ACID 64 Player Pro supports SID emulation!

This should be interesting to majority of SID music lovers. Starting from v3.0.4 ACID 64 Player Pro supports JSIDPlay2. Up to this point ACID 64 Player Pro has been a SID player software only for HardSID users as it has been supporting only HardSID for output device. But it’s now possible to configure JSidDevice as the output source!

What this means is that SID sound lovers who don’t have a genuine SID sound card setup can now enjoy today’s state of the art SID emulation with the wonderful ACID 64 Player.

ACID 64 and HVSC updates

Along with the release of new HardSID models also the ACID 64 Player Pro – my SID player weapon of choise – got updated. The obvious update is the support for the new devices, but there is more to make it a nice update for HardSID 4U owners too.

Now when toggling channels or filter on/off, or when you change the SID model while playing a song, the playback does not jump. So you can seamlessly change the SID “on the fly” when listening – which makes it more interesting to compare different SID models. Another feature that I see as great improvement is the emulated SID reading for the USB HardSIDs. What it means is that some songs that did not work with HardSID 4U because of the hardware buffer made reading from SID chip impossible now work. In other words, stuff made with Polly Tracker now plays great! Dirty ’64, baby!

Not only the SID player but also the source for SID music has been updated. The old-as-internet HVSC website has been renewed: High Voltage SID Collection has got a new web site! Wow. The content seems to be about the same as it used to be, only presented in a “little” more modern and stylish way, and the address is new: www.hvsc.de. Now there is also a SID search on the site and links to various players. It would be nice if they added a STIL support to the search, especially when there is no longer links to other SID search engines.

It’s nice to see that the HVCS crew is well alive and active, but I kind of feel sorry for the old site. It was so old it’s a classic! Luckily the old site is still alive ;)

New models of HardSID and 1541 Ultimate

Two of my favourite C64-toys have been updated with new models; HardSID and 1541 Ultimate – both of which I have covered here and here earlier.

The announcement of 1541 Ultimate II is already old news, although it is not available yet. The new model is an evolution of the previous version with new features. The announced new features are support for USB storages, tape emulation and somethig still-mysterious related to audio. There will be much more – I’m sure about that. There are rumours about accelerator like SCPU emulation, but those are just rumours… One remarkable thing is that the device comes with a case. So no more “naked” board (that won’t even fit into standard cartridge case) pointing out from the back of your Commodore. It’s not all improvement however; the new model uses micro-SD cards instead of SD and the built-in ethernet is no longer an option. But it’s cheaper!

What is not old news is that two new HardSID models were announced just yesterday! The new models are HardSID Uno and HardSID UPlay and they are aimed for SID music enthusiastics. Compared to the HardSID 4U the main differences for target audiences are support for only one (Uno) or two (UPlay) SID chips and no need for separate power supply – and a lower price. The new HardSIDs have a very cool looking aluminium case and have no noise producing fan. Seems like these new models have replaced the “standard” 4U as it is no longer available – only the much more expensive Studio Edition of 4U.

To me it looks like that the Uno and UPlay are basically the same device with identical hardware and board. Only difference being that in UPlay you can (relay) switch between the two installable SID chips with software, and in Uno that has to be done manually with a jumper or something like that. Maybe it’s because of power consumption, as it is USB that is powering the device. If I’m wrong, I’ll correct my assumption.

All in all, great stuff!

ACID 64 Player Pro & HVSC update 50

Just when I thought in my previous post that ACID 64 Player almost became the second choise SID player software for HardSID, it gets a major update with some great new features. And on top of that the High Voltage SID Collection got update no. 50 just few days earlier. Good times!

Winamp plugin for HardSID

Hard Software recently released a Winamp plugin for HardSID 4U. So now it is possible to play SID tunes on a real SID chip with Winamp’s user interface and features! Sweet. Features like playlists, random play and seeking are of course supported. It’s just like playing any “ordinary” music with Winamp. The plugin is made with the assumption that you have HVSC on your HD, and you need to define the path to it in the plugin’s configuration. Then the plugin can access the song length (SID tunes never “end”, they just keep looping. The song length information is also used for seeking) and STIL information that are provided with HVSC. The SID files that contain multiple songs are expanded (on play) to the playlist and can be treated as independent entries in the playlist.

All I can say is that I’m very pleased with this release. It makes it very easy and comfortable to have real SID music playing in the background. Just build up a playlist and let the music play. No need to manually change songs or anything.

Even still I prefer the ACID 64 Player for active listening. The Winamp plugin is based on ACID 64 core but some of the features have been cut for simplicity. None of those features really matters for music listening itself, but ACID 64 Player provides more information, especially when expanded with Covert BitOps‘ SIDId playroutine identity scanner.

Related links:

• Video of HardSID Winamp plugin that pretty much speaks for itself
• Realtime play statistics build by the plugin (feature can be disabled)

HardSID 4U – that’s for me!

For many years I thought that it would be cool to have a HardSID or some other SID sound card, such as Catweasel. But it wasn’t until last June that I actually decided to get one. I spotted a news item on one C64 news portal that was reminding that pre-ordering for the brand new HardSID model lasted for the end of that month. This new model HardSID 4U is external USB-device instead of PCI or ISA card as the previous versions. Additionally, there was 50€ discount to the 299€ price when pre-ordering. I was sold.

If you don’t know, the HardSID is a sound card that basically gives a genuine SID sound for a modern PC. It can also be used as low-cost multichannel analog synthesizer, but I’ll leave that only as a side note here. The genuine sound is achieved by installing actual SID chips on the sound card. And the SID chip is the sound chip of Commodore 64 – a home computer of the 80’s. This whole concept may seem a little weird if you are not familiar with the music made with Commodore 64, especially the modern music. There is still a very active scene producing music for the machine thanks to the C64’s unique sound. And trust me, the emulated sound just doesn’t compare to the real thing if you are an enthusiastic.

HardSID 4U sitting on my desk and hooked up to my laptop and stereo system