PAULA MIDI SYNTH BOX Like SID BOX?

[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.

[Linde]

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.

It's a sample playback chip for sure, but it has some characteristics that aren't that common:

All the channels are played back at independent rates, and the possible rates are all at even divisions of the base clock, meaning that there won't be any aliasing no matter the playback frequency. This would be possible on any sound card, really, except the clock rate of the Paula dwarves the playback rates of modern sound cards, meaning much less frequency resolution for playback without aliasing (or complex algorithms to .

The second thing to consider is the modulation options on it. It lets channels modulate either the playback rate or the amplitude of eachother.

A third thing is that it has programmable volume control independent of output waveform, meaning that even at the lowest possible volume setting, you'll still have full 8-bit resolution.

Besides these things, except for setting the DMA pointers and loop lengths up, the chip is controlled much like a typical PSG of the time.

It might be a misunderstanding to say that it synthesizes sound (depending on the definition of synthesis; technically, if you go by a generic dictionary definition of the word, it does) but it's safe to say that it's a unique chip with some characteristics that distinguishes it from both earlier and later sample playback devices.

[commodorejohn]

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.

Depends. Filters are tricky beasts that impose their own particular character on a sound, and they're rarely identical just for having the same basic specs. The 12db/oct. low-pass filters in my Matrix-6, my JX-10, and my MS-20 Mini don't sound at all the same, even when you don't have the resonance cranked up. Nothing in all the world but a Moog filter sounds like a Moog filter (except for the various naked clones of the Moog filter that were kiboshed for patent infringement!) It's probably possible to come up with a good emulation of the Amiga's filter, but it's not as simple as just "oh, digital filter, 12db, done."

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

Yes, but again, it's only one part of the equation.

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

Well, you're still circumventing the 8-bit aspect, and you're also doing  playback at 44KHz instead of x-28KHz, both of which bring the  sound much closer in line with modern specs. Of course that's  gonna sound different than a game playing back 8-bit samples at varying,  sub-28KHz rates.

Understand, I'm not saying that the Amiga can only do  oldschool-type sounds - I'm just saying that what we may generally think  of as the "Amiga sound" has a lot to do with the way it was originally  designed to be used, whatever clever workarounds we've come up with  since then.

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

Oh, I have run mine through proper speakers, and it's plenty nice. I  just find that, for classic games and vintage MOD playback at least, I  kinda like the things that are done to the sound by the 1084. It sounds  right, to me.

[Linde]

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

Just to be nitpicking on something I otherwise would totally agree with: The DACs in the Amiga aren't exactly linear, quite far from it. I think they do PWM, but some part of the circuitry (lack of proper signal buffering?) is making the waveform irregular, so it won't sound like any other 8-bit sample hardware (which most probably all have their own non-linearities and quirks)

[Linde]

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.

What definition of the world "special" do you subscribe to, not to include the SID?

Frankly, Commodore fanatics have always dismayed me.
I mean, get over it guys, the 6502/6510 was a pretty lousy processor.

I think that if the qualities of the CPU was the question for any of these people, they would have abandoned their platform a long time ago (along with the M68k series).

[freqmax]

Perhaps they were coding for the  6502/m68k CPU when their best learning window was open..

[minator]

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.

It was mostly used for playing back samples but it can do far more.

Paula can do:
Sample playback.
Loop playback - it's an oscillator.
If the 68K changes the waveform it's looping you get wavetable synthesis (think PPG synths).
Modulation of channels with AM and/or FM so:
- FM synthesis.
- AM synthesis.
- FM + AM synthesis.
Non-DMA playback. The processor to produces waveforms on the fly any way it pleases - You could set up the Amiga as a soft synth before soft synths were invented!

So, it is not just a sample playback chip, it's far more sophisticated.

If you want to recreate that 8 bit sound an old dedicated sampler like an Akai S2000 would do this 'out of the box'

A big part of the Amiga sound is the variable rate sample playback.  It turns out a lot of gear used to do this but only very early on. You'd probably have to go back to something rather older to get an Amiga-like sound like a first generation Emulator or Fairlight.

Alternatively, just buy the right VST.  There is one that nailed the Amiga sound pretty much perfectly.

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.

Indeed, I bought a C64 so I could use SID.

[freqmax]

Paula can do:
Sample playback.
Loop playback - it's an oscillator.
If the 68K changes the waveform it's looping you get wavetable synthesis (think PPG synths).
Modulation of channels with AM and/or FM so:
- FM synthesis.
- AM synthesis.
- FM + AM synthesis.
Non-DMA playback. The processor to produces waveforms on the fly any way it pleases - You could set up the Amiga as a soft synth before soft synths were invented!

A FPGA + D/A or a x86-PC with a bus connected sound card can do the same. The Amiga was great but it can all be done with easier to get hardware now.

[commodorejohn]

Yes, but there are little idiosyncracies (variable-rate samples going to independent DACs, which are non-linear, run through an analog filter) that are going to color the sound in a distinctive way. If you want the Amiga sound, the simplest way is just going to be to use an Amiga.

[Iggy]

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.

Actually, its the FM series I am thinking about building into a 63C09E design I am bread boarding.
And as to character, yeah SID sound is identifiable.
I don't know that that makes it more desirable.
And Midi compatibility (which the SID doesn't have) is nothing to scoff about.

BTW - I can tell you DO know what you are talking about, because I would go with an FM over an XG design myself. 2 to 4 meg wavetable in rom or ram?
Yeah, sometimes the older hardware just had more capability.
Unfortunately, as processor have become more powerful, sound chips have kind off de-evolved.
The AC'97 spec is a joke.

[Iggy]

What definition of the world "special" do you subscribe to, not to include the SID?


I think that if the qualities of the CPU was the question for any of these people, they would have abandoned their platform a long time ago (along with the M68k series).

didn't mean to piss you  off,.
At the time it was produced the SID was pretty remarkable.
Compared to the 6502 its a work of art.
The 6502 is little more than an attempt to undercut 6800 pricing.
The design holds no attraction for me.

And if we have all stopped use old processor like the 68K, how come I can still use 68K machine code under MorphOS?
And believe me, its being done. New code.
Because its still backward compatible.

We are just a really stubborn bunch.

[nicholas]

Didn't Musicline Editor do actual realtime synthesis using Paula?

http://www.musicline.org/software.html

[commodorejohn]

Actually, its the FM series I am thinking about building into a 63C09E design I am bread boarding.

Ah. Good choice. (I've actually got a spare OPL3 combo chip I'd like to build a portable sequencer around one day...)

And as to character, yeah SID sound is identifiable.
I don't know that that makes it more desirable.
And Midi compatibility (which the SID doesn't have) is nothing to scoff about.

Well, the SID may not be to your taste, but it certainly is to a lot of people's. It's the closest home computers ever got to a classic subtractive analog synthesizer, even if it's very limited by comparison to those. And it's perfectly possible to add MIDI capability to a C64, or use one of the various SID-based module designs.

(If you mean General MIDI compatibility...feh. No, you're not easily going to get 16 voices of SID sound, but who cares? A lot of classic synthesizers only have one voice. Use it as a lead or a bass or something and employ something else - a Yamaha FM chip, say - for your chords, if you really need a big huge arrangement - interoperability between disparate devices with different strengths in a single setup is the whole point of MIDI to begin with.)

BTW - I can tell you DO know what you are talking about, because I would go with an FM over an XG design myself. 2 to 4 meg wavetable in rom or ram?
Yeah, sometimes the older hardware just had more capability.
Unfortunately, as processor have become more powerful, sound chips have kind off de-evolved.
The AC'97 spec is a joke.

Oy, tell me about it. It's shocking how the best stuff currently on the market is the stuff that either dedicatedly emulates or simply goes back entirely to the technology of the '70s and '80s. I got my Korg MS-20 Mini (a direct recreation of an old analog monosynth) the week before last and I've spent damn near every free moment since playing with it (even while in the middle of a move!) But I tried the whiz-bang Jupiter-80 (an "advanced" modern digital wavetable/modelling keyboard gussied up like the classic JP8, which it doesn't sound a thing like) at my local music store and got bored of it after three minutes. Somehow things went terribly, terribly wrong when ROMplers became the dominant species of synthesizer...

Didn't Musicline Editor do actual realtime synthesis using Paula?

http://www.musicline.org/software.html

If that featurelist is accurate, yes. For a 68k-based softsynth, that's  impressive - resonant filters and effects? Hell, a lot of hardware  ROMplers didn't even have that.

[Iggy]

Yeah John,
When I first thought about building a simple HD63C09E based system I was considering something simpler like the old single channel YM2149 (which is really just yamaha's knock off of the old General Instruments AY-3-8910).
But the FMs can be had at exactly the same price.
Sure I've got to add some circuits, but when you can get an eight bit PIC MCU with four ten bit A to D converters for $1.99 is that really an issue?

I always envied the chips used in later MSX machines and their add ons thanks to all the capabilities that Yamaha squeezed into these devices.

While the SID may hold a special place in the heart of commodore fanatics, i'd take the OPL3 over the SID or Paula any day.

There was a big mistake made by both the Commodore camp and those of us focusing on 68K OS-9.
We were fixated on the hardware instead of making sure that the drivers added enough of an abstraction layer that we could support variations in hardware.

I still dread thinking about those horrible OS-9 based CD-I players and their dreadful Signetics 68070 processor (and the attendant chipset).
They could have standardized around a disc standard, but no Phillips had to specify the entire hardware platform.

That's why when so of you are so insistent that specific hardware makes an Amiga i get dismayed.

If Amiga OS had forced programmers to work via drivers rather than allowing direct hardware banging, the entire platform would have been able to evolve quicker.

[freqmax]

@Iggy, What's so bad about the AC97 spec? and what makes OPL3 so good?

@commodorejohn, What's wrong with ROMplers?

Btw, I feel that it weren't until the 90's that artists learnt to make good use of synthezisers.

Wonder what the 63C09E is. Seems to be a3 MHz CPU with 8/16/32-bit registers.

Oh and if Amiga OS had forced programmers to work via drivers it would been so slow it hadn't taken of
30 minutes to decode 100 kB jpeg image, sirup-slow interpretation of a C-coded C-code comment parser I coded etc. Guess the chip-ram + low-ram combo did it's part..


Is there anything one can make these days that would make a huge difference?

[commodorejohn]

What's so bad about the AC97 spec?

It's provided a mediocre standard for computer audio to uniformly adhere to and never bother with striving to improve on or add interesting new facets to. (At least until you get into overpriced pro-audio gear.)

and what makes OPL3 so good?

It's a versatile synthesizer chip capable of a wide variety of rich, interesting sounds, and has the distinctive Yamaha FM character. You'd never mistake it for anything else.

What's wrong with ROMplers?

Nothing's inherently wrong with ROMplers, but by the mid-'90s they had, kudzu-like, almost completely overtaken the landscape, from the bottom-end cheap Casio crap to high-end digital pianos and "workstation" keyboards. This is a problem because ROMplers are just plain not in the slightest bit organic; you press a note at a given velocity with a given patch, you get the same damn sound every time. Whereas even the DX7, while just as purely digital, lets you add subtle touches (like the capability for any of the six oscillators to be free-running) that differentiate each note from the next in an analog kind of way. ROMplers have their uses, but as the be-all and end-all of sound synthesis that they've become, it's Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Baked Beans, Spam, Spam, Spam and Spam. Just way the hell too much Spam.

Btw, I feel that it weren't until the 90's that artists learnt to make good use of synthezisers.

Allow me to prove you completely, utterly wrong.