*glee*

a colleague of mine at work is giving me an atari ST1040 with midi and cubase for fucking NOTHING

sell it!

not a chance; there's a reason people like mike p and vibert stuck with the st for years

  Quote

Music / Sound

The ST was the first home computer with built-in MIDI ports, and there was plenty of MIDI-related software for use professionally in music studios, or by amateur enthusiasts. The popular Windows/Macintosh applications Cubase and Logic Pro originated on the Atari ST (the latter as Notator Logic, preceded by Creator, Notator and Notator-SL). Another popular and powerful ST music sequencer application, Dr. T's KCS, contained a "Multi-Program Environment" that allowed ST users to run other applications, such as the synthesizer patch editing software XoR (now known as Unisyn on the Macintosh), from within the sequencer application.[1] Even today some people (such as Fatboy Slim) are still using the Atari ST for composing music.

Music tracker software was popular on the ST, such as the TCB Tracker, aiding the production of quality music from the Yamaha synthesizer ('chiptunes').

An innovative music composition program that combined the sample playing abilities of a tracker with conventional music notation (which was usually only found in MIDI software) was called Quartet (after its 4-note polyphonic tracker, which displayed one monophonic stave at a time on colour screens).

Due to the ST having comparatively large amounts of memory for the time, sound sampling packages became a realistic proposition. The Microdeal Replay Professional product featured a sound sampler that cleverly used the ST cartridge port to read in parallel from the cartridge port from the ADC. For output of digital sound, it used the on-board frequency output, set it to 128 kHz (inaudible) and then modulated the amplitude of that.

Another program that had good success on the ST platform was MasterTracks Pro from Passport Designs, of Half Moon Bay, CA., that was first put out by Don Williams for the Macintosh. When the ST died, a PC version continued that one could port MIDI to using the generic .MID format. Passport was bought out by GVox, which continues the program along with the other Passport product, the notation program Encore.

In addition to the sound sampling functionalities, the availability of software packages with MIDI support for music composition and efficient sound analysis contributed to make the Atari ST a forerunner of later computer-based all-in-one studios.

The ST's low cost, built-in MIDI ports, and fast, low-latency response times made it a favorite with musicians:

The Fatboy Slim album You've Come A Long Way, Baby has an Atari ST in the large foldout picture of Fatboy Slim's studio.

Highly acclaimed electronic music artists Mike Paradinas and Luke Vibert started out writing music on Atari STs.

Mike Oldfield's album Earth Moving album notes state that it was recorded using an Atari ST and C-Lab MIDI software.

In the Paris performance of Jean Michel Jarre's album Waiting for Cousteau, musicians have attached Atari ST machines with unidentified MIDI software to their keyboards, as could be seen in the TV live show and video recordings.

White Town's "Your Woman", which reached #1 in the UK singles charts, was created using an Atari ST.[citation needed]

All the drums MIDI files for The Berzerker's self-titled debut album were written on an Atari.

though i've always wanted to give one of these a spin, i have the feeling i'd use it for ten minutes and run screaming back to my quad-core PC. old (computer) tech tends to be more of a pain in the ass than it's worth

let me know if i'm wrong.

edit: just as there's a reason vibert and mike p used it for years, i'm sure there's a reason they stopped using it.

it would be surreal for me to use the Atari ST version of cubase, ive only been using it since the windows 95 version

yeah you use what you know. they used it because they knew it.

still *thumbs up*

sell it

  On 10/23/2009 at 10:22 PM, Awepittance said:

it would be surreal for me to use the Atari ST version of cubase, ive only been using it since the windows 95 version

there's a stochastic/generative sequencer for ST i forget the name of but intend to investigate whcih i reckon you'd be interested in robbie.

also it reads pc formatted disks so i can download shit to my heart's content :)

also i just love accumulating decrepit old hardware :) i'm after a c64 at the moment too.

thats great it reads PC formatted disks , thats one of the biggest pains in the ass when dealing with things like the commodores or other obscure older computer shit. i have a commodore 128 and a vic20 im about to sell, the 128 is basically a 64 with more memory, has the same sid chip and everything. pm me if you're interested, i have a crap load of accessories i can throw in as well

Cubase for ST is the business. A lot of fun to be had resetting the cycle in and out points while the sequence is running. I really wish I had one of the MIDEX expanders, but they're pretty hard to come by. Might be a bit easier to find in Europe. I've always wanted to give Cubase Audio a go, but I'll be damned if I'm paying $400+ for a Falcon.

  On 10/23/2009 at 11:27 PM, Awepittance said:

thats great it reads PC formatted disks , thats one of the biggest pains in the ass when dealing with things like the commodores or other obscure older computer shit. i have a commodore 128 and a vic20 im about to sell, the 128 is basically a 64 with more memory, has the same sid chip and everything. pm me if you're interested, i have a crap load of accessories i can throw in as well

dude, those things are bricks. i live in ireland. the shipping would fuckin kill me.