What is your computer music history?

[MaxSynths]

Commodore 64 and some music software.

My friend had a C 64 in 1988, but I never called it "music" what came out of it...it rather sounded like a bad peep show...

Elektron SID Station took the C64' MOS6581 sound chip to the max.

https://soundcloud.com/elektron/cortex-83

[mcnelson]

Music (Playstation)
Music 2000 (Playstation)
Tracktion 1
Tracktion 2
Tracktion 3
Ableton Live

[Numanoid]

Downloading some old C64 mags from archive.org, I saw this add from Dec 89

Cubase test almost 25 years ago Sorry, Virtuoso, you have been lost in time, like tears in the rain...


Would love to read, but don't think that is available at archive.org?

[toddhisattva]

Sometime around 1980 I wrote a live performance instrument program for the Apple ][ based on Paul Lutus's example code for beeps in the Apple red manual. Around the same time I started with algorithmic music with a FORTH version called 'Forte' (also by Lutus?). I improved my live synth with NOPs for tuning, PWM, PWM intermodulation, and stereo. Sub-millisecond latency, amazing what you can do when you have the computer's undivided attention. Published source code in Apple user group newsletters, a kind of snail-mail-and-Xerox-machine internet.

Then electric guitar. Computer music languished while I made loud nasty noises. Learned Fourier and IR working for DARPA on RF filters. Used a Mac as a jam session noisemaker can't really call it music. Messed with Tascam PortaSounds and similar consumer-grade analog mixing/recording devices. Got jobs in the computer game industry that made me too familiar with SoundBlaster etc. and General MIDI.

Around the turn of the century I got Myriad-Online's excellent Harmony Assistant/Virtual Singer on my G3 Macs and am using it to this day as my notation editor and backing vocalists of choice.

In 2004 I was in a PeeCee phase and decided to make music with it. "Discovered" VSTs and went nuts. Was DAW-less using Hermann Seib's SimpleVSTHost and Audacity, then got Reaper.

Still nuts.

[do_androids_dream]

Commodore 16 - copying out the sound programs from the manual and changing the notes to make new tunes - that was when i was about 8 or 9... Then the same thing with a Commodore 64... Then I got hold of an Atari 520ST and used a tracker for a while around 1990 (really can't remember what it was called)... Then there was a big gap of about 10 years after which I started using a pc with a very early version of Fruityloops and Cubasis Go!... Then got into Reason 2.5 and finally settled upon Reaper as my weapon of choice since around 2007. During the last 10 years I've messed about with Bidule, Audiomulch and Abox2 as well.

[thecontrolcentre]

Atari 1040 STe running Pro-12 (which I still have) ... then Cubase on the Atari. Switched to a PC running Acid Pro around 2003, then Ableton Live 5 (when they introduced vst support). Been using Live ever since.

[SuitcaseOfLizards]

Chiptunes with C64 and Basic.
Few more with Atari 130XE.
The got a nice IBM PC.
Started playing with Cakewalk for DOS, driving my Roland U-20.
Somewhere in there, got Logic Silver for Windows with that nasty parallel port dongle.
Then Apple bought Logic, and I was back to Cakewalk.
Somewhere in there I found Acid Pro.
Then work ended on Acid Pro, so I found Tracktion. You all know where THAT went.
So then Acid Music Studio, and then Sonar X3.

This instant - 90% Tracktion 5, 10% SONAR X3.

[Numanoid]

My biggest regret of the 90's is that I went for hardware instead of buying an Amiga

I didn't have that much money back then, and felt limited on a barebones hardware setup.

Instead of buying an Alesis SR-16 drum machine, I could have got myself an Amiga, and been able to do so much more with that