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Martin Galway's music source files from 1980's Commodore 64 games

Martin Galway's music source files from 1980's Commodore 64 games

ingve

Comments (19)

  • photon-torpedo
    You can listen to the Wizball tunes here:https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/G/Galway_Marti...(use the little up/down arrows to switch between subtunes)
  • the_data_nerd
    the hard part isn't the notes. it's the per-frame register pokes. galway and hubbard did things like sweeping filter cutoff every frame, gating ring mod between voices, retriggering ADSR mid-note. SID drivers are basically tiny tracker engines running 50hz interrupts on the c64. the .sid format captures the 6510 driver code but stripping that into pattern notation throws away the actual sound. you can transcribe wizball's melody to strudel and it'll be recognizable. it won't sound like galway. the sound IS the register schedule, not the notes on top of it.
  • ncr100
    Q: have people attempted to translate this into Tidal Cycles, or Strudel JS? (Pattern playing of music by notation)Edit: AI says doing the translation would be hard, though doable. https://claude.ai/share/65c16d60-5d27-496b-96a7-40959e95ac62Edit 2: here is an AI translation of some of the notes, what Claude claims as the main melody:https://strudel.cc/#Ci8vIFdpemJhbGwgIklucHV0IE5hbWUiIC0gbWFp... .. uh ...Edit 3: the original theme is amazing and worth listening to https://youtu.be/sFYzjU-C3mA
  • Luc
    In the file https://github.com/MartinGalway/C64_music/blob/main/ocean_as...> DSP> not entirely sure what this one is... another variation of "Define Space" ? check back for the correct definition of thisIt's probably 'displacement'. This worked together with ORG ('origin'). ORG specifies where in memory the code will run. DSP then moves the code the specified amount further along in memory, with the understanding that it will be moved back to the ORG address when it needs to run.> DFC> not entirely sure what this one is... define characters?Same as DFM, but generates PETSCII instead of ASCII.
  • MrScruff
    Super cool. I loved Galways's C64 tunes as a kid, especially Wizball & Parallax. I remember trying to write my own player in assembly (yet another unfinished project).
  • erwincoumans
    Green Beret and Rambo: First Blood Part 2 tunes are still amazing, Martin is a wizard.
  • layer8
    Presumably the music wasn’t developed in form of these source files, given that they exceed the size of C64 RAM.
  • ergonaught
    Memories! I loved Galway and Hubbard (and tigers and bears oh my etc). They managed to do some really interesting things under the constraints. Still love listening to some of it, today.
  • nurettin
    I've been listening this on and off for more than a decade:https://slayradio.org
  • dwd
    This is really cool. Need to go grab my Reference Guide to make more sense of it, as it's been a while.