Hi folks,
I was wondering what members of the Atari forum are using their computers for: Sequencing, Audio, a combination of both, triggering softsynths and VSTs on PCs or what?
Do we have TT and Falcon users here and are you using rare and exotic goodies like the Falcon Mk X (whatever happened to them?)
In other words, what setups are you using?
I'll start things off with my own setup.
I have a total of five Ataris: 3 STEs with 4 meg each, a Mega STE with my infamous tower hard drive system, and a venerable STFM as backup.
The MegaSTE is used for archiving and articles for mags (I like the perversity of writing on the Atari, and then bunging a floppy into my Mac for e-mailing to editors!).
The studio is run by one of the STEs (the others are backup until I work out the space to run two in tandem for 100+ MIDI channels).
This runs Notator with Log 3 and Unitor 2, and I'm running all 96 MIDI channels!
Here's the list of gear being run:
Yamaha DX5 master keyboard.
12 Kurzweil 1000 modules, which seems like overkill, but basically comprises four each of the Pro 1, 2 and 3 modules chain linked for extra polyphony (or at least they will when they've been upgraded by the Synth Service centre).
These run through a Mackie LM 3204, allowing for even more to be added at a future time!

Roland MKS70 module (JX10 in a box)
Emu Morpheus
Roland D550
Technics WSA1R
Kawai K5M
Kawai K1
Korg DW8000
OSCar
Roland TR707 and Boss DR660 drum machines
A Digitech VHM5 Vocalist
Lexicon LXP1 and 5 FX,
LEM FX24
Roland DSP2000 (actually supposedly a hi-fi add on, but a brill programmable 20 bit reverb unit )
and a humble Midiverb 2.
All this lot currently runs through a Behringer MX8000A (which doesn't have as good an EQ as my original and venerable Seck 18/8/2).
The whole setup sounds superbly powerful, and the Atari is always reliable, being linked to a Fostex 80 for audio using the Unitor for SMPTE. All this lot keeps me warm in the winter!
I'll point out that the EMU, D550, WSA1, K5 and K1 have been added a few years ago, and the most expensive one then was the WSA1R at £265 -and I was GIVEN the DW8000!


So that's me at the moment - how about you?

Best wishes,

Dave.

These days I don't do much midi work but I use the atari to access a huge amount of song ideas and files from the mid 90's.
I still think Notator is the finest sequencer around. Now if only a new up-to-date version appeared I would be very chuffed.

hi Dave

currently using my souped up 4 meg STE (with Veloce plus board, with 4 EXTRA meg of TT fast RAM) running at 16Mhz...zippy eh?

i got my Compact flash hard drive sorted out at 128meg.. there is now NO noise whatsoever from my ATARI set up, and i am VERY pleased with that! the load and save times are almost instant, and its not even a new fast CF card!!!!

im also running a Roland VS2480 HD recorder for audio syncing the ATARI to this via MTC.

i have 7 (i think?) midi outs running to a yamaha GM Rack, an AKAI S3000XL, AKAI S5000...

this is the back bone of my gear for writing with..

i write on Guitar and play parts in via a Roland Midi Guitar convertor, work out arrangments on Cubase, track guide audio to the 2480 if need be and then build up extra parts on cubase and the 2480

ive been running this set up for a while now but its only since just before xmas that i went SILENT with the CF card, and the differance has been VERY good to experiance.

im currently very tempted to buy some form of a mac purely to run as a soft sampler in order to gain access to some of the great orchestra librarys avalible.... still havent decided yet though.... mainly cos it might add some nise back into the room

Rod

Still working the old-fashioned way here. STE running Cubase is the heart of our studio. A couple of hardware synths, an Emu ESI32 and a couple of FX units are all we use most of the time. Any vocals and live instruments are recorded to DAT then sampled and played via midi. Very primitive I know but it works for us and I can't see any pressing reason to change yet. I've tried more modern audio sequencers but they just seem too complicated and cumbersome. With the very limited amount of time I get in the studio I'd rather make music than wade through manuals trying to find out how to achieve something I can do in a few seconds on the Atari. A recent addition is a 20" vga monitor which is great leap forward. ( I can't believe I spent all those years peering at that tiny faded hi-res screen.
I'm very interested in the idea of a compact FLASH hard drive. How is that done? I have got a hard drive but because of the racket it makes it just never gets turned on and we end up using floppies.
For me it's as near as you can get to a perfect music computer. It is silent, does almost everything I could want, hasn't crashed for about two years of daily use and I haven't had to upgrade any software for 10 years.

hi Deano

RE CF HD try the zip as main HD thread.

Rod

I'm writing DNB using a 14meg rack mounted Falcon with 128meg CF card. I've taken the fan out so its silent.It's running CAF 2.07 with additional digital ins and 8 outs.Sitting in the rack next to it is a Cheetah MS6, Novation super bass station, Roland JD990 and Yamaha A4000 controlled with an evolution MK249C2 and monitoring through a Nobels MX42 line mixer Technics SUV50 amp and Warfdale 30.2'sCurrently everythings out of action while I seek some replacement knobs for the A4k and a nice quiet HD with maybe some sort of manual cut out switch. Also need to fit the perfect keys interface so I can use a KVM and switch between the Atari and the Acorn...

Bugger, I cannot compete with your Falcon! One day I will have a Falcon when both the money is available and the urge is strongest, although I still fancy adding some form of audio input to my Atari STe like the Replay 16. Maybe there is a DIY way of doing it? This would be more for pleasure and hobby purposes rather than full blown pro stuff.


NCGM

Hello fellow Atarians,

Im currently using 2 4 meg STe's in my setup. Theres some great kit listed in this thread. Its making me drool and giving me some nice future upgrade ideas for STephanie and STella.

At the moment, all my stuff is written on one ST, with the other being brought out of retirement to sample the odd YM sound off. Great fun indeed.

Mint:

Your A4000, Ive got a link for replacement knobs on another machine. If I recall correctly, they work out at about £30 for a set of 5. I will post the link when Im at the other computer. Also, theyre only suitable for the A4000 and A5000, but the same company also supplies the type needed for the A3000 if anyone else is interested.

I've been meaning to get a replacement set for my A5000. Have you tried Servisol on them? It worked wonders for me and breathed life back into mine.

Neo:

I saw something about DIY sampling on the ST a long time ago. No links unfortunately. I'm pretty sure it was in an ST mag about 15 years ago and involved a project build cartridge. But honestly, Id go for a 2nd hand Akai, Emu or Yammy sampler off ebay. Your ST will love you for it!

Regards to all,
Ed

Hi ed, any info on obtaining knobs would be great. I've phoned a few companies but they were unable to supply the alps part that i quoted. I've soaked my existing knobs with deoxit, which helped but not very much.

Hello Mint,

ALPS, yes thats the ones. The name had slipped me. I should be able to post back on this one later in the week.

Im now hoping the company I sourced isnt one of the ones who couldnt supply them for you! They do advertise them though, so fingers crossed.

Ed

Quote Neo-Classical Guitar Man:

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although I still fancy adding some form of audio input to my Atari STe like the Replay 16.

---

NCGM. I was just looking through a huge box full of Atari stuff and found a cartridge marked “ST Replay - for the Atari ST - Microdeal – made in England” and the original Microdeal ST Replay floppy dated1987 … couldn’t find the manual… I haven’t used it for well over ten years so I don’t know if it still works. If it’s of interest to you, pm or email me.

Some other things I found in the box:

Steinberg Twenty Four v3 manual, two floppies and dongle.

C-Lab Notator SL v3.1 manual – no dongle (exchanged it years ago for the PC one) but I guess I must have the floppies somewhere…

STFormat cover discs. 69 of ‘em right from disc one, dated 1988 (I also still have four binders full of the mags too)

Oh, and that was just one box…there are even more boxes of floppies, manuals, assorted bits of hardware and other Atari related stuff. I have fond memories of “Spectre”, the small bit of hardware that turned the Atari into a Mac… I still remember the manual as being the most entertaining and hilarious one I’ve ever read.

Ahem, confessions of a one time Atari fanatic

Tim ;o)

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Studio: www.kymatasound.com

Hello again Mint,

heres what I dug out of my other computer:

********************************************************
>>To: a-list at ampfea.org
>>Date: 09 May 2002 16:20
>>Subject: knobs

I have successfully replaced the knobs on my A5000. The exact replacement part was Alps EC11B-15242. In Sweden you can buy those from www.elfa.se, the price is around $5 per knob. Note that the A3000 does _not_ use the same knobs. It seems to use EC11B-15244, but I am not sure.

A friend of mine did the actual soldering (I didn't trust myself to do it properly), and he found the process "pretty simple". YMMV. Anyway, for around $25 and a bit of patience, my sampler feels like new.

>>>>Manush
********************************************************

Is that one of the companies you tried? Theyre a Swedish company, but when you copy and paste the part # into their site, it seems they will supply them to pretty much anyone and anywhere.

Am hoping this will let you get back on track with the A4k.

Best of luck,
Ed

Hi, managed to get another Atari monitor after the original expired (after 14 years of use), and my trusty old 1040ST with no mods whatsoever apart from a Unitor in the side, is still giving me excellent service.Running Notator, I use it to transfer songs which have accumulated over the years,on floppies, mainly piano accompaniments, for my wife's singing lessons. She doesn't play.A long midi lead plugs into a Phillip Rees Midi Merge, and then into the Mac which is connected through an AMT8 to my electric piano. I don't always need to record the files onto the Mac as they can be played directly from Logic Pro 6 in the Mac in Midi Sync mode, recorded through the desk on to (I can hardly bear to say it) cassettes. What latency? These songs were recorded up to 14 years ago.
Timellis

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Don't ya jus luvvit?

Cheers Ed, i'll get some of those ordered up soon.

Quote Fuji Ed:

---

Hello again Mint,

heres what I dug out of my other computer:

********************************************************
>>To: a-list at ampfea.org
>>Date: 09 May 2002 16:20
>>Subject: knobs

I have successfully replaced the knobs on my A5000. The exact replacement part was Alps EC11B-15242. In Sweden you can buy those from www.elfa.se, the price is around $5 per knob. Note that the A3000 does _not_ use the same knobs. It seems to use EC11B-15244, but I am not sure.

A friend of mine did the actual soldering (I didn't trust myself to do it properly), and he found the process "pretty simple". YMMV. Anyway, for around $25 and a bit of patience, my sampler feels like new.

>>>>Manush
********************************************************

Is that one of the companies you tried? Theyre a Swedish company, but when you copy and paste the part # into their site, it seems they will supply them to pretty much anyone and anywhere.

Am hoping this will let you get back on track with the A4k.

Best of luck,
Ed

---

My atari is currently gathering dust in the garage, along with all my old copies of ST Format and a large box full of games + random software. Reading all this made me all nostalgic and I thought I'd post. For the record it's an Atari STFM with 1meg of ram, no HD, no add on stuff. If it had a firewire input I'm sure I'd use it. If anyone wants it and would make use of it then they're more than welcome to it, assuming they don't go for a fortune on ebay.

dave.

Hey all! I had an atari through out eh 80's and early 90's and it died then I switched to Windows. My atari was running C-Lab Creator. I absolutely loved that software and have been haunted ever since switching to Windows (now using Cakewalk Sonar and am loving it). I may be a little bit behind, but please advise: Is Atari still alive? Do they have any new compters? were they taken over by some other company? Do they have an official website other than the forum kind? Thanks, I'll appreciate any help with this.

Hi Richard,
Atari is long gone due to all sorts of silly activities by the company.


Many of them were described as they happened in the Atari column in SOS at the time. You may be still able to access the articles using the search button on the SOS site.

Look at the FAQ for all Atarians posting here on this forum for links to which sites are supporting Atari.
Things are still up and running in Atariland. Tim's Atari MIDIworld now has 700+ members, all happily using Ataris, so there's stil help advice and support for the venerable STs.

Best wishes,

Dave



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Lots of Ataris which keep on going, 12 Kurzweil 1000 modules, a bunch of hardware synths. Still recording to tape -the old ways are best.....

Most of my Atari collection is visible at http://soundworks.uk.com/Atari and yes, the Falcon AND the TT are still in use, as is the Mega2.

Most of the studio runs on the Cubase SX laptop and Nuendo workstation, but the Atari's have uses as musical scratchpads, each with their own mini setup so I can power on and just run.

It's amazing just how creative you can be when you have limits!

Once an idea has been worked out, it's transferred to the main rig(s), where the finishing touches are added.



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The website and the Atari bit

Edited by mal7921 (15/03/05 12:47 PM)

Hi Mal7921,

WOW! Thats a very nice Atari collection! Wicked online info too.

Cool to hear your still using them along with your newer setup. Thats gotta be the way to get the best of everything!

Yup, I definitly agree, working with limits can bring great results!

Cheers,
Ed

Alright, reading the other threads I realise I'm not very technically minded at all, just kind of stumbling through managing to make some music along the way!
I started using the Atari about 5 years ago when a mate showed me Cubase (all I wanted is to midi some drums). I soon got hooked and ended up buying 4 STs second hand as this guy was selling everything together. Only got one left now, its an 4160 and for a while I used that and some hardware to do music. Last year I got a PC as I was getting frustrated as a lot of the stuff I wanted to do was messing about with samples and my sampler isn't that friendly to use.
Now I've started getting the hang of the PC I've brought my Atari out again and want to use it with the PC as I've got some odd little sequencers on it and a couple of programs that use the soundchip to create synth sounds. Having trouble midi syncing it up to cubase on the PC at the moment though (but I won't use this thread to ask about that).
I also use it when the PC gets a bit much and I want to get back to basics and knock something out.I also find it satisfying trying to push it as much as I can. My midi set up is:
Atari St 4160
Yamaha TX81Z
Akai S2000
Alesis SR-16
And of course the PC.
Anyway, you've probably heard of all these but heres where I get some of my programs:

http://www.cow-net.co.uk/

I recommend the Charming Chaos sequencer!

Quote Fuji Ed:

---

Hi Mal7921,

WOW! Thats a very nice Atari collection! Wicked online info too.

Cool to hear your still using them along with your newer setup. Thats gotta be the way to get the best of everything!

Yup, I definitly agree, working with limits can bring great results!

Cheers,
Ed

---

Thanks, there are 2 other machines to add to them, a 260ST and a 520ST+, though I rarely get time to update the pages these days (2 year old daughter, full time job, maintaining my site and other peoples while doing music leaves little time for sleep(!)).

The collection is not yet complete, still after a Mega STe, and that real rarety (Though some do exist) the STE+ (With built in 286 processor and hard drive for running DOS).

Currently my ST Book is the pride of my collection, though I just missed out on an ST Pad (STylus). Damn you eBay!

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The website and the Atari bit

Around cgristmas I went a bit ebay crazy and bought an Atari 520fm and an Akai S2000.
So my set up is as follows:
Atari ST, cubase 2
Akai S2000 w/10 outputs,scsi zip
Phatboy
Tascam 788
Korg Poly 800
Kawai midi keyboard
Berhinger MX2804 desk
A mountain of fx pedals
PC P4, with M-audio delta44
PC P2, Soundblaster
some guitars

Basically I'm trying to set up a system where I can do a gig with it, so it'll be the ST driving the S2000 and tascam788, maybe the korg too if I can get round to programming some sounds into it (fab for bass tho!. Use the fahatboy to bend and twist the s2000 and I'm away!

I'm in desperate need for a midi merge tho, as I have a problem where I can't close the midi loop as my keyboard only has a midi out, not too much of a problem but I think it's the reason why the 788 isn't syncing properly, it takes a while for it to cotton on it's suppose to be doing something..

Not been able to do much so far for the lack of DD disks, but good old ebay sorted me last night, ah 2 quid for 20 DD's, bargain!

laters...

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http://www.papamofoman.com
myspace

Reminiscences, yay!

I used a variety of ST machines for music up until late 2000 when I bought a Mac (new millenium, new platform...I think that was the rationale). No expansion or interfaces, just a big MIDI daisychain and careful channel allocation. Audio was handled by recording onto minidisc or DAT, then sampling into an expanded Yammy A3000 and triggering the samples via MIDI; a technique I've already seen mentioned on this thread, and one that worked faultlessly!

My sequencer was Breakthru 2, which was based on Sequencer One (a freebie with ST Format). The killer features of Breakthru were its "Diamond-Drag" MIDI editing, and its internal sample playback capability (samples were recorded using an 8-bit cartridge called Stereo Master- a cutdown Replay 16?). Before that I used a program called Quartet, which was a notation-based 4-part sample tracker.

At university, bored, I got into customizing my ST by taking the cover off and spraying it different colours to replace the nasty 80s beige...(pre-iMac!)

I still have three STs- a purple 520FM, blue1040FM and green1040E- on a shelf in my studio. They very occasionally get powered up to feed 90s MIDI into Logic, but these days they work well as art and are much admired by visitors.



Atari+A3000=no crashes. Got an A5000 now, and it too needs new knobs. Soldering, yikes.

Got two Atari ST's at the moment. One is used alongside C-labs Notator (the hub of all sequencers). The other is used with Steinberg's Avalon and the Akai S950 - mainly for lo-fidelity effects.

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Lawrence Eldridge - Obscuresounds

I have an old Atari 520STM with an external floppy drive.... I'd love to say I still use it for music but it reality it acts as a very efficient door wedge!!!

Tony

http://www.captive.co.uk

Sadly my hard drives gave up the ghost at the start of the year, although it's odd that all three hard drives seemed to have lost data and refused to reformat, so it has to be the host adapter card. Seeing as how I now use an iBook as part of a portable setup, there's not really much I'm going to get out of the Atari anymore But I'm keeping the STe at least. The STFM I've got may go... same with the Jaguar and XE I've got somewhere. The STe may one day be recovered for MIDI if I could recase it or something when I get a more permanent studio but as for now, it's cupboard fodder for a few years

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http://www.myspace.com/fourtrackfrontier

Quote Pop Fodder:

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Reminiscences, yay!

I used a program called Quartet, which was a notation-based 4-part sample tracker.

At university, bored, I got into customizing my ST by taking the cover off and spraying it different colours to replace the nasty 80s beige...(pre-iMac!)

I still have three STs- a purple 520FM, blue1040FM and green1040E- on a shelf in my studio. They very occasionally get powered up to feed 90s MIDI into Logic, but these days they work well as art and are much admired by visitors.

---

Haha me too - I painted an upgraded STFM metallic black, and my STe a sort of blueish-purple colour. It was going to have a flourescent yellow keyboard but I only ever got round to testing the paint on the asterisk key...

I used Quartet too. That was a lot of fun and had a really crunchy sound which was awful for some stuff and fantastic for others. I might come back to it at some point for some stuff I'm working on, but I need to get a working copy on floppy disks cos of the death of my hard drive host adapter

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http://www.myspace.com/fourtrackfrontier

Hello all,

Went all techno and pc a few years back and left the atari to gather dust for a bit.
Became disillusioned with pc stuff and moved back to the Atari to reclaim some of the spirit and soul of making music.

I use two 1040 STe's (one with an external hard drive that would withstand a nuclear attack!) not sure what drive is actully in the enclosure,both with SM144 monitors, a Mega/STE with internal hard drive and sm144 monitor.

The two 1040 STe's are used mainly for safety purposes in case the worst ever happens.
Attached to the mega is a steinberg smp11, and steinberg midex which both give plenty of midi ins and outs.

The mega controls various synths and samplers i.e. access virus, waldorf microwave, S950 and S5000 samplers, and a lexicon reverb.

I also use various acoustic instruments and much electric guitar stuff.

Can't be arsed with syncing issues and have not had much success with it to be honest, so generally record all the electronic and sampled stuff on the atari and then play this back through the mixing desk whilst playing live into a digital multitrack (only 8 track!)...this is great because it gives a kind of live feel to any performances.
The inevitable bum notes and unwanted sections are edited out via the multitracks editing software...which admittedly, I have to use a pc for...ho hum!

Still, I could live without the pc and record everything into the dat machine and just do retakes till we get it right!!!...tedious but possible.

At the end of the day, the atari does not interfere with the creative process at all, and it probably adds to it considerably because it just works without any undue technical involvement...I just like to hit record and go, I get my technical kicks by just trying to program the bloody synthesisers!!!
Best vibes to everyone...

Greetings fellow Atariofiles.

I've two Atari's, both 1040ste machines. The first I got 15 years ago from Thatched Cottage Audio in Cambridge (just before the blighters ceased trading). It is still running to this day. The only thing I had to do was pop in another floppy drive. The other I brought from ebay/ It was fine apart from the power socket needing some attention. One Atari stays in the box and the other has its own little corner in my studio with emagic logic.

I mainly run it with my old s1000 (screen isn't as bright as it once was) with the individual outs feeding a little folio mixer and a quadraverb which I'm adept at using with midi !

Like someone else mentioned I also have numerous old ideas stuck on disks in boxes, which i listen to now and again, reappraise and catalogue.

They are still useful tools for music creation as far as I'm concerned.

I use mine for synth librarians

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Duncan J. White

All my gear is boxed up now since moving house so let me try and think of the setup....

1985 STFM1040
Creator Unitor
Korg M1 keyboard
Yamaha DX7 keyboard
Roland JD990
Korg Wavestation
Proteus 1
Akai 3200 sampler
Alesis Quadraverb
SCCI drive
Allen Heath GS3 mixer
Fostex A8
Technics DAT
Mackie HR824's
Yamaha cassette

It all used to work perfectly well, but I'm going to upgrade to a Mac Logic Reason setup eventually.

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ya talkin ta me?

Quote tzouras:

---

It all used to work perfectly well, but I'm going to upgrade to a Mac Logic Reason setup eventually.

---

Erm...
are you sure that's wise?

(just a thought)


Dave.

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Lots of Ataris which keep on going, 12 Kurzweil 1000 modules, a bunch of hardware synths. Still recording to tape -the old ways are best.....

I don't know if it's wise, but I think I reached the limits of my setup, especially with sampler memory and the pain of manually time streching and the hassle of setting up for remixing older tracks. Also, the idea of recording, mixing, mastering and SAVING ALL the parameters in one box, with instant recall, appeals.

I must admit that the thought of learning to use all the new hard/software does freak me out a bit, especially as where I live there is not One soul using the Mac/Logic stuff who might be able to help me out a bit. I would probably enrol on the Berklee online production course.

My theory is, that once I learn all the new stuff, it should make things relatively simpler to do with the addition of being able to manipulate sounds and effects through the DAW. And then straight on to CD.

D'you think I should just optimise my present stuff with extra memory/gizmos and add a new monitor and HD drive? I probably don't even know half the stuff I would need to 'modernise' the Atari experience.

Thing is, after 20 years of experience on the Atari system, I got rather good at putting my [ ****** ] together; used it for midi sequencing with just the occassional and minimal guitar and vocals smpt'd to my A8.

Your thoughts would be welcome and maybe if you're visiting Cyprus next year you could pop round and give me some real time advice before I take the plunge. I intend to remix and master almost everything I've done the past 20 years before I take the upgrade path, so I've got at least 2 years work ahead of me.

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ya talkin ta me?

Hi Tzouras,
yes, you can optimise your existing setup quite substantially. A 4 meg upgrade to the ST would be quite a useful thing to have, because you can then run Creator in multitasking mode, running extra programs at the same time. Looking at your gear list, I think you'll find Atari editors for most of your synths on the atariMIDI archives files (look at the FAQ posting above for the full list).
Running a hard disk also makes things a lot easier: you're not fiddling with floppies (I always ended up knocking the one I wanted onto the floor ) and load up times are a fraction of those with floppies. So this means you can have larger song files complete with sysex dumps and sound patches edited and ready to load all at the same time.
As ever, check with Barrie at Keychange for advice on upgrades, as he's the guy who knows and has everything in stock.

Don't get me wrong about upgrading; I know that Logic is a very powerful program, but I find that the main drawback is the very amount of stuff on offer. You start off trying to do one thing and find that there are so many side alleys that you're led down, with the result that three days later you've got nowhere because you've been playing around with setups and other preferences. The Environment page is a case in point: a very flexible and comprehensive feature that allows you to make up a virtual map of all your MIDI connections.
In my case, I already know how everything's connected up, with Unitor 2 and Log 3. On Notator I simply select the MIDI channel I want and play. With Logic, I've got to construct a connection to the MIDI buss and/or module before I can do anything. Even the books on Logic (PC publishing do some excellent ones) admit that configuring Logic is a goos way to fill a boring weekend (or week? ).
By comparison, Notator/Creator is a doddle that never takes you too far away from just playing and creating your music. It's like having a nice runabout for your weekly shopping, while Logic is the equivalent of the Space Shuttle- so many features that you may never use and take up time trying to master.

You may find that a standalone digital recorder might suit your puposes rather than an all in one DAW. No constant upgrading and reloading/reauthorising of software (SOS editor Paul White has waxed particularly wrathful on this subject) and it'll connect to your existing setup very nicely. But I would still hand on to your A8; you never know when you'll need a 'tape saturation emulator' and an A8 is much cheaper than the hardware versions!

Anyway, hopefully this has given you some food for thought. Upgrade your Atari with a nice big monitor, 4 meg of memory, the various synth and FX editors from the net (free downloads, remember) and a hard disk, and you'll find that things can be greatly speeded up and simplified.

Hope that this helps,
Best wishes,
dave


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Lots of Ataris which keep on going, 12 Kurzweil 1000 modules, a bunch of hardware synths. Still recording to tape -the old ways are best.....

David, thanks for your feedback, you've given me food for thought. Would it be possible to use soft synths/samplers/FX with the upgraded Atari or would I need to sync it up to some additional PC?

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ya talkin ta me?

Hi Tzouras,
there are one or two softsynths that run on Ataris. If you check with Tim's Atari MIDI world (see FAQs for locations) you'll find further details there (also check out the Atari Launchpad with links direct to the relevant homepages), but I'm guessing that you'ld need an extra Atari to run them, as I have no experience of them myself (I prefer hardware stuff).
Quite a few folks on the yahoo atari MIDI users forum have sucessfully linked their Ataris to PCs running VST instruments. If I were in your position I'd probably prompt for a Mac for this, and used Macs are resonably cheap since the G4 and G5s came along, and don't have the rubbish Microsoft OS, which is the source of endless aggro, as witness yourself on the PC FAQs and forums here.
The thing to remember is that VSTis and virtual FX in particular are reputed to be quite processor intensive. This is one of the many reasons I stuck with Atari +hardware synths and FX.
Also remember that the Atari is STILL the most accurate mahine for MIDI timing, as the MIDI ports are wired direct to the main processor, so if you use yours for sequencing and an externel PC/Mac for synths/samplers/FX you'll get the best of both worlds.
One final point (which not a lot of people know): NASA found that the humble Atari was the only computer that still worked on zero gravity emulation flights!


Best wishes,
dave.

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Lots of Ataris which keep on going, 12 Kurzweil 1000 modules, a bunch of hardware synths. Still recording to tape -the old ways are best.....

Edited by David Etheridge (30/10/05 10:49 AM)

Hello.

An Atari is more computing than they had on the moon missions, is it not? If you believe they put a man on the moon. (maaan on the moon)

Y'know? I just remembererd i have an Atari, 2 in fact, except one is a 2600. The other a 1040.
It has midi, THE thing that got us on 'em way back when, and the timng is great. I never really used it much, and have no need of it's sequencing these days.

Rather than take this nostalgic thread off topic i made a post regarding my Atari use question.

Yes, naturally the Atari postdates Moon landings. According to Tim Conrardy at Tim's Atari MIDIworld, they've been using it more recently, at a guess for Shuttle simulations.
Can you imagine Microtwit stuff working at several G force?
This program-this program has performed-performed an illegal operation and will be-won't be shut down. We are the Borg-resistance is futile
You see what I mean?

Dave

Live long and prosper.

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Lots of Ataris which keep on going, 12 Kurzweil 1000 modules, a bunch of hardware synths. Still recording to tape -the old ways are best.....

Been some assimilation attempts, but rotating the phasers harmonics seems to work, the shields are at 90%, but one or two bull filters need a tweak!

I discovered a replay 16 sampling cartridge, with no instructions? Shouldn't be too hard to suss out if i get it, should it?

Hi RML,
yes, why not? it shouldn't be too hard to figure out-it's not brain surgery!
Have a word with Barrie and he might be able to supply some documentation.
Incidentally, have a butchers at the 'Atari as synth' posting; there's some good news for you

Dave.

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Lots of Ataris which keep on going, 12 Kurzweil 1000 modules, a bunch of hardware synths. Still recording to tape -the old ways are best.....

Quote The real musiclover:

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I've discovered a Replay 16 sampling cartridge with no instructions? Shouldn't be too hard to suss out if I get it, should it?

---

Yeah I have been after a Replay 16 for around five years now.


NCGM

Quote Neo-Classical Guitar Man:

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Yeah I have been after a Replay 16 for around five years now.


NCGM

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Have you ever been to one of those Atari shows they often have? I went to one many years ago at the Four Pillars Hotel in Osterley. "Goodmans Atari Show" i think it was called. Im sure you might be able to track Replay 16 down at one of those shows.

Pabs

there is a couple on ebay for about a fiver at the moment, they are excellent .. i used to make tons of music in the early 90's with one of them. try and get 'breakthrough' by the same people as sequencer one to use with it. it wont work with most of the decent sequencers because it plugs into the cartridge port where the dongles go

cheers
grainger

Quote Neo-Classical Guitar Man:

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Quote The real musiclover:

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I've discovered a Replay 16 sampling cartridge with no instructions? Shouldn't be too hard to suss out if I get it, should it?

---

Yeah I have been after a Replay 16 for around five years now.


NCGM

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As can be seen from my February post up there ^, I said pm or email me if my Replay cartridge and floppy were of interest to you.

It appeared they were ‘cos back then we exchanged PMs and I offered to pop the items in the post… but you never gave me your snail mail address.

Tim ;o)

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Studio: www.kymatasound.com

Hi Tim,

I just had another quick read of your PM message and errr....I think I should pay more attention!

Well your offer is very kind one and I would like to give your Replay 16 a new home, so check your PM's again.


NCGM

I still use my Atari Mega STE for editing some MIDI gear (namely, Korg Wavestation A/D, Yamaha TG77, Roland D-50) through Steinberg Synthworks software. I find the Synthworks series the most productive tool for sculpting up new sounds and for managing effectively those synths - even better than SoundDiver and Galaxy Plus, which I use too.

I used the Atari with Cubase 2 and 3 before switching to Mac and Cubase 4 - and by the way, I completed the Cubase path through VST 5/32, SX, SX2 and SX3... but recently I switched to Logic Pro :-)

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Roberto Giannotta
www.musimac.it

I thought I was the only one until I arrived here!
I have 2 Atari 1040 ST units with original monitors. They have been in my home since 1989.
I am having a ball with Passport Master Tracks Pro. This is the sequencer I learned on and still rocks.
I transfer the tracks from my keyboards to the 1040 and clean up the data in Master Tracks.
Very easy to use and it doesn't ever crash!

Have a wonderful evening!
Russ

basically i use the atari only for midi...triggering hardware like drummachines,synths and samplers.
i have had my atari for about 14years now and still think its the tightest machine ever to trigger hardware.(i love it!!!)
i began using it when i was 14 and it still works great!
Atari MegaSTE 4MB,ext. HD,Cubase 2-3.1 + Score,Notator 3.21,Logic2.0,LOG3
i´m ashamed to say i lent it to someone for a while ....i was so happy to get it back lately.:)
now i´m trying to synchronize it with my mac (logic7) via smpte.so i could use the atari for the midistuff and use audio with the mac.
if anyone has done that before i´d appreciate help.

CHeers!

Hi Jacob,
the quickest way to do this is to use the Atari as a slave to the Mac. Get the Mac to output timecode which will be chased by the SMPTE feature in Unitor. If the Mac won't do it (I'm not a Mac Logic user so I'm guessing) then treat the Mac like a tape recorder and record one track of Audio with SMPTE from the Atari/unitor. Then play that back to the Atari and it should chase the timecode data.
Try it and see how you get on. Get back to me if there are any problems.
Best wishes,
Dave.

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Lots of Ataris which keep on going, 12 Kurzweil 1000 modules, a bunch of hardware synths. Still recording to tape -the old ways are best.....

Hi once again folks,
there's been some discussion on Tim Conrardy's Atari users group about using multiple sequencers on the Atari (as well as multiple STEEMs on a PC for those interested).
For example, Notator users will know that with 4 meg of memory you can get Notator to run up to four programs at the same time. Therefore, you could run KCS, Hybrid Arts and algorithmic apps all at the same time and see what you come up with!
I'll post any further comments from Tim's group here as soon as further feedbck occurs.
Best wishes,
Dave.

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Lots of Ataris which keep on going, 12 Kurzweil 1000 modules, a bunch of hardware synths. Still recording to tape -the old ways are best.....

Quote The real musiclover:

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I discovered a replay 16 sampling cartridge, with no instructions? Shouldn't be too hard to suss out if i get it, should it?

---

I'm returning to this thread to say that I recently bought a Microdeal Replay 16, complete with original box, ring bound manual, floppy disk software and even a few software adverts from 1994 too! I did get back to Tim about his ST Replay cartridge and that works lovely too. Oh and if you are reading this Tim, I hope you have enjoyed the stuff I sent you.

I'm really very impressed with the Replay 16 and the only limitation I can see, is that it records directly into RAM but not to a hard drive. Perhaps someone here knows of software for the ST that can do this? Actually there is one I think on the web ftp sites 'hddirect.lzh', but it won't interface with any other sequencers.

Other cheap goodies I have bought are:

(1) Vidi ST video capture kit, which luckily had the original box, manuals, disks and so on.

(2) Practical Solutions Monitor Master for sharing one screen with mono and colour cables to view all screen resolutions.

(3) IDE to CompactFlash interface with 40pin slave socket (getting this soon)


I am quite surprised with how enjoyable using the Atari STe is again, after using my own PCs at home for the past eight years. Yes the STe is more limited compared with a modern day PC, but then again the STe is fast to boot from it's IDE drive and rock solid reliable.



NCGM

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Footloose and fancy free...gizz a job!

I've owned my STE 1040 2 meg from new for about fifteen years ago and still use it most days, running the very fine Passport Master Tracks Pro (v3.6) on it. MT Pro is the only sequencer I've really got into and my Atari is at the heart of my studio setup which includes:

Roland XP-50, JV-1080 and JV-880.
Novation KS5
E-mu Pro-cussion
ART DXR Elite & Multiverb LT
Alesis MIDIverb 4

MT Pro runs up to sixty-four tracks of MIDI data so can handle everything I throw at it although I've found that it's not keen on me sending it program change data for some reason. Given that I need to scroll through banks of patches a fair bit, this is a bit of a pain in the posterior! My STE's sole task these days is music but I also used it for word processing and even email and web surfing back in the day. I also own an STFM. Long live Fuji!

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"Ten thousand watts of power...news headlines on the hour tonight..."

My first experience with MIDI was on a Atari 1040ST running cubase at school in 1997, we then moved on to Logic on PC later in 1998/99
I always wanted an Atari though but when I got into making music at home I got a PC running Logic circa 2002
Now I use an MPC 2000XL as my main sequencer but I still want an Atari lol How about some vids of your setups with some music? All this gear is all great but I want to see it all in action!!
Here is mine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt8xB-Pq_0c&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es-Gov0AGQk&feature=channel_page

Edited by vinyl_junkie (22/02/09 03:08 PM)

Back again with another update!

I have found one or two programs that can record direct to the hard drive, which in my case is a 4GB CompactFlash card connected to an internal IDE interface inside my 4160 STe. The only negative is that these programs only handle 8 bit audio.


More bits of hardware have been added:

(1) ICD The Link 2 SCSI interface
(2) Yamaha CRW-8424S SCSI CD Writer
(3) Acard AEC-7720U IDE to SCSI adapter for connecting IDE stuff to the SCSI interface.

Using this new stuff I have burned a few Audio CDs and also imaged the hard drive to CD, just like using Ghost, True Image etc on a PC. Incidentally using CD-ROMs is much quicker than on a PC, even when there are thousands of files.


There are other bits of hardware that I might be tempted into getting from Ebay, but the main thing I would like is a decent monitor that can handle the colour and mono modes of the STe. Failing that a video adapter may suffice but they are known for poor quality usually.


NCGM

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Footloose and fancy free...gizz a job!

I've still got two Atari STs, but I can't think of anything I can do with them that I can't do better on a PC/MAC. I remember early home computers like Amstrad used to have programs to easily create vector graphics patterns using points of symmetry or pattern generators that were quite interesting. I've not seen anything quite like that for a PC.

Is there some audio equivalent for Atari, like a quirky program that really isn't available as a PC program? Anything specific/else?

Regards,

Isaac

Quote robegian:

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I used the Atari with Cubase 2 and 3 before switching to Mac and Cubase 4 - and by the way, I completed the Cubase path through VST 5/32, SX, SX2 and SX3... but recently I switched to Logic Pro :-)

---

Sounds like the path I took, though mine was a little different swapping to Logic.

I had my cubase laptop and a few macs stolen in a burglary and my Cubase dongle along with it. Steinbergs policy in cases like this is either buy a complete new copy or f*ck off.

Guess which I did...

I'm now in the process of putting together a small Falcon based setup to run alongside the Macs, and as a result I'm looking for Logic to use on the Atari if anyone out there can help (Already in contact with Barrie at keychange).

I'm determined never to use a Steinberg product ever again.

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The website and the Atari bit

Quote IsaacIsaiah:

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I've still got two Atari STs, but I can't think of anything I can do with them that I can't do better on a PC/MAC. I remember early home computers like Amstrad used to have programs to easily create vector graphics patterns using points of symmetry or pattern generators that were quite interesting. I've not seen anything quite like that for a PC.

Is there some audio equivalent for Atari, like a quirky program that really isn't available as a PC program? Anything specific/else?

Regards,

Isaac

---

Try Electronic Cow's scribble synth and a few other such programs. They are on Tim's Atari MIDI World site for download, among other similar interesting tools. Having said that, just how long that site remains is uncertain after the untimely death of it's author and creator.

Such a shame, I never knew him but by all accounts an all round decent guy.

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The website and the Atari bit

Did you ever manage to obtain Logic Audio for your Falcon?


NCGM

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Footloose and fancy free...gizz a job!

Not yet sadly, though I'm still occasionally looking. I do have Logic though, but I'm currently using Cubase again (But only on Atari).

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The website and the Atari bit

I may as well chip in here. Interesting that this particular thread started five years ago. not exactly the fastest moving thread on the web, but eccentric, and I like that

Ive recently set about redesigning - experimenting how I work in the studio. For ten years now I have worked completely in the box using only a PC or Mac, and made many commercial records that way. Before that I had a full on hardware studio with an Atari running Cubase.

I wanted to do some experimenting combing old style sequencers with my DAWs. I dont hate working with PC's or Mac's (I have both). On the contrary I will always use them but I wanted to inject something else in to what Im doing and finding the balance of incorporating the new additions which include a C Lab MKX Falcon running Cubase.

Ive only had a limited opportunity to use the c lab falcon but as expected it did exactly what I wanted it to do which was a combination of triggering VSTi's and real hardware Synth/Sampler (A lot of fun actually). I also have an MPC2000xl and have been comparing the groove between the Atari and the MPC. I don't say compare tightness because they are both V good in a kind of human(ish) way, but to me they have a different groove which I like. Being used to sample accurate VSTi playback for so long now the difference between using the Atari or the MPC is very real and definitely not imagined. What is exceptionally ace is using either of those to trigger real hardware synths + samplers which is much better than using a DAWs midi. Whilst triggering VI's and using the DAWs midi results in sample accurate play back that is not the case when using the DAWs midi for external stuff. I have no idea why DAWs still cant do this well today. But its also just playing those hardware synths, it feels a lot better. That area is like night and day compared to a DAWs VI Its difficult to define why No matter how low the latency I can get on my DAW it just never ever feels right and never has actually. I would even go as far to say that over the years I have become a far worse keyboard player than I was during my hardware days. Much of that has to do with the latency, especially if you have a full on session and then you have no choice but to paint notes in via the mouse, but its more than that. It makes you rigid, unfeeling in what you play and its really only quite recently these DAWs actually play back what you record in to them relatively accurately...but with something like an Atari or MPC you can be a lot more sloppy and it works (perhaps the lower resolution?). Hmmm Sloppy isnt really the best term, its more a dynamic, human thing. I always knew this, but I didn't realise until a week or so ago as I tested out the old Cubase/hardware stuff how big that difference really is.

One thing of interest is the Atari reacts much much better than the MPC to midi time code and midi clock. I have never been satisfied with the MPC in this area BUT it isn't really the MPC's fault because when I send a midi clock from the Atari to the MPC then its much better than if I send code to it from my DAW. So my system is now MTC from DAW to Atari which then sends a clock to the MPC. If I send MTC or Midi clock from either the Atari or the MPC to the DAW the results are not as good. Its better with the Atari, but I don't feel to comfortable having my DAWs audio clock controlled by a midi clock. Maybe Im just being paranoid? But never the less all these machines have to be synced and Im still working on the best method. The difficulty there again is the DAW computer latency. No matter how low the Latency is (and I can get really low with my RME) I can never get a virtual Drum machine to fully lock in with the external sequencers regardless of how much fiddling about I do delaying sync cloks etc. Yes, to the untrained ear it may sound fine, but its not close enough for me....groove is everything, and it has to be right. I have watched many videos on Youtube with people demonstrating their MPC's syncing to Pro tools, reason, whatever. BUT NONE OF THEM actually showed virtual instruments or a virtual drum machine being played form the DAW along with their MPC playing sounds in full sync ( I mean both sequencers running triggering stuff). Their all made with a one perspective point of view and it doesnt give the full story. Pretty amateur if you ask me because that area is crucial to how the combination works. The drift.out of sync is very subtle but for me its totally noticeable. Put it this way, its nowhere near as tight as something like an 808/303 combo.

If I can never get all these to sync up perfectly it wont be the end of the world. The purpose for the mega spot on sync is so that I could run appregiators, drum machines, synths etc from my daw in tandem with my hardware. But if I can only send midi notes to the Daws VI's then that's fine because the MPC and my sampler can easily do all the drums and my main outboard synths can do stuff like bass lines and then I can leave the VI's to do some of the more esoteric stuff (the lest locked in groovy stuff). But everything will be recorded to the Daw on separate tracks so sync is obviously high up on my agenda because for sure I will be working on a track record parts in and wish to sequence up stuff using the DAWs sequencer and VI's.

Im trying to marry the old with the new. I wont reject the new for old because that's not my style and I do like what I can do with my DAWs Over the years I have learned a lot about writing and mixing songs with basically just a computer and DAW and I wont throw that knowledge away or make the same mistake I made when I moved from a hardware set-up to a DAW only set-up without thinking it through properly. OMG, when I think back to one day I had a full hardware set-up, then suddenly an ITB set-up Im amazed I didn't end up in a ward somewhere. keep in mind that ten years ago DAWs were not like they are today, and neither were OS's . But im a little bored of the DAW now from an ergonomics point of view, very tired of staring at a screen all the time, I need a change of gig, I want to get a little more organic. Whether the music comes out better or not isn't really the point, its a personal thing. But my hunch is the music will come out better

As I read this back it seems a bit of a rambling mess, but well I am eccentric

Quote Rob456:

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As I read this back it seems a bit of a rambling mess, but well I am eccentric

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No, you're not rambling at all, and being an eccentric here is a real virtue, as any Atarian (or any fule) kno.

Dave.


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Lots of Ataris which keep on going, 12 Kurzweil 1000 modules, a bunch of hardware synths. Still recording to tape -the old ways are best.....

Quote James101:

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I've still got two Atari STs, but I can't think of anything I can do with them that I can't do better on a PC/MAC. I remember early home computers like Amstrad used to have programs to easily create vector graphics patterns using points of symmetry or pattern generators that were quite interesting. I've not seen anything quite like that for a PC.

Is there some audio equivalent for Atari, like a quirky program that really isn't available as a PC program? Anything specific/else?

---

I remember a craze for programs that generated fractal graphics.

When I started with personal computers (Sinclair ZX81 in 1981) I spent most of my time coding in BASIC. The really clever guys (who all seemed to be teenage boys) worked in machine code. As computers became more capable of doing useful stuff, the need for coding diminished. But I do rather miss it.

I never got into Z80 machine code, but I did a lot of 6502 (Commodore 64) and some 68000 (Atari ST). Compiled languages are all well and good, but if you have speed-critical processes machine code can’t be beaten. Ironically I think a well-structured piece of assembler code is still far easier to decipher than the masses of nonsense you see in a C program – those things are UGLY with a capital UG! With an assembler listing there's not a curly bracket in sight!

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An Eagle for an Emperor, A Kestrel for a Knave.

Quote Rob456:

---

I'm trying to marry the old with the new. I wont reject the new for old because that's not my style and I do like what I can do with my DAWs Over the years I have learned a lot about writing and mixing songs with basically just a computer and DAW and I wont throw that knowledge away or make the same mistake I made when I moved from a hardware set-up to a DAW only set-up without thinking it through properly. OMG, when I think back to one day I had a full hardware set-up, then suddenly an ITB set-up Im amazed I didn't end up in a ward somewhere. keep in mind that ten years ago DAWs were not like they are today, and neither were OS's . But im a little bored of the DAW now from an ergonomics point of view, very tired of staring at a screen all the time, I need a change of gig, I want to get a little more organic. Whether the music comes out better or not isn't really the point, its a personal thing. But my hunch is the music will come out better

As I read this back it seems a bit of a rambling mess, but well I am eccentric

---

Well I have been nodding like a demented donkey to what you have said. One day I had an all hardware setup with an Atari STE and Fostex digital multitrack, plus Fostex D5 DAT recorder and a few synths, modules, rack compressor/gate etc; the next day I had a big gaping hole in my room after selling my Fostex DMT8 v2 to a policeman in Birmingham and soon after I sold the DAT recorder....then the compressor and so on. I then had TEN painful wasted years of messing around trying to get a PC to recreate my old setup, and it is a battle that I did not win. So I am returning back to my hardware again and possibly a rackmount Fostex multitrack like the D2424LV. For the time being I will be using a Falcon 030 upgraded to 14MB and a 68882 co-processor and some nice Soundpool SPDIF and Steinberg FA8 and MIDEX+ interfaces. I say will be because it is all there setup waiting for me to use it, once I have tidied up my room. I'm also having a retro nostalgia trip with old home micros from my youth, which is making my room look like a bomb site!

As for thinking things through, I am not sure if it is possible to do this. It is too much of a minefield with so many questions and not many good answers. Although I am returning to hardware to rekindle my music making, I do expect to be forced into using PCs again in the future, mainly because hardware does not last forever and doubt manufacturers will return to making hardware again.


NCGM

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Footloose and fancy free...gizz a job!

My 2 sleep quietly, I hope - they may be dead, since it's about 4 years at least since I booted one up, purely to resuscitate an old tune which had never been audio multitracked (just a DAT master) but needed a revisit for a remix project. I still have most of the hardware that was used, so it was quite a trip to set everything up again, load up the original (12 yr old) floppies and try and get it all to work- most of which was to do with my brain, not the gear (that all worked fine). Amazing how not using a piece of software for a while means you haven't a got a clue how it worked when you go back to it, years after.

But otherwise, for daily music-making, no, the Ataris don't figure much anymore. The hardware I used then does still get used, though- I run a Logic based set up but my synths are mostly hardware, and some sampling duties still done in an Emu that offers something a bit different from Kontakt. Yep, timing issues can be a pain but it's still more fun than doing absolutely everything ITB.

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http://anotherfineday.bandcamp.com/ http://anotherfineday.co.uk http://apollomusic.co.uk

Quote Neo-Classical Guitar Man:

---

Well I have been nodding like a demented donkey to what you have said. One day I had an all hardware setup with an Atari STE and Fostex digital multitrack, plus Fostex D5 DAT recorder and a few synths, modules, rack compressor/gate etc; the next day I had a big gaping hole in my room after selling my Fostex DMT8 v2 to a policeman in Birmingham and soon after I sold the DAT recorder....then the compressor and so on. I then had TEN painful wasted years of messing around trying to get a PC to recreate my old setup, and it is a battle that I did not win. So I am returning back to my hardware again and possibly a rackmount Fostex multitrack like the D2424LV. For the time being I will be using a Falcon 030 upgraded to 14MB and a 68882 co-processor and some nice Soundpool SPDIF and Steinberg FA8 and MIDEX+ interfaces. I say will be because it is all there setup waiting for me to use it, once I have tidied up my room. I'm also having a retro nostalgia trip with old home micros from my youth, which is making my room look like a bomb site!

As for thinking things through, I am not sure if it is possible to do this. It is too much of a minefield with so many questions and not many good answers. Although I am returning to hardware to rekindle my music making, I do expect to be forced into using PCs again in the future, mainly because hardware does not last forever and doubt manufacturers will return to making hardware again.


NCGM

---

I hear ya loud and clear.

I was happily going along doing my thing with not a care in the world in regards my music making and then one day I bought a magazine (hmmm, it was sound on sound) and I looked at all these ads with Pro tools on them. Big fancy full page ads with glossy pictures stating "YOU can do it all with this". I had quite an excellent analog setup and then 10 days later it was nearly all gone and I took delivery of a Pro Tools system. I had absolutely no idea what I was letting my self in for.

I must ask you though. Dont you think going all the way back might be a little to much? I understand why your doing it, but I wonder if you couldnt just use your DAW as a big fancy processing tape machine an dyour Atari takes care of all the midi duties. Whilst you say your ten years with your Daw has defeated you I just wonder if its wise to throw away the knowledge you have gained. Im pretty sure you have learned a lot of new tricks.

Ive only been messing around with the Atari/MPC combo a few days now but its definitely working out great the way Im using the DAW for tracking. I still have access to the processing plugins, many of which I like. But now Im getting the vibe again and thats what really counts in my opinion. Of course you have to do what makes you happy, that is the most important thing. Making music was never supposed to be stressful...intense yes, but not hair pulling stuff.

Hardware: You mention that in your last sentence. Some hardware yes I agree...but never say never either. For the last three months Ive been keeping a close eye on Ebay and I have noticed an increase in hardware selling and the prices going up, and I mean any hardware. I've noticed samplers in particular going up in price, digital FX boxes, stuff that you couldn't get tuppence for a year or two ago all going up. Some of the analog stuff is just crazy prices though. I saw TB303 sell for 1800 pounds. The 303 was never 1800 quids worth of goodness. I have a feeling even the crappiest digital synths will start increasing in value. The younger generation I think are becoming obsessed with hardware and If I put my self in their shoes as in never expereinced using hardware to make music I would want to find out what it was like, and I would pay a lot for the privilege. That Falcon of yours might be fetching a grand in a year or two.. ...hang on to your hardware, and those old computers.

The Falcon 030 (I have two actually) will be in my possession for a long time I hope. I've also got three STE machines, all upgraded in some way and one that is a wonderful machine that has been modernised.

As for PCs, I do not plan to stop using them for music altogether as they are far too useful. I think they lend themselves very nicely to offline editing or multitrack mixing with a suitable hardware interface. I have a little old Kawai MM-16 MIDI mixer that I plan on using to mix audio with, and others on the net use them for that too.



Like you say, just do whatever works for you and to hell with everything else. I also have played guitar since 1991 and have a rackmount Marshall setup with 4x12 cab and a humble Yamaha FX500 processor, plus Rolls MIDI Buddy pedal board. After using many different VST virtual plugins like Amplitube and Guitar Rig etc, would I sell my Marshall setup and replace it with software? There is no way in hell I would do this! Plugins are a convenient way of trying out different guitar sounds on a clean recorded signal, to aid in deciding what type of sound you want, but they are not good enough to feature in the final mix. However if I did not have my Marshall setup, I would probably use plugins until I could afford a proper setup.


NCGM

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Footloose and fancy free...gizz a job!

Quote Rob456:

---

I was happily going along doing my thing with not a care in the world in regards my music making and then one day I bought a magazine (hmmm, it was sound on sound) and I looked at all these ads with Pro tools on them. Big fancy full page ads with glossy pictures stating "YOU can do it all with this". I had quite an excellent analog setup and then 10 days later it was nearly all gone and I took delivery of a Pro Tools system. I had absolutely no idea what I was letting my self in for

---

Yeah. I bought my first Atari on very much the same sort of whim :-) I think you generally buy your first ANYTHING from a position of ignorance. Sometimes you get lucky.

Quote The Elf:

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I never got into Z80 machine code, but I did a lot of 6502 (Commodore 64) and some 68000 (Atari ST). Compiled languages are all well and good, but if you have speed-critical processes machine code can’t be beaten. Ironically I think a well-structured piece of assembler code is still far easier to decipher than the masses of nonsense you see in a C program – those things are UGLY with a capital UG! With an assembler listing there's not a curly bracket in sight!

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It's all about how you write it. In my life I've written literally hundreds of thousands of lines of code in assorted languages, but C remains my personal favourite. You can write rubbish in any language, but I loved the clarity with which I could express myself in C. Java just doesn't cut it by comparison. Sure, the basic syntax is derived from C and the object oriented stuff is well implemented but it's been surrounded by so much cruft in the way of frameworks and annotations and code generators and God knows what that any pretence at elegance vapourised long ago.

Hmmm ... think I'm wandering off topic a bit. Sorry.

CC

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Put the fun back into dysfunctional.
Mr Punch's Studio