C64 Rob Hubbard's "Sanxion" oscilloscope view

[@dadunnaki]

I used to sit for hours just listening to the game music alone. I didn't really play the games so much. Thumbs up if you did the same. :-) The man was absolute genius with the SID.

[@TheDinosaur08]

I used to reccord a lot of C64 tracks on tape. This was the only music playing on my walkman back then.

[@canecreek00]

I used to buy the games just for the music, i felt sorry for the spectrum owners i went to school with they just didn't get it.

[@leopold7562]

I did exactly the same. In fact, when I'd invested in a floppy drive, along with an Action Replay and Freeze Frame to port all my cassette based games to disk, I deliberately left Sanxion out of it so I could listen to that loading theme. I had another game, Flash Gordon, and I never ever played it, instead listening to the music.

[@megalep7025]

@@TheDinosaur08 Me too.

[@RichardM-kv4uu]

Yep, had a commodore 64 just to listen to music, had an Atari 800XL to play games on!

[@MaxCarponera]

It's hard to explain to non-techy people the amount of effort and genius applied to this work

[@battlemode]

Any artist work his salt can detect effort in art. This is superb work

[@bitchlasagna4720]

even though he uses pretty normal techniqes (rip spelling)

[@dava_arvarabi]

@@bitchlasagna4720 Yeah, but back then trackers didn't exist yet so Rob had to create his own hex editor program to compose his music. That's the "effort".

[@bitchlasagna4720]

@@dava_arvarabi i suppose so

[@derkernspalter]

This is the reason why Kraftwerk keep on suing all the dudes who sample even the slightest bit of their sounds. They say, they literally spent hours or even days to produce and program the sounds back then and then comes some shitty dude with a sampler and steals their stuff.

[@alisondale979]

I believe this was the best piece of music on the C64 regardless that it was a loader. Incredible what Rob Hubbard did; I listen to this on here frequently to reminisce and do miss those days ❤

[@kyorin6526]

The Crazy Comets remix that came with Mega Apocalypse was also another Rob Hubbard masterpiece.

[@leopold7562]

Oddly hypnotic, but at the same time revealing Rob Hubbard's genius as a SID composer. Watching those channels and how he managed to superpose two sounds on a single channel like that in order to get such a rich polysynthetic sound is nothing short of genius level coding to overcome the limitations of the chip. And to think this was all done in just 64k, along with loading the game at the same time, by one man. Nowadays we have armies of coders who do a rough job of nailing together games with acres of space to play with. Maybe games would be better if we took them out of the studios and returned them to the bedroom like we did in the 80s...

[@edameow]

This.

[@mortvader]

It was done in WAY less than 64K, actually. The game took most of the memory, while the tune was only a few kilobytes! Someone might be able to add the exact size of the player+data?

[@XXSkunkWorksXX]

Quite so. Demis Hassabis, a coder who started his journey - as you say - as a bedroom programmer, has just won the Nobel Peace Prize and is head of Deep Mind, Google's AI division. 80s coders changed the world, with Rob Habbard at the forefront. Bona Fide geniuses.

[@Sancho_Retablez]

This is a masterpiece. No, seriously. With all the weight of the word: a masterpiece.

[@XXSkunkWorksXX]

Yup. They'll listen back to Hubbard in 300 years time and marvel at his music the way we do today at J.S. Bach.

[@Locateson]

This is what it means to master a machine.

[@jimmymimpson8499]

Holy shit. He managed to make an individual channel play multiple bending pitches at once by manipulating the wave shapes to bring out different overtones. That sounds badass. Why does nobody else do that?

[@dprezzz1561]

Holy shit indeed!

[@bitchlasagna4720]

you hear that in nearly every c64 tune

[@RolfRBakke]

This is done with sync from channel 1, so two channel are used. Channel 1 is muted or has no waveform selected.

[@doricdream498]

it's insane just how good the bass trombone + tuba sounds in the prokofiev bit. it sounds REALLY accurate - and i would know considering i sit by them every other afternoon in rehearsal!

[@davidincornwall]

I don't know if anyone remembers, Zzap 64! used to do a game music chart and this seemed to top it forever. For good reason.

[@GregBreden]

I've still got my best of Rob Hubbard mix tape I made on cassette in the 80s and it still plays. I'd but a game just because Rob did the music, his style was instantly recognisable because it was so far above anyone else's ability.

[@battlestarducklactica6823]

Ah, so this is the original version of the background music played to one of my most favorite levels on the game called Platypus. Combined with the claymation of the game, the memorable obstacles (the mines), the memorable scenery (that Saturn-like planet), and an incorporation of this music into the remix used in Level 2, the combo is so perfect, gameplay and game-aesthetic wise. Without this original soundtrack, maybe I wouldn't appreciate my childhood game even more. Thank you for the music. Thank you for your existence. :D

[@muhnafizhfauzan]

That's awesome

[@ColinJonesPonder]

He's getting 6 channels of sound out of 3 SID channels... all while the game is loading.

[@NickFellows]

No he isnt he is rapidly switching instruments on a single channel. At any given time only 3 instruments / waveforms are playing . there is no mixing going on here and no phantom channels this is a regular SID by a very talented musician.

[@ColinJonesPonder]

@@NickFellows OK, let me rephrase it for the literally minded: he *appears* to be getting 6 channels of sound out of 3 SID channels ;)

[@NickFellows]

@@ColinJonesPonder kzbin.info/www/bejne/hKqaZWaZaJeahsk Here is a bona fide extra sound channel on a stock C64 kzbin.info/www/bejne/hKqaZWaZaJeahsk By manipulating the volume register on the SID chip , it is possible to gain an extra channel for samples. This track plus Driller - all time favourites of mine

[@ColinJonesPonder]

I know, but it does't work too well on an 8580... though the 8580 is capable of so much more fine tuning. LMan's Vortex has 3 channels of samples in one channel of audio. His routine will cope with 4 channels of 4 bit DAC. Sanxion was early work and was my favourite track for decades.

[@NickFellows]

@@ColinJonesPonder SID chiip is amazing for its synthesis as well as the amazing tricks demo programmers found to exploit side effects in the hardware.

[@rfxtuber]

When I first loaded warhawk in the early hours for the first time.... That soundtrack just left me stunned, ended up having that on repeat on my c90 cassette Walkman with my busted headphones leads twiddled together… lol Hubbard, Tel and Matt grey are pure legends!!!

[@klaxoncow]

4:53 Just listen to that sound design. How the hell is he getting a SID to sound like that? And, right at the beginning, watch how voice 2 starts with one peak, that spreads out to equal spacing, before splitting into 2 peaks and then going to equal spacing, then splitting into 4 peaks and going to equal spacing. This is precision - and what it's doing is scaling the octaves, but seamlessly and smoothly so via pulse width?!? Like, how does one even think of something like that in the first place? Hubbard was the best because his sound design is just next level, AND he could compose a bloody good tune as well (see "Monty on the Run" for more details).

[@mima85]

It's not only PWM, it's oscillator sync also. This is why you see that sort of "doubling" of the PWM peaks.

[@JohnJackson-mn4ts]

That 2nd channel is doing some serious mule work. Flipping between white noise, triangular and sine wave.

[@RichardM-kv4uu]

That's how 8-bit music worked, each channel would usually be doing 2 things at the same time, you only had 3 or 4 to ework with!

[@leopold7562]

@@RichardM-kv4uu Three on the SID chip, but the best 8-bit composers often made it sound like more. Rob Hubbard was arguably the best at it as he understood how to push a percussion loop into an existing wave to make it sound natural and without any obvious breaks in the rhythm. And to think he (and the others) had to do this in machine language as well, with lots of PEEKs and POKEs, and they didn't have an army of coders to do the leg work either.

[@LitoMike]

@@leopold7562 In C64, there was a lost 4th sound wave that was later removed on the C64 Amiga, using SID-Duo, which made it 6 sound waves.

[@RetroDawn]

@@leopold7562 Not with PEEKs and POKEs from BASIC. They programmed in 6502 assembly. Most of them were quite accomplished assembly programmers.

[@paulmarsh3521]

The quality of the production in this is god level. Rob Hubbard makes the Sid sound like an orchestra in the Sergei Prokofiev part. The Sid chip, when used correctly, can sound like the most beautiful instrument ever made.

[@gregor_man]

5:34 Is that really Prokofiev? This was only a guess from me, just from the deep memories or what, and I didn't know how to search it. Do you know its title? I remember this well from the C64 game.

[@BenInSeattle]

@@gregor_man It's "Dance of the Knights" from Prokofiev's _Romeo_ _and_ _Juliet._ When I googled for it, it said it was "Op. 64c" which seems all too apropos.

[@gregor_man]

@@BenInSeattle Thank you! 🙂

[@leoingson]

@@BenInSeattle Ha, nice comment :)

[@karehaqt]

This is still awesome even in 2021.

[@oscarvanderburgh9915]

And 2023…

[@AReallyLongAndUnremakableUser]

2024!!

[@CyanEnjoyer]

What a godly theme. Glad for Platypus' existence due to letting me know that c64 existed which i don't have as a part of my childhood

[@adhitamaprasetya4220]

Organic Rebounds Stage 2 - Cloud, Area 3 still gives me nightmares. Damn those mines and shrapnel balloons!! Although there are gray Options up for grabs in that area.

[@2BuckFridays]

best video on youtube

[@TheCentralScrutinizerAgain]

I remember how INCREDIBLE it was for it`s time, Blew we away for years. Pretty cool shooter, too.

[@stigj942]

This is by far the wildest ride into C64 games music. Rob H. is truely something... :)

[@leopold7562]

This was the tune that sold me on the C64. My Spectrum was gone after hearing it.

[@daibonehead]

Greatest piece of 64 music ever.

[@lisaallcock]

Common wisdom says that it takes 10 years to become a master at something. Well the SID Chip did not exist until 1982 and Rob Hubbard's first game music for the Commodore C64 appeared in 1985. Even people not good at maths will realise that God doesn't take 10 years to master anything.

[@hyphz]

Rob Hubbard was a piano and synth player before the SID came out.

[@mikemacd007]

Etched into my brain till I die.. 😊

[@daibonehead]

Mike Mac Is right!

[@monktoncrew]

The solo still fries my brain to this day. Amazing.

[@aresaurelian]

Much appreciated. Fits nicely in contrast.

[@marinvidovic763]

This is a Masterpiece !!! ... Thanks for sharing.

[@demo_sphere]

I'm only hearing this for the first time now and this is mental!

[@AndyMarsh]

Meanwhile at Team Spectrum the sound went beep beep.

[@lordevyl8317]

True, although I did somewhat like the sound from the 128K spectrum. However, it was still nothing compared to the SID

[@RetroDawn]

@@lordevyl8317 AY/YM is an awesome chip, as well! Not as technically capable (except better for sfx), but in the right hands... (and with extra CPU grunt on the ST)

[@casanyby]

A thing of beauty..

[@IXSVideo]

That's what SID music made special in many cases. The capacitor filter controlled by the chip. Such a "cheap" addition to the hardware and yet so powerful. And .... well .. I wished, we had some special musicians for the Atari Pokey aswell. Hubbard did some "conversions" from SID to POKEY that sometimes sounds good, but didn't reach a tiny bit of the possible.

[@eustachymotyka931]

Sanxion and The Extirpator :)

[@rasowa73]

I like Extirpator version from Atari even more. More happens in Sanxion version but Extirpator version flows better and sounds more aggressive.

[@SeppelSquirrel]

It reminds me a lot of the 2nd half of the NES Jurassic Park title theme / Stage 5 theme. That's interesting, because Stage 1 is the Comic Bakery theme. I wonder if Jon Dunn was a C64 fan!

[@barelyarealdude]

Not just a fan: he worked on c64 games himself! He’s got some solid tunes on the platform =)

[@storminboy]

Like Ben Daglish said ' You had to write good music on 3 channel computers because of it's limited capability'. If you notice when the Commodore Amiga came out, the compositions were not nearly as good despite it's superior sound chip.

[@rsouth454]

Exactly . The amiga had better sound , but NEVER did you feel the music and get vibes like c64 music . Not even joking the tunes kinda scared me at times as a kid but i liked them

[@storminboy]

@@rsouth454 Well said. It always reminds of Jean Michel Jarres music. His earlier analog sounds from Oxygene and Equinox were outstanding compared to his later music. His later music was very good but no way did it compare to his earlier music for me.

[@lordevyl8317]

In MOST cases that was true, but not in all cases. Jogeir Liljedahl's Guitar Slinger comes to my mind.

[@storminboy]

@@lordevyl8317 Agreed. Elysium by Jester/Sanity (Volker Tripp) was another good example.

[@DerBomster]

I've listened to many nice covers of C64 songs over time, but among them all I found Sanxion to be the one that only sounds proper when played on the SID.

[@antalwahlers3574]

Yep. His own synthesizer version lacks "oomph".

[@NemesisElite2010]

SUPER Rob Hubbard

[@nzpomdotcom]

Reminds me of being 15 again, this guy was a genius

[@Fensta]

Great piece of music. When ya think they had to program the chip directly in Hex it's unbelievable musicians and programmers.

[@SuwandyOnggo]

Did someone notice is part of the Platypus's Soundtrack Game ?

[@melissawickersham9912]

Did they pay Ron Hubbard a royalty check to use his music?

[@ulfwurker6977]

This made me take a look at classics, Fortunately. But after all Rob Hubbards take on Prokofiev is my favorite.

[@abz_5072]

looking at the waveforms should be enough to show the effort put into this

[@jackcimino8822]

The second tune is pure genius. I have no words

[@AshleyPomeroy]

Imagine what Sergei Prokofiev could have achieved if he had had access to a SID chip.

[@cloerenjackson3699]

Yeah.... imagine what he could have achieved if, rather than the limitations of an 80-100 piece orchestra peopled by musicians who each have at least twenty years of premium musical instruction behind them, he instead had a three voice sound chip? :-/

[@Nightshft42]

5:32 nice patterns

[@sunherd]

Who the fuck is Sergei Prokofiev

[@desrj]

sunherd The piece that begins around 8:40 is The Montages and the Capulets from Prokofiev's ballet of Romeo and Juliet.

[@mennovanpoecke6026]

Now I forgot Delta

[@basshunter2007]

It was amazing as much as they got out of the Sid chip

[@simonmartin4599]

I'm still baffled how the top wave which is the lead line has a bass drum added on top of it. That shouldn't be possible.

[@6581punk]

Waveform combinations, for the bass drum beat the waveforms are combined, so you hear both the lead and bassdrum wave.

[@mennovanpoecke6026]

Ik ben zo blij dat ik weer vrienden ben met Jeroen Tel!

[@jesperjohnsen5336]

A classic 💪💪

[@MrBUESUM]

Good sound - Good game

[@senseiken]

No arpeggio used. Awesome.

[@Masonicon]

this song was Ironman's favorite Commodore 64 song

[@moonowo]

The second song is at 5:32

[@greatestytcommentator]

Still the best...... there were many contenders... but,., essence....

[@mennovanpoecke6026]

This was brutal music on c64. also lightforce, warhawk and the last v8 where

[@richardwhitehead6966]

Had a Zzap64 demo cassette with this on and had no idea it came from Sanxion (never played the game)

[@carlopepi]

Zzap paid for hubbard to have the use of a fairlight to make that no way the sid could have done that demo tape

[@meathead919]

I challenge anyone with a modern-day synth/VSTs and 3 voices to re-create this tune. You will fail.

[@porcorosso81]

Technically, what you are listening to IS a VST, as it is the output of a SID Emulator.

[@RichardM-kv4uu]

I wonder if the man behind the SID chip had any idea it could do this?

[@fordbuan2237]

I hear platypus 2 title screen

[@avmlaa6639]

That's Platypus 1 level 2 (cloud stage with balloon mines) Platypus 2 used other Rob's music in level 5 (last level), called "Knucklebuster". For title music, you probably meant Rob's "Wizball title" music, it's used both in title screen of Platypus 1 and in level 4 of Platypus 2.

[@reading_MOVIES]

For those unaware of Hubbards inspiration for this tune listen to ZooLook and Zoolookologie by Jean Michel Jarre.

[@mikislashy5656]

wonderful example how can use sid :)

[@Simon-fr4ts]

I love 4:15

[@paolosantaniello6622]

Montague and Capulets by Prokofieff

[@Kaffeestrudel]

One of my fav. games I loved at the loading that you can make your own song^^. When you think about that computer was able to load a game and even play music, and these modern crap games are not even in that position to do that, or the devs are as always these days to lazy as hell!

[@blueskin1978]

Best.

[@0kti]

Please make " Praiser - Flash Out"

[@MiNi-nn7zi]

Let's load some tapes!

[@Yeowtch]

👍

[@Z-Mat]

Wenn man da nicht einen Daumen nach oben gibt, kommt man vom Planeten Xlybuzzljxz...

[@StormadoMan]

These are great, please "Thrust" at some point :)

[@quadpad_music]

7w7

[@TroyFullwood]

what's that classical piece at 5:30?

[@DamnedRegistration]

Sergei Prokofiev's "Dance of the Knights" (from the ballet Romeo and Juliet)

[@anthonyleighton4754]

Romeo and juliet 2nd song....nice version....

[@ancientapparition1638]

Man I still have to beat spacechem

[@retro8059000]

That's a music :)

[@RetroDawn]

Is this output from a real c64 with the 6581?

[@BenInSeattle]

According to other comments on this video, yes. It was played one voice at a time on a real SID.

[@enjibkk6850]

For me, it sounds at time that the author tries to do too much, and the result starts to devolve into non-identifiable tune, random non-identifiable noises, e.g. around 3:30 :/

[@TheMovieCreator]

What do you use to generate the visuals? Is it simulated, or do you sample real hardware only having one channel enabled at a time?

[@cloerenjackson3699]

The latter.

[@amigalemming]

I guess I heard that melody in an Amiga demo. Seems someone has copied the melody.

[@Archimedes75009]

Wonder how many hundreds hours he must have spent coding this. Awesome.

[@RichardM-kv4uu]

He most likely did this in a day because he knew exactly what he was doing.

[@daibonehead]

RichardM8422 not always. There’s interviews out there where Hubbard says that some tunes took weeks and weeks and almost drove him insane. Delta and Kentilla to name two.

[@Archimedes75009]

@Ana Assburgian Wow !

[@Archimedes75009]

@Ana Assburgian Thanks for these infos.

[@tabuhuso1]

sanxion play on the 8580 chip :(

[@NickFellows]

something seems off with the timing here ?

[@GenuflectingRotation]

You try multiplexing 6 channels into 3 on a C64 machine

[@rsouth454]

The lack of ram and simple qauntizing of noise / saw / synth drum hits would make perfect timing impossible . For the system used this music is incredible . The sounds and sequencing are beyond what most can get out of a plugin stacked pc running soft synths .. unless they use presets

[@NickFellows]

@@GenuflectingRotation Im pretty sure this is only three channels. Rapidly changing the instrument a single channel is not the same thing nor is it unusual for a c64 tune, You only have to look at the oscilloscope view to see this.. If this counts then several of my own SID's have more channels than the SID chip is capable of. The only methods i know of for achieving more than 3 channels are with Digis, which do proper mixing and contrary to what you say it isnt such a struggle for the C64 to do this. My comment about the timing is because im pretty familiar with this SID choon and it doesnt sound correct to me. here is an old example kzbin.info/www/bejne/omOUo4aZnaZ4Zq8 The end of this demo features digital MOD playback with use of the C64's Analog filters. This is next level shit even the Amiga could not replicate this.

[@BenInSeattle]

What part of the timing seems off? Could it be an NTSC/PAL frequency issue? If so, wouldn't the duration of the track be off by about 8%? By the way, the link you gave to demonstrate how it was supposed to sound didn't work. The video didn't seem to include Sanxion.

[@eiliannoyes5212]

Co tu się dzieje?

[@scottbreon9448]

I love this music. I can't say the same thing for the game. It's OK, but IMHO, it's Stavros' weakest game. Much prefer Armalye.

[@greatestytcommentator]

Sad really, how much shit music is not out there today? Was it really this hard? and if it was... why aren't people trying harder?

[@eduardopupucon]

tis-100 is amazing but i prefer shenzen i/o

[@eNeSior]

POKEY (Atari) version sounds more clearly and better in my opinion

[@BenInSeattle]

:-D

[@sergiomax1607]

it's aufull !

[@GenuflectingRotation]

You're ignorant

[@CyanEnjoyer]

What a godly theme. Glad for Platypus' existence due to letting me know that c64 existed which i don't have as a part of my childhood