which is best for music Atari or Amiga

[Ral-Clan]

I've also heard about the Atari having very tight MIDI timing, and I've even heard some people complain about Amiga's sloppy MIDI timing.

But seriously - I have been using Amiga's for MIDI for years and have never noticed any MIDI timing issues - even on dense MIDI arrangements.

People always say that the Atari had better MIDI software - but I don't see how this could be the case as it didn't have the best MIDI sequencer software EVER made: Bars & Pipes.

Only the Amiga has/had that - and it even works well under UAE.

I've never seen any MIDI-only sequencing software that can compare with the ease of use, flexibility and power of Bars & Pipes.

[Ral-Clan]

To me it looks Atari was preferred by professionals and Amiga by amateurs :-)

I mean, music productions created on Amiga are mostly mod songs while on Atari some composers got their creations to hit charts.

I think that was mostly due to the fact that the Atari had a built in MIDI interface, while for the Amiga you had to buy an add-on.

If a non-tech savvy musician went into a computer store in the mid-1980s to buy his/her first computer for MIDI work, and the salesperson showed you two computers, but one had a MIDI interface built in (Atari) and the other did not, which do you think he/she would buy? Atari also marketed heavily to musicians because of this built-in feature.

That's pretty much the whole reason why Atari is more recognized in among musicians - but there's nothing the Atari could do that the Amiga could not.

Besides, lots of Amiga musicians got professional exposure - one that comes to mind right away is Calvin Harris, but I'm sure there were loads of others.  The Amiga and the SunRise516 card means that a lot of Amiga composed music ended up on the soundtracks of TV shows and movies.

[Ral-Clan]

Madona working on Ray of Light
 
 Quote .Inspired by motherhood, Hinduism, yoga and a "dwindling" English dance producer, the world’s most successful female singer set about reinventing herself. Armed with a "gaffer-taped" Atari and with her baby daughter manning the mixing desk, Madonna made Ray Of Light.
 
 After hearing loads of opinions on both the Amiga and the Atari ,the humble Atari seems to be the choice of some of the best Artists whilst the Amiga which I think is brilliant has been left out in the shade some what ,it will be interesting when my Atari st arrives latter this week what hidden talent's she hides ,very best wishes Brian.

I think that forming the impression that the Atari is better for music by basing that opinion on big stars who used it in the past might be skewed by geographics (i.e. the high presence of USA based big stars in the music industry).

An American (USA) musician (like Madonna) in the 1980s/90s probably had a much better chance of finding an Atari for sale in a local store than an Amiga.  The Amiga was not well marketed / distributed in the States.  Atari had a better presence there - so of course more American musicians would have ended up with it.

I'm not trying to say the Atari DIDN'T have more presence in the music industry than the Amiga.  I'm just trying to say that any greater presence it did have WASN'T because it was actually more capable than the Amiga - the two machines were both quite capable. Atari's domination among musicians was rather that based on the fact that it had the built-in MIDI interface and that it was better marketed in the USA (which produces a high percentage of the commercial music the world is exposed to).  The Atari was quite capable, but until you've tried Bars & Pipes on the Amiga, you haven't seen the full picture.

I'll agree with CommodoreJohn...if all you want to do is run a MIDI based studio, the older software IS better than the newer software.  Try to find a currently developed, dedicated MIDI-only software sequencer for Windows 8.  It's nigh impossible! There are only a couple I am aware of and they are not much better than the old MIDI packages from the 1990s.  Running a full fledged DAW (Digital Audio Workstation - i.e. ProTools, CakeWalk) just to use only the MIDI section is overkill (not to mention that MIDI is often an afterthought in many of today's DAWs).

Just remember, when you're tallying all the artists that used Ataris vs. Amigas - make sure you have an equal ratio of American and non-American artists.  I'll bet that outside the USA, the Amiga is more equally represented.

[Ral-Clan]

Since we're discussing the musical aesthetics of some audio chips here, I'd like to voice my opinion on one I have grown fond of.

The VIC I chip from the Commodore VIC-20 (MOS6560).

I know it's only capable of square waveforms - which one might think would make it sound like any other square wave chip.  But it's got this weird, unique sound.  The bass it produces is really growling with a lot of low harmonics.  It's not a hugely versatile chip - but I find it has a lot of character.

It does have some rather nice capabilities in terms of sound - it can do three square wave voices and also has an additional noise channel.

Here is a link to VIC-I native audio:
http://youtu.be/rjb1orkZB-Q

People have also been able to use it to emulate a SID - so it can do SID sounds (not merely play a digitized SID music file):
http://youtu.be/8dMM4MqGuqU
http://youtu.be/YNgWU99iVIE

OH!  And people have recently found that the VIC-I chip is capable of generating several other waveforms it was not designed to generate:
http://rga24.blogspot.ca/2008/10/fourier-series-of-vic-20-tone-generator.html

These new waveforms can be heard in the VIC-20 demo "Robotic Liberation" (which is quite impressive):
http://youtu.be/2SdGkkp1aq8

(wait until you get to about 1:07 when the Robot Master starts speaking).

[Ral-Clan]

Listen to the sweet sound of the little VIC from 4:18 onwards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxny-mqB4f8

I don't know what happened there.  That seemed to link to the wrong video (still a nice video).  The demo I meant to link to of the VIC-20 audio is here:

http://youtu.be/rjb1orkZB-Q

[Ral-Clan]

I would love to see someone do an A/B comparison between Amiga & Atari to see if this claim of "rock solid timing" is actually true.

It's not that I don't believe the Atari had rock-solid timing, it's just that I don't believe that the Amiga had sloppy time in comparison.  In my personal experience, the Amiga has always been just great with MIDI timing.

I'd like to see solid data to back up this Atari vs. Amiga claim - then I'll believe it.

On this thread someone reported the Amiga did quite well when testing a modern PC DAW vs. Atari vs. Amiga (do a search for the word Amiga):

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/165343-how-do-i-get-rock-solid-sample-accurate-midi-timing.html

[Ral-Clan]

I've never seen a comparison.  The ST was usually compared to the PC which supposedly had absolutely abysmal timing.  IIRC it was something to with how DOS/Windows did it.

Well, it might have had something to do with the fact that the PC's serial port couldn't do the proper baud rate required by MIDI, but only something close to it, which had to be translated to the proper baud rate by the MIDI interface.  The Amiga's serial port of course can do the proper MIDI baud rate.  Because of this, Amiga MIDI interfaces were much cheaper than those for the PC (until the Soundlaster/game-port thing came around).

[Ral-Clan]

The Korg MS-20 Mini ($600) is a modern reproduction of one of Korg's old analog monosynths; its monophonic nature limits its versatility for live performance, but of course in a studio situation you can stack as many tracks as you want - you can even make whole songs with it. It's got a great grungy, organic sound, and its semi-modular nature and direct panel control of every parameter means that it's great for learning how analog synthesis works. Good stuff

Commodore John - that MS20 track you did was very good.  

I own several Korg Monotrons and just purchased a Korg Volca Keys - so I've been watching their analogue synth revival.

I also own a Juno-106, Alpha Juno-1, Yamaha DX100 and TX81z.

Also like to buy old 1980s home/toy keyboards whenever I can pick them up for a few bucks at thrift stores (the interesting ones before Casio etc. switched to stock PCM sounds for home keyboards).

Love the real hardware synth thing.

[Ral-Clan]

Lucky you, you've already got a Juno - prices on those suckers have been climbing crazily lately. I'd kinda like to get one, but at the prices they're getting lately, I'd just as soon pick up a Prophet 600...

Well the Juno-106 is the original one I purchased back in 1985/86.  But the Alpha, now that was a fortuitous situation.  I found it in a thrift store for $39.  I nearly flipped.  It did need some restoration work on the keys (cleaning), but I think they sold if for so cheap because (unlike a home keyboard) it doesn't have a built-in speaker and perhaps they thought it didn't work.

Anyway, I'm very glad to have it, it's a nice synth and doesn't suffer the failure of the voice chips the 106 can.

[Ral-Clan]

The alpha dial is worse than sliders, yes.  I wish I had the full slider programmer for this thing.  But it's not terrible.  Much better than programming a Yamaha DX series synth with the membrane keyboard buttons.

I think MIDI-Quest for the Amiga allows one to program an Alpha-Juno.  Otherwise there are a bunch of free editors for the Alpha Junos for other platforms.

But, yes, the 106 is my favourite.

I also enjoy the Roland SoundCanvas sounds, although they are not editable.  I have an SC-55 that's been put to a lot of use (good pianos).