adam Wieczorek (Harti) (for Vermes' musicians tunes)
- Alain Hertenstein (Iron Cat) (for verifying your tunes and credit fixes)
- Alex Martin (AMB) (for your tunes)
- Alexander Rotzsch (Fanta) (for sending your tunes in along with lots of correct information with them too, much appreciated)
- Allister Brimble (lots of handy credit information on your tunes)
- Anders Carlsson (Goto80) (for some of your tunes)
- Anders Elmén (Moon) (for verifying your tunes, and credit fixes)
- André Schröder (Andre/Oxyron) (for your tunes and then some!)
- Andrzej Sielicki (ASL) (for your tunes)
- Antti Hannula (Flex) (for your C64 disks of tunes plus all your new ones)
- Ari Yliaho (Agemixer) (for your tunes, especially sending them at party time :)
- Arman Behdad (Intensity) (for sending us your complete collection and keeping us up to date)
- Balázs Takács (Taki/Natural Beat) (for the Natural Beat SIDs and fixes)
- Barry Leitch (for some of your tunes. We hope you find that Galway remix!)
- Ben Daglish (it took some time to find you, but thanks for your help. Hope the theatre production work is going well.)
- Ben Hayes (for humourous information on your own tunes and checking the Sonic Graffiti ones for us.)
- Björn Fogelberg (Knatter of XAKK) (for some of your own tunes and a few more)
- Björn Stenberg (Zagor) (for helping us locate your tunes along with revealing that Kris Hatlelid covered one of your tunes :)
- Charles Deenen (for verifying your tunes)
- Chris Abbott (for lots of historical information and the Back In Time CD, which is highly recommended by us - goto http://www.c64audio.com.)
- Chris Ammermüller (for all your tune info - hope you can help us more soon)
- Chris Hülsbeck (especially thanks for the unreleased tunes. Please do send us more tunes and information if you have time.)
- Chris Lightfoot (TLF) (for verifying all your tunes for us)
- Christian Janoff (ME/PK) (for your own tunes)
- Christoph Bergmann (for verifying your own tunes and correcting them too)
- Dave Warhol (for verifying your tunes and memories of the old times at EA)
- David Voigt (Dave/Oxyron) (for the credit information)
- David Whittaker (cheers for the verifying - we'll check some more sometime.)
- Dennis Lindroos (Deadman) (for his own tunes, and some excellent rips. Keep up the good work.)
- Dwayne Bakewell (for some of your collection and verifying your tunes for us)
- Eric Ardem/Antimon (for your own tunes and some others)
- Even Scharning (Cycleburner) (for your information and some kick ass digi tunes)
- Felix Schmidt (for your collection)
- Fred Gray (for all the humourous information on your tunes)
- Gavin Raeburn (for tune verification and sending us games to rip your music from - software head at Codemasters now eh?)
- Geir Tjelta (a lot of your tunes, and a great Tim Follin one.)
- Giuseppe Musardo (Xayne) (for pointing us in the direction of your tunes and checking through your current HVSC dir)
- Glenn Rune Gellefoss (for your complete collection and Kjell's too)
- Gösta Feiweier (for checking and verifying your own tunes)
- Guzslován Gábor (Cargo/Singular) (for sending us some disks and giving us hints where to rip from)
- Guy Shavitt (for helping us locate your tunes. We hope to find the game "Blitz", with your music!)
- Holger Gehrmann (for checking and verifying your own tunes)
- Jan Albartus (Logan) (provided lots of missing tunes especially by Nantco/WOW)
- Jari Ukkola (Galancy) (for all his unreleased tunes and helping sorting them)
- Jason Kelk (for the copy of Terra Cognita where the music worked! Plus for other bug spotting such as the missing W.A.R. tune)
- Jason Page (for verifying your SIDs and coming along to Back in Time London)
- Jaymz Julian (for your tunes and confirming it's Warriors of _the_ Wasteland)
- Jeff B. (Zirco) (for verifying your own tunes)
- Jens-Christian Huus/Vibrants (for lots and lots of rips, and all the Vibrants tunes we could handle, plus a score of mistake spotting to boot.)
- Jeroen & Michiel Soede of SoedeSoft (for some credit fixes and some of their SIDs, and for some updated information)
- Jeroen Kimmel (Red) (for checking your tunes for us)
- Jeroen Tel (for all the info on yours and various MON tunes. Please bring out that 3CD set you mentioned in the Commodore Zone interview)
- Joachim Wijnhoven (for your collection and STIL information)
- Jörg Dröge (Nafcom) (for always keeping an eye on bugged or missing tunes and reporting them to us right on the spot)
- Johannes Bjerregaard (for all your information, especially the name spelling ("aa"))
- Johan Åstrand (Zyron) (for your collection, information, and for sending stuff to rip from)
- Johan Hakansson (Avalon) (for your complete collection - many thanks)
- Jonathan Dunn (for a stack of information on your tunes - it'd be nice to have more.)
- Juha-Matti Tilpinen (AMJ/Side B) (for tune info - hope you can send a complete collection one day (hint!))
- Jurgen van Dongen (for sending your SIDs)
- Kai Lehmann (Ass It) (for your complete collection)
- Kai Walter (PVCF/Reflex) (for confirming your own tunes and help on corrections)
- Karl Hörnell (for letting us know which SIDs you made)
- Kenneth Mutka (Slaygon (for your tunes and giving us hvsc.c64.org - many thanks)
- Kris Hatlelid (for checking your own tunes)
- Lasse Öörni (Cadaver) (for some of your tunes, and for writing GoatTracker to inspire a generation of new SID artists :)
- László Vincze (Vincenzo) (for your tunes and also some rips)
- Linus Åkerlund (for constructive thoughts, rips and your own tunes too)
- Linus Walleij (King Fisher/Triad) (for the Triad SIDs, Enlightenment: Druid-II, and more rips with correct credits. Keep it up!)
- Luca Carrafiello (Luca) (for your complete collection)
- Marcel Donné (Mad)/Scoop/MoN (for the credit info on your tunes. Eranu!)
- Marc van den Bovenkamp (No-XS) (for sending your SIDs and checking credits)
- Marcin Kubica (Booker) (for some of your own tunes)
- Marcin Olkowski (Olsen) (for Amorphis credit information and SID chip info)
- Marcin Romanowski (Sidder) (great work finding composers' real names)
- Mark Cooksey (for verifying your tunes and information)
- Mark Tait (in particular for your history at Tiertex and admitting Human Killing Machine was inspired by Galway)
- Mark Wilson (for your own collection and some Matt Gray tunes)
- Markus Klein (LMan) (for your collection, keep up the good work at Remix64)
- Markus Schneider (for confirming all yours, Jens Blidon's, and the full information on Lords of Sonics)
- Markus Weber (for your own SIDs plus more!)
- Martijn Schutten (Junebug) (for verifying your tunes and credit fixes)
- Martin Galway (thanks for taking the time to help us out. And many thanks for revealing the truth about the Ocean Loader music and for making your source code available, releasing Street Hawk, and providing extra STIL information)
- Matt Furniss (for lots of checking your own tunes and remixing some C64 ones recently)
- Matt Simmonds (4-Mat) (for the unreleased Follin SID and your own tunes)
- Matthew Cannon (for giving us your unreleased tunes)
- Matthias Hartung (The Syndrom) (for your collection on C64 disks, helped a lot)
- Michael Hendriks/FAME (for some unused tunes and credit information)
- Michael Winterberg (for your collection)
- Michael Zuurman (Mr.Mouse/Xentax) (for all the Xentax SID information and getting your X2001 tunes to us in time)
- Milosz Ignatowski (Longhair) (for some rare SIDs)
- Mikael Backlund (Twoflower) (for sending us unreleased games for ripping)
- Miron Schmidt (for your tunes, and info about Ramiro Vaca's tunes)
- Nathan Smith (Stryyker) (for fixing a few bad rips and for providing quality feedback)
- Nicolai Thilo (Zenox/Starion) (for all of your collection)
- Oliver Klee (Odi) (for your collection)
- Patrick Ceuppens (Lyon) (for your complete collection)
- Patrick Zeh (Rayden) (for your complete collection, and for lots of quality fixes)
- Paul Norman (for confirmation of the C64 tunes you did make)
- Pawel Ruczko (H.M. Murdock) (for your own tunes and some rips)
- Per Fredrik Kvarme (PFK) (for sending in your SIDs plus some rips)
- Piotr Baczkiewicz (Bzyk) (for rare tunes and credit information)
- Raik Picheta (Eco) (for sending your SIDs)
- Reyn Ouwehand (thanks for taking the time to verify your tunes. And a great job on Nexus 6581!)
- Richard Joseph (for confirming the tunes you'd made.)
- Rob Hubbard (thanks for putting up with the waves of questions, and checking some re-rips for us, and verifying which tunes you actually had composed.)
- Rodney Balai (for information about your Audial Arts tunes)
- Roger Duyckaerts (ReD) (for confirming that you're not the same Red as Jeroen Kimmel, and all your tunes)
- Ronny Pasch (for some very useful information about Audial Arts tunes)
- Sascha Nagie (Celtic Design) (for a ton of your own tunes sent on C64 disks)
- Sami Saarnio (Nutcase) (for claiming your own tunes which were miscredited)
- Sami Seppä (Rock) (for confirming which tunes you actually made, with the correct titles. Nice of you to help.)
- Sean Connolly (for the Sonix Systems complete collection)
- Slaygon (for your own collection)
- Søren Lund (Jeff) (for the complete collection of yours)
- Stefan Berglind (Doxx) (for your complete collection)
- Stefan Konarkowski (Alien) (for some credit fixes and your own tunes)
- Stefan Weinert (for sending us your complete collection)
- Stephan Drost (Pater Pi) (for technical support and sending some of your tunes)
- Steve Barrett (for all your verifying and listening and fixing your own tunes)
- Steve Turner (for confirming which tunes you really did make.)
- Tammo Hinrichs (KB/The Obsessed Maniacs) (for the complete collection and checking other people's rips of your tunes.)
- Thomas Detert (for a lot of verification of your own tunes. Many thanks.)
- Thomas Mogensen (DRAX/Vibrants) (for error spotting, along with lots of yours and Laxity's tunes)
- Tomas Danko (for sending in and verifying all your tunes. It sure looks a lot nicer now to see when you made your tunes.)
- Tom Skauen (Sidewinder) (for some of your tunes and verifying the others)
- Torben Hansen (Metal/Vibrants) (for your collection)
- Tuomas Rantala (Thor/Extend) (for credit information on your own SIDs)
- Tufan Uysal (SoNiC) (for your complete collection - we noted handle spelling!)
- Vincent Voois (a few SIDs from others, and your own, and for Sidbase 32)
- Vanja Utne (Mermaid) (for all your SIDs and information)
- Volker Meitz (PRI) (for confirming the tunes you made. Keep up the jazzvibe.)
- Wally Beben (for all the verifying, and uncovering some mysteries for us.)
- Wolfgang Reszel (Nebula) (for all your collection, and a great STIL!)
- Youth and Yavin of Heatwave (for sending in some of their SIDs)
- Zdenek Eisenhammer (PG/Unreal (for all the Unreal musicians' rips)
And thanks to the following for additional help:
- Agust Arni Jonsson (Nemesis1) (for Nemesids1, which helped us in the early stages)
- AJ Heller (Derision) (for sending us a lot of tunes from Warnock and Mr. Bungle)
- Alistair "Boz" Bowness, for compiling Street Hawk!
- Anders Eriksen (for some great rips - keep it up)
- Anders Eriksson (for testing the update on Atari ST and writing the ST tools)
- Anders Nordby (for the FreeBSD update tool and mirroring)
- Andrejs Dunkels
- Anton van Deurzen (for rips of SIDs by Tron and yourself)
- Assiduous (for finding a lot of demos/games with missing SIDs)
- Author of Doom II FAQ (used your format for this document)
- Bacillus (for some great rips - keep up the hard work)
- Burglar (Real SIDPlay inventor, and fixing SIDs to work with it. Thanks!)
- CJ Hammond (for some great fixes, such as Bazooka Bill)
- Dag Lem (for help with internal cleaning up of SIDs and the reSID engine)
- Daniel Kottmair (DeeKay/Crest) (for spotting multispeed errors and appreciation)
- Daniel Näslund (for some nice rips)
- Dave Griffin (for the rare Compunet demos that had some rare Matt Gray tunes)
- David Haynes (for scanning a lot of game manuals and documentation)
- David Simmons (Jazzcat/Onslaught)(for compiling Album of the Year - great work - and dropping occasional hints about what's still missing in HVSC.)
- Dejan Petronijevic (Nucleus) (for some nice SIDs and info)
- DXS's web page (for some SIDs)
- Erik Rasmussen (The Guardian/Camelot) (for correcting Jeff's dir)
- Frank Gasking (Enigma) (for credit fixes and for sending us unreleased games for ripping)
- Frank Michlick (Anonym/Padua) (for all your help with the Padua musicians' credits and much more useful information, and for the HVSC Update mailing list - cheers mate!)
- Fred (we merged your collection with ours)
- Frederic Gidouin (Piccolo) (in particular for the repeat finds)
- Fungus (for a few SIDs)
- Gábor Guzslován (Cargo/Singular) (for providing us with some demos to rip from)
- Gaetano Chiummo (for great spotting of bugs with those keen-eared senses)
- Graeme Norgate (for going through your Compunet collection, and sending what we missed)
- Henrik Simonsen (for a fair few 20cc tunes..)
- IW (for a fair few SIDs - but remember to keep your name out of the credits :)
- James Reisdorf (for bug spotting and credit information)
- Jarle Berntsen (for the credit fixes)
- Martin Jeppesen (for some SIDs)
- Jaromir Krol (for bug spotting)
- Jason Mackenzie (Kenz) (for all the rare Feekzoid and Jon Wells SIDs, plus more demos than you can handle. Cheers pal!)
- Joost Kamp (Celtic/NoName) (for finding a lot of demos with missing SIDs)
- Juha-Pekka Jokela (for bug spotting and supplying games with loading tunes, came in very handy for fixes)
- Kai Spitzley (for a keen eye on bugs as well as credits)
- Alpaslan Deveci (Kris/Clique) (for the Babyface tunes)
- Krzysztof Dabrowski (Brush/Elysium) (for a HUGE bunch of tunes)
- Levente Hársfalvi (for Hungarian musician credit fixes and plenty of SIDs)
- LoLo (for some SIDs)
- Luigi di Fraia (for thorough SID checking and fixing)
- Marc-Jano Knopp (MJK) (for the very useful C64 Sceners addy list, comes in handy for credits and such like)
- Marcin Moys (for credit information)
- Markus Schäfer (for some good quality rips and information)
- Medicus/KLF (Andy) (a few dozen tunes)
- Mikael Grahn (Nik) (for a fair few SIDs, especially the MC ones)
- Mikael Larsson (Phuture) (for a chunk of SIDs, keep it up)
- Mikelic Momir (Xwolf) (for a few SIDs that weren't repeats)
- Mikko Kilpinen (for some SIDs)
- Michael Huth (for some credit fixes)
- Michael Plate (for some credit fixes and assistance)
- Minstrel Dragon (for the Ulitima III music)
- Natas/Carcass (for the Starlost SIDs)
- Necrophobiac (for the Reverb SIDs)
- Olaf Zimmermann (Happymaker/Reflex) (for several rips and credit fixes)
- Pajda/Faith (for credit information)
- Pawel Soltysinski (Polonus) (for precious information)
- Per (for finding a pack of SIDs on the Internet for us)
- Per Bolmstedt (for feedback and suggestions, lots of STIL info, and rips)
- Per Håkan Sundell and Ron Birk (PlaySID creators and trend setters)
- Peter de Bie (for the great Screens collection - a precusor to HVSIDs?)
- Peter Weighill (for the rare Whittaker SIDs and old tune information)
- Petri Keränen (for all the BUGlist and STIL catches - great work)
- Phill Wooller (for testing the updates on Amiga and writing the Amiga tools)
- PiNa/Torture of Music (for the Mateus collection and some rips)
- Phredator (for the Roy Batty tunes and some C64 testing)
- Roger Ferm (for the Sane SIDs)
- Ron Rickert (for sending in a veritable feast of tunes)
- Rough/Chromance (for quite a lot of rips and credit information)
- RRR/Oxyron (in particular for the PRI tunes)
- Sebastian Borkowski (Sebaloz) (for credit information)
- Se7en/Digital Excess (for several rips and credit fixes)
- Skid Row (for some SIDs and credit fixes)
- Slight (for a couple of hundred SIDs)
- Shokray (for finding a lot of demos with missing SIDs)
- Simon Colgrave (credits and repeat info)
- Svante Hellstadius (Fulcrum) (for sending Adam your complete collection)
- Stefano Tognon (for quality rips and SID Hunt spotting)
- The Human Autofire (for some SIDs)
- Thomas Neumann (for testing the updates on BeOS and support)
- Tobias Hultman (for bug spotting and consistency in good credit fixes)
- Tom-Christoph Hagen (for some rips and SID Hunts)
- Tommi Saviranta (for providing many STIL entries)
- Timo Rönkkö (Deadbeat) (for all your help with PSIDIL and useful credit information, and rips and fixes)
- Ulf Andersson (for many SIDs from Matrix, Danko, & Boogaloo + others)
- Vectrocon/Fairlight (for the 47 tunes)
- Ville Muikkula (for the Red Devil SIDs)
- Vincent Schoettke (for many rips from great demos and lots of credit information)
- Wolfram Hess (Acidchild) (for providing us with a lot of long-lost demos)
- XIII/Warriors of the Wasteland (for some SIDs)
And to everyone else who contributed...We apologise if we have forgotten anyone.
