Shredz64 is very real and very shredding

Remember that time when we told you about Shredz64 and we were all excited and stuff? Well, friend, sometimes dreams do come true, and Toni ended up completing his Shredz64 project in style. In case you need a refresher, Shredz64 is all about bringing a Guitar Hero-style experience to the Commodore 64 -- which, in addition to holding much sentimental value, is quite the musical device in its own right. He has a custom-built "PSX64" interface for plugging his PS2 Guitar Hero guitar into the C64, which he's having produced for sale alongside a 5 1/4-inch floppy disk of Shredz64, but the real magic is the software itself. The C64-synthesized songs sound great, and interface is like Guitar Hero or Rock Band without all the annoying fluff. Check out the videos after the break for everything in action.

[ReggieXuk @ Mar 10th 2008 9:27PM]

nice!

[J0hns0n @ Mar 13th 2008 3:03PM]

if this guy's commadore run's guitarhero why does my $2,000 gaming pc lag on ghiii

[iofthestorm @ Mar 10th 2008 11:24PM]

You obviously wasted your money, unless it's a several year old $2000 gaming PC, that's why.

[DWells55 @ Mar 11th 2008 3:24AM]

Or because Guitar Hero III is an absolutely terrible port and my system (2GBs DDR2800 4-4-4-12, Core 2 Duo 3.2GHz, overclocked 8800GT) also can't run GHIII smoothly enough on any settings for me to consider it worth playing. Don't tell me it's my system either, it has very little software on it with exception of some games such as UT3 and Crysis which all run like they're supposed to.

[Geir E @ Mar 11th 2008 6:57AM]

The fun thing is that this is alot better than the cheap mockups even though this is probably just or even more low tech.

[evanOgas @ Mar 10th 2008 9:35PM]

haha, shredocity

[Rafer @ Mar 10th 2008 9:38PM]

Not to poke fun at the guy or anything but his favorite song is the legend of Zelda theme?

[LiQuiD_FuSioN @ Mar 10th 2008 10:19PM]

Don't hate on mah Zelda theme yo.

[boatofcar @ Mar 10th 2008 9:40PM]

This could totally be a hit marketed through Classic Gaming Expo or through the AtariAge store.

[Tim @ Mar 11th 2008 12:52AM]

very true, but its kind of a shame to think if had had been out 20 years ago - guitar hero always struck me as overpriced for what was shown here to be pretty lo-tech; imagine what wed have now if guitar hero had been around for two decades.

[swimomatic @ Mar 10th 2008 9:46PM]

While the system loads.... waits 3-4 minutes for actual gameplay to commence :P

Not complaining, because i understand the hardware limitations, but still hilarious nonetheless

[Thomas Bags @ Mar 10th 2008 9:49PM]

LONG LIVE COMMODORE!

[jimmy @ Mar 10th 2008 9:51PM]

yap yap yap. good god does this guy love to run his mouth

[MARSHAK @ Mar 11th 2008 12:00AM]

yeah no shit. get to the damn gameplay.

[agarfield2004 @ Mar 10th 2008 9:58PM]

Man, I thought I've seen the pinnacle of nerdyness, This takes the microchip.

[fallbreak @ Mar 10th 2008 10:05PM]

Fantastic! And somehow it reminds me of Tetris...

[Gun-Nut @ Mar 10th 2008 10:11PM]

For some odd reason that seems kick ass :D but I'm not going to find my Commodore 64 when I got GH2 & 3 sitting here!

[AutoTom @ Mar 10th 2008 10:17PM]

this is the first post to ever bring a tear to my eye

[AlphaTeam @ Mar 10th 2008 10:18PM]

Nice one.

[Zin @ Mar 11th 2008 8:01AM]

Wait, is it just me, or was the song Hotel California visible as he went through the track list the first time?

[dj-kenpo @ Mar 10th 2008 10:26PM]

this is prett fucking sweet. nice job dude if you read through these comments. nice job indeed.

[James @ Mar 10th 2008 10:39PM]

I'm a little confused. Does the .sid file include the midi style song-notes as well as a guitar hero-note track?

Or is the game designing its own note track? (similar to audiosurf).

[Tony Rayo @ Mar 10th 2008 11:43PM]

A .sid file is like a MIDI file in that it contains notes/pitch/tone/etc.

[mattwier @ Mar 10th 2008 10:41PM]

DDR64, anyone?

[zevdawg @ Mar 11th 2008 1:49AM]

DDR on a C64 = retro win. I could so see that happening anytime in the future... now who's going to be the first in the running for programming the darn thing *nudge* :)

[snorkel @ Mar 11th 2008 11:30AM]

Wanna see DDR for the C64? It would be a lot like this:

http://www.bagledog.com/wordpress/ddr

Actually, if you have a retro leaning, check out the site all together.. It is meant to emulate the BBS experience:

http://www.bagledog.com/wordpress/

[Ben @ Mar 10th 2008 10:44PM]

It looks like it doesn't 'mute' the tracks or play scratches when you mess up. That's a pretty key feature. This is more just like you are playing along with the song. The 'muting' feature on the real guitar hero makes it much more immersive, as if you are really playing it.

[Dan @ Mar 11th 2008 1:54AM]

except, not.

[Jamie @ Mar 10th 2008 11:06PM]

Dude's ""note track" seems to have almost nothing to do with the actual music. He might be able to solder and program, but I'm not sure about his music skilz.

[zevdawg @ Mar 11th 2008 1:29AM]

He might program it later? Maybe he just wanted to get it working for now; usually a developer will try to integrate certain features into their programming if enough audience demands it ;) we could always encourage by donations and email.

[Fernando @ Mar 10th 2008 11:01PM]

That guy is awesome.

[David Gavilan @ Mar 10th 2008 11:41PM]

Awesome!

[Paul @ Mar 11th 2008 12:00AM]

Lol whats the use of doing this? Just a waste of time.
If there's a better solution out there, don't make a highly inferior solution just for "fun"

[bi0hazard @ Mar 11th 2008 12:08AM]

so basically, if it aint broke, dont fix it? wheres the fun in that?

[zevdawg @ Mar 11th 2008 1:36AM]

The point is that you can still cram a working program on a floppy ;)

Inferior? Maybe... but it still works, doesn't it?

[Thomas @ Mar 11th 2008 4:41PM]

He MADE it for FUN!
Theres a thing called FUN, also some people still have the systems out there, why not put those systems to good use?
It's not useless, your comments are useless.

[EdgeOne @ Mar 11th 2008 10:34AM]

When a supervirus (spawned from aliens or China... or both) wipe out every Internet-enabled device on the planet, we select few will fire up our C64's to save the digital age. BBS's will live again. And at night we'll be playing our Guitar Hero and you won't be invited, sucka!

[Paul @ Mar 11th 2008 12:14AM]

lol fix what? this guy is just making an inferior version for no reason at all.
now if he had improved it or made it better, then i'd give him props. but this is inferior AND it is useless to 99% of most people

[Marcos @ Mar 11th 2008 12:29AM]

It's not retro unless he's using the dark brown Commodore64.
http://www.skillreactor.org/tutortxt/c64/c64.jpg

Funny how the Commodore 64 looks cool yet the brown Zune looks like... well, you get the idea.

[Harley3k @ Mar 11th 2008 1:14AM]

I know right?

He's actually using a Commodore 64C (not the 64) - same guts, just different chassis.

I am old.

[Bucket @ Mar 11th 2008 2:42PM]

Shouldn't have to worry about that unless the song uses the noise track to simulate digital sounds. The 64C's new sound chip seriously screwed with it and made it all quiet. Turbo Outrun was never as awesome again...

[Zorque @ Mar 11th 2008 12:18AM]

This is pretty cool and it makes me wish I could do stuff like this.

Also, I think this is one of the only times I've seen a guy showcasing his homebrew project actually look at the camera and form cohesive sentences.

[JeffM @ Mar 11th 2008 12:39AM]

This is a great project and would think that he would certainly be able to use this to get a great job or persuade VCs to give his startup cash. Technical competency and social skills are uncommon and when used properly together will ensure a successful and fulfilling career.

Good work!

[YankeesRule @ Mar 11th 2008 9:56AM]

Man, so why didn't Guitar Hero come out 20 years ago?? coulda been rockin it since I was a 4 year old... oh well

[Chris @ Mar 11th 2008 1:15AM]

Oh thank god we did it first! I was worried about the Russians or Chinese beating us to it.....

[Harley3k @ Mar 11th 2008 1:21AM]

The technology in the PlayStation guitar is probably very supierior to the technology inside the commodore computer, even only being an input-device.

During the time the Commodores were successful, synthisizer's keyboards were all the rage. There were many ways to hook up MIDI keyboards to your Commodore. Then there was a backlash against synth, and a resurgence of real instruments.

That guitar shaped synth was as close as they got :)
http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o113/gregae/Liberation2.jpg

[zevdawg @ Mar 11th 2008 1:42AM]

Sweet man, Mutemath uses one of those ;)

[skulldriveshaft @ Mar 11th 2008 1:25AM]

shredz indeed...

[tekdemon @ Mar 11th 2008 2:27AM]

If only he had invented this 15 years ago I could have been wasting my time pretending to rock out sooo much earlier.

[Balzac2m @ Mar 11th 2008 3:46AM]

Nothing to see here for you. Writing something like "is useless to 99% of most people" automatically disqaulify you for geekrelated stuff.