Mark VII

June 16, 2004 5:45 AM

Commodore 64 Hip-Hop that you might enjoy, depending on your tolerance for lowfi obsoleet funk freakin.
posted by Pretty_Generic (28 comments total)

Here is some real Commodore 64 hip-hop.
posted by Dr_Octavius at 5:55 AM on June 16, 2004

I can say, without a hint of hyperbole, that this is the greatest thing in the world ever that has ever existed since the dawn of time. EVAR.
posted by eddydamascene at 6:05 AM on June 16, 2004

This is the sound of me agreeing with eddydamascene.
posted by neckro23 at 6:10 AM on June 16, 2004

Not strictly c64 (more info here), but very cool nonetheless.
posted by toby\flat2 at 6:27 AM on June 16, 2004

I don't get it toby, why aren't these c64?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 6:32 AM on June 16, 2004

[this is GREAT]
posted by psmealey at 6:48 AM on June 16, 2004

PG, did you coin "obsoleet"? If so, good coinage. If not, good usage.
posted by soyjoy at 6:55 AM on June 16, 2004

EXCELLENT
posted by soundofsuburbia at 6:58 AM on June 16, 2004

I don't get it toby, why aren't these c64?

Because SAM didn't have a Busta Rhymes mode.
posted by sleslie at 7:00 AM on June 16, 2004

The low-fi voices made me assume it was really coming out of a C64. Aren't they capable of that sort of thing?

soyjoy: Coinage! [mario sound effect]
posted by Pretty_Generic at 7:04 AM on June 16, 2004

A bit more info.

As far as I know it isn't possible to get this sort of stuff out of a c64, and anyway, you would have to be quite mad to sample outkast into a c64, let alone remix and mash it up.

The fact that it isn't possible doesn't make it any less great, though :)
posted by toby\flat2 at 7:51 AM on June 16, 2004

I remember when mono first released these, but I completely missed the Kathy Brown mashup. Amazingly done.
posted by cmicali at 8:02 AM on June 16, 2004

Y'all may also enjoy Treewave. (previously featured here.) They use a C64, a 286 clone, an Atari 2600, and a dot-matrix printer for percussion. The sound is surprisingly organic.
posted by Vidiot at 8:07 AM on June 16, 2004

Also, the 2nd c64 tune is by Jeron Tel aka WAVE/Maniacs of Noise. He is the master of tracked music, and has done sound tracks to countless nes, snes, megadrive, and other console games.
posted by cmicali at 8:11 AM on June 16, 2004

Treewave are superb.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 8:19 AM on June 16, 2004

Well crap. I was expecting this to be as boring as the mass of 8-bit music people are obsessed with, but these MP3s are really good. Thanks.
posted by xmutex at 8:26 AM on June 16, 2004

Maniacs of Noise are superb.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 8:27 AM on June 16, 2004

There is always... Golden
Shower.
posted by ig at 8:41 AM on June 16, 2004

[MARK vii SHOWS IT TO US CORRECT] ..damn thanks for the link, p_G
posted by Peter H at 9:13 AM on June 16, 2004

Man this stuff is truly wonderful fun. Thanks again.
posted by Peter H at 9:23 AM on June 16, 2004

You think your Commodore 64 is really neato. What kind of chip you got in there, a Dorito?
posted by john at 10:00 AM on June 16, 2004

See also the infamous 8-bit Construction Set.
posted by rajbot at 10:40 AM on June 16, 2004

BIG UP TO 8BIT MASHERS!
posted by jcruelty at 11:33 AM on June 16, 2004

Sweet.
posted by weston at 7:51 PM on June 16, 2004

As far as I know it isn't possible to get this sort of stuff out of a c64, and anyway, you would have to be quite mad to sample outkast into a c64, let alone remix and mash it up.

I remember, in ancient times, thousands of years before the dawn of history, downloading a C64 demo that had an extremely grainy, short sample of some '80s hit (it might have been Wang Chung's "Everybody Wang Chung Tonight", but then again it might not have). So in theory, those vocals could have gone into a C64, 40K at a time. My money's on the vocals and drums being courtesy of a PC with some lofi/bit reduction type plugin, though.
posted by arto at 10:32 PM on June 16, 2004

As someone who has heard the SID 6581 chip do just about everything it is capable of, in fact something of a conniseur of the hardware itself, I declare with absolute authority and without fear of contradiction that the vocal track is slathered on after the fact. That severely reduces the actual geek coolness of these tracks -- just about any fool could fire up an emulator, write up some tune in JCH, record to WAV, and add a vocal track in the audio editor of choice -- but they're still interesting.

It is possible to eke out ~4bit@8kHz sampled audio from the SID, by fooling with the volume and filter registers and exploiting yet another Voice 3 bug, but it doesn't sound like this.
posted by majick at 11:26 PM on June 16, 2004

No, it's obviously just the vocals hacked around a bit and mixed in. Doesn't make it any less cool.

The C64 could do sampling... just very, very poorly. The sample had to be very short and is rendered almost unintelligible by the compression system.
posted by neckro23 at 5:10 PM on June 17, 2004

I downloaded these a few days ago, threw them on the 'pod, and forgot about them. Today I listened to them. I can't identify all the sources of the original muzak, but I can say that "Commando Jackson" is so titled because the melody is lifted straight from the C64 port of "Commando." The beat is much more funky that the original game though. I'd be tempted to throw this on at a party if I had more than two or three friends who would recognize it. =) If you dig the groove, here are a few more cover versions.
posted by britain at 3:58 PM on June 24, 2004