Vintage Computers and Music

[Tardis]

I've read about vintage computers being used for music. I see people here talking about using Commodore 64's, Atari ST's, and Commodore Amiga computers. I grew up in the late 70's, early 80's, and I don't remember seeing these computers making music back then. I guess I must've missed something along the way. What's the buzz about? Anyone have pic's or samples of their vintage computers making music? What exactly can you do with a vintage computer? What are they capable of?

[elmosexwhistle]

C64 - the sid chip has a warm place in many people's hearts, warm synthy pads and arpeggios and noisy drums...

Amiga - capable of playing 4 8-bit 22khz samples at once...nice and low-fi, some amazing music has been written on sequencer software such as OctaMED and pro-tracker. the amiga can host MIDI devices and can emulate the SID sound chip to some degree too...oh and lets not forget the built in hawkings-like voice synthesiser...very fun

ST - Built in MIDI ports, sound chip sounds rather 8 bit which is unusual for a 16-bit machine

Sega Genesis - FM soundchip which is delightfully grungy, ability to play very very low fi samples.

[translucencecs]

Amiga - capable of playing 4 8-bit 22khz samples at once...nice and low-fi, some amazing music has been written on sequencer software such as OctaMED and pro-tracker.

ST - Built in MIDI ports, sound chip sounds rather 8 bit which is unusual for a 16-bit machine

Wasn't the Atari sound chip actually an 8-bit chip? I thought it was, which would make it less unusual that it sounds like 8-bit...

Also, with a fast CPU (68020 or better) and OctaMED SoundStudio, the Amiga can play more than 4 sound channels in 14-bit resolution, due to some clever software jiggery-pokery. It also has a simple on/off filter for antialiasing the audio output.

I first started messing with computer music back in 1982, when I wrote my own composer/synthesis software for my Atari 800XL (8-bit!) - wasn't up to much, cos I was only 10, so I didn't have a clue about anything beyond implementing an ADSR envelope, but I did manage to get it playing some groovy little 4-voice polyphonic stuff, complete with drumlines... Ah, the good old days of 6502 assembly language programming!

[elmosexwhistle]

yeah, i had a nice A4000 040, was gonna upgrade to a 16bit soundcard but about that time the Amiga pretty much died and i switched to the evil world of microsoft :p lol x

[elmosexwhistle]

oh s**t man...that 800xl thing takes me back...ever remember the original monophonic 48k spectrum? programming music with *BEEP* commands was a bit nutty at the best of times...then some genius came along and discovered that if you just arpeggiated the signal REALLY fast you could get a couple of notes out of it! x

[translucencecs]

Yeah, I remember all that...

I started out with an Atari 800XL and a Commodore 64, picked up a BBC Model B and sold it again really quickly, then moved on to Amiga...

By 2000, I still had the 800XL, plus an Amiga A500, an A1500, an A600, and A1200 and an A4000! Don't have any of them any more, but I wish I still had the Atari and the A1200...

Think I'll be getting myself another 1200 pretty soon... And maybe another C64!

BTW - just noticed your location - I (well... My parents..!) actually bought my 800XL in 1982, in the Atari Centre in Birmingham! (And even more interestingly, that was also about the time that I started lusting after a Realistic Concertmate MG-1 - they had a demo one on display in the Tandy UK headquarters in Walsall, where I lived at the time..!)

[Tardis]

I see some good info here. Anyone have samples of what these computers sound like? Any pic's?

[translucencecs]

Well... I don't personally have any samples on hand, but the best call for music production (IMO, if you want to use the computer's internal sound, rather than just MIDI) are the Amiga 1200:


and the Commodore 64:


Alternatively, fun can be had with the Atari ST:


and the Atari 800XL:


All cool though..!

[pSYCREATOr]

@Tardis

You should check out following sites which are worth a look.

www.8bitpeoples.com << They make Original Music with 8bit Consoles, Computers and sometimes modificated Synth chips out of any Hardware, like Mobile Phones too.

www.moodsplateau.net < Most active Amiga Netlable arround, with lot's of Mods, mp3, 8bit Lofi but allso 24bit Highend depending on the format

ftp.modland.com < Big resource for all kinds of computer and console music formats, game and demoscene music of course. A good player to listen to them on PC is the Deliplayer at www.deliplayer.com which can handle all those formats whithout a problem.

A yes, not to forget www.chiptunes.com

No you know where to find the most importend stuff

But how to say.. the Amiga cannot produce sounds on it'S own like a Synth, it is more a sample driven soundchip.. like a sampler. But there are non public tools which work like a softwaresynth, these tools create sounds in realtime, like tb303 emus, FM and Viritual Analog softsynth and Sid like, even just on a plain old 1985 Amiga500. But when you are not familar to the active Amiga Demoscene you have no chance to see such tools or even to use them. But it is enough to know the most common Module formats of this system >>> MOD, MMD, DBM, DIGI, AHX, TFMX.. and a few more ))

@elmosexwhistle

Nice to know you did use an Amiga in the past. I use my today too... but how to say.. an Amiga can allso handle 24bit and 32bit Sound Data without a problem, when you got a nice soundcard for recording of course :O)
There is no lack of good sequencers and softsynth.... but the missing Hardware Synth editors sometimes break my Head

[Tardis]

Wow, thanks for the links pSYCREATOr. I just listened to some samples, and now I know what these old computers are like soundwise. Some of the stuff sounds like 80's video game music on acid, lol! Very cool!!

Ok, next question...what is a sid chip?

[pSYCREATOr]

@ Tardis
The SID Chip is a Full Digital Synth Chip which work inside a Commodore C64. There are two Versions of the Chip existing, both have 3 Channel Synth Sound and one Channel for Noise. But both chips have different Filters and sounding a little bit different from each other. I'm not a Fan of SID Sounds, but it is very unique sounding, and Powerfull raw with it'S subbass Filters... but once a Year SID sounds on demoscene party over Thousands of watt PA system is enough, really )

[Tardis]

Ok, what other kind of chips are used in these old computers? Did some of these computers come with actual music keyboards? I'm green to computer music composition. I'd like to know more....

[pSYCREATOr]

@ Tardis
Normaly the composition Tools where handled over the Computer keyboard, mostly tracker like. But for Atari and Amiga you can allso use a MIDI Keyboard for Composing like you would on a MAC or WINTEL, depending on the software of course. But Tracker Like composing Software normaly over computer keyboard. Sorry I only know Atari, Amiga, C64 well enough to talk about it. Mostly Amiga of course )

[Tardis]

I see a psycreator (ex-psycho) on Moods Plateau. Is that you pSYCREATOr? I'd imagine it is. I like you music; is all of your music composed on an Amiga?

[pSYCREATOr]

Yes that's me. And yes I mainly make my music over my two Amiga like the others of our group too... I got a bigger equiped one for MIDI and Recording, and a smaller A1200 for Tracking stuff Oldskool like. But I'm not a Pro, I compose music for our Lable, for Demoscene stuff and computer games. But as you can hear, it workes fine enough. But Composing compared to todays standards is very limited. Not that it's bad... MIDI is fine and Time exact.. Tracking is a blast but... lack of Tools editing Synth inside a Sequencer and so on ) You have to create your own tools sometimes.. but this way you learn all about your system realy fast.

Todays PC's are fast enough to emulate an Older Amiga very good, you could try WinUAE on your MAC or PC or Whatever to emulate it, and try out all those nice old tracking tools of the past.
For me it is just fun doing music this way, even Oldskool 8bit sometimes. The rest is not so different from PC composing in MIDI direction.. all 80s Vintage Computer can do MIDI exact and stable. But the Amiga is the only one which can allso record at a high level.. that's the difference compared to Atari )