PAULA MIDI SYNTH BOX Like SID BOX?

[XDelusion]

I've seen people take SID chips and create little synth boxes to be controlled via MIDI. Seems a lot of people are willing to pay a nice amount to have such a thing.

 So I'm wondering, how come nobody seems to be doing this with the Paula chip? Also has the Paula chip been cloned?

[freqmax]

Paula is a plain D/A chip with two butterworth filters. It doesn't offer anything special. The SID has custom and rare "faulty" chip die with a special sound.

[SysAdmin]

I didn't know Mrs. Butterworth help design Paula.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CKe7uAB2ZM&sns=em

[commodorejohn]

They have. It's called an "Amiga."

[Iggy]

Paula is a plain D/A chip with two butterworth filters. It doesn't offer anything special. The SID has custom and rare "faulty" chip die with a special sound.

Well, frankly neither is anything special.
If I was building a retro system today, I'd use a cheap Yamaha sound chip with wavetable capability and Midi support.

These run about $4.00 on eBay.
Paula's start at about $8.00.
And the prices people pay for SIDs (many of which are faulty or fake) is plainly stupid.

If you like some pointers to useful Yamaha designs i can show you a few.

Frankly, Commodore fanatics have always dismayed me.
I mean, get over it guys, the 6502/6510 was a pretty lousy processor.
I've always preferred Motorola's stuff.
And the Amiga is neat, but as a hardware focused system (rather than something more adaptable with drivers for varying hardware). It was doomed to fail as hardware development accelerated faster than Commodore could keep up with.

[commodorejohn]

Oh pshaw. The SID will blow any generic-ass wavetable GM box completely out of the water for sheer sonic character. Hell, even Yamaha's old FM chips would outshine the generic XG crap they poop out now, if used well. And hey, Paula as well has its own particular character (thanks to the gritty early digital sound tamed by a bit of filtering,) even if it is just a sample-playback affair.

But it's silly to think that it'd be worth the trouble trying to create a dedicated module version; for one thing, as freqmax points out, Paula itself is only DACs and filters, and requires Agnus to actually get its data. For another, you need a system to load samples into memory, interpret incoming MIDI events, assign channels, and apply effects like volume envelopes anyway. At that point, you're already halfway to an Amiga.

[Thorham]

And hey, Paula as well has its own particular character (thanks to the gritty early digital sound tamed by a bit of filtering,) even if it is just a sample-playback affair.

I keep reading that, but I sure don't hear it when I playback CD audio in 14bit at 44Khertz. The only thing I hear is some noise in very soft parts of the music.

[bbond007]

Oh pshaw. The SID will blow any generic-ass wavetable GM box completely out of the water for sheer sonic character. Hell, even Yamaha's old FM chips would outshine the generic XG crap they poop out now, if used well. And hey, Paula as well has its own particular character (thanks to the gritty early digital sound tamed by a bit of filtering,) even if it is just a sample-playback affair.

But it's silly to think that it'd be worth the trouble trying to create a dedicated module version; for one thing, as freqmax points out, Paula itself is only DACs and filters, and requires Agnus to actually get its data. For another, you need a system to load samples into memory, interpret incoming MIDI events, assign channels, and apply effects like volume envelopes anyway. At that point, you're already halfway to an Amiga.

MT32 is still the best

[commodorejohn]

I keep reading that, but I sure don't hear it when I playback CD audio in 14bit at 44Khertz. The only thing I hear is some noise in very soft parts of the music.

I'd count that as a bit different, though, since the 14-bit trick is circumventing one of the chief aspects (the 8-bit sample depth) that adds that grit in the first place, and software mixing is going to resample everything to the master sample rate, possibly with interpolation, as opposed to the varying rates and lack of interpolation used when playing back samples on individual channels. (Also, if it's on an ECS/AGA machine, it's maybe running at a higher maximum sample rate, which would affect it as well.) All told, you're working around a number of things that non-AHI audio does to the signal.

It's also possible that my perception of the "Amiga sound" is affected by the speaker characteristics of the 1084, but I recall it being pretty noticeable over external speakers as well...

MT32 is still the best

The MT-32's pretty great alright Even if I have been a bit spoiled for lesser Roland LA synths by getting to play a D-50...

[aggro_mix]

Why would anyone want a rompler/sample player around Paula? If the desire is to play back 8 bit samples there are easier ways.

The SID machines aren't used for replaying samples are they?

[TCMSLP]

I think this is a common misunderstanding;  people don't realise Paula is just a sample playback chip.  They hear it produce 'chip' music and assume it's being synthesised - it's an easy mistake to make.

If you want to recreate that 8 bit sound an old dedicated sampler like an Akai S2000 would do this 'out of the box' - one of the reasons they were used for old-school hiphop beats.   They already have the midi gear and floppy/scsi interface built around them.  Why reinvent the wheel?  

Regardless of what others may say - the SID chip is unique.  There weren't any pre-built synths that could sound anything like it;  it was worthy of development into the SidStation.

[freqmax]

If it ain't better than a FPGA + D/A then it's not worthwhile. Said combination can also do filters in the digital domain. And at that point the Amiga custom chip loose.

The SID 6581 might worthwhile to reimplement. And then it better be done this way to be worthwhile at all:

The PhoenixSID 65X81 project (2006) aimed to faithfully create the SID sound using modern hardware. The workings of a SID chip were recreated on an FPGA, based on interviews with the SID's creator, original datasheets, and comparisons with real SID chips. It was distinguished from similar attempts by its use of real analog circuitry instead of emulation for the legendary SID filter. However, the project was discontinued, because George Pantazopoulos, who was the head of this project, died on April 23, 2007, at the age of 29.

[Jpan1]

With a some tinkering and soldering the Amiga could be wedged internally into a controller midi controller keyboard, and used for sample reply via midi - although an external LCD display or monitor+mouse would still be needed to choose samples and so on through a suitable programme.

[Thorham]

I'd count that as a bit different, though, since the 14-bit trick is circumventing one of the chief aspects (the 8-bit sample depth) that adds that grit in the first place

Sure, but all 8bit samples, regardless of hardware, will sound like that.

All told, you're working around a number of things that non-AHI audio does to the signal.

Well, I'm not using AHI (don't have it installed), and play CD audio back with Hippo player. The only non-standard thing here is the playback rate of 44Khz (using a 31Khz screen mode). It's still Paula playing a few samples with DMA however (and Paula can go much faster than DMA), so I'm still not convinced

It's also possible that my perception of the "Amiga sound" is affected by the speaker characteristics of the 1084, but I recall it being pretty noticeable over external speakers as well...

Perhaps it has something to do with it. My Amiga is connected to an amp with reasonable headphones, and when I listen to CD audio, I just hear sound that sounds almost the same as what my peecee produces. Back in the day they used to say the Amiga has CD quality sound. Turns out to be almost true.

Anyway, you've gotta use an amp with proper speakers or phones for your Amiga. Those internal monitor speakers do the thing justice

[nicholas]

With a some tinkering and soldering the Amiga could be wedged internally into a controller midi controller keyboard, and used for sample reply via midi - although an external LCD display or monitor+mouse would still be needed to choose samples and so on through a suitable programme.

I know Karlos uses an A1200 controlled by MIDI for sample playback if that counts.  Basically an AKAI sampler clone.