Advice on composing music

[mooncloud]

Hi.

I had an Amiga back in the glory days and just acquired another A500 from Ebay with a 1mb upgrade.

The question is, now I am wanting to get back into composing and want to compose using the computer solely (I don't play an instrument I can hook up) and would like to know: WHAT DO I NEED? I am thinking of getting an A1200 also - should I really bother? What's the best piece of software I need and where can I get it?

Thanks in advance to anybody who can help!

[InTheSand]

Hi,

Welcome to A.Org!

If you want to go "old-skool", you can grab a Protracker variant and some sample disks from the Internet.

However, in order to do this, you'll need some way of transferring data from a PC to the Amiga. There are various methods for this, have a search of the forums on this site and look at this page for some tips.

 - Ali

[Karlos]

mooncloud wrote:
Hi.

I had an Amiga back in the glory days and just acquired another A500 from Ebay with a 1mb upgrade.

The question is, now I am wanting to get back into composing and want to compose using the computer solely (I don't play an instrument I can hook up) and would like to know: WHAT DO I NEED? I am thinking of getting an A1200 also - should I really bother? What's the best piece of software I need and where can I get it?

Thanks in advance to anybody who can help!

If you want to make stuff a bit more complex, I can't recommend OctaMED soundstudio enough. However, you'll need a somewhat expaned machine to run it to anything like its full potential.

If you fancy something a little different, MusicLine Editor is great. Another tracker, but this one is based around synthesised sounds rather than samples (which it can still use, of course).

[mooncloud]

Hi Karlos - and Ali,

Thanks for replying.

I would prefer the OctaMED for sure as I've done some digging and it sounds great. I guess this is based around synthesised sounds rather than samples (which it can use) - right? If I go for this, any ideas where I can get it from with manuals etc? I would prefer to get a hardcopy - am I right in guessing it's better than trying to download from PC to Amiga?

Once I get OctaMED - is there anything else I need, or can I just crack on? Is an A500 good enough to get some decent stuff done?

Good gosh - the questions..............!!!

Thanks for your time.

[Karlos]

@mooncloud

OctaMED Soundstudio uses samples like most trackers. It also supports MIDI quite well, I have have no problem controlling MIDI gear with it. Also, it does also support a type of synthesis that, IMHO isn't very good. You can make some quite interesting sounds with it, but they aren't that useful IMO. However its support for up to 64 channels, 16-bit direct to disk rendering etc more than make up for it.

MusicLine Editor is again a tracker but this one focuses more on synthesis, as I said. It uses very short waveforms that can be morphed about with envelopes, phasers, mixing, resonant filters etc into some really cool sounds. I only wish it too had some sort of direct to disk recording :-/

[mooncloud]

Nice 1, Karlos.

OctaMED is the one, I reckon.

If you know where I can get it.............

I'm hoping the A500 is good enough, eh?

Cheers.

[Karlos]

To be frank, you will struggle with OctaMED SS on a base A500. It'll eat a good chunk of memory 1MB is about enough to load the program and maybe a few small samples only, in fact I had problems on a 2MB A1200.

If you want to use anything more than the 4 basic sound channels (ie the hardware sound channels) you will find the stock 68000 in there doesn't have the muscle to mix sounds at a decent rate.

If you can expand the memory of your A500, that is the very least you should do if you want to make any serious tunes with OctaMED.

Alternatively you could go for a lower spec tracker like Protracker which manages better in lower memory situations (used to run it on my old 1MB A600 booted from floppy).

Whatever creative thing you do with your amiga, upgrading can only help ;-)

Versions of octamed, protracker etc have been given away on magazine coverdisks many times. If you can find someone with one you are away. I am not sure where you can download them from but aminet is the first place to look :-)

[mooncloud]

THANK YOU SO MUCH for your time, Karlos.

I'll be on my way, hunting down the software!!

Regards.

[Tomas]

I am not a good at tracking at all, but i did have quite a bit of fun with OctaMED anyways, so that is what i recommend  :-P

You should also probably invest in a sampler if you want to make use your own samples.

[Zero]

Hi mooncloud,

Heres where you can get OctaMED,

http://www.medsoundstudio.com/

 :-D

[mooncloud]

Thanks, everybody. This is great!

Zero: awesome link! Cheers.

From your point of view, what memory do I require on an Amiga? I only have an A500 with 1mb upgrade at the moment.

[mooncloud]

Hi Tomas.

This sampler business.........what exactly does a sampler allow you to do? - bearing in mind I don't play any instruments. I'm thinking that you hook up a keyboard, for example, to your Amiga...??

[Zero]

I would have to agree with Karlos, as regards the memory reqs.

You could try looking on Aminet http://www.aminet.net
and do a search for MED, this was the forerunner to OctaMED.

I remember using this on a A500 with 1mb, a very long time ago!  :lol:

[mooncloud]

Thanks, Zero.

Are there external hard drives you can hook up to the A500 to increase memory size etc? I'm new to this and the jargon goes over my head a little.

[Karlos]

mooncloud wrote:
Hi Tomas.

This sampler business.........what exactly does a sampler allow you to do? - bearing in mind I don't play any instruments. I'm thinking that you hook up a keyboard, for example, to your Amiga...??

Nah, it's just a little gizmo that plugs into the parallel port and allows you to record sounds as samples. The quality is invariably quite bad (typically 8-bit up to 56kHz in mono, 27kHz in stereo) but at the same time has a unique 'mod' sound without having to buy that expensive LoFi effect's unit :-D