Driving Old Computers Vie Midi With Modern Daws Or Vice Versa

[THE INTRANCER]

Has anyone here ventured into doing this hybrid connectivity thing ?

I've got an Amiga 1200 sat on my desk which can run Octamed Sound Studio. (A tracker in case anyone doesn't know what that is). I had a Midi Interface for it, but I'm not sure if it is still working.

The idea is to link Studio One, so tracker music could be sent to a track or tracks.

I've never seen any youtube video's attempting this, although I'd imagine many would have chosen an Atari ST for this or some other sequencer.

Can Studio One act as a slave DAW ? That's another question... I vaguely recall that it doesn't. Anyway I thought for those who have older setups might like to give it a go just for fun and to post a video of it.

As an offshoot video, here's the Atari ST...

[BertKoor]

For crying out loud: Double-You Ache Wye?

There are though some issues that imho need to be addressed. Firstly your mention of the Octamed tracker on your Amiga. A tracker triggers samples to be played by itself. I'm yet to see a tracker that either emits midi messages or can receive them.

The Commodore Amiga did not have a midi port. Sure you could buy one to hook up externally. But far more popular was the Atari ST. That one came with a midi port and in many studios in the late eighties / early nineties you'd see them in use with Cubase v3: a proper midi sequencer, not a tracker.

Sure, technically it is possible to use Cubase v3 on an old Atari ST as your main sequencer, hook it up via 5-pole DIN to your modern computer and let that play the stuff. But why use a full DAW on the slave computer, all you need it to do is forward the midi data to a VST plugin. Horses for courses. You can use VSTHost (formerly MiniHost) from Hermann Seib for that. It does one thing and does it well.

But if you have a modern PC with plugins, then why use an old sequencer. Give me one proper reason apart from because you can.

There are some severe downsides to this due to technical limitations of this ancient technology. Firstly the graphical resolution of the Atari ST was 640x400 monochrome pixels. How does that look on your 4k monitor. Then the midi hardware protocol. It is a 31250 baud connection. 31250 bits per second are sent continuously over the line and because a byte had 8 bits + a start & stop bit you could send 3125 bytes per second.

With a typical note on message consisting of 3 bytes that meant you could send about 1000 of them in a second. Or rather the timing precision was 1/1000th of a second. Start with a base drum. It lands solid on time. Add snare & hihats. They are by definition 1/1000th of a second early or late because with MIDI you can only send one message across the line, other messages are waiting in queue. The solution to that was to also include Timing Clock messages that were sent 24 times per quarter note. With a tempo of 120BMP (2 quarters per second) that's 48 Timing Clock messages, each of a single byte. That leaves you with 20 note-on (or off) messages that could be sent in between the Timing Clock messages.

Anyway, it's a needlessly convoluted way of production. Why

[allofdrab]

I have. I use a PowerBook 140 running MusicMouse and M to control hardware and modern software synths on occasion. Mark of the Unicorn MIDI Timepiece AV interface. The PowerBook trackball works well with MusicMouse.

[vurt]

into this house we're born
into this world we're thrown.
riders of the daw.

[Teksonik]

I've owned both Atari ST's and an Amiga and I would go with the Atari. Amigas were crap in comparison.

But it does bring up an interesting point. Certainly you could control an older computer (PC or Mac obviously) loaded up with some soft synths through midi (of course providing you have all the hardware connections like Midi I/O, Audio Out).

Which would basically turn that computer into a hardware synth module (stop typing, yes we all know the difference between that and a dedicated hardware unit).

There would be no difference in sending midi in and getting audio out of that computer than there would be in sending same to a dedicated rackmount or keyboard hardware synth. The latency down a Midi cable would be the same for each one and assuming your other computer has the specs to perform at low latency.

I have the computers and interfaces to do that here but since I have several rackmount synths that I never even power up these days I have no need to turn one of my old computers into a satellite unit.

But yea if you've got the needed hardware then bringing some purpose to old computers is certainly possible.

[THE INTRANCER]

For crying out loud: Double-You Ache Wye?

There are though some issues that imho need to be addressed. Firstly your mention of the Octamed tracker on your Amiga. A tracker triggers samples to be played by itself. I'm yet to see a tracker that either emits midi messages or can receive them.

The Commodore Amiga did not have a midi port. Sure you could buy one to hook up externally. But far more popular was the Atari ST. That one came with a midi port and in many studios in the late eighties / early nineties you'd see them in use with Cubase v3: a proper midi sequencer, not a tracker.

Sure, technically it is possible to use Cubase v3 on an old Atari ST as your main sequencer, hook it up via 5-pole DIN to your modern computer and let that play the stuff. But why use a full DAW on the slave computer, all you need it to do is forward the midi data to a VST plugin. Horses for courses. You can use VSTHost (formerly MiniHost) from Hermann Seib for that. It does one thing and does it well.

But if you have a modern PC with plugins, then why use an old sequencer. Give me one proper reason apart from because you can.

There are some severe downsides to this due to technical limitations of this ancient technology. Firstly the graphical resolution of the Atari ST was 640x400 monochrome pixels. How does that look on your 4k monitor. Then the midi hardware protocol. It is a 31250 baud connection. 31250 bits per second are sent continuously over the line and because a byte had 8 bits + a start & stop bit you could send 3125 bytes per second.

With a typical note on message consisting of 3 bytes that meant you could send about 1000 of them in a second. Or rather the timing precision was 1/1000th of a second. Start with a base drum. It lands solid on time. Add snare & hihats. They are by definition 1/1000th of a second early or late because with MIDI you can only send one message across the line, other messages are waiting in queue. The solution to that was to also include Timing Clock messages that were sent 24 times per quarter note. With a tempo of 120BMP (2 quarters per second) that's 48 Timing Clock messages, each of a single byte. That leaves you with 20 note-on (or off) messages that could be sent in between the Timing Clock messages.

Anyway, it's a needlessly convoluted way of production. Why

Firstly your mention of the Octamed tracker on your Amiga. A tracker triggers samples to be played by itself. I'm yet to see a tracker that either emits midi messages or can receive them.

Octamed versions 4, 5, 6 and Octamed Sound Studio allow you to not only use samples but send midi note data. Octamed Sound Studio also felicitates the ability to save and send bulkdump data back and forth between synthesizers and modules and save it to disk. This is what I did back in the mid 1990's with my Yamaha PSR 330 and Yamaha DJX synths which was a big step forward in creating compositions with higher track counts and audio quality.

Software wise, the Amiga had advanced sequencers such as Bars and Pipes Professional and others such as Tiger Cub Sequencer. Bars & Pipes was as equally capable as anything you would find in Cubase 3 and it was far nicer to look at. Using trackers such as with Sound Studio to drive external hardware was easier, faster and more powerful with the addition of sample playback and editing that you have in one program.

Until the Atari Falcon made it's appearance with a better sound chip, the Amiga was far better, although it was possible to add a 16 bit soundcard. The Amiga supported higher screen resolutions than the Atari ST although you would need a multisync capable monitor to be able to use it. Today you can get upscalers to use high resolution on HD displays.

There are advantages in using older hardware with new hardware as shown in this example video.

[THE INTRANCER]

I've owned both Atari ST's and an Amiga and I would go with the Atari. Amigas were crap in comparison.

I owned a Mega ST and an Amiga 500 before the 1200. The ST was the first machine I had an actual hard disk drive with. But in almost every way, the Amiga was a superior machine until the later and last few models arrived. Some games ran slightly faster on an ST like Outrun with it's slightly faster clock speed. The creativity software was better on Amiga, although I did have fun using CAD programs on the Mega ST.

[Teksonik]

I don't know about your Amiga 500 but mine crashed all the time and it was brand new. If someone offered me one of those two computers today I'd choose the Atari without a moment's hesitation since it was a far better machine for music production.

[andrewbrewer]

I’ve met at least one person that would make music with more than one old computer. His technique was to run them simultaneously no sync just same tempos. What little clock drift was there was not noticeable by the time songs ended (3-5 mins ish)

[THE INTRANCER]

[jancivil]

to each their own

[Tj Shredder]

I have. I use a PowerBook 140 running MusicMouse and M to control hardware and modern software synths on occasion. Mark of the Unicorn MIDI Timepiece AV interface. The PowerBook trackball works well with MusicMouse.

M is still sold and maintained by cycling, no need to torture an old Powerbook. I would try to run MusicMouse in an emulator or just create something similar in Max…

[allofdrab]

M is still sold and maintained by cycling, no need to torture an old Powerbook.

Cycling 74's M is 32 bit only. I'm in 64 bit Catalina land, but you bring up a reasonable suggestion. I'll look into whether I can get M working on my machine via a VM.

Perhaps there'll be a sale on Parallels AND M this Cyber Monday.

I'd have to purchase M ($79) again (I own the version I run on my old PowerBook), but I appreciate Cycling 74 have maintained it all these years. Still, I'd take a sale price.

I also own MusicMouse.

I would try to run MusicMouse in an emulator or just create something similar in Max…

Last I explored a Classic Mac emulator (SheepShaver) it wasn't up to the task, but that was a while ago; time for a revisit.

As for creating something similar in Max, well, yes; that would be a good project for me actually, though I'd likely start with Reaktor or Bidule (my comfort zones).

I have been eyeing the Max 8 Crossgrade.

Funny thing is, though my little Mac System 7 setup isn't perfect, it works pretty well, and I like having the separate hardware interface.

Nevertheless!
I recommend checking out this this browser-based version of MusicMouse:
https://teropa.info/musicmouse/

[allofdrab]

For me, the main attraction of old software is the algorithmic composition tools; unique computer-aided composition software of yesteryear that has no current counterpart.
This is why I appreciate Cycling 74 maintained M all these years.
May we have a 64 bit version please!

That said, my impression is much of this type of software, released in the late 80's or early 90's, was produced for the Atari ST.

Tim's Atari MIDI World provides a pretty good list of Atari ST "Algorithmic Applications" for anyone interested:
http://atari-music.fddvoron.name/timidi.htm

It's nice to see Tim Conrardy's site is still maintained.
RIP Tim.

[Tj Shredder]

I'd have to purchase M ($79) again (I own the version I run on my old PowerBook), but I appreciate Cycling 74 have maintained it all these years. Still, I'd take a sale price.

On Cyclings site they say previous owners should send an e-mail…

Last I explored a Classic Mac emulator (SheepShaver) it wasn't up to the task, but that was a while ago; time for a revisit.

I have been eyeing the Max 8 Crossgrade.

I recommend checking out this this browser-based version of MusicMouse:
https://teropa.info/musicmouse/

Yeah, tried in Sheepshaver, but it didn’t work and then came across the web based musicmouse. It shouldn’t be too hard to recreate it in Max or Bitwig. Might be a good weekend project…
Maybe I should make a M4L device…