Swinth Demo for the Commodore 64

[infiltrator7777]

Why do you skip the songs! Stupid!

[sepultribe666]

this is truly magnificent. how i wish i had lived in those days when the c64 reigned supreme

[CutbertLeKoo]

OMG the memories.. I used to love this demo.

[angelodomino]

pfff...just is so good..greetings to all 68000 and 6520 coders...

[IstimirantStella]

Thanks. It's freedom. It's art. It's fredom. It's my youth. I had it on my C64

[steveasat2]

Sweeet! I've been trying to find this app forever, but the copy I had was titled "Lazarium II".

[DinoSwede]

You should totally do sunglasses at night



[ImoenOfTelengard]

Long live the SID chip! Does anyone know where I can get the micro-code to this chip and/or a VHDL mapping of it? I want to recreate this chip on a FPGA. I think it would be an excellent sound chip for low-powered embedded systems.

[Dynamitarian]

One of the most precious memories. Vangelis, Tubular Bells etc etc on C64. Who can ask for more?

[vapourmile]

There is something truly beautiful about this. In particular the first tune sounds to me like a calling to the faithful to take their seats at the altar of the Commodore 64 and worship it with devotions of love in the form of music, art and programming expertise. It was like a message interpretable only by budding genii of the time which read "Hop on now for a ride that will keep you engaged and excited for the rest of your lives". : )

[zaphod77]

This does not sound right on the emulators.

It seems to be emulating the R4 version, and missing some of the tremolo.

Tune 1 and 3 are hit particularly hard.

[ioport]

First tune was always my favorite. Beautiful piece. I downloaded this back in 85. Brings a tear to the eye

[Rackabajsarn]

@ioport You _Downloaded_ it, from what? ARPANET?

[jackalope686]

oooh, i wish more of "Enola Gay" by OMD had of fit in the end.

[strawberrylovsyou]

the second one is awesome!!!!!

[sonick808]

the sid is such a glorious sound.

[lurkerrekrul]

I had a small graphics program that drew the same kinds of lines. I always wished I could find a way to combine it with a SID player routine and make "SID Swinth". Unfortunately, I lacked the programming ability to do it.

[mrAmiga500]

I did this on the Amiga 500 - made an updated Swinth. I combined a very similar (but higher-res) line program with a SID player playing synth_sample.sid. It worked very nicely and I still play it occasionally. For some reason, I never get tired of it.

[lurkerrekrul]

Have you uploaded it anywhere? If not, you should.

[SaganAppreciationSoc]

@mrAmiga500

Jeebus, I'd like to see this! Where can one download it?

[mrAmiga500]

I just thought I'd mention that the music was done by Georg Feil. The poor guy never gets any credit. (...his own fault actually because he didn't put his name on Synth Sample)

[SegaMegadriveMic]

Second song, Saturdays in Silesia! ^_^

[retro38]

would you happen to know the last music at 4:28? wow,this brings back memories. used to have the C64 and this program--thanks for the journey down memory lane.

[footfan33]

"enola gay" from OMD ;-)

[LBPHeretic]

I have a quick question. What is the name of the song that starts at 3:39 if you know, by any chance?

Thanks for your help. Five stars.

[LBPHeretic]

Actually, never mind. I found the entire list of the songs in the Swinth Demo on the web after some extensive looking. I hope you enjoy. Here it is: 1. Theme from Stationary Ark 2. Saturdays in Silesia 3. Spiral 4. Tubular Bells 5. Theme from Magic Shadows 6. Theme from A Clockwork Orange 7. Oxygene II 8. Canon in D minor 9. Enola Gay I hope this list helps you out. I have the composers listed for each song too . I'll post that in the next post. Cheers.

[systat]

What's the song at 3:06 ?

[kmoser]

Tubular Bells

[telbee]

all the tunes are on the HVSC (High Voltage Sid Collection)... Love this just as much now as I did way back when.... :@)

[SaganAppreciationSoc]

You can see a sort of modern version if you search for "Cosmos - For Carl Sagan - Jean Michel Jarre"

[SaganAppreciationSoc]

Can you re-upload it but let it play each song in full?

[kmoser]

Probably not because it will likely exceed YouTube's limit on video length. I suppose I could split them into separate videos. It's just a question of finding the time to do it.

[SaganAppreciationSoc]

Ah i was just YTmailing you. Perhaps you could uplaod them on a per-song basis. Oddly, my Swinth is different from yours IIRC.

Anyway I've seen videos on Youtube of up to 4 hours. I wish i knew how they did that.

[miser9]

thanks for posting!

[pixelkatten]

Does anybody have the whole songs somewhere?

[kmoser]

I just posted 9 video replies, each with one of the songs in full.

[steadydecline]

Hey, thanks! This was one of my favorite programs on the commodore. I remember downloading it from a BBS waaaay back in the day.

[steadydecline]

Oh, and thanks again for posting each individual song. This is good stuff.

[KoolAidManOG]

Boy, if anything makes me feel old its this. :)

[sirbgb2]

Thanks for posting this... Very hypnotic.

[Xur808]

Holy crap, I actually got chills watching this! It was like a swath of nostalgia washed over me like a tidal wave. Thanks for sharing this!

[dkim68]

OMG! I remember this! So cool to see and hear this again. Thanks for uploading it.

[jkeelsnc]

Yes, in fact I had this program and played with it sometimes. :)

[adric22]

Haha. I learned how to play the first song on my Korg a few years ago, but I have forgotten now.

[smhanov]

I still have this on floppy disks... I'm trying to get them all into my PC but I need a special cable..

[OnkelHotte3]

Just tried it: Using the VICE C64 emulator configured using the reSID engine with interpolating or resampling method (analog filters of course turned on) also works fine with the tremolo effect. the fast method (which is the default setting and maybe used for this video) does not work!

[OnkelHotte3]

For those who do not have a real C64 and are missing the tremolo effect of the first song: Try the "Synth Sample" sid-file on Winamp with the Sidplay2 Plugin. Configure it as the SID 6581 (old model) with a samplerate of 44100 kHz, turn on the SID filters and Optimization Level 1. It is important to use SID 6581 (old model) because the newer one has linearized analog filters which have less effect! In my opinion this is the nearest to the real C64 sound.

[Milkymalk]

Oh my god, I had this on an actual disk once... does somebody know the names of all the songs, especially the second one?

[maddogmcrae]

The very first song is the theme from "Stationary Ark", which was some kind of nature show on TV Ontario.

[Slinkylove13]

I remember another c64 program just like this called "tubular bells." Anyone else remember this?

[kmoser]

This demo contains the "Tubular Bells" song, which starts at 3:00.

[gilbertflowers68]

if anybody knows the name of the very first song (before of saturdays in silesia)i love this song......excuse my grammar! greetings from Toluca!!!!!!

[commodorechoad]

More or less the same. The audio is not quite exactly on some of the songs. Must be a waveform thing. I have always loved this program. Still have it for my C64's.  Yes I have two.....lol

[SegaMegadriveMic]

Where can I download this?

[telemetry9]

the music is excellent.

[steviebboy69]

the first one was the best pitty it was chopped off.

[mrsparkle001]

Wow this is exactly what I've been looking for for years! I never knew it's name but I used to play it all the time on my C64 and was always mesmerized. It's called Swinth?

[mrsparkle001]

It's in a different pitch though? I remember the music being slightly higher pitched. I'm noticing that on all my emulator games; they're all slightly lower pitch. I wonder why.

[mrsparkle001]

I have the actual .sid file to play, with Winamp, and it's in the correct pitch (or key, I don't know the correct term to use). But when running the program with my emulator, ccs64, it all sounds just a little off.

[1337fox]

How could you cut off Enola Gay at the end >=( It was the best one on synth sampler...

[sirbgb2]

This video is great, and the sound is accurate. I just played it on the C64, and it sounds almost identical. Thanks for posting it!

[jci10]

The sound is not accurate! The lead melody in the first song has a much more deeper tremelo affect than this one, it's like the SID's analog filters are turned off...same thing for the 3rd song and 5th songs...

[StRoRo]

OMG, I had loads of these and used to listen to them. What was the program called?

thanks for finding them.

[tikigirl13]

I was so excited to find this!!! It brings back so many memories. As a kid, I never really knew any of the song names. I'm enjoying reading all your comments and finding the actual song names. Thanks for helping me re-live some great memories that I've been trying to find for years!

[denrockshard]

"enola gay" appears at the end of this video and was my favorite tune to listen to while watching swinth back in the day.

[sonjamichelle]

OMG, I thin I remember having to WRITE this program in basic out of the back of commodore magazine. I used to leave this up on screen for hours. My gosh, the memories!

[Cornloaf]

Actually this program was a mashup of two different programs. One was the graphics and the other was the music. I got my copy at a COW (Commodore Owners Workshop) meeting. Fast Hack'em... two 1541 drives... a stack of floppies... ahhh... early P2P!

[CathPresbyter]

Fast Hakem?

What ever happened to Mike J. Henry?

Does anyone out there have the spacemovie demo?

[jci10]

The first song is messed up as the lead melody has a nice tremelo effect caused by a modulating hi-pass filter on the SID. Are you playing this on an emulator? All the emulators suck on the SID chip's analog Filter capabilites...

[kmoser]

Yes, this is being played on the VICE emulator. It sounds pretty true to the original from what I remember, but I'd have to dig out my C64 to tell for sure. Maybe if I get more time I'll record an analog version.

[jci10]

Well, unless you played swinth on a C128D (where they practically turned off the SID filter affects), most of the Swinth songs soound very much different than the real SID version...

[mackhine]

Flashback!  Swinth was awesome.

[adisharr]

Holy shit I remember this =) =) Totally awesume :)

[richempire]

Awesome! Still gives me goose bumps after more than 20 years! I didn't know back then but today i think i recognize the first track! It's called Saturdays in Silesia from Rational Youth!

Thanx from bringing back these memories!

[schickj485]

YEA!! i love that somebody would bother to post this vid considering its so old. lotsa good memories.

[Randbo33]

Oh by the way, does anyone remember the demo called "Space Movie"? It was a mini-movie with a big native-looking guy beating on drums in the lower corner. I remember that music being excellent as well.

(Yes, it was a C-64 demo.)

[jaytee200]

You're thinking of the Trap demo by Ratt & Benn

[richempire]

Yes i think i remember the demo you're talking about! If my memory is right i think the music came from a game called trapped and it was composed by Ben Daglish!

[Randbo33]

I can't believe someone actually posted this. LOL I remember being blown away when this ran the first time.

(And found the actual program recently which runs on a C-64 emulator. Nothing like seeing THIS run on my 19 inch wide screen LCD and hearing it through my X-FI card!)

It is fun to power up Winamp and some of its better visualizations after taking a trip back in time. :)

[fedecris]

WOW... more than 20 years have passed! Thanks A LOT for the memories.

[jci10]

This is obviously running on an emulator as the lead melody in the first song is missing the band-pass filter effect that yields a nice deep tremelo effect.

RUN IT ON A REAL C64!!

[halidefox]

I REMEMBER THIS!! - Excellent little app for commodore 64, and beautiful music. I remember looking at this and wondering how the Commodore could actually generate the music AND these incredible graphics at the SAME TIME! XD

[DougGlendower]

God, I remember this. This was so sweet. Thanks for posting it.

[memtube]

I had this app back in the day, was very fun to play with.

[mackhine]

Those were good times! The c64 had great sound for the time.

[nikivee]

Now that is some awesome stuff.