SoedeSoft SidMaster

SIDmaster is a virtual synthesizer emulating the SID 6581 or SID 8580 sound chip of the popular Commodore 64 home computer of the eighties and nineties. The SID 6581/8580 was capable of producing sounds many years ahead of any other computer at the time. SIDmaster has 3 voices which can be used to create monophonic sounds with 3 layers, or the it can operate in (3 voice) poly-phone mode using single layer sounds.

Although the synth looks compact and doesn’t take much space in your rack, all registers of each of the 3 voices can be controlled simultaneously.

Besides simply emulating the SID chip, it also implements all kinds of effects that were popular in the days when musicians made game or demo tunes for the C64, to get greater sounds.

Version 1.4
- Minor sound quality improvements (noise filter and subsampling)
- Pulse ENV button added, when selected, pulse LFO will never restart at a new note
- more wave effects and patches
Version 1.3
- Improved sound quality: option added at the back panel to configure the quality of the sound, or to use a lower quality with higher performance
- Added noise filter, to reduced the noise at high performance rendering
- Improved performance in the renderer
- Extra filter feature to ‘freeze’ the filter oscillator (not restarting the LFO at each note press)

Version 1.2
- New feature to support the SID 8580 chip version (a little punchier filter)
- Added combinator patches (with SIDmaster skin)
- Add new patches (using the new SID 8580)
- New feature to trigger envelope reset in legato mode (see manual for details), useful for envelopes with zero sustain volume
- Add new waveform arpeggio effects (ramp up / down one octave)
- Bugfix : poly mode when playing 3 notes sometimes muted one note
- Bugfix : when using arpeggio octave effects, transpose was added twice

Version 1.1
- New improved user interface
- New feature to modify the main frequency of the sid master

Version 1.08
- Bugfix: The SID chip (emulation) can’t handle switching one off to note on (gate) or vice versa too fast. Fix added to prevent this
- Added 53 Midi CC automation parameters
- Added some new patches

Version 1.06
- Initial version

The C64 6581 SID chip has 3 voices, each voice has

• Attack Decay Sustain Release control.
• Waveform selection (triangle, sawtooth, pulse, noise, or any combination)
• Pulse width can be modulated by the control wheel.
• Built-in arpeggiator, which can be different per voice
• Waveform effects (alternates waveforms/frequencies sequentially)
• Ring modulation and synchronization options (modulates / synchronizes one voice with another)
• Note transpose and detune

One filter which can be enabled per voice

• it can be configured as lowpass, highpass, bandpass or notch filter
• Cutoff frequency, and resonance, which can be modulated by the control wheel and velocity.
• Resonance can be modulated with the control wheel.
• LFOs for the pulse width, frequency of each voice and one LFO for the filter.

Playmodes are

• Monophone: use all 3 voices simultaneously to create richer, layered sound
• Polyphone: operate as a 3 voice polyphonic synthesizer.
• Keyboard control: pitch bend, legato / slide