Amiga A500 as an electronic music synthesizer

[diverdocc]

Hi!
I'm new to this forum, and joined up because I discovered the amiga a500.  This unit was at a garage sale with the 1034 monitor all for $30, and came with a ton of books for it.  Also it had Workbench 1.3 and the basic disk. Just 2 floppies.  The thing works fine for what I can tell. As far as I can tell, it's all stock with no modification.

Anyway, after reading up on what the amiga a500 can do, like the chip functionality, it appears that it can be a progammable sythesizer with 4 note polyphony. I wish to program the thing to do some sound generating of anykind that would be interesting or useful for experimental music production.  

The problem is that I have no software other than basic, and I'm ok with programming but know nothing of C+ or anything of that sort.  AND I have no hard disk, or the know how to link a windoze xp PC to an amiga, though I have reasearched that, it comes to a solution of hacking pinouts and terminal software.  (a bit advanced for me, but instructions would be very useful)  

If anyone could point me to some useful info or tell me what the possibilites are for sythesis on the a500 I would appreciate it.

Thanks,
Clinton

[Hyperspeed]

You could try ParNet + parallel cable for linking the A500 and PC. Samba could be useful also.

Ethernet would be tricky but a parallel connection would be faster than serial - careful about making your own cable though as it's easy to fry stuff (it's happened before!).

Octamed is a good sound package for Amiga but there are many more.

If you had a beefier Amiga I would have suggested this TB303 emulator:
http://de4.aminet.net/misc/emu/TB303.lha

As Fatboy Slim might say "Everyone needs a 303!"

There are MIDI interfaces available for Amiga too and I think it was Coldcut and Aphrodite that used Amigas.

[bloodline]

Plug a Mini interface into the A500... then get a coppy of OctaMED (any version, but SoundStudio was the best). Then you use the Amiga as a grungy 8bit sampler and a simple (ie 64 style) synth.

Good fun and a method I still use :-)

[diverdocc]

Thank you everyone very much for the information.  

Now that is left is the connect the two computers and I should be for once using the a500 for something.  

I would like to know if I could program it myself, and invent a synthesizer using the keyboard as the the note triggers and buttons for effects.  Use the mouse to draw a waveform on the screen and the amiga play it.  That would be kinda novel now that there are other equipment / synths that input audio as modelable waveforms.  I think the amiga has lots to offer in this idea realm.

If anyone can show me other cool stuff for the a500, i'd be most grateful. Thanx,
Clint

[Tomas]

The problem is that I have no software other than basic, and I'm ok with programming but know nothing of C+ or anything of that sort. AND I have no hard disk, or the know how to link a windoze xp PC to an amiga, though I have reasearched that, it comes to a solution of hacking pinouts and terminal software. (a bit advanced for me, but instructions would be very useful)

If you have the wb1.3 floppy, then it will be easy to link your amiga. Just get a standard null modem cable and hook up your pc and amiga and use a program called AmigaExplorer. This program will setup everything for you, so that it is ready for transferring files between pc and amiga.
AmigaExplorer is commerical software, but is well worth buying. You can get it from here: http://www.amigaforever.com/online/
AmigaExplorer is also included with the AmigaForever package.
Once you have them linked up, you can install a freeware program like messydos which lets your amiga read 720k formatted dos floppies.

If you do have some money to use, then i think the best bet would be to get an cheap a1200, a3000 or a4000 with a hd and maybe a cdrom, which makes life much easier. I myself got a cheap towered a1200 from auction site and i never looked back to my a500 as it is so much more comfortable to use when you have more ram, hd and a dvdrom. I still use my a500 for classic games though  :-)

[SamuraiCrow]

OctaMed Soundstudio requires version 2 or better of the operating system (Workbench disks and Kickstart ROMs).  Likewise it will suffer from the lack of processor speed when in the multichannel "mix mode" for more than 4 voices.

If I were you I'd rummage around on Aminet.net for an older version of OctaMed or try to find Protracker version 2.3 or so.  (There are newer versions that are junk so be warned.)

Also, as a music player, the best one available for version 1.3 of the operating system is HippoPlayer be sure to download it first and listen to all of the .MOD files you want to listen to.  Note that it comes with an old version of ReqTools.library that will need to be placed in the LIBS: directory of your boot disk for it to work correctly.

[Oliver]

Hi,

Welcome to the forum.  I used to write music on an A500, but it was many years ago, so I can't give you very useful advice, I'm afraid.  You asked about drawing a waveform.  There was a program which would allow you to do just that.  I think you drew the wave with the mouse, and set a few parameters as well.  Then the sample would be created for playback.  I can't remember what it was called though, and the results were most often akin to a flatulent jackhammer.  Some interesting sounds could be made, but it was nothing special.

If you're interested in retro computer sounds, you may also like to try the C64 SID sound chips.  Have a look here and follow the link to the micro C Apps page.

btw, do you write a lot of music?  What kind of styles?

Oli

[Hyperspeed]

by Oliver:
and the results were most often akin to a flatulent jackhammer

The results you'd get from the TB303 emulator were more 'constipated elephant'...

[diverdocc]

Hello everyone, thanx for your help and guidance on my task of "attempting to use the a500", that is stock and unmodified.

The music I make is different. Experimental, ambient and kinda psychedelic.  I use that myspace as a convienent way to get a few pieces of content out.
http://www.myspace.com/doctorcm  is the URL.

Another site to check out my music is this thing called The Rub.  Check out www.hereinliestherub.com

Thanks for your help.  ENJOY!