High Voltage SID Collection/STIL FAQ

What is the SID Tune Information List (STIL)?
The SID Tune Information List (STIL) contains information about the SID tunes found in the HVSC beyond the standard TITLE, AUTHOR, and RELEASED information. STIL goes a little deeper listing SID tune information that only a true SID freak would enjoy. Such information listed in STIL includes cover information, interesting facts, useless trivia, comments on the tunes by the composers themselves, etc. The STIL, though, is limited to factual data and does not try to provide an encyclopedia about every original artist.

Why was STIL created? What is STIL good for
The High Voltage SID Collection's (HVSC) Crew sincerely believes in creating the most accurate and comprehensive SID collection possible. We also believe in giving proper credit to all composers regardless if they ever composed on the Commodore 64. How many times have you asked yourself, "Where have I heard this tune before?!" STIL helps to ease some of those questions.

With the increased interest in old SID tunes in recent years, the issue of whether they are original compositions or remixes/covers/pastiches of previous tunes has gotten a lot more attention. Although the STIL will do its best to point out whether a given tune is close to the original or just mildly inspired by it, it is still intended as an informal guide for SID listeners only. If you want to know more accurately how closely a SID resembles another composition, the best thing you can do is locate the original tune and perform the comparison yourself. We suggest that you do not base your opinion solely on an entry in the STIL.

STIL is also extremely valuable for the future of SID music collections. Imagine years ahead when the HVSC maintainers are no longer available for input for whatever reasons. Wouldn't it be a shame if someone began to alter the credit fields of the tunes in HVSC based on incorrect data?

Another feature of STIL is that it contains information and/or quotes about certain tunes that the creators of the SID tunes provided themselves. We strive to include such information in STIL whenever possible, which we believe enhances the value of HVSC and gives a more historical sense to this great archive. If you are a SID composer and your SID tunes are in HVSC and you wish to provide comments on some of them, don't hesitate to contact any of us!

Most of the SIDPlay programs available on various platforms nowadays can also display information found in the STIL for a given SID tune along with the SID that is being played. Obviously, they get the info from the STIL.txt file itself.

NOTE: Although initially STIL did list bugs that were present in certain tunes within HVSC, the current HVSC administration team felt that it is better to provide a separate list of them. Since the list's creation, more and more bugged SIDs got fixed. If you think you can help (either listing bugs or providing bugfixed SID files), please refer to BUGlist.txt in the DOCUMENTS directory of HVSC. However, if a SID sounds bugged and the original released game or demo that the SID was extracted from was also bugged (for example: /MUSICIANS/O/Ouwehand_Reyn/Last_Ninja_3.sid subtune #3), STIL in this case would notify you of this as technically it is not a bug that was caused by a bad rip.

Where is the latest version of STIL available from?
The latest OFFICIAL version of STIL is always distributed along with the latest version of HVSC and is given a version number that matches that of HVSC. This version of STIL can be found in /DOCUMENTS/STIL.txt in your HVSC.

The latest (official) version of STIL is always available online at the HVSC Home Page.

What is the format of STIL?
To better present the information contained in STIL and to make it easier for programs and scripts to process and maintain the list of entries in it, STIL has a strict format that is outlined below.

As you can see, STIL is a so-called flat text-file, which is readable by humans. But it is formatted in a way that machines (programs) can parse it, too.

In summary, STIL is more or less like a flat database.

Conventions used in the format description of STIL

 * /Path_in_HVSC/
 * The relative directory containing the SID that this STIL entry refers to, starting with a "/", subdirs separated by "/", given as long pathnames (with correct small and capital letters)


 * Full_Title.sid
 * The long filename of the SID as it appears in the directory.


 * #y
 * Tune #y of the SID.

Description of the STIL block
In general, STIL entries are built up of one or more "blocks", depending on how many subtunes a given SID has and how many of those have information attached to them.

The general format of a STIL block is: NAME: Name field AUTHOR: Author field TITLE: Title field [from Album] ARTIST: Artist field COMMENT: Comment field. Or for tunes that contain multiple covers: COMMENT: *Optional* tune-global comment goes here. NAME: Name field AUTHOR: Author field TITLE: Title field [from Album] (TIMESTAMP) ARTIST: Artist field COMMENT: Comment field. TITLE: Title field [from Album] (TIMESTAMP) ARTIST: Artist field COMMENT: Comment field. . . . There can be as many covers listed within a STIL block for tunes that cover more than one piece of music as needed - there is no maximum limit.

Please, see the STIL field descriptions below for details about the individual fields found in a STIL block.

All of the fields in the STIL block are optional, but at least one field must be present. Eg. if only a comment is provided for a tune that has no subtunes, the following entry is perfectly fine:

/Path_in_HVSC/Full_Title.sid.sid COMMENT: This should be some relevant comment here.

However, if more than one field is present, they must be in the order as outlined above (NAME first, then AUTHOR, TITLE, ARTIST, and COMMENT).

Description of the complete STIL entries
Each STIL entry comprises of one or more STIL blocks:

/Path_in_HVSC/Full_Title.sid {STIL block}
 * FOR SID FILES CONTAINING ONLY A SINGLE TUNE

/Path_in_HVSC/Full_Title.sid COMMENT: *Optional* file-global comment goes here. (#1) {STIL block} (#2) {STIL block} (#3) {STIL block} . . . etc.
 * FOR SID FILES CONTAINING MORE THAN ONE TUNE

Of course, STIL entries need to be provided only for those tunes that need it, so the following is perfectly fine, too: /Path_in_HVSC/Full_Title.sid COMMENT: *Optional* file-global comment goes here. (#8) {STIL block} (#11) {STIL block} However, the STIL blocks for the subtunes must be sorted by ascending order of the tune numbers of the subtunes.

Description of the STIL fields
The fields within STIL also follow a strict format outlined below.

Purpose
As of STIL v3.5 a new field is in use in the STIL, the NAME field. The NAME field is in a way an extension of the Name field stored in the PSID header - it names the tune, or in this case the subtune in a SID file, with the name the author originally intended for it (which can for instance be found in music selectors, demos, etc.). The field is needed because the PSID format only contains one name field, and for multitune SIDs that's not always enough. Prior to STIL v3.5 the situation was handled like in this *deprecated* entry:

/Crowther_Antony/From_Ratt_To_You.sid COMMENT: The tune names are listed, if they were given a name, the remaining tunes were just called Tune 35, Tune 27 etc., and have been left out of this STIL entry. (#1) TITLE: Jolly (#2) TITLE: Friends (#13) TITLE: Toccata from Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (BWV 565) ARTIST: Johann Sebastian Bach COMMENT: Called 'Tocca' in the original Crowther demo. (#16) TITLE: Ghostbusters [from the movie] ARTIST: Ray Parker, Jr. COMMENT: Called 'G-Bust' in the original Crowther demo.

As you can see, this gives problems when a subtune has an original name and is at the same time a cover. To solve this problem, and to remove the (ab)use of the TITLE, field, the NAME field has been introduced as follows:

/MUSICIANS/C/Crowther_Antony/From_Ratt_To_You.sid COMMENT: The tune names are listed, if they were given a name, the remaining tunes were just called Tune 35, Tune 27 etc., and have been left out of this STIL entry. (#1)  NAME: Jolly (#2)  NAME: Friends (#13)  NAME: Tocca TITLE: Toccata from Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor (BWV 565) ARTIST: Johann Sebastian Bach (#16)  NAME: G-Bust TITLE: Ghostbusters [from the movie] ARTIST: Ray Parker, Jr.

This is the correct way of naming individual subtunes in a STIL entry.

Another use of the NAME field is when the tune's title doesn't fit in the PSID header's name field:

/MUSICIANS/W/Wijnhoven_Joachim/Als_de_sterre.sid NAME: Als de sterre dao baove straole

Format
The format of the NAME field is simply:

NAME: Name field

Note that there are THREE (3) spaces (not a tab!) before the word NAME, which is followed by a colon and another space. This is followed by the actual name of the subtune.

Given the nature of the NAME field, there can only be one NAME field per subtune.

Length
The whole field must be 79 characters long or less. If it doesn't fit into 79 characters, try to abbreviate the tune's name.

Purpose
As of STIL v4.1, the AUTHOR field has been introduced as a pendant to the NAME field. Combined, the NAME and AUTHOR fields make sure that the original TITLE and ARTIST fields are used exclusively for cover information, hopefully leading to less ambiguity in the STIL and an overall better design.

The AUTHOR field is used to specify the composer of a given subtune in a SID file with multiple composers. This is useful because the PSID header only contains one global Author field for the entire SID file, which means that it is not possible to specify the composer of a single subtune. Prior to STIL v4.1, this problem was handled using the ARTIST field, but when the subtune was also a cover, this lead to problems and confusion similar to that described in the previous section.

Here's how it would look in the old STIL (this is now the *wrong* way to do it!):

/MUSICIANS/0-9/20CC/So-Phisticated_III.sid (#1) ARTIST: Edwin van Santen (#2) ARTIST: Edwin van Santen (#3) ARTIST: Edwin van Santen (#4) ARTIST: Edwin van Santen (#5) TITLE: Paninaro ARTIST: Pet Shop Boys COMMENT: This cover is by Edwin van Santen. (#6) ARTIST: Falco Paul

And here's the *correct* way to do it:

/MUSICIANS/0-9/20CC/So-Phisticated_III.sid (#1) AUTHOR: Edwin van Santen (#2) AUTHOR: Edwin van Santen (#3) AUTHOR: Edwin van Santen (#4) AUTHOR: Edwin van Santen (#5) AUTHOR: Edwin van Santen TITLE: Paninaro ARTIST: Pet Shop Boys (#6) AUTHOR: Falco Paul

As you can see, it is no longer necessary to use the comment field for specifying the composer of a subtune. For comparison, the PSID file in question contains only the following credits:

NAME=So-Phisticated III AUTHOR=Edwin van Santen & Falco Paul RELEASED=1989 20th Century Composers

Without the fields in the STIL, you would have no way of knowing (or specifiying!) that Falco Paul composed subtune #6.

Format
The format of the AUTHOR field is simply:

AUTHOR: Author field

Note that there is ONE (1) space (not a tab!) before the word AUTHOR, which is followed by a colon and another space. This is followed by the actual contents of the field (in this case the composer of the subtune).

Given the nature of the AUTHOR field, there can only be one AUTHOR field per subtune.

Length
The whole field must be 79 characters long or less. If it doesn't fit into 79 characters, try to abbreviate the composer credits.

Purpose
This field is used to denote the title of the tune that a given SID tune covers.

The titles should be listed in their original language of publication, with the correct spelling observed in that language.

If the SID tune covers another SID tune, the title of the covered C64 tune should be given, with the tune number specified if needed.

Format
TITLE: Title field [from Album] (TIMESTAMP) or TITLE: , Tune #y (TIMESTAMP)

Note that there are TWO (2) spaces (not a tab!) before the word TITLE, which is followed by a colon and another space. This is followed by the actual title of the tune that the given SID tune covers, followed by a field that describes which album the given song is from.

Length
The whole field must be 79 characters long or less. If it doesn't fit into 79 characters, try to abbreviate the album subfield. If that is still not enough, try to abbreviate the title information. In no case should you abbreviate the TIMESTAMP or the field name!

Subfields
The album info is an optional subfield within the TITLE field (and within the TITLE field *only*). The TIMESTAMP is also an optional subfield, and it is described later, as it can also be used in conjunction with other STIL fields.

Purpose
This is a subfield within TITLE identifying on which album was this particular tune published originally. For classical compositions the use of this subfield is discouraged, but for non-classical tunes it is strongly encouraged.

The same subfield can be used to identify which movie, TV series, or even videogame (to name a few) the given tune was composed for. In these cases the wording should be: "[from the movie XYZ]" or "[from the TV series XYZ]" or "[from the arcade game XYZ"] or so forth. The title of the movie/TV series does NOT have to be identified if it is the same as that of the title of the actual tune. For example:

TITLE: Airwolf Theme [from the TV series] which obviously means that this is from the TV series titled "Airwolf". And: TITLE: Passing Breeze [from the arcade game Out Run]

which means it covers the tune "Passing Breeze" from the arcade game "Out Run".

In addition, the album subfield can also be used to specify that the original is an Amiga module or a PC XM module, as follows:

/MUSICIANS/A/Alien/Question_of_Guilt.sid TITLE: Question of Guilt [from the PC XM module] ARTIST: Thomas Mogensen (DRAX)

or

/MUSICIANS/C/Connolly_Sean/Enigma_Phenomena.sid TITLE: Musiklinjen [from the Amiga MOD module] ARTIST: Firefox & Tip of Phenomena

A very good source for finding what album/movie/TV series certain tunes come from is the excellent All Music Guide (AMG) on the Web.

Format
[from Album]

The album info should appear in the TITLE field right after the actual title.

Length
If the combination of the actual title of the tune and the album subfield is longer than the allowed maximum of 79 characters, try to provide the FULL title of the tune, and a shortened version of the album info with ellipses (... = 3 dots) indicating that this is the shortened title. For example:

TITLE: I Want You [from The Covenant The Sword...] (3:10)

Purpose
This field is used to denote the composer(s) of the tune that a given SID tune covers.

The name of the artist(s) (or: composer(s)) should be listed exactly as they were credited for the given tune that is covered in the SID tune.

Format
ARTIST: Artist field (TIMESTAMP)

Note that there is ONE space (not a tab!) before the word ARTIST, which is followed by a colon and another space. This is followed by the name of the actual composer(s) of the tune that the given SID tune covers.

Length
The whole field must be less than 79 characters long. If it doesn't fit into 79 characters, try to abbreviate the name of the composer(s). In no case should you abbreviate the TIMESTAMP or the field name!

Subfield
The TIMESTAMP is an optional subfield, and it is described later, as it can also be used in conjunction with other STIL fields.

Purpose
This field can be used for any general comment or information with regards to the given SID tune.

Please, keep the comments to be factual. Opinions expressed in the form of comments are not welcome at all and will be thrown out - except if they come from the composers themselves when they are commenting their own tunes.

Format
COMMENT: Comment field. (TIMESTAMP) This is the optional second line of the comment field. This is the optional third line of the comment field.

Note that there is NO space before the word COMMENT, which is followed by a colon and another space. This is followed by the actual comment.

Length
There is no restriction on the length of the comment, but if it's longer than 79 characters (together with the COMMENT: field name), it must be broken up into lines that are preceded by NINE (9) spaces, and which lines are also not longer than 79 characters (together with the leading spaces).

Subfield
The TIMESTAMP is an optional subfield, and it is described later, as it can also be used in conjunction with other STIL fields.

Purpose
The (TIMESTAMP) is an optional subfield within the STIL fields, and it should be used only if the given SID tune covers more than one tune. In this case, the first STIL field gets the (TIMESTAMP) subfield tagged to it.

The TIMESTAMP denotes the time the given cover starts at (based on SIDPlay timestamps!).

Format
The TIMESTAMP subfield can be given in two formats:

(X:XX) - means that the cover starts at X:XX and ends at the next TIMESTAMP found in the same entry, or at the end of the tune (ie. when it starts looping).

(X:XX-Y:YY) - means that the cover starts at X:XX and ends at Y:YY, regardless of whether there's another TIMESTAMP in the entry or not.

You can mix the above two timestamp formats within an entry, just keep in mind what they refer to.

Examples
Maybe an example would be useful here, since this sounds rather complicated, even for me. :) So, here are some examples:

TIMESTAMP EXAMPLE #1: /Path_in_HVSC/Full_Title.sid TITLE: Title field (0:18) ARTIST: Artist field COMMENT: Comment field. TITLE: Title field (0:35) ARTIST: Artist field COMMENT: Comment field.

The first cover starts at 0:18 and ends at 0:35, the second one starts at 0:35 and ends when the tune ends or when it starts looping (since there are no other entries following it).

TIMESTAMP EXAMPLE #2: /Path_in_HVSC/Full_Title.sid TITLE: Title field (0:18-0:35) ARTIST: Artist field COMMENT: Comment field. TITLE: Title field (0:40-0:45) ARTIST: Artist field COMMENT: Comment field.

The first cover starts at 0:18 and ends at 0:35, the second one starts at 0:40 and ends at 0:45. The "missing" 5 seconds between 0:35 and 0:40 is either an original composition, or it is an unknown cover, and the same could be said about whatever is after 0:45.

So, this is *WRONG* for the above entry:

/Path_in_HVSC/Full_Title.sid TITLE: Title field (0:18) ARTIST: Artist field COMMENT: Comment field. TITLE: <?> (0:35)                <=== THIS IS *WRONG* ! ARTIST: <?> TITLE: Title field (0:40) ARTIST: Artist field COMMENT: Comment field. TITLE: <?> (0:45)                <=== THIS IS *WRONG* ! ARTIST: <?>

This was the OLD way of doing things and resulted in a whole bunch of empty entries (ie. entries that had only a TITLE and ARTIST field, and both contained unknown info). Please, refrain from submitting such entries.

Some general guidelines to STIL entries and the STIL.txt file

 * a) Regardless of a cover or remix, proper credits are given to the *original* composers. This means that even if a given tune was made popular by a different person or band, STIL still contains information about the original composer(s), whoever that might be.


 * b) The same goes for SID tunes covering other SID tunes. If a cover covers another C64 tune that is also a cover itself, the STIL entry for the tune contains the very *ORIGINAL* TITLE/ARTIST info for the STIL entry! A comment may be provided, though, that states that the given cover is really a cover of another cover. (Phew, did you follow that? ;) Here are some examples:

/MUSICIANS/C/Connolly_Sean/Go_West.sid TITLE: Go West ARTIST: The Village People COMMENT: This tune covers the Pet Shop Boys cover.

/MUSICIANS/S/Scarlet/Mariah_Carey.sid TITLE: Without You [from No Dice] ARTIST: Badfinger COMMENT: This SID covers Mariah Carey's cover version.


 * c) A "<?>" is placed behind (or in place of) every information that is doubtful or missing.


 * d) STIL entries are listed in the STIL.txt file by the relative HVSC directory names sorted first case-insensitively in ascending alphabetical order. Within a directory, STIL entries for individual SID files are sorted case-insensitively in ascending alphabetical order.

Before the first entry of each subdirectory a so-called section header line is placed in STIL to indicate that STIL entries following that section header belong to a different directory than the previous entries. The section header line begins with 3 '#' characters, followed by a space, followed by the full name of the composer/group the directory belongs to, followed by a space, then as many '#' characters as it takes to fill out the maximum STIL line length of 79 characters.

Here's an example:
 * 1) Jeroen Tel ################################################################

/MUSICIANS/T/Tel_Jeroen/Filename.sid COMMENT: This is the first STIL entry in the directory of Jeroen Tel.

If an HVSC directory has further subdirectories, the first section header found in that directory is preceded by an (opening) section header given for the directory that contains the subdirectories, and the last STIL entry that belongs to this directory is followed by another (closing) section header.

The opening and closing section headers look much like a regular section header, but they contain the name of the directory instead of the name of the composer or group, and the name is followed immediately by a forward slash ('/') for an opening section header and a backward slash ('\') for a closing section header. For example:


 * 1) MUSICIANS/ ##################################################################


 * 1) First Composer in this dir ################################################




 * 1) Second Composer in this dir ###############################################




 * 1) MUSICIANS\ ##################################################################

So, in effect, all the entries that belong to subdirectories of an HVSC root directory (/MUSICIANS/ in the above example) are enclosed by the opening and closing section headers.

Please note that the example given above is simplified compared to the real structure of the STIL. As of HVSC v3.1, the /VARIOUS hierarchy has been subdivided into four groups, /VARIOUS/A-F, /VARIOUS/G-L, /VARIOUS/M-R, and /VARIOUS/S-Z, to reflect the change in the HVSC directory structure. Therefore there are no STIL entries directly below /VARIOUS.

Also please note that as of HVSC 46, this section is highly outdated as /VARIOUS no longer exists and section headers only exist for legacy reasons ;)

If you're concerned with parsing the STIL, the best approach is to ignore any lines beginning with "#" and concentrate only on the STIL entries themselves. Alternatively, take a look at LaLa's STILView library, which takes most of the work out of parsing the STIL:


 * http://www.transbyte.org/SID/STILView.html

Who maintains the STIL? (In other words, who to complain to? :)
The STIL is maintained by the STIL Administrator (also known as the HOSTILE (High Official STIL Executioner) ;-) under the watchful eye of the entire HVSC team. The administrator is currently:

Laust Brock-Nannestad 

Also see the "STIL CONTRIBUTORS" list further down in the FAQ for other contributors.

What if I find incorrect or missing STIL entries?
STIL is a living document about SID tunes, changing and growing with each subsequent HVSC Update pack. We attempted to make it as accurate as possible, but there can be mistakes and missing information here and there.

If we have missed any information about the tunes in HVSC, of if you want to provide correction to any of the information contained in STIL, please send an email to the STIL Administrator. Please, read the section below about how to submit STIL entries before sending any entries, though!

How do I submit STIL entries?
If you would like to submit new STIL entries, or you would like to submit modifications for existing entries, or you would like to have certain STIL entries deleted, simply send an email to the STIL Administrator. But please, try to follow the instructions provided below.

If you do decide to send us STIL entries in email, please adhere to our standard so that we can effortlessly paste your data into STIL (see the section about the format of STIL for details). It is also important to stick to the strict STIL format as the STIL is checked and processed by programs (actually, Perl scripts), and also, some versions of SIDPlay now show STIL entries (with the help of STIL View) when playing SID tunes. Since all of these programs expect STIL and the STIL entries to be in a certain format, *PLEASE*, follow the outlined standard of STIL entries if you ever decide to send us new entries! This will make the life of the STIL Administrator easier, because this way no entries will have to be manually processed.

This may look like a lot of restrictions that are hard to understand and follow, but we think they are quite logical and follow common sense. Remember, though, that anything in this section should be treated as a guideline, and submissions to the STIL Administrator will be processed *REGARDLESS* whether they are in the format specified below or not. However, it would be nice for the STIL Administrator to receive them in this format, since it makes the job of STIL administration that much easier.

Thank you for your understanding of all these guidelines and rules!

General guidelines for submitting entries

 * a) Anything you submit to the STIL Administrator should be in the format that STIL is using. Please, see the section "The format of STIL" for details on how STIL is formatted and how the fields in the STIL entries should look like. If you are in doubt about how to format a STIL entry, consult the STIL itself for examples. If *still* in doubt, contact the STIL Administrator for help.


 * b) Please, consult the latest version of STIL to make sure that what you are trying to submit (a new entry or a modification request) is not already done. Also, make sure that your HVSC is up-to-date, so you are not submitting STIL entries for SID files that got moved or deleted during later HVSC updates.


 * c) Reports of bugs in SID files are handled separately in the BUGlist.txt file. Please, refer to that file for how to report them (the format is actually very similar to STIL's format). STIL lists bugs only if they were in the original C64 tunes, too.


 * d) Please, do not submit entries that are too vague about the cover information. For example, if you think that a given SID tune covers a classical tune by some composer, but you are not sure about it, furthermore, you don't even have an approximate idea about what the title of the covered music might be, and you make up an entry, it will not be accepted. STIL strives to have as accurate info in the entries as possible, and having such vague entries is not preferred. The current STIL may have such entries, but those should be deleted. There used to be a few entries in STIL where such vague comments turned out to be totally untrue, so they are not accepted any more.


 * e) If you still have questions and/or problems, do not hesitate to send an e-mail to the STIL Administrator!

Submitting new STIL entries
To send us an entirely new STIL entry, all you need to do is to send the STIL entry surrounded by empty lines, like this:

/Path_in_HVSC/Full_Title.sid TITLE: Title field [from Album] ARTIST: Artist field COMMENT: Comment field.

Notice how the STIL entry is surrounded by empty lines!

Naturally, you can send more than one new STIL entry in a single email as long as the entries are surrounded by empty lines.

If a STIL entry already exists for the SID file, but not for the given tune number that you want to have added, it is enough to submit only the new part of the STIL entry. For example, let's say that there is already a STIL entry for tune #2 of a given tune and you want to send a new entry for tune #3:

/Path_in_HVSC/Full_Title.sid (#3) TITLE: Title field [from Album] ARTIST: Artist field COMMENT: Comment field.

In other words, you do NOT have to send in the whole STIL entry (tune #2 and tune #3 in the above example), just the new part of it.

Submitting modifications to specific STIL entries
If you would like to send us corrections or modifications to already existing entries, it is enough to send just the relevant part of the STIL entry containing the corrected or modified fields, with enough info to uniquely identify the part of the STIL entry that should get changed. For example, if the entry looks like this:

/Path_in_HVSC/Full_Title.sid (#1) TITLE: Title field [from Album] ARTIST: Artist field COMMENT: Comment field. (#2) TITLE: Title field [from Album] (0:05) ARTIST: Artist field COMMENT: Comment field. TITLE: Title field [from Album] (1:05) ARTIST: Artist field COMMENT: Comment field. it is perfectly fine to send the STIL Administrator only this: /Path_in_HVSC/Full_Title.sid (#1) ARTIST: The corrected artist field Here (#1) uniquely identifies the ARTIST field that should get changed. Another example: /Path_in_HVSC/Full_Title.sid (#2) TITLE: Title field [from Album] (1:05) ARTIST: The corrected artist field COMMENT: The modified comment field.

Here the combination of (#2) and the (1:05) timestamp uniquely identifies the fields that you think should get changed. In other words, it is no need to send in the whole entry, just the relevant parts of it that you want to see modified.

Submitting general modifications
If you would like to send a modification that can potentially impact a lot of existing STIL entries (for example, a more precise TITLE field for a tune, or you would like to add album info to a TITLE field, etc.), you do not need to specify all the STIL entries that you would like to see changed, only the field that you want to change. You need to precede it with the command "# ALL", then list the old field, then the command "# TO", and list the new field.

Since this can be confusing, here's an example. Let's say you are sure that the real title of a tune covered by a SID tune is different than that in STIL:

TITLE: Old Title [from Album X] TITLE: New Title [from Album Y]
 * 1) ALL
 * TO

This submission requests that every reference to "Old Title" should be changed to "New Title" (with the album info changed, too).

Requesting deletion of a STIL entry
If you think that a given STIL entry should get deleted, identify what you would like to see deleted (similar to the case when you request modifications to existing entries), and precede the entry with the "# DELETE" command. For example:

/Path_in_HVSC/Full_Title.sid (#2) COMMENT: This will be deleted.
 * 1) DELETE

This is requesting the deletion of the COMMENT field from the tune #2 of the STIL entry for the given SID file.

/Path_in_HVSC/Full_Title.sid
 * 1) DELETE

This is requesting the deletion of the whole STIL entry for the given SID file.

Adding personal comments to STIL entries
If you would like to have only very specific words deleted and modified from STIL entries, or you have some special requests with regards to STIL and/or existing STIL entries that are not covered in the above sections, or you simply want to add a personal comment to an entry you are submitting, you can attach comments to the STIL entries you are submitting by simply putting a '#' in front of each line of your comment, and keeping the comment together with the STIL entry. For example:

/Path_in_HVSC/Full_Title.sid (#3) TITLE: Title field [from Album] ARTIST: Artist field COMMENT: Comment here. Another example: /Path_in_HVSC/Full_Title.sid TITLE: Title field [from Album] ARTIST: Artist field
 * 1) Please, move the COMMENT to be tune-global, as it refers to the whole sid,
 * 2) not just tune #3.
 * 1) This is the coolest song I've ever heard! You should listen to it, too!

Who is a STIL Hero?
After internal discussion prior to HVSC update 42, it was decided to abandon the STIL Heroes scheme in favour of an alphabetical contributors list.

Where can I find the list of STIL contributors?
The STIL is largely built from entries provided by astute HVSC users. We thank the following people for their support!

If you would like to withhold your name or email address for security or personal reasons, let me know ASAP!!! (Oops, too late. :)

(E-mail addresses have been spam blocked for obvious reasons. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out how, though ;-)


 * STIL CONTRIBUTORS
 * Abaddon 
 * Acker, Devin 
 * Adolfsson, Daniel 
 * Ames, John
 * AMJ
 * Bamse 
 * Bergsten, Mattias 
 * Björnhager, Jens 
 * Boecker, Sven 
 * Bolla, Zoltán 
 * Bolmstedt, Per 
 * Bozzy 
 * Branthle, Per 
 * Caie, Stuart 
 * Carlsson, Anders <anders.carlsson (sid) mds.mdh.se>
 * Casper H. <hulshof (sid) edte.utwente.nl>
 * Cavén, Tony <ferrara (sid) surffi.net>
 * Chiummo, Gaetano <gachium (sid) tin.it>
 * ColinZeal <sids (sid) mail.bip.net>
 * CooG, iAN <ian7102 (sid) libero.it>
 * Culot, Jean-Christophe <arkpandora (sid) swing.be>
 * Deobald, Dominik <magician (sid) sunshine.domino.de>
 * Derisbourg, Stéphane 'innocent' <innocent_too (sid) caramail.com>
 * Detering, Volker<vdetering (sid) mediahood.de>
 * Drueing, Michael <doc_wagon (sid) gmx.de>
 * Dunkels, Adam (Trident)
 * Dust <dust (sid) utanet.at>
 * Eclipsed Moon <eclipsedmoon13 (sid) yahoo.com>
 * Eden, Jack <jackeden (sid) earthlink.net>
 * Edo <edo (sid) trystero.demon.nl>
 * Ekman, Tobias <tekman (sid) etek.chalmers.se>
 * Evert-Jan Slypen <jazz (sid) lobster.demon.nl>
 * Ferrara <maumiu (sid) freenet.hut.fi>
 * Forster, Joe <sta (sid) c64.org>
 * Fransesch, Javier Sánchez <jsanchezfr (sid) supercable.es>
 * Frech, Martin <mail (sid) frech.net>
 * Frigren, Jan-Erik <frigrenj (sid) penti.sit.fi>
 * Frinndal, Tobias <frinndal (sid) swipnet.se>
 * Gargaj/CNS
 * Grannell, Craig <craig (sid) snub.dircon.co.uk>
 * Griffin, Gaelan <chinoclast (sid) softhome.net>
 * Gunness, Jacob <jmgunness (sid) oncable.dk>
 * Hamilton. Ciaran
 * Haugseth, Lars <larshau (sid) candleweb.no>
 * Hermanni, Oliver <o_hermanni (sid) hotmail.com> (aka Wintermute)
 * Hermans, Roland <fhermans (sid) plex.nl>
 * Hesselbom, Anders <anders_hesselbom (sid) hotmail.com>
 * Hillebrandt, Thomas <info (sid) thomashillebrandt.com>
 * Hobizal, Scott <hobie-wan (sid) mindless.com>
 * Hogeborn, Teddy <teddy (sid) fukt.hk-r.se>
 * Horan, Steve <sjhoran (sid) goldenterrace.com.au>
 * Hársfalvi, Levente <levente (sid) terrasoft.hu>
 * Härnhammar, Ulf
 * Jagdmann, Dirk <doj (sid) cubic.org>
 * Jakobsen, Anders <anders_jakobsen (sid) hotmail.com>
 * Janne, Salmijarvi <jhsa (sid) cs.tut.fi>
 * Jones, Scott <localh (sid) chartertn.net>
 * Joos, Andry (Unlock/Albion) <unlock (sid) profzone.ch>
 * Karppinen, Parsi <karppinen.uddevalla (sid) swipnet.se>
 * Keränen, Petri <keebo_pk (sid) hotmail.com>
 * Kierok, Sebastian <sebastian.kierok (sid) web.de>
 * Kilic, Huseyin <huseyin_lists (sid) kilic.org>
 * Knurek <knuru (sid) o2.pl>
 * Koschnick, Rainer <RainerK (sid) elconet.com>
 * Kvarme, Per Fredrik (PFK)
 * Lankinen, Urpo / Weyfour WWWWolf <wwwwolf (sid) iki.fi>
 * Lasse S <lsjogren (sid) home.se>
 * Laurent <laurent (sid) c64.org>
 * Lehmann, Kai (Ass It)
 * Lehtonen, Teppo <meteleh (sid) tpu.fi>
 * Lindbergh, Pierre <pierre.lindbergh (sid) telia.com>
 * Linzner, Manfred <manfred.linzner (sid) munich.netsurf.de>
 * Longhair
 * ltx <ltx (sid) ihug.com.au>
 * Lönnberg, Jan (Nova) <lonnberg (sid) mbnet.fi>
 * MAD <mad (sid) twistedmind.de.de>
 * MiKiL <mikil (sid) youzen.bishounen.st>
 * Miller, Matthew W. <mattm (sid) infinet.com>
 * Mogensen, Thomas (DRAX)
 * Molnar Jr., Laszlo <zeux (sid) freemail.hu>
 * Momir, Milekic <xwolf (sid) sezampro.yu>
 * Mostert, Jeroen <xazziri (sid) gmx.net>
 * Norgate, Graeme <gnorgate (sid) frd.co.uk>
 * Nurmi, Ville <Ville.V.Nurmi (sid) helsinki.fi>
 * Oedipus <oedipus (sid) simnet.is>
 * Ojanen, Eetu <eetu (sid) ojanen.net>
 * Olsen, Ole Kasper <ole.olsen (sid) ah.telia.no>
 * Oppermann. Jürgen <juergen.oppermann (sid) tcpip-gmbh.de>
 * Paananen, Jarno <jpaana (sid) s2.org>
 * Pattis, Stefan <stefanpattis (sid) web.de>
 * PeteD <splam (sid) emuhq.com>
 * PG <PG (sid) pinknet.cz>
 * Pieknyman <pieknyman (sid) poczta.onet.pl>
 * Pitre, Len <I_am_the_archon (sid) hotmail.com>
 * Pohlmann, Stefan 'Pohli'<pohli.nospam.public (sid) gmx.de>
 * Poque, Axel (F.) <axel.pq (sid) t-online.de>
 * pyksy^dAP <pyksy (sid) sievi.fi>
 * Rafal <rafalszyja (sid) poczta.onet.pl>
 * Rantala, Tuomas (Thor/Extend) <tuomas.rantala (sid) nic.fi>
 * Reisdorf, James <sportsdude820 (sid) yahoo.com>
 * ruiner <enrique2 (sid) charter.net>
 * Rönkkö, Timo (Deadbeat/The Sharks) <deadbeat73 (sid) hotmail.com>
 * Salo, Tommi <<tommi.salo (sid) cop.fi>
 * Samuelsson, Tobias <dasforum_91 (sid) hotmail.com>
 * Schelling, Bernd <schelle (sid) alpha.fh-furtwangen.de>
 * Schmidt, Miron <miron (sid) comports.com>
 * Schoettke, Vincent <fox (sid) aliendesign.net>
 * Schäfer, Markus <atca (sid) gmx.de>
 * Scott <dg3carrols (sid) wombat.admin.bhtafe.edu.au>
 * se7en / Digital Excess <seven (sid) digitalexcess.de>
 * Sidder
 * Sievänen, Timo <timo.sievanen (sid) pp.inet.fi>
 * Sjöblom, Gustaf <gusj5775 (sid) student.uu.se>
 * Skelly, Jason 'XtC' <xtc (sid) amigaguide.org>
 * Smith, Jeremy <jeremyalansmith (sid) freeola.com>
 * smmoran <smmoran (sid) deakin.edu.au>
 * Solomon, Aaron <solomon (sid) spiretech.com>
 * Spinball/Excess <spinball (sid) spinball.de>
 * Spitzley, Kai <heechee (sid) mindless.com>
 * Steve <dr_drood (sid) mailandnews.com>
 * Stone, Dean-Ryan <dhry (sid) softhome.net>
 * Svensson, Peter <zvenzzon (sid) home.se>
 * Szabolcs, Temesvári <sid (sid) scene.hu>
 * Szczygielski, Przemyslaw <szczygielski (sid) pollot.pl>
 * Taylor, Chris <chris_103 (sid) hotmail.com>
 * Temesvári, Szabolcs <consolegames (sid) hotmail.com>
 * Thomsen, Jan Lund <kwed (sid) kwed.org>
 * Timmermann, Philip <pepto (sid) pepto.de>
 * Tognon, Stefano <ice00 (sid) iol.it>
 * Trauth, Paul <raccoon (sid) ca.freei.net>
 * Turjansalo, Lauri <cirdan (sid) c64.org>
 * Vincent Voois <vvacme (sid) worldonline.nl>
 * Volpi, Patrick <Patrick.Volpi (sid) alltel.com>
 * Vormestrand, Ingve <ingve (sid) online.no>
 * Walleij, Linus (King Fisher/Triad) <triad (sid) df.lth.se>
 * Waschk, Goetz <waschk (sid) informatik.uni-rostock.de>
 * Weighill, Peter <pweighill (sid) hotmail.com>
 * Wijnhoven, Joachim "Yogibear" <joachimwijnhoven (sid) home.nl>
 * Winter, Felix <DPL-00125 (sid) popmail.derpatriot.com>
 * WoLaNd <wol (sid) ludens.elte.hu>
 * Xavier Thunderbridge <cring_l (sid) yahoo.co.uk>
 * Xazziri <xazziri (sid) gmx.net>
 * Zell, Markus <mzell (sid) compuserve.de>
 * Zimmermann, Olaf <reflex64 (sid) gmx.net>
 * Zwart, Joris Portegies <portegie (sid) wins.uva.nl>
 * Zyron <zyron (sid) algonet.se>
 * Åkerlund, Linus <uxm165t (sid) tninet.se>

Acknowledgments
Lots of special thanks fly to:


 * Andreas Wallstrom and www.c64hq.com for the interviews with Martin Galway, Rob Hubbard and Barry Leitch, from which many of these composers' comments were taken from!
 * Commodore Zone for the interviews they conducted with Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway and Jeroen Tel from which some of these composers' comments were taken from (lots of thanks to Warren Pilkington for STILizing(tm) them! :)
 * Happy Computer for the interviews from where some composers' comments were taken from
 * Kai Spitzley and Jan Zottmann for their "mini" interviews with Ben Daglish and Anthony Lees, respectively.

Are there any tools available that can show STIL entries in a better way?
Yes, there are!

Most of the latest versions of SIDPlayer programs on most platforms have some support to show a specific STIL entry for the SID which is being played. Consult the documentation that came with your SIDPlayer to find out how to make the program show STIL entries.

For the programmers, LaLa has written STIL View, a freeware program (or more precisely, piece of code) that is able to show specific STIL entries for a given SID tune. STIL View is available as a multi-platform C++ class.

For more details, visit LaLa's SID pages.

You can also find other STIL-related tools at this website.

Gimme some fun statistics about the STIL!
FUN STATS ABOUT THE STIL

=
============

Yes, still created with LaLa's FunStats Perl script. ;)

Top 15 Covered Artists: ---

Rob Hubbard ............................................................... 282 <?> ....................................................................... 253 Traditional ............................................................... 248 Jean Michel Jarre ......................................................... 208 Johann Sebastian Bach ..................................................... 168 Jeroen Tel ................................................................ 158 Martin Galway ............................................................. 122 Depeche Mode .............................................................. 120 The Beatles ............................................................... 118 John Williams ............................................................. 98 James Pierpont ............................................................ 92 Harold Faltermeyer ........................................................ 92 Chris Hülsbeck ............................................................ 92 The Police ................................................................ 76 Oasis ..................................................................... 70

Top 15 Covered Tunes: -

Jingle Bells .............................................................. 92 Axel F [from the movie Beverly Hills Cop] ................................. 83 <?> ....................................................................... 65 Popcorn [from Music To Moog By] ........................................... 57 Crockett's Theme [from the TV series Miami Vice] .......................... 41 Funeral March [from Sonate No. 2 in B flat minor Op. 35] .................. 36 Thalamusik [from Sanxion] ................................................. 36 Oxygene 4 [from Oxygene] .................................................. 34 Blue Monday ............................................................... 33 James Bond Theme [from the James Bond series of movies] ................... 33 Happy Birthday ............................................................ 31 Living on Video [from Living on Video] .................................... 31 Toccata [from Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (BWV 565)] ..................... 30 Fourth Rendez-vous [from Rendez-vous] ..................................... 28 Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht! .............................................. 28

Top 15 Covered C64 Artists: ---

Rob Hubbard ............................................................... 282 Jeroen Tel ................................................................ 158 Martin Galway ............................................................. 122 Chris Hülsbeck ............................................................ 92 Ben Daglish ............................................................... 57 David Whittaker ........................................................... 46 Matt Gray ................................................................. 45 Reyn Ouwehand ............................................................. 41 Thomas Mogensen (DRAX) .................................................... 40 Thomas Detert ............................................................. 25 Mark Cooksey .............................................................. 25 Johannes Bjerregaard ...................................................... 24 David Hanlon .............................................................. 23 Jonathan Dunn ............................................................. 21 Klaus Grøngaard (Link) .................................................... 20

Top 15 Covered C64 Tunes: -

Thalamusik [from Sanxion] ................................................. 36 Comic Bakery, Tune #1 ..................................................... 26 Enlightenment: Druid II, Tune #3 .......................................... 24 Ghosts'n Goblins, Tune #2 ................................................. 21 Parallax, Tune #1 ......................................................... 18 The Last Ninja - The Wastelands ........................................... 17 Crazy Comets, Tune #1 ..................................................... 17 Knucklebusters, Tune #1 ................................................... 14 Savage, Tune #3 ........................................................... 14 Commando, Tune #1 ......................................................... 14 Commando, Tune #2 ......................................................... 12 The Human Race, Tune #4 ................................................... 10 Monty on the Run, Tune #3 ................................................. 9 Delta, Tune #12 ........................................................... 9 Eliminator, Tune #1 ....................................................... 9