The beginning of the MGMT tune "Kids" on Activision's Music Studio.
I had heard that song a few times on the radio (a while ago now, when MGMT was not too popular) and thought that was pretty cool. But, for some reason, the radio guys would never give the name of the song and who was responsible for it. So, being pretty resourceful, I would "google" what I thought was the title of the song, that is "Take only what you need from me", but ... it's not "from me", it's "from it" and it's not the name of the song. Amazingly enough, google could not give me the name of the song or band from that lyric. There were just no matches. So, still had no idea what that tune was.
One morning, pretty early, when MTV shows videos, I heard something that sounded a bit like that tune. The name of the song was "Electric feel" and the band was MGMT. Direction youtube, search for MGMT and within seconds, the problem was solved. The name of the song I was looking for so long is "Kids", of course. I think it's an amazing tune but that's just me. Glad to see Weezer decided to cover it in concert.
Zzap! 64 did a review of various Commodore 64 music applications in its 1987 Christmas special edition. The article, reproduced below, talks about fine Commodore 64 music products such as Electrosound 64, Sound Studio, FM Sound Expander (keyboard and chip add-on), Microvox (sampler), Datel Sound Sampler, Rhythm King, Advanced Music System, Popular Classics (karaoke keyboarding), Ubik's Music, Microrhythm and Microrhythm Plus. Feel free to click on the pictures in order to get readable versions (they will open in blank windows).
Rhythm King is a really neat drum machine for the Commodore 64. It makes full use of the 3 channels the C64 has, in other words, you can play up to 3 drum sounds at the same time.
The "recording studio" (as opposed to "live play") has a bunch of options but the most important two (well, the ones discussed here) are the "pattern editor" and the "edit song" mode.
In the "pattern editor" mode, well, you can edit drum patterns at your heart's content.
To edit patterns, press the directional pad up/down to highlight the "edit" option. Then, press the left/right directional pad to cycle through the pattern spots. Press the fire button to enter the name, the number of bars, the number of beats per bar, the quantization (how many strokes you can have per beat) and the number of beats per minute. Apparently you need at least 2 bars per pattern.
You are then taken to the actual drum sequencer. For each step, you may enter up to 3 drum sounds: 1 is open hi-hat, 2 is cymbal, 3 is some kind of pipe, 4 is hand-clap, 5 is low tom, 6 is high tom, 7 is the snare and 8 is the bass drum. To cycle through the options at the top ("exit", "edit", "record" and "tempo"), press the up/down directional pad. If you make a mistake picking the wrong drum sound, well, you just shift press the drum sound key of the drum you want to get rid of.
In the "edit song" control panel, you string together the patterns that you have defined.
Highlight the "edit song" option in the "recording studio" screen and press the directional pad left/right to go up/down the list of songs. Once at the right spot, press fire and give a name to your song and press return to get to the actual song making control panel.
Highlight the "pattern" option and then cycle through the available patterns with the left/right directional pad. If you want to repeat a pattern (default is 1, played once), highlight "repeat" and then press the left/right directional pad to get to the number of plays you want. The tempo may also be changed in a similar manner for each pattern. Once you have a bunch of patterns out there, you can highlight the "stop" option to cycle through the selected patterns with the left/right directional pad (in case you need to change the pattern or its attributes).
Anytime you play a pattern or song, press (more exactly, strike) PgUp (on a pc emulated C64 like ccs64) to get out and go back to editing.
Little video I made showing the pattern and song editor. Only showing pattern 00 being made but the song has actually 3 patterns (00, 01 and 02).
The following shows what the magazine ZZAP! 64 thought about MicroRhythm. Feel free to click on the picture in order to get a readable version (it will open in a blank window).
MicroRhythm is a drum machine for the Commodore 64, written by Simon Pick and released by Firebird. It is a single channel drum machine, which one may find a tad limiting. As usual, you create patterns (bars) and then string them together to form a drum track (song). Each bar or pattern holds a maximum of 16 steps.
F1 toggles between "bar write" and "song write" mode.
In "bar write" mode, to change the bar (pattern), you just enter the bar number. In "song write" mode, to add a bar or pattern, you enter the bar number and press return. It will be added to the left of the cursor. When you start writing a (blank) song, the cursor says ST (start). The patterns are added to the left but they are played from left to right.
If you use ccs64 (should be the same for the other C64 emulators like VICE), this is what the pc keyboard keys do in "bar write" mode:
* left/right (up/down) arrows moves sound cursor to the right (left) * Q = bass drum (BS) * W = snare drum (SN) * E = tom-tom aka low tom(TM) * R = tom-tom +2 pitch aka medium tom (TM +2) * T = tom-tom +4 pitch aka high tom (TM +4) * Y = rim (RM) * U = cow bell (CW) * I = hand clap (CL) * O = not sure (TA) * P = hi-hat closed (HC) * [ = hi-hat open (HO) * ] = cymbal (CY) * space = silence * F adds flam * -/= increases/decreases the pitch (by one semi-tone, I assume) * D/G decreases/increases flam time * C (pressed twice; press B to deselect) clears the pattern (bar) * ;/' removes/adds a step in the bar * ,/. decreases/increases tempo speed * S plays/stops the pattern
This is what the pc keyboard keys do in "song write" mode:
* A opens song A * B opens song B * C opens song C * D opens song D * S plays/stops the song * backspace removes the bar at the cursor
This video shows the predefined pattern 00 and then plays predefined song B.
This second video (could not resist!) plays predefined song A. I think it's a killer drum solo. Goes to show you really don't need that many channels in a drum machine. Apparently, one might be more than enough.
Even though there's only one channel available, being able to add flam and change the pitch of any drum sound is pretty cool. In case you don't know, a flam is a (weaker) repeat of a drum hit. In MicroRhythm, you can adjust the time between the main stroke and the repeat (flam time). Kudos to the developer for this fine piece of software.
MicroRhythm Plus is the sequel to MicroRhythm. It's actually 4 music apps in one: MicroDisco, MicroLatin, MicroVocals and MicroTuned. The interface remains the same, it's the sample sounds that change. Have checked all 4 and the samples are not that groundbreaking when compared to the original ones (the disco one is pretty disappointing actually), so stick with this one and you won't miss much.
The following shows what the magazine ZZAP! 64 thought about Electrosound. Feel free to click on the pictures in order to get readable versions (they will open in blank windows).
