Wow, thanks everyone for all the advice and discusson this thread has generated.
To address some of the comments:
Raffaele wrote:
check also these beautiful modern Amiga programs that I think you are unaware of:
Thanks for your informative and massive post. I actually am aware of all of those programs (and have even registered some long ago). I have been a SoundFX user for about 10 years. I had always wished to run HD-REC on my Amiga, but my 040 couldn't cope with it. I had been holding on, waiting for a faster Amiga to come out that wouldn't cost the insane prices of those PPC boards, but, alas, my hardware finally met its end.
And as for hardware issued with my old Amigas? Well, the A2091 SCSI controller went nuts, frying itself, a hard drive and a CD-ROM burner (plus all the latest customs chips and GURU ROM that were on it). I do have a two other big-box Amigas that I tried to set up as replacement systems. Unfortunately, I have found that the SCSI bus (or something else) in the A3000 is not totally compatible with the Repulse Audio board I use. The Repulse audio board is THE most critical element of my Amiga audio workstation (that's how I get audio into the Amiga for mastering, sampling, etc.). On my old A2000/040 it would record beautifully, silently. On the A3000 (and once when I tried it in an 060 equiped A2000) it also performed nicely on playback, but on recording there was intermittent digital noise bursts EVEN WHEN RECORDING VIA THE OPTICAL CABLE. This is just unacceptable for use in a home studio setting. I'm not sure why it occurs, but it does. There were also other hardware issues (SCSI errors, aging hardware not always being recognized) etc. that were just too much of a headache and were getting in the way of actually making music. Believe me, when I say I have tried everything, I mean it. I did NOT give up lightly on Amiga. I spend a week and half every day trying new things, and I've been through all this before several times. Besides, I don't really consider myself as leaving the Amiga (despite the title of my post), just moving my Amiga operations over to newer hardware (the PC with UAE) that is not 15-20 years old and failing. I would have probably gone with A-Clone or Natami had it been out already, but it's not, and at least with the PC I also get to use all the incredible software for that platform.
In fact, I still have one slower, no-frills A2000 I'll keep around in the closet just in case I ever want to use it as a dedicated MIDI sequencer. Right now, though, with the new PC, I won't have the deskspace for two full desktop systems, so I'll be using UAE for Amiga stuff.
Okay folks, so this is what I purchased:
A used IBM (I like the reliability of IBM hardware) P4 running at 2.4GHz with 1GB RAM. This will be far faster than anything I have owned in the past, and should suffice for Amiga emulation and all PC DAW/MIDI work *I* need to do.
I realise this is not a cutting edge computer by today's standards, but in my old setup (a digital multi-track deck synced to the Amiga running Bars & Pipes) I always found that 8 audio tracks with two external effects and compressor, plus 16 tracks of MIDI were more than enough for me to create quite full sounding music. 16 tracks will be decadent to me (for now!)
I will be purchasing the M-Audio Audiophile 192 PCI card for this computer:
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Audiophile192-main.html.
I am a little concerned about it only having one MIDI I/O, so I may have to buy a multi-port USB MIDI interface if I need more.
I will be keeping my Yamaha MD-8 minidisc multitracker. It will be mainly used as an external audio mixer for my synths and as an input for my microphones to the sound-card of the PC (the multitracker has a nice analog mixer section with real EQ knobs and a couple of XLR inputs with phantom power). Also, I can use this multitracker as a simultaneous 8-track "field recorder" and dump live performances back to the PC for final mixdown.
Samplitude Opus was a very important application for me on the Amiga. I have therefore ordered Magix Samplitude Music Studio 14. I have used an older version of Magix Audio Studio 5 on the PC before and really loved it. I then discovered it was by the Samplitude people and knew why!
http://www.magix.com/us/samplitude-music-studio/detail/I also have an older version of Logic (5.2) to try out for comparison.
I also have a very old copy of Cakewalk (MIDI ONLY) for Windows 3.1 (that still works on modern PCs) that I will use as a simple MIDI only sequencer (for when I don't need a big app for audio tracks). I have run it on a 486 laptop for a while now as a portable setup, and have found it to be very reliable and with good timing. It's not as fancy as Bars & Pipes was, but it is still quite good.
I have also ordered Cloanto's Amiga Forever 2008 Deluxe. I know I could have just set up UAE for free, but I consider this purchase my "last toast" to the real Amiga (and Amiga dealers). The inclusion of the deathbed vigil DVD (which I've never seen in its entirety before will be a fitting tribute to the death of my real Amiga).
I am encouraged by the success of many people here in using UAE to run Amiga audio & MIDI software. I hope to be able to continue to use Bars & Pipes, OctaMED, etc. Along with SoundFX, ImageFX, PageStream, etc. (all for which I have been a long-time registered user).
The Windows audio software, I must admit, it amazing. One nice thing is that I will finally be able to just pop a song in progress onto a CD-R and give it to someone else with a DAW to lay their tracks onto in their own home studio. Before, I always had to schedule get-together times for recording because this was not possible.
Another thing I will love is mix-automization, and mixer snapshot feature. Using an analogue mixer before meant carefully writing down all the settings between sessions.
Here is a picture of my "old" home recording setup using the Amiga 2000 (2500).
http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=1690Thanks again everyone for the advice. I will report here on my experience setting up the PC system.
:crazy:
