And a friend had one of these, which I went round to his house to Midi together. Gorgeous string sounds when you mixed both keyboards together.
Re: Reaping the Ebay harvest
Posted: 25/07/2013 - 1:23
by Commie_User
Ah the glorious earlier days of the kids' home studios. I remember seeing those Amstrad ads and being completely blown away as a boy. Your own four track, in a hifi? Surely that must be the pinnacle of the stereo draftman's powers. The most advanced ever.
Just a lump of plastic to look at it today. And the decks must have hissed like hell.
I'd be interested to hear what's on those old tapes if you're happy to post them. Just thinking back, it must have felt like pioneer times to the average person.
Plus a touch of MIDI, combining two keyboard sounds? What a liberation the 80s were.
And now look at what I'm doing - building a complete digital kit, then embellishing it with copious cheap video game accessories just for the thrill.
Re: Reaping the Ebay harvest
Posted: 25/07/2013 - 9:02
by Chris Abbott
Much of the stuff I did on those tapes was actually released in MP3 form as bonus tracks on the first version of the BIT 1 CD-ROM extra. They'd probably digitise and compress a bit better now, but to do it from the original 4-track you'd have to sample the left and right from side and side 2, then reverse side 2 and slide around until it was synced again...
Re: Reaping the Ebay harvest
Posted: 25/07/2013 - 10:48
by Commie_User
Oh yes, you released stuff.
I think it's always worth keeping your tapes. Though given the drift of capstan motors, I know it's rarely a good idea to dub tracks separately as it wastes a lot of time marking points and time-stretching on the computer. But look who I'm telling.
And I read how Giles Martin syncronised all those Beatle parts from a spread of tapes and was staggered by how time consuming it must have been. And staggered just how much drift even a J37 must have had.
Re: Reaping the Ebay harvest
Posted: 29/07/2013 - 12:24
by Commie_User
And I think it's really exciting to see the world of gigging or studio work and gaming actually come together now. Composition and the gaming approach paid off with Instant Music, Band In A Box or Music Mouse, the kind of start inevitable when home computers were meant for gaming.
Now let's see what you can have taking Band Hero to the next level:
Ubisoft Rocksmith PS3 video game - motivating gameplay for beginners experienced players, every guitar with a pickup can be connected to your console (cable included), difficulty is adjusted dynamic to player's skill, with music from Rolling Stones, The Cure and Lynyrd Skynyrd with the latest Hits from The Strokes, Muse and Sigur Ros and more.
Rocksmith turns your console in a full-fledged Thomann amp complete with in-game amp models, cabinets and pedals, multiplayer mode enables you to play coop as rhythm- and lead-guitarist or duels against each other, mini-games help to improve your skills on the fretboard, software and cable included.
I thought I saw enough when World Tour gave you a sequencer and simple controller instrumentation, drum pad games at least helping you practice or when Music 3000 gave you a sampler and Melodyne-style sound-to-notation facility. Now we've software which isn't merely a PC tool for a console.
I honestly believe going down this road will bring us more really imaginative studio apps. And completely set the seal on video consoles being truly studio essential.
..So as an appendix, I fancy ranking my PS2 music software in order of usability in the studio. Especially running from the digital out.
Enjoy your PS2 music: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3154903.stm
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FREQUENCY and AMPLITUDE - An interesting electro forerunner of Guitar Hero, played with the gamepad. Follow the beats, improve co-ordination and maybe use those moves in session somehow. All the buttons you need are within arc of thumb and you're really pulled into the groove. Can't make your own music or solo sounds for sampling though.
POP IDOL - Similar to the above, catching the Sony symbols moving through the crosshair. Get it wrong and you sing a bum note, which doesn't help when some songs appear misprogrammed. Even in Easy with some songs, 'misses' are served when notes were clearly caught. But I suppose you can dodge certain songs when auditioned in advance. Fun enough. (Though in the future, I'd like to see ways to input your own lyrics for a console game to sing. Such decent enough tech' is available.)
DANCE: UK - Better with the dance mat but you do have a nice time hitting the D-pad the way the arrows tell you. Nice selection of tracks and well synchronised. Good for the fingers.
ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS - Just like Pop Idol, but you catch stars which aren't even sync'ed, so you miss out on playing with timing skills. Also crippled by mal-assigned buttons which can't be remapped. Some interesting renditions of classic rock songs but the game's only so-so.
Most GUITAR HERO titles - Lots of fun rockin' and can also mute the crowd and solo the backing tracks or guitar. The controllers actually help basic timing and fingering, which should be handy on a bass. Also, unlocking all the songs with a cheat to pick through the albums is a nice touch. I just like finding the tracks I want.
Playstation sequencers such as MUSIC, MTV MUSIC GENERATOR and others of the range with different names, plus MAGIX MUSIC MAKER - Nice onboard sounds and effects but too fiddly to even operate fluidly, at least I found. Best to sample the sounds and loops and make something with them on the PC. Though I did find EJAY so unusable that all I can do is just grab the samples.
Also, DJ DECKS AND FX is a sweet (yet limited) realtime mixing sequencer in the form of onscreen DJ equipment. Throw together music that doesn't go anywhere with the bundled loops, backing tracks, vocals, internal sampler and effects. A nice ten minute break for someone, as no piano roll saps any serious play with it.
MUSIC GENERATOR 2 and MUSIC 3000 - Still in the land of fiddly but I can do more in the piano roll, plus grab the sampler for retro quality in-between something for the Amiga and 15-year old standard soundcards. Another dongle Blu-Tacked to the machine, with the Band Hero Paul McCartney guitar and drumpad receivers. Kind-of looks the biz for it too.
GUITAR HERO WORLD TOUR - As above but also featuring the step sequencer, recording studio and compatibility with drum set and MIDI. If I'm using the console as a musical instrument, this is the way to go to squeeze quite a lot from the bottle. Especially when also porting solo axe samples to the PC, but that's probably not what they allow. Ssssh.
MAGIX MUSIC MAKER ROCKSTAR - Closest thing to a DAW you can get on the console, or perhaps a nearest equivalent to the MSSIAH. With sampling, piano roll, drumbox and visuals, all held together by a rompler timeline with mixer and effects, I have here an easy to use fun package which I eagerly anticipate using for overdubs and cuts.
It also takes the guitar controllers but sadly not for a Tour-style jam. Nothing's missed using just the standard controller, though it does take the ubiqitous USB mikes.
Wouldn't the IEEE mostly connect to dot matrix printers (parallel)? Either that or it was for disk drives... without cheating and looking up in Wikipedia that's the best I can do...
Re: Reaping the Ebay harvest
Posted: 06/08/2013 - 20:09
by Commie_User
I only thought the PET series needed all that, especially if you wanted to network I suppose.
I always did think IEEE was quite irrelevant on the 64 as the serial and user ports interfaced perfectly well.
And I don't think SHREDZ 64 will go amiss either. Especially when playing games with the Playstation controller or guitar, or just having fun controlling other music programs with the axe.
I remember rescuing two compact ghetto blasters from a neighbourhood rubbish skip. An older boy tricked me into giving him one by saying I still needed permission from the householder to take them. He said he'd do it for me, that being the price of getting me out of 'trouble'. As soon as I walked off I knew I'd been had, but I liked him so didn't get it back.
Hmmm. And hi-fi packages were certainly coming along by the early 1980s, though separates could still be ahead in terms of build and quality.
And this late-80s hardware list is an impressive showing of just how close the 1988 range was to the variety we have today. Just with less able computers and fewer items then, though the ad also leaves off VCRs and such.
Nothing like rose-tinted specs, though as a boy around then I'd've thought any computer would have been a gizzilion times as magical as anything I'd ever have felt ready to use.
But looking back, what could anyone do at home on one, outside games and the object of discovering a computer for itself? For most of the '80s there was little of affordable use, the online world was far from ubiquitous and nobody even did their home accounts in the real world, far as I know.
Re: Reaping the Ebay harvest
Posted: 09/08/2013 - 22:43
by Commie_User
And given my MPS disappointment today ( viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9937 ), there's only one way to cure a missed printer frenzy.
...and that's to try another printer frenzy. Or at least just look at a bunch of printers.
I still don't buy the Paul McCartney "Dies, replaced by Billy Shears" thing. There were some intriguing photos which appeared to show his head had changed shape and his eyes had moved relative to each other, but there are others which don't show that.
