Developer Matt Simmonds let us know that he’s released a new driver for the Commodore 64 that’s designed to let you get the most of the rare Commodore Sound Expander cartridge.
Here’s what he has to say about it:
This was an official 1980s cartridge that added a Yamaha 3526 FM chip to the Commodore 64 computer, supplied with a keyboard and editor for musicians. Unfortunately there was very little software written to support it.
My new driver translates music written for the SID chip into FM data as it plays, allowing (in theory) any C64 music editor to be used to write FM music. As a bonus the SID chip itself is free and can be played alongside the FM tracks, allowing new combined sounds from the SID and FM together.
Simmonds also shared this video, which demos the driver with a song that features 9 FM channels & 3 SID channels:
Pricing and Availability
The full PAL/NTSC driver source (DASM format), demos and tools are available as free downloads.
Cheese is good!! Strong, powerful sounds. Lovely!
Epic
For anyone interested, you can get a cartridge for the C=64 called MSSIAH for around $60. It has a midi port, so it’s easy to integrate into your DAW or hardware sequencer. And with C=64’s available for $20-$40, it’s a pretty good deal for anyone longing for that SID sound.
Never owned a C64 but I love the SID sound.
May the gods bless you and your amazing accomplishment.
My first sequencer was the Sequential Circuits cartridge.
Oh
Mine was Sonus Supersequencer! We even used it on stage!
I used to use the Dr T sequencing software for the C-64 (and later the C-128)!