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When I was a teenager in Massachusetts in 1982 I bought the album "Tragic Figures" by a band called Savage Republic on a lark, based solely on the hand-printed

When I was a teenager in Massachusetts in 1982 I bought the album "Tragic Figures" by a band called Savage Republic on a lark, based solely on the hand-printed album cover. It turned out to be very strange post-punk industrial music. I almost fell out of my chair at the movie theater watching "Silence of the Lambs" when the song "Real Men" from that album came on.

twic 7y ago
There's an amazing demo called 'A Mind Is Born': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWblpsLZ-O8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWblpsLZ-O8 Amazing principally because the whole thing is 256 bytes: https://linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is-born/ https://linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is-born/ I never meet anyone who has even heard of the demoscene, let alone come seen this particular work. I was at a film festival watching a programme of short films, one of which was the well-made AI-box escape romp 'Watch Room': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th5uJNB7VU8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th5uJNB7VU8 And similarly found my interface with my seat disrupted by the closing credits using the music from 'A Mind Is Born'. This being a festival, the director was there, so i could tell him how much i appreciated the reference!
- throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
  Sadly Andrey Kolmogorov is dead. Because I'd loooove to see his face. Fantastic, solid thanks for that, I love it for what it is. Edit: technical question for audiologists. The underlying pulsing heartbeat of this track, which is most clear right at the start, has a kind of 'furry' quality to it. How is this done? I guess it's a sample of a ~60Hz sine wave but I'm just guessing.
  - egypturnash 7y ago
    It’s a c64, there are no samples*. https://linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is-born/ https://linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is-born/ has a full breakdown of what is going on. What you call the “heartbeat” is, I think, what Linus thinks of as “drums”, and is a rapidly descending tone in (probably) a rectangular wave - the c64 cannot generate sine waves, just sawtooth/triangle/pulse, and random noise (and some combinations of these that were not intended by the sound chip’s designer). In addition all three voices of the sound chip are being pushed through its subtractive filter, which is a hard-to-emulate bit of analog circuitry that gets noisier and noisier if you out more than one voice through it. If you really want a close look at what’s going on you could download the “SID tune” version of it and run it through a c64 music player, most of these have oscilloscope views and the ability to selectively mute voices.
- lostlogin 7y ago
  > A Mind Is Born': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWblpsLZ-O8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWblpsLZ-O8 Thank you. A Crystals Castles type vibe.

twic 7y ago

There's an amazing demo called 'A Mind Is Born': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWblpsLZ-O8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWblpsLZ-O8 Amazing principally because the whole thing is 256 bytes: https://linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is-born/ https://linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is-born/ I never meet anyone who has even heard of the demoscene, let alone come seen this particular work. I was at a film festival watching a programme of short films, one of which was the well-made AI-box escape romp 'Watch Room': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th5uJNB7VU8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th5uJNB7VU8 And similarly found my interface with my seat disrupted by the closing credits using the music from 'A Mind Is Born'. This being a festival, the director was there, so i could tell him how much i appreciated the reference!

throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
Sadly Andrey Kolmogorov is dead. Because I'd loooove to see his face. Fantastic, solid thanks for that, I love it for what it is. Edit: technical question for audiologists. The underlying pulsing heartbeat of this track, which is most clear right at the start, has a kind of 'furry' quality to it. How is this done? I guess it's a sample of a ~60Hz sine wave but I'm just guessing.
- egypturnash 7y ago
  It’s a c64, there are no samples*. https://linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is-born/ https://linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is-born/ has a full breakdown of what is going on. What you call the “heartbeat” is, I think, what Linus thinks of as “drums”, and is a rapidly descending tone in (probably) a rectangular wave - the c64 cannot generate sine waves, just sawtooth/triangle/pulse, and random noise (and some combinations of these that were not intended by the sound chip’s designer). In addition all three voices of the sound chip are being pushed through its subtractive filter, which is a hard-to-emulate bit of analog circuitry that gets noisier and noisier if you out more than one voice through it. If you really want a close look at what’s going on you could download the “SID tune” version of it and run it through a c64 music player, most of these have oscilloscope views and the ability to selectively mute voices.
lostlogin 7y ago
> A Mind Is Born': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWblpsLZ-O8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWblpsLZ-O8 Thank you. A Crystals Castles type vibe.