which is best for music Atari or Amiga

[Ral-Clan]

Madona working on Ray of Light
 
 Quote .Inspired by motherhood, Hinduism, yoga and a "dwindling" English dance producer, the world’s most successful female singer set about reinventing herself. Armed with a "gaffer-taped" Atari and with her baby daughter manning the mixing desk, Madonna made Ray Of Light.
 
 After hearing loads of opinions on both the Amiga and the Atari ,the humble Atari seems to be the choice of some of the best Artists whilst the Amiga which I think is brilliant has been left out in the shade some what ,it will be interesting when my Atari st arrives latter this week what hidden talent's she hides ,very best wishes Brian.

I think that forming the impression that the Atari is better for music by basing that opinion on big stars who used it in the past might be skewed by geographics (i.e. the high presence of USA based big stars in the music industry).

An American (USA) musician (like Madonna) in the 1980s/90s probably had a much better chance of finding an Atari for sale in a local store than an Amiga.  The Amiga was not well marketed / distributed in the States.  Atari had a better presence there - so of course more American musicians would have ended up with it.

I'm not trying to say the Atari DIDN'T have more presence in the music industry than the Amiga.  I'm just trying to say that any greater presence it did have WASN'T because it was actually more capable than the Amiga - the two machines were both quite capable. Atari's domination among musicians was rather that based on the fact that it had the built-in MIDI interface and that it was better marketed in the USA (which produces a high percentage of the commercial music the world is exposed to).  The Atari was quite capable, but until you've tried Bars & Pipes on the Amiga, you haven't seen the full picture.

I'll agree with CommodoreJohn...if all you want to do is run a MIDI based studio, the older software IS better than the newer software.  Try to find a currently developed, dedicated MIDI-only software sequencer for Windows 8.  It's nigh impossible! There are only a couple I am aware of and they are not much better than the old MIDI packages from the 1990s.  Running a full fledged DAW (Digital Audio Workstation - i.e. ProTools, CakeWalk) just to use only the MIDI section is overkill (not to mention that MIDI is often an afterthought in many of today's DAWs).

Just remember, when you're tallying all the artists that used Ataris vs. Amigas - make sure you have an equal ratio of American and non-American artists.  I'll bet that outside the USA, the Amiga is more equally represented.

[Iggy]

Each to their own here, I find the YM2149 absolutely horrific. Though, I was able to easily reproduced a YM2149 like sound using Logic Pro X's built in Retro Synth for a friend who does like the sound.

Back on topic, none of the Professional Music packages on the Atari wasted time with the Atari's internal audio hardware.

Also we can add Depeche Mode's Ultra to the list of Albums that used an Atari ST for sequencing, as I noticed in a 1997 copy of Future Music.
-edit- actually three STs! Two running Notator and one running Cubase, plus a Mac running logic  Pro (which was developed from Natator).

Personally, I feel the same way about the C64s SID chip.
And the OPN2 has a lot of features that Paula lacks.
Later chips like that OPN3 are even more full featured.

But with Yamaha sound chips, it really comes down to which version you are using.
They produced several stripped down chips.

its interesting the bias here.
Yamaha sound chip produce "horrific" sound, but Commodore sound chips are somehow iconic, perfectly silly.

[Fats]

Michael Münzing und Luca Anzilotti were using Amiga

An interview with an old Amiga user a few people may know...

[nicholas]

My argument isn't about it being good or bad. For the record, I like it and Stu does draw crowds, but I'm arguing for its merits from the given set of parameters of being unique, distinct and grungy.

I'm not totally averse to the YM sound, I have the following archive in my Droidsound playlist on my phone.

http://chiptune.de/complete/cta-ym.zip

I even like the sound of the Adlib cards in the hands of the right musician. JCH in particular.

[mrmoonlight]

An interview with an old Amiga user a few people may know...

Good reading my friend ,enjoyed it very much,best wishes Brian.

[minator]

Back in the day the Atari was the big thing for music and the Amiga was the big thing for video.

There was an Amiga music scene but most of the pros used an ST with MIDI.

That said I believe there was one UK dance hit that used the Amiga sound chip so there was at least some Pro music Amiga activity.

PCs and Macs have long since taken over for recording but there is still a distinct mix of how they are used.

The modern DAWs and softsynths etc. are so good you can do everything in the computer now (Known as In-The-Box ITB).

There's plenty of people who still use external hardware because it's nicer to use and just use the computer as a glorified tape recorder (Out-of-the-Box OTB). This is what I do.

OTOH there are a surprising number of people around who have gone really oldskool and don't use computers at all.

If an Amiga is used now it's because Paula has a distinctive sound and that gives you an interesting sound to add.

[nicholas]

Personally, I feel the same way about the C64s SID chip.
And the OPN2 has a lot of features that Paula lacks.
Later chips like that OPN3 are even more full featured.

But with Yamaha sound chips, it really comes down to which version you are using.
They produced several stripped down chips.

its interesting the bias here.
Yamaha sound chip produce "horrific" sound, but Commodore sound chips are somehow iconic, perfectly silly.

Not really, the TED was atrocious.

The SID is special because of the unique sound it makes, there is nothing else like it.

[commodorejohn]

its interesting the bias here.
Yamaha sound chip produce "horrific" sound, but Commodore sound chips are somehow iconic, perfectly silly.

It has a lot to do with the huge amount of craptastic OPL2/3 music from the days of DOS gaming, I think. 90% of games with AdLib/SB support just picked random fart noises from the Visual Composer instrument library or used some third-party sound library with equally wretched patches for GM sounds, and that unfairly colored a lot of people's perception of FM as a whole (when even the OPL2 was quite a capable sound chip for the few who bothered to make any good use of it.)

Granted, there was a fair amount of bad SID music, too, but far less in overall proportion - and bad subtractive synthesis just sounds tinny and dull; bad FM sounds like a gastrointestinal apocalypse.

The modern DAWs and softsynths etc. are so good  you can do everything in the computer now (Known as In-The-Box ITB).

The more I get my hands dirty with real hardware synthesis, the less I buy that softsynths are or will ever be as good as the real thing. They're useful for things I'll never be able to afford (Mellotron sounds, for example,) but they just don't cut it compared to hardware.

[psxphill]

Yamaha sound chip produce "horrific" sound, but Commodore sound chips are somehow iconic, perfectly silly.

The YM2149 was a slightly updated version f the ay-3-8912
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AY-3-8912
 
So it's not really a "Yamaha" sound chip.
 
Back in the 8 bit days it was used on the Sinclair 128 and Amstrad CPC, where it didn't really get the number of people writing decent music to push the chip. I've never heard anything that matches the SID, which was the only really good commodore sound chip. If you have any examples you'd like me to listen to then I'd love to listen.
 
Paula isn't a commodore chip, but we'll go with that if you like. As a sample player it can do anything the YM2149 can do, but with more or less CPU required. Atari-ST demos spent a lot of CPU time trying to make it play samples, but generating samples in realtime on the Amiga would take some cpu time. I think the balance was right though.

[kickstart]

A tribute to atari on a.org this time... is incredible how the amiga always loses on a.org, sorry for the comment but its funny.

[mrmoonlight]

A tribute to atari on a.org this time... is incredible how the amiga always loses on a.org, sorry for the comment but its funny.

lol no losers my friend just two brilliant computers and some excellent comments ,but funny yes.:laugh1::laugh1::laugh1::laugh1::laugh1:

[nicholas]

A tribute to atari on a.org this time... is incredible how the amiga always loses on a.org, sorry for the comment but its funny.

Lol

I saw a video on YouTube not so long ago where some French guy was trying desperately to convince his viewers that the ST was superior in every way from a hardware capabilities point of view to the Amiga.

Even 25yrs later the old school yard arguments rage on.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

It has a lot to do with the huge amount of craptastic OPL2/3 music from the days of DOS gaming, I think. 90% of games with AdLib/SB support just picked random fart noises from the Visual Composer instrument library or used some third-party sound library with equally wretched patches for GM sounds, and that unfairly colored a lot of people's perception of FM as a whole (when even the OPL2 was quite a capable sound chip for the few who bothered to make any good use of it.)

Granted, there was a fair amount of bad SID music, too, but far less in overall proportion - and bad subtractive synthesis just sounds tinny and dull; bad FM sounds like a gastrointestinal apocalypse.

There were quite some atmospheric usages of the OPL chips, like
dune 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WKBjmJCBHw
Doom:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwxR8kho_-c
Veil of Darkness:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSBHH2gZ9vE
Ascendancy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-11W4NP1hM
Ultima Underworld:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX4sPSXm3R0


To name a few.

[commodorejohn]

There were indeed; they were just unfortunately vastly outweighed by the crap...

[Speelgoedmannetje]

There were indeed; they were just unfortunately vastly outweighed by the crap...

But they were, to me, so memorable that I have forgotten the rest I guess.

Like there were a lot of crap games on the Miggy and the C64 (or any system), but everyone remembers the best few.

[Iggy]

The YM2149 was a slightly updated version f the ay-3-8912
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AY-3-8912
 
So it's not really a "Yamaha" sound chip.
 
Back in the 8 bit days it was used on the Sinclair 128 and Amstrad CPC, where it didn't really get the number of people writing decent music to push the chip. I've never heard anything that matches the SID, which was the only really good commodore sound chip. If you have any examples you'd like me to listen to then I'd love to listen.
 
Paula isn't a commodore chip, but we'll go with that if you like. As a sample player it can do anything the YM2149 can do, but with more or less CPU required. Atari-ST demos spent a lot of CPU time trying to make it play samples, but generating samples in realtime on the Amiga would take some cpu time. I think the balance was right though.

Spoken like someone convinced.
Yes, the YM series starts with a knock off but then moves to some very complex versions afterward.
By the time you get to the OPN3 (YM2608) you've got the built-in functions of the original, plus a six-channel FM synthesis sound system based around the YM2203, a single channel for 8 bit samples, and a six channel rhythm generator.

Considerably more complex than SID, and again, better than Paula (which never evolved).

And if you look, you'll find plenty of samples, with far more concurrent voices than SID or Paula can handle.