Dude, this stuff is great. As a dude who made tracker music, just seeing the actual crap people had to do 'back then' just to be able to create samples and then turn that into music on old computers like the Amiga, really makes me respect my favorite musicians who did this crap a whole lot more. Keep this stuff going!
This is why there's so much classic hip-hop and electronic music from that era. With the limitations came creativity. Nowadays people don't even have to try they just buy samples from cymatics, and loop them, done. Everyone's the same
TH-cam's recommended videos feature has been spot on lately - was shown your other video about the Amiga samplers and trackers and loved it (instant sub of course) - not only that but damn your really can seemingly effortlessly knock out a banger regardless of the age of the tech Awesome subject, great channel tbh - thanks for your time in making these.
Dude your latest 2 videos are off the scale interesting! I'm a pixel artist (I do a lot of it on an Amiga at the moment like a nomad thing) not a musician but I love music and this was so so interesting. Can't wait for the DSS8 episode :) thank you for all your effort in these videos.
@@vix_in_japan Haha - I knew what you meant! Also - thanks for your channel - it has some fantastic content on it. Especially some of the real-time streams while working on something. I've checked in now and again for the last year :-)
16:00 that synth pulse sound is taken from the film Planes Trains & Automobiles, the hotel room scene where the two main characters share a hotel room for the first time.
@@wishusknight3009 You're imagining things. Ever head of "information availability fallacy"? It's basically the argument from ignorance: You aren't aware of something therefore it doesn't exist. For the sake of example: The CompuSonics DSP-1000 was a professional studio grade PC compatible 16bit digital signal processor and sampler which allowed PC-Based processing and mastering of CD quality audio. It was literally used to improve the quality of CDs. It was also available to the professional market in 1984. It predated ALL the Amigas. You should really try looking harder, you obviously won't find something if you aren't looking for it.
@@vapourmile sorry mate, ha was talking about the PC that regular people were using at the time... by the way " the CompuSonics DSP-1000 was a VCR-sized desktop unit with stereo I/O, 16-bit converters and a claimed 20 to 20k Hz bandwidth. The format never took off, yet the unit laid the groundwork for other CompuSonics products in the fledgling DAW market - certainly well in its infancy in 1984."
man i was blown away by the videos already and then i realized i know your music from 8bc!! keep on with the series, its never too far into the rabit hole when you know your stuff right
tbh if youre a modern dance music producer these videos are super enlightening on why it doesnt matter if you sample sounds and make your own tracks, the foundation of dance music is people playing samples as their instrument
Fantastic video! It really brings back a lot of good memories. The Technosound was my first sampler. I remember having to mail order it from the UK (to Australia). I had to actually mail out a bank cheque to the UK and then wait MONTHS hoping something would show up in my postbox. It's amazing what we could do even with those crazy limitations we had. I still use some sampling techniques I learned from those days.
15:55 Wow, that demo bundled with the software is quite something. It's like a kid randomly hammering on a synthesizer. Or a CD player desperately trying to play a VERY scratched disc.
Sheevlord “Alright lads, we need to create a demo track to go with the software. Only catch is it needs to include a Run-D.M.C. sample and some seagulls.”
comes to show that the guys that put all the product together.. didn't really know that much about what they were doing.. at least from a musician point of view
Certainly sounds like a demo by coders doesn't it! Although to anyone who was non-musical, it would have still been an impressive demo of what it was capable of I guess!
I wonder how long before you get a copyright strike on your own house tracks because someone thinks they sound similar. Keep up the great work. Loving your work on the Amiga.
Yeah - I uploaded it in advance and left it for a few days to let the gods check it. I released my old Amiga stuff creative commons but via an aggrigator and it copyright claims everything. I hate it and can't undo it. People wonder why I haven't released music in 6 years and that's why! I keep it to live shows these day :-) Buuuuutt... that might change
@@CTRIX64 I hear you...I've made a few tunes featuring samples from other people's work, but have not released them for that very reason! I tend to stick to non-descript, single samples for most of my work now
I had one of these as a kid and I loved it. Used it a lot with Octamed which for me was the only music software I ever learned how to use properly. I love all detail you go into here. I had no idea what was inside was so simple.
This video is A-MAZ-ZING!!! It’s just so fascinating to see and hear how all this stuff worked back in the day - I can’t believe how many everyday modern mixing tasks you simply don’t even need to think about?! I mean, not once did you give any thought to using an EQ, a compressor or anything like that haha!? Makes me feel like I’m wasting so much time by constantly wondering which expensive VST channel strip I’m going to use on a drum sample these days…?! Kinda blows my mind! Hope you’ve got more vids like this cos I love it!!
1:09 I can't express how much I like that you left that part in. You check the cable direction and the port direction, but still try to plug it in the wrong way around. Happens to me every single time. Glad to know I am not the only one. :)
Such a fun trip down memory lane, I remember buying the Stereo Master sampler and recording my cheap electric guitar and making mods in OctaMed. Sampling was still pretty magic back then, and having friends talk in the microphone and playing back their voice sped up was a lot of fun. Hoping you'll get around to part 2 one day, these videos are wonderful documentation of a really interesting time in computer audio!
Seriously! These are great videos. I got interested in the MOD scene after finding Ilkae's back in 2006 or so. I had already started writing music on piano rolls by this point, so using tracker software felt somewhat limiting, however I really respected what you folks were able to accomplish through those limitations. It's so cool to hear about it all first hand, and you're doing a great job explaining things and producing the videos as well.
I always appreciate the level of effort you take with these videos - delivered with extreme care and diligence to the small details. Kudos, and greetings from Massachusetts!
Mate, I'm loving this series! Can't wait for the DIY episode. In the time between your first return to the amiga 500, I've gotten myself a pretty decent setup, accelerator and all. Only thing missing (ea; still in transit from ebay) is an IDE harddisk. Definitely going to build myself a sampler. I'm hoping it's gonna be a fairly high quality one, or atleast, if it's "feature complete", there's options to either strip it down to the core or completely pimp it out if you have deep pockets. Coming from fasttracker for msdos, I know I want to go all-in on tracking on the Amiga. Cheers man, can't wait for more episodes!
Awesome! Let me know if you do make one. Yeah - Fasttracker was and is still amazing. The 4 channel life does make it extra special though :-) The limitations are wild. Also - you can do your sampling on a modern PC and it'll still sound like an Amiga once the samples are shipped over. I might do a video on how I pre-prep samples on the PC side.
@@CTRIX64 Sampling on PC(+Mac?) and shipping over would be interesting. I always end up resampling stuff through the amiga and back into ableton when I want that amiga-ey sound. Definitely also gonna build a sampler based on the next video, too, as I had one of those cheap ones and it's recently died!
40ms of resolution xD Hard to believe one could make anything useful with that. Fantastic series you did here ! This is the beginnings of home computer music right there.
Thank you for this video serie on Amiga samplers! It's one of a kind! I have several Amiga samplers myself including (2)DSS+, Audio Engineer +, Aura, (2)Clarity16, Microdeal Voice Master for CDTV, Alcotini sampler - the first hardware I bought for my Amiga 500 back in the days :).
@@Mute67 Sounds like it could be a part of the 2021 continuation of these videos. The Clarity probably needs to be featured at some point! Would be great to chat :-)
Wow, this is top notch youtube content! Beside your musical and entertainment talent your knowledge is great and you know how to explain things in a way that is easy to understand (stereo sampling with a mono converter, aliasing etc) I'm waiting for the next part.
Thank you soooo much for this amazing early 90s flashback! So many great memories. I went all the way back then with an Amiga 3000 - took me about 3-4 years to pay off! I had the DSS 8 Digital Sound Studio (you show in the first Intro video) and thought the demo song was one of the most amazing productions I'd ever heard - hoping that when you upload the second video in this series (2b: Mid-Range) you feature the DSS 8 demo song - or even better, upload it as a stand-alone video with the whole song.
Can't wait for the next episode... I had the DSS tracker back then (unofficial copy), and I'd rip off samples from games like Flasback (which songs I could read directly inside DSS!! Even the address of the composer was written inside as a comment). That's the way I did music back in 1994... I was light years away from the knowledge and means of what you expose here... This is SO amazing, man!!! Next episode right NOW!
I didn’t realize how easy and economical it was to make sample based music back then. I remember struggling with a Protools digi 001 that never worked out for me. Now I see why people stuck to Amiga, which I really wanted, and Atari.
@@rorz999 LOL. The Amiga's sound chip is explained by the fact an 8bit DAC is one of the cheapest simplest possible circuits to build. my.eng.utah.edu/~bowen/DAC_Proj/8-bit_r2rdac_current_sources.html When the Amiga was released FM synthesis was still preferred in professional musical instruments because synthesizers are far more controllable. What was more ubiquitous in the 1980s, the Amiga or the FM Yamaha DX-7? th-cam.com/video/WiYa4oUxKR8/w-d-xo.html Amigas are not famous for being preferred in pro studios. They were the digital equivalent of the already outdated 1963 Mellotron. Except the Mellotron from 23 years before could easily voice more than 4 notes at a time. th-cam.com/video/N07-YAKtRAw/w-d-xo.html
@@vapourmile I see your point from a studio perspective.... but the Amiga was never a studio device nor marketed to that use-case ever. There was a huge divide between a computer and a studio in the 1980s. The most a studio computer did was control automation or play out simple MIDI data (by 1985) for which the Atari was marketed. Studio's contained $$$,$$$ of gear ... and even a basic sampler cost $$$$. The Amiga was $$$ (note the missing dollar digit!) and was a full computer with the bonus of 4 channel hardware sampler / re-player which could do some amazing things if you were careful and efficient with the sample source. Any studio owner would instantly hear it as 8bit and aliased. A note on the R2R DAC - which are indeed simple to build - was not what was in the Amiga. The Amiga did a bunch more than just contain a single DAC. Unlike the sample playback cards for other platforms which were essentially a R2R DAC (like the HippoSound for Atari or SoundBlaster on the PC). The Amiga effectively had 4 x 8 bit DACs + 64 volume levels per channel, and as @blargg mentions above - it did varied resampling in hardware meaning that the CPU usage was 0% on audio playback unless you were doing modulation. A single command could trigger a sound effect and it'd just play until you stopped it in code. Even the Sound Blaster on the PC right up until the modern day uses the CPU for audio playback. That's why many Amiga people bought Gravis Ultrasounds if they bought a PC. I remember my dads 486SX/25 couldn't even playback a MOD without sounding fuzzy (as the SoundBlaster was 8 bit rather than 4 x 8bit). Consider the Amiga had an 8mhz CPU back in the old days... to output to a simple R2R DAC would have been impossible if you wanted to do anything (like gameplay) at the same time. Studio samplers had dedicated processors worth many more times the price of an Amiga and built for the task. To answer your question on the DX - yes it would have been more common to find a DX7 in a studio. But I'd argue in the 1980's the Fairlight / E-mu Emulator and a ton of other digital samplers (often triggering drums and other effects) were just as common as the DX7. The Amiga is essentially a poor-persons Fairlight / Emulator. I do love the DX7 though. Mines currently broken but I'll possibly film a repair video - mostly because when a DX7 goes wrong it makes some of the wildest sounds you will ever hear!
@@CTRIX64That was unfortunately not very informative. Like so many others you seem to have assumed I don't know what I'm talking about. No, I'm a computing professional, and a programmer of the era when the Amiga was popular. So I can and have written programs for the Commodore Amiga, PC and Commodore 64 in the Amiga's day in Assembler. Including sample players, copper lists, etc. A professional sampler only had one job: To make a single 16bit 44Khz digital recording of a sound. After that it was then processed by hardware which could play polyphonic sound, if needs be. Although in a professional setting, even to this day, samples are usually merely filtered then used as they are. Basslines, drum rhythms, etc. The Amiga isn't really like a Fairlight. The Fairlight was not as simple as you claim. It provided sound shaping through frequency analyses which are complex even by the standards of today. The Fairlight used synthesising technology based on an FFT algorithm, there is nothing equivalent on an Amiga. Also, contrary to your claim, the sound chip on the Amiga didn't resample anything. Samples can be played back at different speeds and that is all, so it is rather as simple as I said. You simply set a volume control, point it at a region of memory, set the playback speed, then trigger playback. There have been attempts to improve on this using real-time software algorithms but an unassisted 68000 doesn't do very well when it comes to shaping sounds coming at it at a maximum of 4x22Khz. The 68000 isn't going to have an easy time modifying samples at a rate of 2 8 bit samples per raster then passing them to chip RAM. It just doesn't have the power. You can get things like 8-voice players, but what's the point? Even a cheap PC consumer sound card like the AdLib has a synthesizer chip with 9 voices onboard hardware processing and 16-bit waveform output. The AdLib is not an exotic device, it's the lowest end ever of the PC audio market. In short though, yes studio equipment was more expensive. Amiga fans ALWAYS shout "COST!", but it isn't a valid argument. YOU may have had a tight budget but not everybody shares your own budgetary constraints. Mercedes are more expensive than Volkswagen Polos, private planes are more expensive than cars. . It doesn't matter. You don't dictate terms on what other people can afford to own. You can't invalidate something based on an assertion YOU can't afford it. Who cares if it's beyond your price range? Of course studio equipment is more expensive, it's better. It's more capable more sophisticated equipment with far more stable and quiet signal generators. When people love Amigas they cling to anything the Amiga has done and tout it as extraordinary, purely because it's an Amiga doing it. What about more generally,?If you aren't emotionally tied to the Amiga? What do people remember in music? The Amiga? Or the Prophet 5, the Roland 303 and 808, the DX-7, the Fairlight, the Clavichord, Moog and Oberheim. Even in its forte, which was computer games, people remember Sega and Nintendo, Mario and Sonic. Amiga fans grossly overestimate the Amiga and grossly underestimate everything else. Always trying to claim that anything more expensive doesn't count. No, if you can afford it then its utility is NOT invalidated by its cost. Why do DGX-2 workstations, TODAY cost £350,000? Why did the Summit supercomputer cost £325,000,000? Devices are NOT invalidated by the fact you can't afford them, and the fact they are often often more expensive does NOT imply the purchasers of them would be better of with Amigas. Nobody did weather research on a Commodore Amiga. The Amiga is a cheap consumer toy.
@@vapourmile "The Amiga is a cheap consumer toy." So many words and your conclusion is to tell us what we already know? News flash: Everyone knows that the Amiga is a cheap consumer toy. This is what it was marketed as (at least the 500). But you compare apples to oranges. The Amiga was not studio equipment nor was it ever marketed as studio equipment. You compare things that wheren't build for private use to a home computer (emphasis lies on "home") that was build to do many things. That doesn't make any sense. If you want to do a comparison that isn't "private planes vs cars" (what the heck?) you'd need to compare it to something that is in the same field, like PCs or Macs. But you completly miss the point with about every single one of your sentences. Except the one I quoted and which is common knowledge.
@@wohlhabendermanager "If you want to do a comparison that isn't "private planes vs cars" (what the heck?) you'd need to compare it to something that is in the same field, like PCs or Macs" LOL. No I don't.... the no true Scotsman fallacy in disguise, again. Yeah.... "If you want to compare the Amiga to anything else the only things you're allowed to compare it to are things like the Amiga, you know, like the Amiga". You can rule out ANYTHING ELSE as "not the same thing as an Amiga" comparison because obviously the only thing truly "the same thing" as a Commodore Amiga is the same Commodore Amiga. Your argument is "The only way to make a fair assessment it to preemptively discount from consideration that isn't a commodore Amiga". No, sorry, that's bullshit. I can venture exactly the same in return: If I want a Cray supercomputer then I don't have to compare it to anything except Cray supercomputers. Microcomputers need not apply. There is literally nothing about an Amiga that means you MUST consider it and reject other things. Having considered it, if you want SOMETHING ELSE, example: Something more powerful than an Amiga, then it's very easily ruled out. When I set up a CGI department in the late 1980s we have £21 million to spend. Know how many Amigas we used? None. You probably can feasibly make an album entirely on Garage Band on an iPhone, but there's no fucking point and it's stupid to imply when making a choice you Must select from tools a bit like Garage Band, because it obviously isn't true and that fact explains why people don't: They can get something more suitable instead. The idea the only things you can take into consideration when making a purchase are things matching the exact description of a Commodore Amiga is fucking stupid. What if you *don't* want an Amiga because it *Doesn't* fit your specification? "The only things you're allowed to choose from are those things which fit the description of the Amiga" is clearly stupid and wrong. When people go out to buy a Bugatti or Lamborghini they *can* weight it up against a Ford Fiesta if they want to but it's fucking stupid to suggest that, having done so, they are then forced to make a selection from something in the same price bracket as a Fiesta. They don't. That's my point. Nobody who wants to own a helicopter *must* choose a scooter instead. "You're can make a free choice, only your choice has to fit the size and shape of scooter because that's what I had!". No, that has never been true.
another amazing video, well done mate. youtube recommended you to me for some reason, and i watched on a whim because i used to be pretty into this kind of technology. but although i no longer am very interested in it, you make it all so incredibly interesting and fun to watch!
I'm back to being a 16 year old again, with my 4 track and oscilloscope connected to the A500 (and later A1200). Super content - can't wait for part 2.
For an old school amiga user who's thinking about trying out sampling on one this is totally on point! Looking forward to the rest, especially the DIY one even though I've got a Technosound Turbo. :)
Excellent, just excellent. I had a cheapie mono sampler, with a British flag on it (but I can't remember what it was called), which I used with my Amiga 500 (and later, the Amiga 3000). It was absolutely awful, but with heavy EQ applied to the output of what I was sampling, the results became surprisingly usable. Thanks again for this terrific series of videos; I can't wait to see the next part!
Hahahaha.... love it. I totally just visted your web page too. It's on point. That secret page on the SNES launch is magic! Next video is kinda looking semi technical too... but more a look at software.
Would love to see you get into the technicalities of some of the particular aliasing /crunch/compression character people associate with the Amiga sound, for example it’s really clear often in the high end on string or wind samples, which you hear in the Shadow of the Beast or Another World soundtracks.
This series is great fun to watch! I used to have an A.M.A.S sampler for my Amiga back in the day and would use it to make samples for use in the tracker software.
Props on the Run DMC sample identifications! Technosound was my weapon of choice. Man I almost miss all this stuff. Maschine, Reason, Ableton are great... But not as much fun honestly
I had the Stereo Master. It did okay. I only ever used the supplied software for using the realtime effects. When sampling I'd use the Audiomaster III by Aegis and MED (Later Octomed). So watching this really brought back some memories.
@@spawnlink Thanks for that info! While I was editing this my brain went "hang on, 127+127 is 254 bits in total... the zero is another... where's the missing bit?!" I meant to look it up but just kept editing. For all the years looking at datasheets I've never taken note which way the extra bit swings; and I'll now forever know it's on the negative side. Much appreciated correction! It's wild to think I've coded an 8bit wave editing tool and never looked this up (although my center line at 128 would have still been ok; and my clipping logic was just clamped at 0 and 255)
this was awesome.. and very interesting to see that every sampling-circuit added a different character to a sampled sound! i hope you do the other parts too, soonish.. i would like to make my own HQ DIY amiga sampler :D
oi Ctrix, firstly mad video. second finally some respect for my first love the k1. k1ii from Hornsby cash converters cheers dad. met john chowning down the track and he wasn't aware of that lil fm guru but was nice to chat to him about fm being the first form of sound synthesis i learned in a weird way it all makes sense. wrote a bunch of stuff on the mt32 ages ago too im sitting here with my aptiva d-20 ms2000 and mt32 and would only be happier if i had a k1
It's nice to remember that back in the days people were referring to these devices as "(audio) digitizers" while the term "sampler" meant more a device like an AKAI S900/S1000 or similar :)
The AD7576 used in those cheap samplers was the 'cheapest' iteration of the chip from Analog devices and it did have missing codes meaning at a quite spot, the ADC would hop 2-3 codes on the 8-bit up and down with a fixed void in the middle making that hiss between your speech 2-3x worse than it should be. In the day, I tried wiring the top 8bits of a 250$ 16bit ADC IC to my Amiga's parallel port and that 'squeltching' on and off hiss between the speech was almost eliminated, like 3x quieter with actual sound in there instead of the abrupt on and off hiss of the AD7576 in those cheap samplers. So, the Amiga was actually capable of better reproduction than the samples we ended up with those 50-100$ samplers boxes. It's sad since most Amiga sampled audio in games was actually done with a load of hiss which shouldn't have been as bad as it was by a factor of around 3 fold.
Superb. Never used a sampler but love early rave tunes that were often made on such equipment,. Did my degree in electronic engineering so really interesting. Subscribed....
I had and may still have a Megalosound, similar size to the small stereo MASTER unit. Limited by the RAM on an A500 but on the A1200 +8mb RAM exp and a MASSIVE!! 1GB hard drive, space was no longer an issue. Copying a CD across from the A500/A570 to the A1200 using a parallel cable took about 24 hours though... Adding a 4x CD drive to the A1200 had the shopkeeper telling me its for a PC and will not work on the Amiga. If he knew it did work he would probably have quadrupled the price. I moved to a PC because the parts were so much cheaper. Sub £50 modem for a PC or hundreds of £'s for an Amiga one.
Are the remaining parts going to happen? It might be worth checking out the Open Amiga Sampler that @echolevel @mnstrmnch and myself @abrugsch (all twitter/Instagram/github handles) are working on. It's a DIY design in the vein of these cheap samplers that we're making into super small card that won't cost the ludicrous amounts that original hardware now fetches
Recently got an Akai S3000XL for £95. Bit dated today but makes me realise how lucky we are to get this hardware at an even cheaper cost😂 Loving this series hoping to see an update soon. Subscribed
@cTrix great vid. question: what would be your advice to re-create amiga's 'sampled-sound' in a DAW? Just like the famous early akai S-samplers, it seemed to add the right grit & punchiness on individual (drum)sounds, as well as summed audio (a protracker mix). The popular advice is to use a bitcrusher but that's usually too much imho. Are there other things to be considered? Certain dithering algorithms? Fake un-antialiasing? :)
I hope you resume this series of videos! They are fantastic!
I'm still waiting for part 2b lol
Me too!!!
+1
loving this series mate. subbed
Dude, this stuff is great. As a dude who made tracker music, just seeing the actual crap people had to do 'back then' just to be able to create samples and then turn that into music on old computers like the Amiga, really makes me respect my favorite musicians who did this crap a whole lot more. Keep this stuff going!
Thanks! Will work on some new stuff soon.
This is why there's so much classic hip-hop and electronic music from that era. With the limitations came creativity. Nowadays people don't even have to try they just buy samples from cymatics, and loop them, done. Everyone's the same
TH-cam's recommended videos feature has been spot on lately - was shown your other video about the Amiga samplers and trackers and loved it (instant sub of course) - not only that but damn your really can seemingly effortlessly knock out a banger regardless of the age of the tech
Awesome subject, great channel tbh - thanks for your time in making these.
Daniel Jones I just finished watching part 1. You said exactly what I wanted to say. 👍
Same for me.
Dude your latest 2 videos are off the scale interesting! I'm a pixel artist (I do a lot of it on an Amiga at the moment like a nomad thing) not a musician but I love music and this was so so interesting. Can't wait for the DSS8 episode :) thank you for all your effort in these videos.
Like a Nomad? lol that sentence needed more devotion.... normal it should say :)
@@vix_in_japan Haha - I knew what you meant! Also - thanks for your channel - it has some fantastic content on it. Especially some of the real-time streams while working on something. I've checked in now and again for the last year :-)
@@CTRIX64 Aww thanks man, glad you enjoy it, always stuns me when people whose creativity I enjoy so much pop in to watch a noodler like me :)
You really should continue this amazing series!
16:00 that synth pulse sound is taken from the film Planes Trains & Automobiles, the hotel room scene where the two main characters share a hotel room for the first time.
I'm lovin' these series. You should complete that "cheesy" House track.
As primitive as amiga sampling may be, its still light years ahead of what pc's could do in the 80s.
PCs were boring office machines in the 80s, who was gaming on them back then ?
LOL. False.
@@vapourmile ?
@@wishusknight3009
You're imagining things.
Ever head of "information availability fallacy"?
It's basically the argument from ignorance: You aren't aware of something therefore it doesn't exist.
For the sake of example:
The CompuSonics DSP-1000 was a professional studio grade PC compatible 16bit digital signal processor and sampler which allowed PC-Based processing and mastering of CD quality audio. It was literally used to improve the quality of CDs.
It was also available to the professional market in 1984. It predated ALL the Amigas.
You should really try looking harder, you obviously won't find something if you aren't looking for it.
@@vapourmile sorry mate, ha was talking about the PC that regular people were using at the time...
by the way
" the CompuSonics DSP-1000 was a VCR-sized desktop unit with stereo I/O, 16-bit converters and a claimed 20 to 20k Hz bandwidth. The format never took off, yet the unit laid the groundwork for other CompuSonics products in the fledgling DAW market - certainly well in its infancy in 1984."
man i was blown away by the videos already and then i realized i know your music from 8bc!! keep on with the series, its never too far into the rabit hole when you know your stuff right
tbh if youre a modern dance music producer these videos are super enlightening on why it doesnt matter if you sample sounds and make your own tracks, the foundation of dance music is people playing samples as their instrument
These have got to be the two best videos I have ever seen on TH-cam. Can't wait for the next.
every few months I come back to this set of videos. Wish you would make more like this!
Amazing and informative. Insane how far we've come.
cant wait for the second part!!
Fantastic video! It really brings back a lot of good memories. The Technosound was my first sampler. I remember having to mail order it from the UK (to Australia). I had to actually mail out a bank cheque to the UK and then wait MONTHS hoping something would show up in my postbox. It's amazing what we could do even with those crazy limitations we had. I still use some sampling techniques I learned from those days.
15:55 Wow, that demo bundled with the software is quite something. It's like a kid randomly hammering on a synthesizer. Or a CD player desperately trying to play a VERY scratched disc.
Sheevlord “Alright lads, we need to create a demo track to go with the software. Only catch is it needs to include a Run-D.M.C. sample and some seagulls.”
AH YEAH! lol
comes to show that the guys that put all the product together.. didn't really know that much about what they were doing.. at least from a musician point of view
Certainly sounds like a demo by coders doesn't it! Although to anyone who was non-musical, it would have still been an impressive demo of what it was capable of I guess!
I've had music teachers who would find all sorts of symbolism and deepness in that track, hahaha
Not only do these two videos have fantastic quality informative content and great production value, but an amazing soundtrack
Dude you can never go too far this rabbit hole, thanks for putting the time in. Made my weekend!
Respect for taking the time to make such a great video.
I wonder how long before you get a copyright strike on your own house tracks because someone thinks they sound similar.
Keep up the great work. Loving your work on the Amiga.
Yeah - I uploaded it in advance and left it for a few days to let the gods check it. I released my old Amiga stuff creative commons but via an aggrigator and it copyright claims everything. I hate it and can't undo it. People wonder why I haven't released music in 6 years and that's why! I keep it to live shows these day :-) Buuuuutt... that might change
@@CTRIX64 Please make that change!
@@CTRIX64 I hear you...I've made a few tunes featuring samples from other people's work, but have not released them for that very reason! I tend to stick to non-descript, single samples for most of my work now
I had one of these as a kid and I loved it. Used it a lot with Octamed which for me was the only music software I ever learned how to use properly. I love all detail you go into here. I had no idea what was inside was so simple.
I had 'Stereo Master' and i loved it.
This video is A-MAZ-ZING!!! It’s just so fascinating to see and hear how all this stuff worked back in the day - I can’t believe how many everyday modern mixing tasks you simply don’t even need to think about?! I mean, not once did you give any thought to using an EQ, a compressor or anything like that haha!? Makes me feel like I’m wasting so much time by constantly wondering which expensive VST channel strip I’m going to use on a drum sample these days…?! Kinda blows my mind! Hope you’ve got more vids like this cos I love it!!
Man, you are such a talent! the low end in your music gorgesly sounding in my BD DT770 headphones. Amazing!
1:09 I can't express how much I like that you left that part in. You check the cable direction and the port direction, but still try to plug it in the wrong way around. Happens to me every single time. Glad to know I am not the only one. :)
Loved this. Perfect amount of detail as I'm an avid synth and electronics enthusiast.
Such a fun trip down memory lane, I remember buying the Stereo Master sampler and recording my cheap electric guitar and making mods in OctaMed. Sampling was still pretty magic back then, and having friends talk in the microphone and playing back their voice sped up was a lot of fun. Hoping you'll get around to part 2 one day, these videos are wonderful documentation of a really interesting time in computer audio!
This series will be the reference for explaining early 90s sampled computer sound technology.
Thanks Telecrate. Behind the entertainment value, there's a certain amount of documentation for histories sake going on too. :-)
Seriously! These are great videos. I got interested in the MOD scene after finding Ilkae's back in 2006 or so. I had already started writing music on piano rolls by this point, so using tracker software felt somewhat limiting, however I really respected what you folks were able to accomplish through those limitations. It's so cool to hear about it all first hand, and you're doing a great job explaining things and producing the videos as well.
I always appreciate the level of effort you take with these videos - delivered with extreme care and diligence to the small details. Kudos, and greetings from Massachusetts!
I extremely love your idea of producing such videos. Simply amazing! Waiting for the next one
Great execution. Top notch production and just my niche.
Can't wait for the next video! Got my Amiga 500 and DSS8 ready!
Mate, I'm loving this series! Can't wait for the DIY episode. In the time between your first return to the amiga 500, I've gotten myself a pretty decent setup, accelerator and all. Only thing missing (ea; still in transit from ebay) is an IDE harddisk.
Definitely going to build myself a sampler. I'm hoping it's gonna be a fairly high quality one, or atleast, if it's "feature complete", there's options to either strip it down to the core or completely pimp it out if you have deep pockets. Coming from fasttracker for msdos, I know I want to go all-in on tracking on the Amiga.
Cheers man, can't wait for more episodes!
Awesome! Let me know if you do make one. Yeah - Fasttracker was and is still amazing. The 4 channel life does make it extra special though :-) The limitations are wild. Also - you can do your sampling on a modern PC and it'll still sound like an Amiga once the samples are shipped over. I might do a video on how I pre-prep samples on the PC side.
@@CTRIX64 Sampling on PC(+Mac?) and shipping over would be interesting. I always end up resampling stuff through the amiga and back into ableton when I want that amiga-ey sound.
Definitely also gonna build a sampler based on the next video, too, as I had one of those cheap ones and it's recently died!
Your video production is crazy, I love the series. keep it up.
Edit:Please keep geeking out, electronics are awesome.
waiting for follow up! please!
I'd say let's go down the rabbit hole as much as we can! Excellent work, keep it up!
Dude I watch all kinds of Amiga vids but this is the first time in six years I found yours. These are great! Start a retro Amiga music series!
This is a brilliant series, i need to see more from this guy
Your videos are the best, Chris! Keep 'em coming!
Your videos about samplers are perfect samplemines
40ms of resolution xD Hard to believe one could make anything useful with that.
Fantastic series you did here ! This is the beginnings of home computer music right there.
Thank you for this video serie on Amiga samplers! It's one of a kind! I have several Amiga samplers myself including (2)DSS+, Audio Engineer +, Aura, (2)Clarity16, Microdeal Voice Master for CDTV, Alcotini sampler - the first hardware I bought for my Amiga 500 back in the days :).
Nice! I couldn't source the Clarity 16 or Aura (wow)... but I've got both the DSS carts I'll take a look at next time!
I don't want to be perky but if you are interested in one of the Clarity 16 samplers to test it and maybe make a review of it let me know.
@@Mute67 Sounds like it could be a part of the 2021 continuation of these videos. The Clarity probably needs to be featured at some point! Would be great to chat :-)
@@CTRIX64 Sure, I have to find a way to contact you about that ;-)
I actually kinda liked that muffled warm sound filter
Wow, this is top notch youtube content! Beside your musical and entertainment talent your knowledge is great and you know how to explain things in a way that is easy to understand (stereo sampling with a mono converter, aliasing etc) I'm waiting for the next part.
Thank you soooo much for this amazing early 90s flashback! So many great memories. I went all the way back then with an Amiga 3000 - took me about 3-4 years to pay off! I had the DSS 8 Digital Sound Studio (you show in the first Intro video) and thought the demo song was one of the most amazing productions I'd ever heard - hoping that when you upload the second video in this series (2b: Mid-Range) you feature the DSS 8 demo song - or even better, upload it as a stand-alone video with the whole song.
Can't wait for the next episode... I had the DSS tracker back then (unofficial copy), and I'd rip off samples from games like Flasback (which songs I could read directly inside DSS!! Even the address of the composer was written inside as a comment). That's the way I did music back in 1994...
I was light years away from the knowledge and means of what you expose here... This is SO amazing, man!!!
Next episode right NOW!
been waiting for part 2 please! It's a trip down memory lane!!!
I didn’t realize how easy and economical it was to make sample based music back then. I remember struggling with a Protools digi 001 that never worked out for me. Now I see why people stuck to Amiga, which I really wanted, and Atari.
The Amiga being able to effectively continuously vary the playback sample rate IN HARDWARE was great.
@@rorz999 LOL. The Amiga's sound chip is explained by the fact an 8bit DAC is one of the cheapest simplest possible circuits to build.
my.eng.utah.edu/~bowen/DAC_Proj/8-bit_r2rdac_current_sources.html
When the Amiga was released FM synthesis was still preferred in professional musical instruments because synthesizers are far more controllable.
What was more ubiquitous in the 1980s, the Amiga or the FM Yamaha DX-7?
th-cam.com/video/WiYa4oUxKR8/w-d-xo.html
Amigas are not famous for being preferred in pro studios. They were the digital equivalent of the already outdated 1963 Mellotron. Except the Mellotron from 23 years before could easily voice more than 4 notes at a time.
th-cam.com/video/N07-YAKtRAw/w-d-xo.html
@@vapourmile I see your point from a studio perspective.... but the Amiga was never a studio device nor marketed to that use-case ever. There was a huge divide between a computer and a studio in the 1980s. The most a studio computer did was control automation or play out simple MIDI data (by 1985) for which the Atari was marketed. Studio's contained $$$,$$$ of gear ... and even a basic sampler cost $$$$. The Amiga was $$$ (note the missing dollar digit!) and was a full computer with the bonus of 4 channel hardware sampler / re-player which could do some amazing things if you were careful and efficient with the sample source. Any studio owner would instantly hear it as 8bit and aliased.
A note on the R2R DAC - which are indeed simple to build - was not what was in the Amiga. The Amiga did a bunch more than just contain a single DAC. Unlike the sample playback cards for other platforms which were essentially a R2R DAC (like the HippoSound for Atari or SoundBlaster on the PC). The Amiga effectively had 4 x 8 bit DACs + 64 volume levels per channel, and as @blargg mentions above - it did varied resampling in hardware meaning that the CPU usage was 0% on audio playback unless you were doing modulation. A single command could trigger a sound effect and it'd just play until you stopped it in code. Even the Sound Blaster on the PC right up until the modern day uses the CPU for audio playback. That's why many Amiga people bought Gravis Ultrasounds if they bought a PC. I remember my dads 486SX/25 couldn't even playback a MOD without sounding fuzzy (as the SoundBlaster was 8 bit rather than 4 x 8bit). Consider the Amiga had an 8mhz CPU back in the old days... to output to a simple R2R DAC would have been impossible if you wanted to do anything (like gameplay) at the same time.
Studio samplers had dedicated processors worth many more times the price of an Amiga and built for the task. To answer your question on the DX - yes it would have been more common to find a DX7 in a studio. But I'd argue in the 1980's the Fairlight / E-mu Emulator and a ton of other digital samplers (often triggering drums and other effects) were just as common as the DX7. The Amiga is essentially a poor-persons Fairlight / Emulator. I do love the DX7 though. Mines currently broken but I'll possibly film a repair video - mostly because when a DX7 goes wrong it makes some of the wildest sounds you will ever hear!
@@CTRIX64That was unfortunately not very informative. Like so many others you seem to have assumed I don't know what I'm talking about. No, I'm a computing professional, and a programmer of the era when the Amiga was popular. So I can and have written programs for the Commodore Amiga, PC and Commodore 64 in the Amiga's day in Assembler. Including sample players, copper lists, etc.
A professional sampler only had one job: To make a single 16bit 44Khz digital recording of a sound. After that it was then processed by hardware which could play polyphonic sound, if needs be. Although in a professional setting, even to this day, samples are usually merely filtered then used as they are. Basslines, drum rhythms, etc.
The Amiga isn't really like a Fairlight. The Fairlight was not as simple as you claim. It provided sound shaping through frequency analyses which are complex even by the standards of today. The Fairlight used synthesising technology based on an FFT algorithm, there is nothing equivalent on an Amiga.
Also, contrary to your claim, the sound chip on the Amiga didn't resample anything. Samples can be played back at different speeds and that is all, so it is rather as simple as I said. You simply set a volume control, point it at a region of memory, set the playback speed, then trigger playback.
There have been attempts to improve on this using real-time software algorithms but an unassisted 68000 doesn't do very well when it comes to shaping sounds coming at it at a maximum of 4x22Khz. The 68000 isn't going to have an easy time modifying samples at a rate of 2 8 bit samples per raster then passing them to chip RAM. It just doesn't have the power. You can get things like 8-voice players, but what's the point? Even a cheap PC consumer sound card like the AdLib has a synthesizer chip with 9 voices onboard hardware processing and 16-bit waveform output. The AdLib is not an exotic device, it's the lowest end ever of the PC audio market.
In short though, yes studio equipment was more expensive. Amiga fans ALWAYS shout "COST!", but it isn't a valid argument. YOU may have had a tight budget but not everybody shares your own budgetary constraints. Mercedes are more expensive than Volkswagen Polos, private planes are more expensive than cars. . It doesn't matter. You don't dictate terms on what other people can afford to own. You can't invalidate something based on an assertion YOU can't afford it. Who cares if it's beyond your price range? Of course studio equipment is more expensive, it's better. It's more capable more sophisticated equipment with far more stable and quiet signal generators.
When people love Amigas they cling to anything the Amiga has done and tout it as extraordinary, purely because it's an Amiga doing it.
What about more generally,?If you aren't emotionally tied to the Amiga? What do people remember in music? The Amiga? Or the Prophet 5, the Roland 303 and 808, the DX-7, the Fairlight, the Clavichord, Moog and Oberheim.
Even in its forte, which was computer games, people remember Sega and Nintendo, Mario and Sonic.
Amiga fans grossly overestimate the Amiga and grossly underestimate everything else. Always trying to claim that anything more expensive doesn't count. No, if you can afford it then its utility is NOT invalidated by its cost.
Why do DGX-2 workstations, TODAY cost £350,000? Why did the Summit supercomputer cost £325,000,000?
Devices are NOT invalidated by the fact you can't afford them, and the fact they are often often more expensive does NOT imply the purchasers of them would be better of with Amigas. Nobody did weather research on a Commodore Amiga.
The Amiga is a cheap consumer toy.
@@vapourmile "The Amiga is a cheap consumer toy."
So many words and your conclusion is to tell us what we already know? News flash: Everyone knows that the Amiga is a cheap consumer toy. This is what it was marketed as (at least the 500). But you compare apples to oranges. The Amiga was not studio equipment nor was it ever marketed as studio equipment. You compare things that wheren't build for private use to a home computer (emphasis lies on "home") that was build to do many things. That doesn't make any sense.
If you want to do a comparison that isn't "private planes vs cars" (what the heck?) you'd need to compare it to something that is in the same field, like PCs or Macs. But you completly miss the point with about every single one of your sentences. Except the one I quoted and which is common knowledge.
@@wohlhabendermanager
"If you want to do a comparison that isn't "private planes vs cars" (what the heck?) you'd need to compare it to something that is in the same field, like PCs or Macs"
LOL. No I don't.... the no true Scotsman fallacy in disguise, again.
Yeah.... "If you want to compare the Amiga to anything else the only things you're allowed to compare it to are things like the Amiga, you know, like the Amiga".
You can rule out ANYTHING ELSE as "not the same thing as an Amiga" comparison because obviously the only thing truly "the same thing" as a Commodore Amiga is the same Commodore Amiga. Your argument is "The only way to make a fair assessment it to preemptively discount from consideration that isn't a commodore Amiga".
No, sorry, that's bullshit.
I can venture exactly the same in return: If I want a Cray supercomputer then I don't have to compare it to anything except Cray supercomputers. Microcomputers need not apply.
There is literally nothing about an Amiga that means you MUST consider it and reject other things. Having considered it, if you want SOMETHING ELSE, example: Something more powerful than an Amiga, then it's very easily ruled out.
When I set up a CGI department in the late 1980s we have £21 million to spend. Know how many Amigas we used? None.
You probably can feasibly make an album entirely on Garage Band on an iPhone, but there's no fucking point and it's stupid to imply when making a choice you Must select from tools a bit like Garage Band, because it obviously isn't true and that fact explains why people don't: They can get something more suitable instead.
The idea the only things you can take into consideration when making a purchase are things matching the exact description of a Commodore Amiga is fucking stupid. What if you *don't* want an Amiga because it *Doesn't* fit your specification?
"The only things you're allowed to choose from are those things which fit the description of the Amiga" is clearly stupid and wrong.
When people go out to buy a Bugatti or Lamborghini they *can* weight it up against a Ford Fiesta if they want to but it's fucking stupid to suggest that, having done so, they are then forced to make a selection from something in the same price bracket as a Fiesta. They don't. That's my point. Nobody who wants to own a helicopter *must* choose a scooter instead.
"You're can make a free choice, only your choice has to fit the size and shape of scooter because that's what I had!". No, that has never been true.
Hey Mate.I gather you've been busy. Have the next Amiga next videos come out yet? Am looking forward to the Mid Range vid. Love the vids.
another amazing video, well done mate. youtube recommended you to me for some reason, and i watched on a whim because i used to be pretty into this kind of technology. but although i no longer am very interested in it, you make it all so incredibly interesting and fun to watch!
I'm back to being a 16 year old again, with my 4 track and oscilloscope connected to the A500 (and later A1200). Super content - can't wait for part 2.
Still waiting for the part 3!
For an old school amiga user who's thinking about trying out sampling on one this is totally on point! Looking forward to the rest, especially the DIY one even though I've got a Technosound Turbo. :)
Great video! Think I’ve seen it maybe 4 times by accident. Really looking forward to the next part!
Very Interesting.
Did you not do the next part ? Or has it been lost ?
You're spoiling us with these.
Excellent, just excellent. I had a cheapie mono sampler, with a British flag on it (but I can't remember what it was called), which I used with my Amiga 500 (and later, the Amiga 3000). It was absolutely awful, but with heavy EQ applied to the output of what I was sampling, the results became surprisingly usable.
Thanks again for this terrific series of videos; I can't wait to see the next part!
Cursing TH-cam that I can't give more than one thumb to this series. Really well done mate.
These videos are absolute gold, mate
Great! The more technical, the better! I can't go back to the more entry-level, generalist videos now.
Hahahaha.... love it. I totally just visted your web page too. It's on point. That secret page on the SNES launch is magic! Next video is kinda looking semi technical too... but more a look at software.
Would love to see you get into the technicalities of some of the particular aliasing /crunch/compression character people associate with the Amiga sound, for example it’s really clear often in the high end on string or wind samples, which you hear in the Shadow of the Beast or Another World soundtracks.
Great idea! That's almost all aliasing - it's to do with the Square waveform. Maybe in the next episode I'll hook up a scope and we'll take a look :-)
Great idea! That's almost all aliasing - it's to do with the Square waveform. Maybe in the next episode I'll hook up a scope and we'll take a look :-)
This series is great fun to watch!
I used to have an A.M.A.S sampler for my Amiga back in the day and would use it to make samples for use in the tracker software.
I had no idea how interesting I would find this!
Looking forward for Pt 2b and the Bonus!
Props on the Run DMC sample identifications!
Technosound was my weapon of choice. Man I almost miss all this stuff. Maschine, Reason, Ableton are great... But not as much fun honestly
I had the Stereo Master. It did okay. I only ever used the supplied software for using the realtime effects. When sampling I'd use the Audiomaster III by Aegis and MED (Later Octomed).
So watching this really brought back some memories.
Slight correction. Signed byte goes from -128 to 127. Not -127 to 127.
trapexit unless you design to have a signed 0
@@flavienvolken3733 True. Could be 1's complement. Though that's not very common.
@@spawnlink Thanks for that info! While I was editing this my brain went "hang on, 127+127 is 254 bits in total... the zero is another... where's the missing bit?!" I meant to look it up but just kept editing. For all the years looking at datasheets I've never taken note which way the extra bit swings; and I'll now forever know it's on the negative side. Much appreciated correction! It's wild to think I've coded an 8bit wave editing tool and never looked this up (although my center line at 128 would have still been ok; and my clipping logic was just clamped at 0 and 255)
8:26 what is that track?
I remember seeing a presser about your concert using the Amiga. Amazing! I used to use a DSS8+ all the time. I believe I still have it!
15:49 was a real treat! Watched that part back a few times.
this was awesome.. and very interesting to see that every sampling-circuit added a different character to a sampled sound!
i hope you do the other parts too, soonish.. i would like to make my own HQ DIY amiga sampler :D
Man... We need this channel active!!
Best description of aliasing ever!
Love this vid! We've come a long way.
I hope Part 2 will come soon, im really really interested what comes next. :)
oi Ctrix, firstly mad video. second finally some respect for my first love the k1. k1ii from Hornsby cash converters cheers dad. met john chowning down the track and he wasn't aware of that lil fm guru but was nice to chat to him about fm being the first form of sound synthesis i learned in a weird way it all makes sense. wrote a bunch of stuff on the mt32 ages ago too im sitting here with my aptiva d-20 ms2000 and mt32 and would only be happier if i had a k1
It's nice to remember that back in the days people were referring to these devices as "(audio) digitizers" while the term "sampler" meant more a device like an AKAI S900/S1000 or similar :)
The AD7576 used in those cheap samplers was the 'cheapest' iteration of the chip from Analog devices and it did have missing codes meaning at a quite spot, the ADC would hop 2-3 codes on the 8-bit up and down with a fixed void in the middle making that hiss between your speech 2-3x worse than it should be. In the day, I tried wiring the top 8bits of a 250$ 16bit ADC IC to my Amiga's parallel port and that 'squeltching' on and off hiss between the speech was almost eliminated, like 3x quieter with actual sound in there instead of the abrupt on and off hiss of the AD7576 in those cheap samplers. So, the Amiga was actually capable of better reproduction than the samples we ended up with those 50-100$ samplers boxes. It's sad since most Amiga sampled audio in games was actually done with a load of hiss which shouldn't have been as bad as it was by a factor of around 3 fold.
Will you ever get to part 2b & the bonus? Would love to hear your thoughts on the open source sampler that's out there
3 years later and still waiting the part 2... Otherwise great stuff :)
Awesome info.
Awesome video
Awesome Amiga 👍
Good old days. How i miss them.😢
Episode 2 . Bring it on 😆
Superb. Never used a sampler but love early rave tunes that were often made on such equipment,. Did my degree in electronic engineering so really interesting. Subscribed....
I had and may still have a Megalosound, similar size to the small stereo MASTER unit. Limited by the RAM on an A500 but on the A1200 +8mb RAM exp and a MASSIVE!! 1GB hard drive, space was no longer an issue.
Copying a CD across from the A500/A570 to the A1200 using a parallel cable took about 24 hours though... Adding a 4x CD drive to the A1200 had the shopkeeper telling me its for a PC and will not work on the Amiga. If he knew it did work he would probably have quadrupled the price. I moved to a PC because the parts were so much cheaper. Sub £50 modem for a PC or hundreds of £'s for an Amiga one.
I love your videos !! Really inspiring , please continue to create more !! 😍
Your series seems to have ended suddenly. What happened?
Amiga was the greatest line of home computers of all time.
Are the remaining parts going to happen? It might be worth checking out the Open Amiga Sampler that @echolevel @mnstrmnch and myself @abrugsch (all twitter/Instagram/github handles) are working on. It's a DIY design in the vein of these cheap samplers that we're making into super small card that won't cost the ludicrous amounts that original hardware now fetches
10:25 'and you can start to hear the crunch come back in there' YES exactly what some sounds & genres need :)
We never had a Master sound in the 90s but I know that demo song. I assume it came out on an Amiga Format disk or something for us to have had it?
Anyone notice that sample from Lost Again - Yello at 16:00?
Another Absolutely fantastic video - so informative and beautifully put together - subbing for sure
12:53 I think this is a new genre.. wonkwave :O
Recently got an Akai S3000XL for £95. Bit dated today but makes me realise how lucky we are to get this hardware at an even cheaper cost😂 Loving this series hoping to see an update soon. Subscribed
@cTrix great vid. question: what would be your advice to re-create amiga's 'sampled-sound' in a DAW?
Just like the famous early akai S-samplers, it seemed to add the right grit & punchiness on individual (drum)sounds, as well as summed audio (a protracker mix).
The popular advice is to use a bitcrusher but that's usually too much imho. Are there other things to be considered? Certain dithering algorithms? Fake un-antialiasing? :)
Where’s part 2b and the bonus?
Hey brother what's that Eyoyo display you're using for the Amiga?
Very interesting. I'm looking for the next amiga samplers videos ! Personaly I have a trilogic sampler. I never opened it !