u/schill

I occasionally see "roadkill" CDs in this back alley - perhaps thrown from a window, or stolen goods or what have you.

Of all the CDs - it could have been Barbara Streisand*, or James Taylor, or Ja Rule - but nope. I felt a little sad seeing this one; I hope it had been enjoyed before ending up here. I happen to own the 2xLP. Lots of bangers on this album, hard to pick a fave. "This World" might be it, but lots of runners-up. "Distractions" is also fantastic.

Also: Bonus Battle Axe records CD, probably some interesting stuff on there.

*Side note: I actually saw a Barbara Streisand CD right nearby a few days before this one, hah. No disrespect, but it didn't have the same emotional pull.

This is a bit of a work in progress, and I figure some locals might have insight on a SID effect I'm trying to understand and reproduce in a browser. This video shows a clip of the original C64 game (with a collision trainer cheat active), and a demo from a web-based remake I'm working on.

"But first, some nostalgia!"
The C64 was my first computer, forty years ago. I had a stack of COMPUTE! magazines and taught myself enough BASIC to have fun (I was six, so assembly was somewhat over my head!) My career's in software engineering, and I still love programming. I've been doing web stuff since the mid-90s, but I'll never forget my roots. Learning 6502 has been on my "to do in life" list, and I've finally been poking around a bit.

"Survivor" (1983)
This game is a personal favourite. It's not complicated, but always fun. I've always admired how sound is used in the game between the "heart beat" of the world speeding up as you destroy the bases, and the hilarious random notes when the enemies show up.

Web-based remake
I'm updating a web-based Survivor remake (YouTube) from 2011, trying to refine some details. Back then, I used recordings from VICE played back as MP3s. Today, I'm using the browser's Web Audio API to get triangle and noise waveforms that sound reasonably SID-like. By exporting the SID parameters with the game running in the "Retro Debugger" app, I have "reasonable facsimiles" of most of the game's sounds including the title screen tune.

Effect via sustain, filters, ???
I'm a bit stumped on what SID parameters are affecting the sound when the enemy "bad guys" show up. I feel like I'm missing something obvious. I don't believe ring modulation is involved, but I could be wrong.

The "bad guy" sound effect pattern is a series of triangle notes that quickly change on voice #1, random "notes" between0x0a00-0x1900. It's kind of a comical effect, with ADSR starting at 0000 and ramping up to00f0. The sound "fades in" as I think would be expected, but there's also some kind of lower tone, distortion and/or 50/60-hz note that is being introduced. I'm a bit stumped. Does the sustain value going from 0-f cause a truncation of the sound, or is there something else going on?

I assume the Retro Debugger program I'm using is fairly comprehensive, but it doesn't indicate any filters being active.

I tried throwing a low-frequency triangle in the mix in my remake, but it is nowhere near the original sound.

I've been having a ton of fun studying the original game. I originally poked around at disassembly via "Regenerator2000", but found that monitoring SID activity in the Retro Debugger program got me 99% of the patterns I need to reproduce the sounds without having to delve into assembly.

Thank you for attending my TED talk, with apologies; I welcome any pointers.

I've always been a yellow-bellied, no-good chicken when it comes to driving in the rain. Tire traction, and all that. But yesterday it rained and well, I figured, what the hell. (And, it was fine - maybe just keep off the highways!)

Downtown Vancouver, BC.

Finally running all 8 MPC outputs through the Teac's mic preamps, trying drums and bass with attentuation at 40dB, 20dB and 0dB for a second. You can overdo it, but there's a sweet spot.

A personal fan moment: I got to see this piece of steam engineering history (engine #374) in Vancouver, BC, for the anniversary of its arrival in 1856. While not "the same" as the BTTF 3 locomotive, it has some similar elements and it was pretty special to get to see in person.

I happen to own a replica "Time Machine", and I lucked out in finding parking right out front (IG) - a bit of extra fun for fans who might make the connection.

I was told the locomotive engine doesn't actually "work" these days, but the steam portion is active and I got to pull the cord and set off the whistle. Sounded great!

A solidly-built deck with a very nice champagne faceplate. 100VAC model from Japan, ~1980. I'm no expert, but I had fun taking apart and cleaning the tape assembly - removing old belt gunk, all new belts, oil and grease, polishing the capstan flywheel, disassembling, cleaning and recapping the motor and more.

It's not perfect, but I got the wow & flutter decently close to the 0.08% WRMS spec, maybe 0.1%. I adjusted the default bias levels for type I, II and IV tapes to sound pretty good, but I still get the best results by adjusting the bias using the calibration controls on the front panel.

A number of NOS, unopened crowd favourites - and a few commodity and random finds. Descriptions are based on research online.

1. TDK MA-XG 90, 1986. Famous metal tape, alloy shell gives it a notable weight in the hand. Removeable recording tabs.

2. TDK MA-R 46. Japan, 1979. One of the first of this design style, which IIRC introduced the famously heavy and cool metal alloy shell and removable tabs you can take out and rotate to allow or prevent recording.

3. TDK MA60. 1983? I got this one from Japan, not too sure of its history.

4. TDK MA-XG Fermo 46 (1990, Japan-specific to start?) Possibly one of the last MA-series models. Allegedly has removable tabs, too.

5. TDK SA-XS60. ~1990? Designed "for CD." Triple-layer type II, fancy-pants "Super Avilyn" technology (TDK's response to Chrome-based type II) and high-end shell mechanisms. Some versions around this time have red reels.

6. TDK SA-90. 1990. The workhorse and a crowd fave. Type II, Super Avilyn. Considered the most successful TDK cassette ever, great performance for a price.

7. Sony Metal Master 60. Japan, late 1980s. White ceramic composite shell for improved rigidity and low noise. Heavy in the hand.

8. Maxell UDXLII 90. 1982. Famously-loved type II. Premium shell, looks and performance.

9. Tascam "Master 424" High Bias Cobalt Type II C-60 tape (2022), with "gold collector reels." +4dB high output over standard type II tapes. These are a throwback to the original multi-channel Tascam Portastudio tape deck mixer / recorders of the early 1980s, which featured earlier "studio" type II tapes with metal reels styled similarly to larger tape decks in their marketing at the time.

10. Memorex dB C90, Type I. ~1993. Allegedly good quality for the time, a "bonafide hi-fi super-ferric" tape that might be highly cobalt-doped per some comments. $7.99 for a 10-pack at K-Mart.

11. AKAI "Ferrum Chrome" C60, Type III. This is a unique one which may have been provided to studios, a mix of ferric (type I) and chrome (type II) combined before type IV (metal) became a thing. These can allegedly shed or something, I have yet to see.

12. Maxell UD90. Type 1. (1982?) The perfect tape to put "Edward Van Halen" on. IYKYK.

13. Maxell XLII 90. 2002, US. Allegedly one of the last great-sounding type II tapes.

tl;dr: if your deck has a bias adjustment feature, try it out. You may get better sound than the deck's default settings.

I've serviced the motor, replaced belts, greased and oiled the tape assembly in this machine. This is a demo of adjusting recording bias on a used "Studio 52" Type IV ("metal") tape, mostly for the looks, from 1984.

By tweaking the recording bias, I can get sound that's very close to the source and better than the somewhat distorted sound I get at higher levels on type II and IV tapes with the deck's default settings. At least, that's my findings thus far.

Disclaimers / excuses: Machine partially reassembled here, not all bits back on front panel. Recording volume (to tape) vs. source not always matched, I did that more toward the end.

"Art car" is fitting, because I was advised to consider this less of a car and more of a sculpture on wheels. It's a privilege to have and share. Very effective at surprising people at red lights, etc. Never gets old.

(Disclaimer / quoting sub rules here: "Shitty does not mean bad - Feel free to post shitty mods that are awesome!")