Leaving Amiga - Need PC emulation / music recording advice.

[Ral-Clan]

(I've also posted this message to the Bars & Pipes newsgroup - my apologies to those who've already read it there).

Whew, it finally came.  The day when my real Amiga hardware failed.  The Amiga has been the centre of my home recording studio for about 10 years now.  All the backup Amigas I have proved to have "issues" in one way or another that made them unusable for serious audio work.

So...with mixed emotions, it's time to move onto PC for audio recording.  I'll miss the Amiga, but I won't miss the unreliable, aging hardware.  The thing I'll miss most of all is Bars & Pipes (and possibly OctaMED).

So....I'm going to try and buy a PC that can emulate and run Bars & Pipes as if running on a real Amiga.  Is this even possible?  Is anyone doing this in a serious sense?  

I would really appreciate any advice you guys can give me towards running Bars & Pipes with a PC emulator.

- any advice towards buying a PC with a mind towards Amiga emulation?  What sort of microprocessor is good for UAE (Intel? AMD?)
- There is a local PC store which sells reconditioned older PC CPUs for cheap (i.e. $100 for a 1Ghz model).  What is the minimum CPU speed I should consider for smooth Amiga emulation?
- any hardware or software tweaks to get B&P to run smooth under emulation?
- what sort of PC MIDI interfaces can be used with UAE?
- Can Bars & Pipes running in UAE by synchronized with audio recording applications running in Windows (i.e. Protools?) through MTC or Midi Clock?
- Failing a successful use of Bars & Pipes on the PC, is there any Windows software which gives a Bars & Pipes like experience on the PC?

[Plaz]

Failing a successful use of Bars & Pipes on the PC, is there any Windows software which gives a Bars & Pipes like experience on the PC?

I've not tried to emulate Amiga on PC for my sound work, but the closest thing for me personally to Bars and Pipes on a PC are the cakewalk products. Currently I use a slighter older version of Sonar. Heres a screen shot of their basic version, and it goes up from there...Sonar LE (Very basic version)

Others seem to prefer Cubase by Steinberg. I tried a demo once and went back cakewalk though.

Many others use Protools. It's concidered to be the industry standard, but I think that just because it's been around the longest on Mac. Personally I like the way sonar works better than Protools. Also Protools is a SW/HW setup. Their software only works on approved sound hardware, so you may need to spend more on hardware. Cakewalk (and I think Cubase) will use the clunky old sound card you have in the PC if that's all you have. I have an older cheap multi channel sound blaster card in my PC and it does great at CD quality.

If you're working strickly midi, 1ghz should be more than enough. If you get in to analog multitack HD recording, you're probably going to need a faster machine. I started out on a 1ghz box, and I now run cakewalk sonar on a dual core 2ghz amd with good results.

In any case I still miss the stability of Amiga. These pc products have tons of nifty tools, but when your system is always crashing or locking up do to OS and driver issues, it starts to take away from the advantages. It took a lot of driver experimentation and OS tweeks to get my PC box relatively stable. Never a problem for me on Amiga with B&P and Sunrize AD516 cards.

Plaz

[Havana7]

I´m sorry for you.

See you (next year?) in the Natami world. Don´t forget Amiga revival.

[Atheist]

Serendipity that NatAmi60 is just to become available???

[jj]

There is a version of octamed for windows that is still being developed.  Hope this helps.

[ZeBeeDee]

/me plays 'The Last Post' on the kazoo in memory of the recently deceased Amiga

[Ral-Clan]

Atheist wrote:
Serendipity that NatAmi60 is just to become available???

Well, I'll believe it when I see it.  Unfortunately the phrase "just to become available" has been echoed many times since the days of the Walker.  I'd never have thought that in 2008 I'd still be waiting for a new Amiga.

[spihunter]

You could probably find something free on the PC these days that would do everything Bars & Pipes can do.

You could always dual boot windows/Linux and try free Linux MIDI apps as well. ex: Rosegarden

[ferrellsl]

What about using WinUAE?  Emulated Amiga and you still get to use all of your familiar Amiga software.

Any modern PC has the horsepower to emulate the Amiga and its custom chips.

[Plaz]

You could probably find something free on the PC these days that would do everything Bars & Pipes

If you want to try some thing on the PC for free that's not too bad, go for Audacity.

If you want to go linux, then I suggest trying a full blown self installing distribution package like Ubuntu Studio. It includes Rosegarden and many other nice tools. It would probably do ok on a 1ghz machine.

Plaz

[Plaz]

BTW, is there no option for repairing the Amiga?

Plaz

[Ral-Clan]

No option to repair.  Believe me I've tried EVERYTHING.  Unfortunately, the "backup" Amigas I have aren't suitable for audio use for one niggly reason or another.  I've been through this before....and this time I don't have the energy to track down the hard to find parts to get the system working again.  I just need something that works.  

I'm looking forward to Amiga emulation though, so that I can continue to use some of my favourite apps.

I'll be have some great Amiga hardware for sale on Ebay in the new few months, though (A2000s, 3000s, graphics cards, accelerators, etc.).  This will be the remainder of my big-box Amiga collection that will all be tested as working before being auctioned off.

[mdivancic]

I'm sorry, but if you are really making the move to a new OS I'd spend the time and money to run a native program. There must be programs that have passed Bars & Pipes in features significantly in the last, what, ten years?

[NoFastMem]

mdivancic wrote:
I'm sorry, but if you are really making the move to a new OS I'd spend the time and money to run a native program. There must be programs that have passed Bars & Pipes in features significantly in the last, what, ten years?

Agreed... Give Renoise a look. Also, last I checked, MED SoundStudio was still available for Windows.

I just wouldn't trust the timing from an emulated solution. It's time to move on.  :-(

[bloodline]

NoFastMem wrote:

mdivancic wrote:
I'm sorry, but if you are really making the move to a new OS I'd spend the time and money to run a native program. There must be programs that have passed Bars & Pipes in features significantly in the last, what, ten years?

Agreed... Give Renoise a look. Also, last I checked, MED SoundStudio was still available for Windows.

I just wouldn't trust the timing from an emulated solution. It's time to move on.  :-(

I use old Amiga programs in Emulation for making music all the time... But only contribution to this thread would be to suggest a Mac with Logic Pro... That is a complete music workstation... My last album was almost completely built using Logic Pro, I did a bit of work in UAE with OctaMED, a few of my hardware synths got used and our mix engineer like to mix the stems in Pro Tools...

But proportionally, 92.4% of the work was done in Logic Pro, on my trusty MacBook Pro...