“The original Sound Interface Device (SID) chip that came with the legendary Commodore 64 was one of the reasons many of us fell in love with Electronic music back in the day.

"Today, using the software based Plogue Chipsounds you can get that classic sound. Set the preset to ‘empty’. Now on channel one, choose ‘Pure Chip, SID, 6581 (NTSC)’. Go to the ‘Controls’ section on top and in the Chip subsection set the following parameters: PWM = 45%, PLFO Freq = 17%, PLFO Depth = 45%.

"If you play along while you tweak you can hear what each of these is doing to the audio signal. PWM affects the general thickness of the tone in this case, and leaving this in the middle is best. PLFO Freq acts almost like a chorus or flange effect when applied with some PLFO depth. Keeping the frequency low and depth mid-range gets that classic flangey, sweet piercing C64 lead synth that we love. Add some extra personality with the modulation section on top and add some Portamento. Set it to 0.08 seconds as it’s very touchy!

“Some delay will fatten everything up too – a ping-pong delay three- quarter beat is our choice for this synth. No tweaking needed!”