Making music w/Paula

[TCMSLP]

I thought protracker/noisetracker/octamed would allow you to trigger samples via midi?

I also understood Paula was *only* a sample based synth and could not synthesise sounds itself?   You always had to load a basic waveform 'sample'.

[Digiman]

Amiga sound hardware was pretty much a 4 channel DAC + very simple muffler...I mean filter. Not even hardware controlled panning...just 2 pairs 100% volume wired left and right phono socket.

Even with AGA all they had to do was add more DACs and that would have been fine. In 1985 it was a genius idea really.

[Ral-Clan]

Might be the time to point to this thread:

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?p=575655&highlight=synthesis#post575655

[Blatboy]

Where did you find Noise Tracker? I can't seem to find that one in my collection, nor can I find a download link for it.

Sorry, I wasn't clear on that one.  I meant I had just discovered the existence of such a thing...  My bad.

[Blatboy]

Wow.  My eyes have been opened to a whole new world.  Thanks for all this info.  

Actually, the excuse I gave earlier was mis-timed.  Maybe the whole rural thing was more of the reason I was never aware of the C64 demo scene...  Though, I was a member of my local computer club, which was basically just an excuse for everyone to bring their C64 and 1541s and copy a buttload of games.

I got my Amiga when I was in college, where I was studying music and computer science.  I mostly used it for my programming classes (logging into the VAX computer etc) and used my Lattice C compiler for working on my C projects for class at home.  I digress, but I never had the time to really delve into music making on the Amiga.  I toyed with Bars and Pipes a little w/my external MIDI gear, but that was it.  That was a serious bebop phase for me and I was pretty hostile to electronic music at that time, even though I did a lot of SID composing when I was in high school.  I wasn't hostile to games though, go figure, and I loved the music.  Shadow of the Beast II blew my friggin' mind.  Funny how my brain wouldn't let me see the connection... music is music.  The positive side to this is that with my tunnel vision I am now a professional trombone player in NYC.  One could say that's the negative side too...heh heh

Anyhoo, my point here is that I completely missed this scene and this type of music making. It's interesting as it's both completely complex (it seems that to really take advantage of a lot of the features of the chip musically, you've got to have your coding chops together as well...though the SID, back then, wasn't much different one could argue I suppose, it seemed easier to me...and certainly easier to understand being that it could be approached as basic analog subtractive synthesis) and insanely simple, when compared to modern sampling and digital production. (I'm typing this on my "octacore" Mac Pro w/10GB of RAM that I stuff full with a full orchestra's worth of 24 bit samples for my composing work, when I must...)

If these trackers can be triggered by MIDI, my evil plans may still be able to come to fruition, but until I get my hands on a tracker and start experimenting to really understand what this is all about, I'll have to see.  Again, MIDI triggering isn't a game changer, but it does make my job a lot easier.

Thanks for pointing out that other thread, ral-clan.  I'm starting to understand a little better.  

I'm excited!  Now that I see I may have the potential to add another great, unique sound to my palette here in the studio, my A500 might finally be used for more than self serving nostalgic trips.

[Ral-Clan]

Maybe the whole rural thing was more of the reason I was never aware of the C64 demo scene...

I digress, but I never had the time to really delve into music making on the Amiga.  I toyed with Bars and Pipes a little w/my external MIDI gear, but that was it.  That was a serious bebop phase for me and I was pretty hostile to electronic music at that time

Thanks for pointing out that other thread, ral-clan.  I'm starting to understand a little better.

You're welcome.  I felt much the same as you...although I was into synths in the 1980s, by the time 1990 rolled around I was deep into traditional Celtic music (rather than Bebop) and actively avoided electronic music and synths, etc.

Because of this I missed out on the full potential of trackers and chipsounds, which I only came to appreciate (re-appreciate) once the Amiga was a retro-computer.  I sort of feel I didn't take full advantage of the potential offered by a simple Amiga 500 and a tracker in the late 1980s and early 1990s (I thought I needed expensive external sound modules, multitrack decks and keyboards and things I couldn't afford at the time).  I had the "...if only I had the (insert latest and greatest piece of gear or Amiga expansion here) I could *finally* make professional sounding music..." syndrome, instead exploring the potential of what I had on my desktop.

In my own defense, this was before the days of the web when you could help from other Amiga users, so the first time I opened a tracker (without the benefit of a user manual) it looked like an intimidating machine language hexadecimal editor of some sort.  I left trackers alone for many years because of that.

I'm still seriously into traditional Celtic music, but now can appreciate both genres (and many others) and I don't mind combining sounds from the two.

I discovered the wonderful Bars & Pipes rather late (1997-ish) but I really love it and still use it all the time (it works great under emulation) for MIDI work.

By the way...your animations and great. What software you use to make them???

[marcfrick2112]

Well, hmm, I thought I was positive that Paula could actually sythesise sounds. I have Synthia (Right Guys Software) which does just that. (It's a rare and pricey program, tho) Not too mention a number of weaker programs on Aminet.

I am going by memory here, but I think Music-X would work, I believe it handled samples and MIDI out of the box....

[ognix]

Hello!
Synthesis was not so popular on the Amiga as it was on C-64 since sample playback capabilities (far better sounds at that time).

But you can check the old Aural Synthetica, released for free by Blachford Technology:
http://www.blachford.info/blachtech/
It can't play sounds through MIDI, but you can save your sounds in 8SVX, Wav, AIFF format for loading them into your preferred program.
AFAIK it's a synthesis program that implements algorhythms through processor, not using special Paula hardware (which is not).

BY!

[minator]

Well, hmm, I thought I was positive that Paula could actually sythesise sounds.

There's plenty of "real" synthesizers that work by playing loops as waveforms or have this capability:

PPG Wave
Korg DW-8000
Kawai K1
Access Virus
Waldorf Blofeld
DSI Evolver
DSI Tempest

The Amiga could do a lot more than play static samples though, it could compute new ones on the fly and create completely new sounds.  IIRC Sonix does this.

I have Synthia (Right Guys Software) which does just that.

I remember it.  Very complex, could never get my head around it!

[minator]

Hello!
Synthesis was not so popular on the Amiga as it was on C-64 since sample playback capabilities (far better sounds at that time).

But you can check the old Aural Synthetica, released for free by Blachford Technology:
http://www.blachford.info/blachtech/

Thank you :-D

[marcfrick2112]

There's plenty of "real" synthesizers that work by playing loops as waveforms or have this capability:

PPG Wave
Korg DW-8000
Kawai K1
Access Virus
Waldorf Blofeld
DSI Evolver
DSI Tempest

The Amiga could do a lot more than play static samples though, it could compute new ones on the fly and create completely new sounds.  IIRC Sonix does this.



I remember it.  Very complex, could never get my head around it!

LOL, I STILL can't get my head around it!

Oh, what about OctaMED SoundStudio? V. 2 is available for free, somewhere, Aminet maybe...

[TheGoose]

I thought protracker/noisetracker/octamed would allow you to trigger samples via midi?

I also understood Paula was *only* a sample based synth and could not synthesise sounds itself?   You always had to load a basic waveform 'sample'.

Paula, yeah it doesn't oscillators like a analog SID chip.

OSS- has a pretty cool synth instrument/tool, I like it. But does not sound anything like a SID to me.

OSS- Yes you could put it into slave mode MIDI and just load up instruments and use it as a sound source.

Idea! - use modern Renoise and MIDI it to Amiga OSS (slave mode), now you got cool tracker plus old Paula sounds...I need to try that out...

[TheGoose]

Oh this is shocking:

Reniose FAIL

"While it is possible to use the computer keyboard to enter notes in Renoise, it is not velocity sensitive and can only map two and half octaves at once. "

OSS Win - reads all kinds of touch sensitive data and key-ups. I love this feature for keying in piano parts.

Sorry, Off subject.

[paul1981]

There's "Sequencer One Plus" which I have here on diskette. I might be wrong but I wreckon it allows you to trigger sound samples via MIDI. It will work on any amiga as well.
I got it in a bunch of disks with an amiga I bought a few years ago from e-bay. If you can't find it online, I'll help you find it.

[XDelusion]

I wish there was a program that allowed you to assign different sound samples to the keys on your keyboard, or movements on a joystick. That or maybe something that allowed you to tweak the noise via a Paddle Controller kind of like Cynth Cart for the C64.

[Blatboy]

You're welcome.  I felt much the same as you...although I was into synths in the 1980s, by the time 1990 rolled around I was deep into traditional Celtic music (rather than Bebop) and actively avoided electronic music and synths, etc.

Because of this I missed out on the full potential of trackers and chipsounds, which I only came to appreciate (re-appreciate) once the Amiga was a retro-computer.  I sort of feel I didn't take full advantage of the potential offered by a simple Amiga 500 and a tracker in the late 1980s and early 1990s (I thought I needed expensive external sound modules, multitrack decks and keyboards and things I couldn't afford at the time).  I had the "...if only I had the (insert latest and greatest piece of gear or Amiga expansion here) I could *finally* make professional sounding music..." syndrome, instead exploring the potential of what I had on my desktop.

In my own defense, this was before the days of the web when you could help from other Amiga users, so the first time I opened a tracker (without the benefit of a user manual) it looked like an intimidating machine language hexadecimal editor of some sort.  I left trackers alone for many years because of that.

I'm still seriously into traditional Celtic music, but now can appreciate both genres (and many others) and I don't mind combining sounds from the two.

I discovered the wonderful Bars & Pipes rather late (1997-ish) but I really love it and still use it all the time (it works great under emulation) for MIDI work.

By the way...your animations and great. What software you use to make them???

Seems you and I had similar timing and experience.  I never really checked out a tracker before that I remember.  I think I would have felt the same way as you.  I'm tempted to try it now.  I think it would be a great exercise both for some perspective of how the music was created then and also to gain a certain understanding of the basics of sampling.  That's the thing about using technology that's a little closer to the bone... (lower level, in programming terms) since you're working with the basics, on their terms (as opposed to something more user friendly) you get a firmer grasp on those basics.  Er, in theory at least.  (certainly holds true with audio gear... if you've worked with the analog boxes, the modeled digital plugins are much easier to grasp.)  I mean, now a days it's no big deal to know how to use a sampler, but to know something about how sampling works, that's a different thing...

Man, I loved Bars and Pipes.  I was working with some pretty cheap MIDI gear, but I had fun and had no idea just how well it prepared me for what I do now...

I mostly work in Logic now, though I toy around with some other software too.  I trigger Hardsid via MIDI to a PC...use audio out from there and hook it into audio inputs of the audio interface attached to my mac.  That's how I'm planning on using the A500 too.  

From what people are saying here, I'm gonna try to get my hands on OSS.

Thanks again for all the great information.  I spent some time on YouTube last night checking out demos.  Fun stuff.  The music is actually much slicker sounding than a lot of the games... pretty amazing what they were able to do...
I just ordered Amiga Forever and will be going through my bins of cables to see if I've got a null modem when I get back in town.  Flood gates will officially be open then...