Memories creating music on the Amiga

[Housey]

Me and a friend were lucky enough to release a couple of 12" vinyl records years ago (1998/1999) using a largely Amiga based set up.

The records were intended for sale in independent dance specialist records shops, for DJs to mix on turntables. We actually sold quite a lot via distributors both in the UK and abroad. Our first record was cut at the world famous Abbey Road studios (which was solely created using Amigas).

I recently listened to one of them off the second record and uploaded it to youtube, I thought some others might like a listen seeing its composed using Amigas.

The setup consisted of 2 x Amiga 1200's running OctaMED Soundstudio (we also loved OctaMED V4 too!). The 303's are from ReBirth and there were some external boxes for effects and mixing.

I know it won't be everyone's thing but here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g07_RDj3y0Q


Cheers...

[inoel]

That’s well cool your tune mate can you tell us more about
the distribution side like any mad story’s.

Reason being me & a mate are doing the same thing with mp3's
my tune is here :http://www.beatport.com/track/free-2-please-original-mix/2062918
Acid dads free 2 please it's on beatport one of the beat download site's in dance music
so that’s well cool. anyway on the next one we are going to do a vinyl run and mp3

[michel3105]

Very nice.

Thanks for sharing!

@Housey: I noticed a lack of very high frequencies (> 4KHz), is it intended or did the mp3 compression cut some highs?

[Housey]

That’s well cool your tune mate can you tell us more about
the distribution side like any mad story’s.

Reason being me & a mate are doing the same thing with mp3's
my tune is here :http://www.beatport.com/track/free-2-please-original-mix/2062918
Acid dads free 2 please it's on beatport one of the beat download site's in dance music
so that’s well cool. anyway on the next one we are going to do a vinyl run and mp3

Cool, thanks for the reply... I like your track by the way... sounds much cleaner and modern. Can anyone upload to Beatport? We have a couple of tunes that didn't get released which were better quality and it might be nice to upload them there.

As far as distributors, things were a little different back then. We sent many many demos to distributors and even played some demo tapes down the phone! No mp3's really then either.

We would get pre-order amounts from the distributors, no money at that stage but an agreement that they would take a certain number of records. Then when the records were cut from the DAT we would send off test pressings (vinyls with short life span and just white inner) to the distributors so they could promote the tunes before receiving the actual records.

I'm not sure if things work like that now though. Obviously technology has moved on and with MP3s and the Internet being such a major part of distribution its probably a lot different.

On the first record we used 4 or 5 different distributors and the second record we went solely with one distributor. On the second record we had someone contact us that wanted to release a record with us and they are on the B side which worked well and they were quite well established so I think they're name carried some weight too

[Housey]

Very nice.

Thanks for sharing!

@Housey: I noticed a lack of very high frequencies (> 4KHz), is it intended or did the mp3 compression cut some highs?

Thanks Michel.

Yes the mp3 is not very good I'm afraid and it's definitely flattened with the compression. Plus the volume overall is lower than it should be. I will try and upload a better one at some point with some other tunes.

[inoel]

hi you cant  just upload to beatport you need a digital distribution or a record deal
and then they send it out to all the download site's

Each one then make a decision on whether to carry the track

anyway I think you will not find it hard to put your tune's out

if you need help getting digital distribution email me at
nrjmusic2k@yahoo.co.uk

[commodorejohn]

Heh, cool. I'd love to do a vinyl pressing someday, but it seems the initial cost is enough that you want to be sure you're going to actually sell some copies...

[Housey]

I thought I'd post an update to this topic to anyone interested in this type of music and the Amiga. This is much better quality than before and deserves a listen if you like this kind of thing

If it is too heavy then please just close it

Amiga!

http://www.mixcloud.com/housey/abstraction-1996-2001-mix/
http://soundcloud.com/planetabstract/abstraction-1996-2001-mix

Edit: Hi Wayne! if you're still around