Down memory lane: Music Hardware I almost had as a kid

It's Christmas time and all the gift buying'n'giving (and some other random conversations with like-minded people) reminded me of a bunch of hardware I almost got as a kid but... due to unfortunate (financial) circumstances, it was never meant to happen :P

Let me begin then, not with the "I wished I could access them" but the main "I almost got them" as a kid:


Because that was the most affordable (4 voice) polyphonic MIDI enabled synth (I thought) I could get my hands on!

Also, besides polyphonic, it was multitimbral! =D ...which, in my mind, would kinda solve the issue of only having 1 synth ;)

...and... that never happened :]


2) Amstrad Studio 100 (1985)

I clearly remember passing by a local shop and seeing a mixer-like panel and instantly stopping to investigate it further. It was a 6 Channel mixer with a built in simple BBD echo and a 4 track tape recorder plus a stereo/2 track tape player.

It was "perfect" for what I thought to be my (small) dream bedroom studio setup up! :D

...never happened :P


3) Atari 520ST (1985)

It was a 16bit "real" computer with MIDI ports included! What else could a kid (interested in computer programming and trying to also buy a MIDI enabled Synth) wish for!? :D

...and you guessed it: that didn't happened also :]


4) Amiga A500 (1987)

What could be better than a MIDI only enabled computer? A sampling enabled computer :D

...this was the one I got the closest to have :/



Long story short...

 I ended up being able to finally get something! An i486DX2 with a SoundBlaster 16 (which I felt had more future than a Gravis Ultrasound).
Got my hands on the smallest tracker I could download from my local BBS, the Composer 669 by Renaissance soon upgraded to Scream Tracker by Future Crew after trying FastTracker 2 and eventually settling with the MIDI capable Impulse Tracker by Jeffrey "Pulse" Lim.

 ...few Intel generations later, Reason was here to stay :)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Generic MIDI Channel aware Remote Codec+Map

Image
If you have a controller capable of sending MIDI messages on multiple MIDI Channels, like an M-Audio Axiom 's 4 Keyboard zones (so 4 MIDI Channels from the same keyboard) plus the Pads on Channel 10 or an Arturia BeatStep PRO that can send 2 sequences on their own MIDI Channel (1 and 2) and its Drum sequencer on MIDI Channel 10 plus the controller on, say, MIDI Channel 16, etc,  then you certainly felt the need for a MIDI Channel-aware type of Remote Codec like this one. Taking the BSP example, here's how to get its 4 sources of MIDI into Reason with this Remote Codec+Map. Add a Control Surface per MIDI source  with these 3 easy steps: 1)  Add a Control Surface from the " <Other> " Manufacturer and choose the correct " Generic Controller on MIDI Channel __ /< " Model with the MIDI Channel you'll need 2) Give it a proper name, so you know what's the real controller being used with this generic map (that you
Read more

Arturia SparkLE Remote Codec+Map

Image
Hey all :) I've been asked last week to share my Arturia SparkLE Codec so here it is :) (unofficial) Arturia SparkLE Remote Codec (and partial Map) V1.0.2 ReDrum: Added Drum Channel selection support through the Dial encoder Edit Flam with Select+Loop Button Flam Amount  with  Select+Tempo Encoder Shuffle On/Off through Loop Button Actually, this has been sitting on my Remote projects folder for 2 years now (and far from being alone in there, eh), waiting for me to complete the rest of the Remote Map, because my initial need for it was really just to control Kong, Dr.OctoRex and ReDrum, that's why those are really the ones that got some partial love on the included map. Early this year, due to the improvements added to the ReDrum remoteables s ince Reason 8.2 , I ended up making some editing to support the new ReDrum remoteables :) I'm hoping that anyone wanting to extend it or complete it has enough examples already in the partial map I'm
Read more

Random access to a CV values list

Just added this little CV tool in the free download section (on the right): "K's Basics - Random access to a CV values list" It's basically a way to access through CV indexing, a list of 3x32 "cells" of CV values (well, one of the list is within the Note range of CV values, but this example is enough to demo the concept). So, if you're ever in need of generating a specific sequence of CV values controlled by another CV source, this is one way to do it :) It's like having random or sequential access (in whatever direction you want) to a specific custom list of CV or note values, by using a CV controlled "cursor" (just connect the CV "cursor" source to the Rotary 1 CV input and tweak the Combinator modulation programmer Min/Max values to your needs). This device was enough for something I was testing, but I'm sure it can be optimized with some thought and more time. It won't work well in a real-time fast switching situation,
Read more