You fucking kids today don't know you're born. Back in the day, when men were men and computers were clunky, funky steam-powered boxes, we made 8-bit beats with just 512k bytes of RAM. I bought my Amiga 500 sometime in 1992, and it felt like I'd been given the keys to the studio - the possibilities seemed limitless. The Atari ST might've had the built-in MIDI ports and Cubase platform, but the Amiga could be used as an all-in-one sampler/sequencer which, combined with a Fostex four-track recorder and a little Zoom multi-FX box, was all I needed to get on the path to 'serious' music production on a tight budget. The midi interface, analogue synths and sound modules came later, but right through the '90s, the Amiga (shortly upgraded to an A1200 with - gasp! - 2meg of RAM) was always the nerve centre, sending instructions along the midi-chain.
Commodore Amiga, I salute you!
Commodore Amiga, I salute you!
Yes! Back in the early 90's we used to play gigs with an Amiga 500 and an Amiga 600HD, both running OctaMED, chained together with a Null Modem cable and both sharing a single second-hand green screen monitor with a splitter cable! Loading inbetween song used to be pretty hairy, let me tell ya! Laptops?! Kids have it easy these days... bah, grumble, etc...
ReplyDeleteYeah, used to use an Amiga 500 with OctaMED too - eventually upgraded to a 1200...them were good days!
ReplyDeleteStill, you kids didn't know how good you had it either, with yr fancy la-di-da Amigas and whathaveyou - when I first started it was a mono cassette-recorder (lol!), c-45 tapes from woolworths, a razor-blade and a borrowed Gem kit-synth; later in the early 80s I bought a second-hand Teac 4-track (still got it)...still no sequencer at that point - everything was overdubs and edits...first 'proper' synth was a syn-drum bought in 1980 with my first full monthly wage-packet...
*sigh*
Now, any monkey with a ripped copy of Fruity can make a tune. Which is fair enough, but it's nice to remember back when things required a little more effort or commitment, y'know what I'm sayin'? That if you were gonna get into something then you would find a way to do it and put the hours in.
(Cliche alert!): It's become just a little too easy to make stuff or track down slightly more obscure tunes or music on-line...'course the convenience of modern tech is great; it ups yer work-rate, etc (plus the old adage of 'no pain, no gain' is a crock o'shite where artistic endeavours are concerned, but there's more, I dunno, satisfaction at the end of the day when you roll up yer sleeves and get stuck-in old school stylee...I still use analogue media whenever I can, even if the eventual mastering is done digitally for 'convenience'...)
lol! i was wondering if some old git would post something like "you were lucky, when i were a nipper we made tunes with a cardboard box and a broom handle".
ReplyDeleteof course, i started out with the cassette recorder and casio sk a few years earlier, which is prob why the leap up to amiga was so mind-blowing.
Lol!
ReplyDeleteWell, these days I *do* actually seem to be making "tunes with a cardboard box and a broom handle". Looks like I've gone back to my roots and then some. One of the few good things about this era is that any approach is up for grabs.
pfff! Luxury! You guys and your fancy "sequencers." Back then I had a porta07, a Dr Rhythm, some pedals, and an 8 second Gemini sampler with volatile memory and no editing or MIDI.
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ReplyDeleteFIRST OLD GEARHEAD:
ReplyDeleteAye, very passable, that, very passable Fruity project.
SECOND OLD GEARHEAD:
Nothing like a good software DAW, eh, Gutta?
THIRD OLD GEARHEAD:
You're right there, Kek.
FOURTH OLD GEARHEAD:
Who'd have thought sixteen year ago we'd be sittin' here blogging about it all, eh?
FIRST OLD GEARHEAD:
In them days we was glad to have a copy of Cubase on the old Atari.
SECOND OLD GEARHEAD:
A cracked copy of Cubase.
FOURTH OLD GEARHEAD:
Without RAM or hard drive.
THIRD OLD GEARHEAD:
Or dongle.
FIRST OLD GEARHEAD:
On a broken Atari, an' all.
FOURTH OLD GEARHEAD:
Oh, we never had a computer. We used to run it off the telly. Or kettle.
SECOND OLD GEARHEAD:
The best we could manage was to bang the Cubase box with a broom handle in time to our pause tapes.
THIRD OLD GEARHEAD:
But you know, we were happy in those days. Pioneers of the universe we were.
FIRST OLD GEARHEAD:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.
Aye, Electronic Skiffle, it were...
ReplyDeleteActually (not making this up) a mate of mine used to have an Edison wax-cylinder cutting machine and some blank wax-cylinders back in the 80s that he'd bought in a junk sale...
LOL!!! Glad you picked-up on the Pythonesque tone, Paul.
ReplyDeleteNowadays I have to make my tunes on a computer with only one one screen! And I don't even have logic. Its ridiculous I tell you.
ReplyDeleteAtari 1040 STE ftw!
ReplyDeletethe trackers on the Atari (Noisetracker, Audio Sculpture, TCB, Digicomposer) were every bit as good as the Amoeba ones. well, except for Octamed i suppose - but you Commodore brats don't know what creativity is until you're confined to just four channels.
Yes I remember the Amiga! I used to use Octamed (from a free copy on CU Amiga) with a stereomaster (a bit like Technosound Turbo) sampling cartridge - I remember when I bought it, and learned how to make loops - you could edit stuff on the screen! When I went to Akai samplers a few years later, it seemed a step backwards, editing wise. Funny how trackers are seen as old school, when some of the most complex and mind-blowing programmed music (Venetian Snares for example) can be made on it. I just used to make crappy rave tunes though. Renoise is the tracker of choice nowadays. Anybody remember Notator/Creator on the Atari ST?
ReplyDeleteCool man..
ReplyDeleteAmokian