SID may be a better music synthesizer (maybe, always sounded tinny to me) but POKEY is a better sound fx chip. And has a fourth voice. I'll take the POKEY.
The SID is an actual subtractive synthesizer, which works very well for music and certain sound effects. The polynomial counter based Pokey sound is able to do some really unique sound effects, like cool buzzers and engine sounds. I have a lot of nostalgia for the 2600 sound. The Atari Lynx audio hardware is also polynomial counter based, but with extended functionality, like being able to drive a delta wave instead of a pulse wave.
I agree with others here that the SID music sounds better than the Pokey. But perhaps the "Ghostbusters" speech at the start sounded a bit clearer on the Atari. Does the C64 speech sound a little more scratchy?
I really like the Pokey. If you consider the machine is nearly 10 years older, the C64 sound output can be considered pretty bad by 1988. We already had MT-32's by then.
The C64's few advantages were it's sound and # of games available. Other than that, the C64 was a buggy piece of junk. I say that as I owned both. The Atari's OS AND disk drive were far more polished. The C64's drive was terribly slow and buggy. The Atari was 2.x years older, yet held it's own - it's processor, the same chip, was clocked much faster than the C64's processor. The Atari was well engineered whereas the C64 was a rush job.
Hey that's a nice 800 there! You'll find many well-made tunes on it. Listen to Spy vs Spy 1's music... True that SID may be overall a better sound chip but this game's music has levity on the 800 that is not there on the C64 version (poor porting?). POKEY is great fun and was designed as more of a sound effects chip, not a synthesizer. Return from Fractalus' intro music I much prefer on the 800 and even the high pitch launch sounds much more like a jet engine sound. Blue Max on the 800 is also example of much better effects in-game. Ultima IV sounds great on SID while the 800 got no music =( Many games sound great on SID as well. Cheers
I hear the TIA in there with Pokey. It's just blunt sound, that has a charm to it, but it's pretty crude next to the SID. I'll say that the SID music sounds a bit slower than POKEY.
Big Atari 8-bit fan, but let's face it; SID was highly superior to Pokey. This doesn't mean all sound tracks were better on the C64, because it depended on the programming also. The Boulder Dash (1984) soundtrack on the Atari 8-bit was really sort of equal in terms of quality to the C64 version. Atari 8-bit music was often incredibly pitchy though. To get more precise pitch, you would have to combine sound channels and that would leave you with only 2 channels. The SID chip was a true synth chip I believe, while Pokey was a sound generator / io chip.
Yes, you're absolutely right, of course. The comparison is not fair when you look at them on a technical level. The Ghostbusters soundtrack shown here had to be programmed completely differently for the respective system. So no comparison is actually possible on that level. But I rather wanted to show that good sound was already possible some years before the release of the C64.
![[SID + POKEY] Panther - Music Mix](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/k-5XfTRBzgk/mqdefault.jpg)
SID may be a better music synthesizer (maybe, always sounded tinny to me) but POKEY is a better sound fx chip. And has a fourth voice. I'll take the POKEY.
The SID is an actual subtractive synthesizer, which works very well for music and certain sound effects. The polynomial counter based Pokey sound is able to do some really unique sound effects, like cool buzzers and engine sounds. I have a lot of nostalgia for the 2600 sound.
The Atari Lynx audio hardware is also polynomial counter based, but with extended functionality, like being able to drive a delta wave instead of a pulse wave.
I agree with others here that the SID music sounds better than the Pokey. But perhaps the "Ghostbusters" speech at the start sounded a bit clearer on the Atari. Does the C64 speech sound a little more scratchy?
I really like the Pokey. If you consider the machine is nearly 10 years older, the C64 sound output can be considered pretty bad by 1988. We already had MT-32's by then.
The C64's few advantages were it's sound and # of games available. Other than that, the C64 was a buggy piece of junk. I say that as I owned both. The Atari's OS AND disk drive were far more polished. The C64's drive was terribly slow and buggy. The Atari was 2.x years older, yet held it's own - it's processor, the same chip, was clocked much faster than the C64's processor. The Atari was well engineered whereas the C64 was a rush job.
Hey that's a nice 800 there! You'll find many well-made tunes on it.
Listen to Spy vs Spy 1's music... True that SID may be overall a better sound chip but this game's music has levity on the 800 that is not there on the C64 version (poor porting?). POKEY is great fun and was designed as more of a sound effects chip, not a synthesizer. Return from Fractalus' intro music I much prefer on the 800 and even the high pitch launch sounds much more like a jet engine sound. Blue Max on the 800 is also example of much better effects in-game. Ultima IV sounds great on SID while the 800 got no music =( Many games sound great on SID as well. Cheers
They're both good. It all depends on your personal tastes.
I hear the TIA in there with Pokey. It's just blunt sound, that has a charm to it, but it's pretty crude next to the SID. I'll say that the SID music sounds a bit slower than POKEY.
For me, it's pokey all the way.
Big Atari 8-bit fan, but let's face it; SID was highly superior to Pokey. This doesn't mean all sound tracks were better on the C64, because it depended on the programming also. The Boulder Dash (1984) soundtrack on the Atari 8-bit was really sort of equal in terms of quality to the C64 version. Atari 8-bit music was often incredibly pitchy though. To get more precise pitch, you would have to combine sound channels and that would leave you with only 2 channels. The SID chip was a true synth chip I believe, while Pokey was a sound generator / io chip.
Yes, you're absolutely right, of course. The comparison is not fair when you look at them on a technical level. The Ghostbusters soundtrack shown here had to be programmed completely differently for the respective system. So no comparison is actually possible on that level. But I rather wanted to show that good sound was already possible some years before the release of the C64.