im trying to get my hands on a a1200, but they are getting rare here in oz, eventually i will, but im a hiphop producer and im into "alternative" means (eg not using reason and protools) of production. what music production suites are available for the amiga? i thought i may be able to get some sounds out of it that would be amiga only.
back in my amiga days i was only a guitar player.
im not interested in hooking up midi modules to it as that isnt using the sounds of the amiga....
The Amiga is sample based, that means in theory it doenst have any unique, characteristic sound at all.
However, due to some limitations, there is some kind of Amiga-like sound. Especially because most other Computer had either much worse or much better Audio.
To sound like an Amiga you don't need an Amiga. Just keep to the following rules:
1. Use 8 bit samples or simulate this via a bitcrusher effect. 6 or 7 bit are ok too and make the low-fi impression more intense.
2. Use low and different samplingrates for different sounds. The sampling rate has a greater impact to the low-fi impression. 8bit only adds noise, low sampling rate add aliasing artefacts that are much stronger associated with low-fi sound ideals.
e.g. a Bass sound 4-8kHz, Melody instrument or drums ~12kHz and ~20kHz for high hats.
3. Use staight samples, no resonance filters or multisamples.
4. Use very few channels, the Amiga had only 4. But every channel must have a characteristic, "important" instrument. No decoration or subtile filler sounds. E.g. squeeze the Drums into one channel, by playing Hihats only when there is no other drum sound at this time tick.
5. Avoid DSP effects like Reverb. Make the samples "dry" and short. Amiga samples had no long out-fading because of memory limitations and this doesnt sound pleasent in 8bit.
6. Keep to samples from synthesizers that were popular around 1990, like the famous Yamaha DX10, many many Amiga MOD samples are taken from this synth (FM Synthesis).
Things like a "unique" sound of the Paula Chip are a myth and irrelevant to create something "amigasoundish". Of course the frequency response of the Paula Chip has some influence, but honestly, who would ever notice this and how much of it ends up in our ears after all the audio devices in between till the sound reaches physically our ear.
You already gain a lot of athmosphere if you drastically undersample the bass sound, e.g. by using only 4kHz sampling rate.
I personally find it very pleasent to mix the undersampled/8 or less bit-crushed sound with the original sound. I did this here in one of the sounds that is played later in the song, some kind of "blurb" sound:
http://www.hd-rec.de/Archive/DemoSongs/Sarcophaser.mp3(this mp3 is btw. produced 100% using HD-Rec and Sweeper, the only real Realtime Software Synthesizer on Amiga (except Bernd Röschs' Sampler and Pasis' Organ Simulator, both HD-Rec Plugins).
