My Favorite SID Tunes by Drax

Thomas Mogensen, known as Drax in the European C64 demo scene, created almost a thousand SID tunes on the Commodore 64 from 1987 and up. Most of these were composed in my music editor.

Question: SID tunes? What's that?

SID tunes are chiptunes created on the Commodore 64, or an emulation of the C64 or its SID chip.

The SID chip in the Commodore 64 was quite advanced in 1982. It had three channels across eight octaves, ADSR, four different waveforms, pulsating on the square waveform, three ring modulators, and multi mode filtering. The music players written for it were usually called 50 times a second, quickly changing waveforms and frequencies to simulate vibrato, drums and arpeggio chords.

I’ve been listening through all of Drax’s tunes in the latest High Voltage SID Collection which was at #65 at the time of publishing this blog post. I noted down more than 100 tunes I liked and created stereo MP3 files for easy listening here. You could call it sort of “Drax’s Greatest Hits” as compiled by JCH.

Most of the tunes also have mono MP3 alternatives from SOASC created using a real C64.

24th Amaranth Grand Prix – Selector #1
1991 Vibrants SOASC
24th Amaranth Grand Prix was supposed to be a racing game similar to Out Run, only here you were riding a motorcycle instead. It was never finished.

24th Amaranth Grand Prix – Selector #2
1991 Vibrants SOASC

24th Amaranth Grand Prix – Selector #3
1991 Vibrants SOASC

24th Amaranth Grand Prix – Two Channels Level Tune #1
1991 Vibrants SOASC
Note that this tune only uses two channels. The third channel was reserved for sound effects.

24th Amaranth Grand Prix – Two Channels Level Tune #2
1991 Vibrants SOASC
Note that this tune only uses two channels. The third channel was reserved for sound effects.

24th Amaranth Grand Prix – Two Channels Level Tune #3
1991 Vibrants SOASC
Note that this tune only uses two channels. The third channel was reserved for sound effects.

8-Bit Mayhem Podcast: Episode #4
2006 Maniacs of Noise

Ass-Song
199? Vibrants
Unfinished work tune.

Avenge
1992 Vibrants SOASC
I love the chords in this one.

Baboon
1991 Vibrants

Balance
2013 Vibrants

Beast
2011 Maniacs of Noise

Bend Over
2014 Vibrants

Bja5_0
199? Vibrants
Unfinished work tune.

Black Magic
2015 Chorus

Boneless
1990 Vibrants

Remix: Click

Bones II
1989 Vibrants SOASC
From Drax’s earlier period.

Bonzax
1989 Vibrants SOASC
Also from Drax’s earlier period. Quite atmospheric.

Botanical
1991 Vibrants SOASC

Break-Up
2009 Crest

Bridge Conversion
1991-92 Vibrants SOASC
Cooperation between Drax and JCH. Conversion of the “Colonel Bogey March” by Kenneth J. Alford, as was heard in The Bridge on the River Kwai. Composed at my place.

CALS1 (Tune #2)
1991 Vibrants SOASC
Unfinished work tune.

Cafe
2011 Maniacs of Noise

Camerock
1993 Vibrants SOASC

Capripholian Waltz
2005 Maniacs of Noise SOASC

Caught in the Middle
2010 Maniacs of Noise

Remix: Click

Church
1989 Vibrants

Clarence
2004 Maniacs of Noise

Remix: Click

Colorama
2013 Alpha Flight

Cooly (Lollypop Frosty Land)
1992 Vibrants SOASC
A sketch for the final AdLib version used in the PC platform game Lollypop (1994).

Crispy Crushing Crackers
2013 Vibrants

Crooner
1992 Vibrants SOASCADLIBSB
I converted this to both AdLib and Sound Blaster in 1992.

Crying
1990 Vibrants SOASC

Da Capo
1989 Vibrants

Deathblow
1996 Vibrants SOASC

Delicate
2015 Chorus

More on page 2, page 3 and page 4.

4 comments on “My Favorite SID Tunes by Drax

  1. Disco Zax, Overlame, Boneless, heard those in so many demos in the very early 90s, DRAX seemed to rule the demo scene back then 🙂 He was so insanely productive !!!! … well yeah, i’m a big fan of DRAX, more recently, i liked Resolution and Gemini .. Thomas is really the kind of awesome melodies.

    Interesting to hear the analog pops in his Thaw tune … that 6581 DC offset modulated by the envelope, i love it 🙂

  2. No heart for Pretence? It’s so freaking beautiful. Drax at his bittersweet best. 🙂

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