The 8Bit Philosophy

This is the official trailer of the upcoming documentary 'The 8Bit Philosophy'. A film about commodore 64 musicians. Coming 2008. Have fun.



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Official Website link

Prophet64 is dead! say hello to the M...

December 5, 2007: MSSIAH
Prophet64 successor to be released Q1 2008!
This is an official announcement of the successor to the Prophet64 Cartridge: MSSIAH - Midi Sid Software Integrated Applications and Hardware.

The cartridge contains Prophet64 software upgrades as well as a new killer music application and an integrated midi interface.

Full scale production is expected to start in quarter 1, 2008.

More info will be posted on the Mssiah site later on.

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via this thread on Prophet64 forum.

Some more kick ass C64 music apps @ HVMEC

Yeah!!!!! For those of you that are hungry for some more kick ass music software for your Commodore 64, check out the new HVMEC update, there are some pretty cool additions to the list.. I personally found a few cool synths I didn't know about and some cool sample based drum machines !!! aiight !

IceIce Baby!

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New CD Run 10: Commodore 64 goes classic

Hello folks, I received a review copy of the Run10 CD by the C64 Orchestra and I can only say good things about it!!

It is really a super beautiful production, a milestone in the C64 music history and it will even look incredible in your favourite shelf, so just go and grab yourself a copy !!! It's Hot!

http://www.oninternet.nl/

10/10

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Today will see the release of the CD Run 10 by the C64 Orchestra. This CD, named after a simple programming line in BASIC computer language, contains classical arrangements of 10 original game music scores for the Commodore 64 home computer, such as Delta High Score, International Karate en Cybernoid 2. The bonus CD contains the original game music plus a remix of Monty ON the Run; also there are files with the separate tracks of this piece, in order to enable listeners to create their own mix, plus interviews with the original composers Rob Hubbard and Jeroen Tel.

The Commodore 64 hit the market in 1983 and became the all-time best-selling home-computer with 30 million units. To many users it marked the transition from the classic board game to computer gaming. Initially existing classical music was used to accompany the games. Then 15-year-old Dutchman Jeroen Tel and Briton Rob Hubbard started, independently from each other, composing music for the games. In spite of the extremely limited memory capacity of 64 kilobytes, their compositions became so successful that both were hired by international gamemakers like EA Games. In the course of time both Tel and Hubbard have evolved into true cult heroes in the gamers’ world.

Upon hearing Tel’s and Hubbard’s compositions in 2006 the Deventer production company ON decided to have Rob Hubbard’s music for the Commodore 64 arranged for the C64 Orchestra, which consists of members of the Amsterdam Ricciotti Ensemble and which is conducted by Bas Wiegers.

The music on C64’s MySpace site quickly garnered innumerable rave reactions worldwide, from lovers of classical music, Commodore 64 aficionados and hot shots from the international DJ scene alike. Performances of the C64 Orchestra are accompanied by specially-made video animations by VJ The C-men, based on original images from the games.

The 2 CD boxset, created by Hotel (Nederlands Film Festival Utrecht, Brasserie Harkema, DuvelDuvel, Opgezwolle), was inspired by the original brown / creamy white colour of the original Commodore 64. The slot, through which cassette tapes loaded the games in the 1980s, holds C64’s CDs in 2007.

Run 10 will be available through your favourite retailer as of November 12th; on Saturday, November 17th, the C64 Orchestra will perform live in the Waaterstaats Church in Hengelo: the CD will be available there for the first time.

The C64 Orchestra is a joint project of Productiehuis Oost-Nederland (ON) and Micro Music Nederland; financial backing is provided by ThuisKopie Fonds, provinces Overijssel and Gelderland, the Dutch government and the municipality of Deventer. The CD Run 10 is released by Productiehuis ON, in cooperation with Rounder Records and NCRV Broadcasting Company.

Synth Sample 2007

Do you remember the classic Synth Sample demo of 1984 ?? Well, check this one out found via CSDB!

Synth was written starting in 1983 and was used to create the Synth Sample demo. The demo got distributed and morphed into other forms by various people, but Synth itself was never released (ok an early version got leaked accidentally way back when but I don't think it's around now). So this is the first real release with some tweaks and bug fixes too minor to justify updating the copyright year (also the intro screen is old). I've been out of the C64 scene for years so please be kind... after Synth I wrote a MIDI version for C64 then got into bands and producing music using Logic, Cubase & modern virtual synths. I'll be telling the long version of the story at World of Commodore on Dec 1...

from the manual: SCL is the heart of Synth. It is a set of commands similar to a simple computer language which allows you to create sounds by controlling the SID chip. An SCL routine, which could represent a song or sound effect, is actually like three separate computer programs running simultaneously, one for each of the SID chip's three voices. SCL commands generally consist of a single letter 'opcode' followed by parameters. If a command longer than one character is used, it is taken as a disk filename and ensuing SCL commands are read from that file. Up to three levels of such macro inclusion are allowed...

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