Denial

This is just a musing, really more of a hypothetical "what if?" situation, but would it be possible to create a musical keyboard that uses the VIC (or SID chip) as its synthesizer? I know this has been done by Yamaha with their YM3812 and YM2413 chips, which have been used in various sound cards as well as musical keyboards.

Thanks!

Well you could link any midi keyboard to a sidstsation. Never heard of any integrated directly tho. Vic chip.is even less likely as it doesn't sound good enough for a keyboard if we are being honest.

sure it can be done, why not.... you'll need a small microcontroller, a bit of glue logic, and of course a VIC chip

Gorf wrote:This is just a musing, really more of a hypothetical "what if?" situation, but would it be possible to create a musical keyboard that uses the VIC (or VIC-II chip) as its synthesizer? I know this has been done by Yamaha with their YM3812 and YM2413 chips, which have been used in various sound cards as well as musical keyboards.

Thanks!

It has already been done by V1and3, the founder of this company: http://www.plogue.com/

BTW, the VIC-II is a video only IC. I don't see how you could use it as a synthesizer. The MIDIBox uses the C64 SID.

beamrider wrote:Well you could link any midi keyboard to a sidstsation. Never heard of any integrated directly tho. Vic chip.is even less likely as it doesn't sound good enough for a keyboard if we are being honest.

Yes, it would be more of a novelty most likely. The sidstation looks to be quite an interesting concept.

groepaz wrote:sure it can be done, why not.... you'll need a small microcontroller, a bit of glue logic, and of course a VIC chip

Very true

eslapion wrote:

Gorf wrote:This is just a musing, really more of a hypothetical "what if?" situation, but would it be possible to create a musical keyboard that uses the VIC (or VIC-II chip) as its synthesizer? I know this has been done by Yamaha with their YM3812 and YM2413 chips, which have been used in various sound cards as well as musical keyboards.

Thanks!

It has already been done by V1and3, the founder of this company: http://www.plogue.com/

BTW, the VIC-II is a video only IC. I don't see how you could use it as a synthesizer. The MIDIBox uses the C64 SID.

I'll have to check out that website.

Ah, yes, the SID chip, that is what I meant. Not sure why I typed VIC-II, will fix it in my original post so as not to cause confusion.

I've thought about it myself but I feel like I would be wasting the vic chips capabilities. You could use it's graphics controls for the keyboard display but you still wouldn't be using much.
The sid makes good sense, it's strictly and audio chip.
Personally I enjoy playing music strait on my vics keys. Got a C64 keyboard overlay to use on my vic a year ago to play around with but I found that I just enjoy playing those good old pet keys.

R'zo wrote:I've thought about it myself but I feel like I would be wasting the vic chips capabilities. You could use it's graphics controls for the keyboard display but you still wouldn't be using much.
The sid makes good sense, it's strictly and audio chip.
Personally I enjoy playing music strait on my vics keys. Got a C64 keyboard overlay to use on my vic a year ago to play around with but I found that I just enjoy playing those good old pet keys.

That is very true. Given the VIC chip is not strictly a sound chip, it would be a waste of its abilities to limit it to a sound only purpose. With that thinking, the SID would make more sense.

groepaz wrote:sure it can be done, why not.... you'll need a small microcontroller, a bit of glue logic, and of course a VIC chip

You already have a 6502 microcontroller and glue logic inside your VIC 20

Just add MIDI with one of these: http://store.go4retro.com/vic-20-midi-cartridge/

that'd be the preferred solution - obviously

Love mine

Very true, that is always a viable solution

Or - bad VIC-20 pun - it is a VIAble solution.