The cheapest MIDI home-studio of 1988

Рет қаралды 272,066

Күн бұрын

Take an Atari ST, 4 budget synths from 1988, and spend months seeing how far they can go - all while staring at a black-and-white CRT! I took me over a year to make this given most of the equipment was DOA and keeping in mind there's another part coming later this year.
Massive thanks to mu:zines and archive.org for their incredible collections. This led me to all the cheapest gear that people were actually using back in the day. Thanks also to all those I reached out to who verified most of the findings and gave me amazing insights to the gear of the day.
Gear used: Atari 520ST (mostly), Roland MT-100, Yamaha MusicStation PSS-580, Kawai K1, Yamaha EMT-10, Dr T MIDI Recording Studio, Cubase 1.5 and Rotel mini system.
00:00 - Intro
01:10 - Atari's Sound and finding your first synth
02:40 - Synth - Yamaha MusicStation PSS-580
05:02 - Atari - DR T's MIDI Recording Studio (demo)
08:32 - DEMO - MusicStation & Monitor
11:13 - Synth - MT-32 Intro
14:00 - Atari - Cubase 1.5 (demo)
17:56 - DEMO - MT-32 Solo & Polyphony discussion
19:52 - Synth - Kawai K1 Intro
21:50 - Synth - Kawai programming and MIDI assign
23:12 - DEMO - Kawai K1 and Guitar Jam
26:00 - DEMO - Yamaha EMT-10 + MT-32
27:45 - Conclusion and End tune (demo on the Kawai K1)
Please do not copy this entire video to your own channel without permission. Using 45 or 60 seconds as a quote (fairuse, etc) is fine. I'd love to see your video if you are making similar content, @CTRIX64 on twit :-)
LGR video on MT-32 : • LGR - Roland MT-32: Re...
Lestyn demos Roland: • Roland MKS-7 Super Qua...
Finally, don't be fooled by the badge, the Atari is an ST520 not an STe - we'll explore this more in part 2 when I open up the case!

Пікірлер: 1 600

@LGR 11 ай бұрын

Well this was just delightful. Loved your Amiga sampler video some years ago too and this feels like a perfect sort of follow-up. Glad to see you back on YT and I’m stoked to see part two!

@jamescuttsmusicjcm5013 11 ай бұрын

yeah man! same here. hang on... LGR? ahahaha. yo dude!

@jerbusf 11 ай бұрын

sometimes we do our best work by giving ourselves 36 months of runway

@jamescuttsmusicjcm5013 11 ай бұрын

@@sparklesparklesparkle6318 aha! Yes. That pesky LGR christmas clone. Hahaha.

@NotJustBikes 11 ай бұрын

I was literally just thinking, "Classic computers and MIDI synths? This is a video LGR would like" ... and there you are in the comments. 😁

@jamescuttsmusicjcm5013 11 ай бұрын

@@sparklesparklesparkle6318 oh shut up. lol. tf?

@ColdFusion 11 ай бұрын

Just so you know, you've got unbelievable talent bringing these old sounds to life within your compositions. Love to see it!

@domportera 11 ай бұрын

SHEESH the gang's all here

@straighttalk2069 11 ай бұрын

Nice to see you here fellow music producer 🎸🎹🎺🖥🎵🎼🔉🎶🎚🎧🎤

@RWL2012 11 ай бұрын

Or hear it, lol :)

@jmclabexperience 11 ай бұрын

Great video ! My obsession for Atari ST Cubase (esp. v2) is so high that I created a cheap SD card adapter for the ST (electronics and all): the ACSI2STM. This was a 3 years journey of reverse engineering, painful tweaking, and a bit of help from a small community. After 4 versions, and a few dozen nights spent understanding the hardware and the horrible OS of the ST, I have something that can actually provide full SD card compatibility, up to 2TB per card, and removes/works around most ST's filesystem bugs. What a journey, but well worth it !

@livvy94 11 ай бұрын

My middle school choir teacher used one of those proprietary-floppy-format Roland boxes to record her accompaniment and then play it back while we practiced! I remember taking the floppy disk for a song I really liked, and then being extremely disappointed when the format wasn't MIDI.

@liammm7036 11 ай бұрын

Return of the king

@futurismus 11 ай бұрын

oath

@kami4199 11 ай бұрын

absolutely

@mojoxide 8 ай бұрын

Truth

@busyworksbeats 11 ай бұрын

The amount of research for this video 😱🚀

@chrisicotec7652 11 ай бұрын

this is actually quite bizarre, ive seen your videos before, it wasnt until near the end i realised you are ctrix... dude, you are what got me started with music on the amiga, your protracker mods were an exellent source of samples and techniques for me as a young kid with no money but eager to learn

@56kflyingtoaster 11 ай бұрын

That demo on the music station, such a good sound!

@BaconFire 11 ай бұрын

As a teen in the 80s, I had no clue what all this was, how it worked, etc. So I stayed away from synths and workstations and just played acoustic instruments. Decades later this video just brought it all together and now it makes sense. I understand now how it works and I really appreciate it. Thank you.

@kennylee5621 11 ай бұрын

Sounds like background music on a video game.

@datboib3432 11 ай бұрын

Never get intimidated by something that can’t kill you! 😁

@brinco30 19 күн бұрын

Atari and Jean Michael Jarre ….the kings 🎉

@rorz999 11 ай бұрын

My guy just casually drops a banger video after being MIA for 3 years

@CTRIX64 11 ай бұрын

MIA, but in the cave repairing and brewing the tunes. Thanks for checking in :)

@reptilejesus829 11 ай бұрын

Genuinely... these videos set the bar for what a KZfaq video can be. These are a joy to watch which is why I rewatch them constantly. Your passion for the subject matter, your cahrisma and the production value make for an experience you dont get a lot on this platform. So yeah Thanks for making these (:

@notrealy180217 11 ай бұрын

The compositions in this video, and your career in general, are insane and deep. Being limited to only four tracks really pressurized your creativity into a laser.

@madagreement 11 ай бұрын

Man ! You just made an awesome 1993 fighting game stage track ! I really hope you compose for some retro video game projects in the future ! You'd nail it !

@systemchris 11 ай бұрын

I can imagine a Sega fighting game with that song

@razcarsey6635 11 ай бұрын

Yeah, definitely getting Streets of Rage vibes. Love it.

@JoelEverettComposer 11 ай бұрын

My thoughts exactly - a good 2D Scroller fight game. Great job!

@SlyHikari03 11 ай бұрын

@ezyto 11 ай бұрын

i genuinely cant handle how good this man is sometimes, awesome video, every single one you post is a delight

@Froobyone 11 ай бұрын

The first keyboard I ever bought was a PSS680 in 1988. The first sound module I bought was an MT32. My first computer sequencer was an ST520 using Pro 12. A year later I was working as the synth/hi tech guy at a local music store. I sold two K1s to a couple of young lads in 1990. Thirty three years later and all three of us are still friends and still making music. It was a nice trip down memory lane. Thanks.

@angry_wizard 7 ай бұрын

My dad, a musician, bought an Atati ST the same week I was born in 1988, so I grew up on the things and have had an affection for them ever since. But man he used that thing for Midi with Notator and the C-Lab Unitor-N midi port peripheral (he had that roland MT-32 as well, and a bunch of Roland guitar synth stuff too) well into the late '90s when he then replaced the ST with.....an Atari STacy, the laptop/luggable version of the ST which he used until like 2006. I remember he did all sorts of really cool shit with the MIDI capabilities like sequencing the entire score to Little Shop of Horrors for a high-school musical production. He wound up selling the STacy to a computer museum because it was one of the rare 4MB RAM/40MB HDD models and has a very low digit serial number. Still 18 years of use out of a platform ain't too bad.

@corri303 11 ай бұрын

Yes. Finally another video!!

@zman1508 11 ай бұрын

You are back🎉

@EPICLULZ123 11 ай бұрын

No joke, my brother and I stumbled upon an abandoned ST with a bunch of audio gear about 10 years ago. We brought it home and I couldn't for the life of me, figure much out. I still have everything tucked away in storage.. this is exactly the kind of video I've been wanting to see from somebody since that fateful day so thanks for the video!!

@kresimirsokre6536 2 ай бұрын

So dope!

@axladam1063 11 ай бұрын

Wow, that PSS-580 jam sounds like a proper Sega Mega Drive tune like Yuzo Koshiro's Streets of Rage or something out of OutRun! Sounds great!

@chriss2295 11 ай бұрын

This brings back memories of me spending countless hours with Dr. Ts on the Atari ST. Shocking to think it all worked off a floppy.

@RodBeauvex 10 ай бұрын

It's like computers somehow got worse as they got better.

@Trancelebration 5 ай бұрын

Omg. 3 years of waiting to watch such a gem. You would have made millions in the 80s/90s just making themes for various tv shows!

@reijohiltunen2599 11 ай бұрын

I bought my first ATARI FM (4MB) 1987 and still own an Atari STE 1040 and MT32 with all these programs. I took them up couple of years ago and connected to an Akai S3000 (and MT32) and voila! Everything was like the old days 🙂. It was nice to see this video which brings back old memories. Well done! Thanks!

@xzchc 11 ай бұрын

Oh yeah, the MIDI interface and the very crisp SM124 was the main reason I bought a 1040STF back then. It was perfect to learn programming and also to make music. I had a Yamaha DS55 and a Roland R-5, and still have both. Software, there was Steinberg Twelve, a budget light version of Twenty-Four, and yes, I still have it ;) But my fav thing was to program stuff myself and send MIDI events with GFA-Basic. Great times, thanks for the video!

@CTRIX64 11 ай бұрын

Nice! I haven't played with GFA-Basic yet. That would have been fun in the day! I'm curious to if it can send SysEX now

@xzchc 11 ай бұрын

@@CTRIX64 You could absolutely do this! Back then I made a sound editor for that Yamaha DS55 with envelopes and such, and it mostly was a matter of understanding the midi specs in the manual. Unfortunately, the DS-55 isn't much of a synth, more like a nice keyboard by 80's amateur standards, with 61 keys. Today, I basically use it as a giant vintage MIDI controller, alongside a Push2 and some others. :D But I guess the main thing was, this setup was the beginning of my lifelong journey in making electronic music, with all its ups and downs. :)

@EannaButler 11 ай бұрын

@@CTRIX64 GFA BASIC guy here too. What a great programming environment! I so wanted GFA 3, but GFA 2 that came on a coverdisk of ST Format mag was pure gold to me for a few years. Hint - try to find the compiler, to compile your .lst to a .prg. My brother bought it for my 13th birthday when we was working for a summer in London.... Superb video. Thank you!

@ElianaDAngelo 11 ай бұрын

Love seeing content on oldschool production and recording like this. The arrangement on the first demo was so good

@LEdHeadW 11 ай бұрын

Love to see two amazing musicians/creators in one spot appreciating each other!

@mudeth 11 ай бұрын

I clicked for the nostalgia, didn't expect to watch a high-quality documentary and great music making. Thanks for sharing!

@blakberi 11 ай бұрын

This takes me back... the Atari ST was the main staple of my studio for such a long time as a cash strapped young man. I started with the Alesis MMT-8 sequencer and then graduated to the Atari with Emagic Notator Logic (before it was bought by Apple). My keyboard was a DX11 without velocity sensitivity. I did have use of an MT-32 for a while, but my drum machine was a TR-606 Drumatix - frickin' loved it. My most expensive purchase back then was a Roland U-20 keyboard which really pushed my music forward... I could go on, but thank you for this trip down memory lane

@nigelkirkby7481 11 ай бұрын

So good to see all this stuff again. Back in the late 80s I had an Atari ST, MT-32 and Yamaha FB01, all synced to a Yamaha MT2X 4 track (for recording vocals and guitars). Good times.

@argarakmusic 11 ай бұрын

wow, that pss580 demo is incredible! layering the drums with aliasing noise is a really great idea, helped bring out the punch the drums lack on their own. i bought a pss480 4-5 years ago, let's say i never pushed it quite that far heh. having them in the argos catalogue back then explains why i got mine so cheap (maybe that's different now, not really into low end keyboards anymore). thanks for another well produced informative video, ctrix!

@CTRIX64 11 ай бұрын

Here's another trick, do an octave up to octave down pitch dive with the pitch control using the default organ sound. This makes a sub-osc you can run together with the built in kick. And hold on to your chair...

@surfdigby 11 ай бұрын

I had a PSS480 too (in fact, it's still in the attic). I hooked it up to my Atari a few times, but always got frustrated with how limited it was. I may have to revisit it.

@kengetkamulos 11 ай бұрын

What an absolute adventure. Well done.

@woomyrune 11 ай бұрын

your debut of the PSS-580 MusicStation was legendary, what a great piece of equipment !

@RWL2012 11 ай бұрын

Just to let you know there are cosmetically 4 versions of that keyboard - the PSS-480 and PSS-580 without the Music Station branding, and the PSS-480 and PSS-580 _with_ the Music Station branding.

@lexacutable 9 ай бұрын

The synth sounds on that Yamaha are unlocking ancient childhood memories. I must have had something from the same line as a kid, though certainly a cheaper model. I didn't know what I was doing with it, and it was long gone before I started learning about making music for real.

@tylerevans1700 7 ай бұрын

You really make me even more proud to have bought my pss-680 on ebay years ago, just cause it allowed me more control of stuff that my 470 gave me. Didn't realize when buying it how capable it was controlling my other synths via midi until I looked up the manual, and then my mind was blown. This video is gold. Meow 💜 ✌️

@marswabisabi8918 11 ай бұрын

Incredible how technology has evolved since then. A very nice history review to acknowledge and honor our beginnings. But finally it always comes down to the talent of the musician. You sure got much talent !

@henrikpetersson3463 11 ай бұрын

My thought actually was how little it has evolved in 35 years. Yes, it’s far more advanced now and there are better sounds available for free than what you would pay a fortune for back then. But the sequencers were actually a lot more advanced than I remember them to be, and they still work in the same way.

@Syntappi 7 ай бұрын

@@henrikpetersson3463 I was thinking the exact same thing. The principle and even the user interface of the software is very close to today's sequencers

@markusf1781 11 ай бұрын

Great, what a nostalgia! This was my setup 32 years ago, an Atari ST and the PSS-580.

@yornav 11 ай бұрын

In 1990 I owned an Atari STe, a Roland D70 and a Roland SC55 and no mixing gear whatsoever. And my first software was Steinberg Pro 24, the predecessor of Cubase. When later Cubase came out, it was a complete revelation.

@aliboy 11 ай бұрын

The goat is back

@PocketUnv 11 ай бұрын

Man, not only was this super informative, you've got some serious skills making music like that! Slammed that subscribe button like there's no tomorrow!

@gusevans2103 11 ай бұрын

I love how you always somehow manage to bang out the perfect bass fishing / snooker game soundtrack banger

@h.cavidarabac3852 11 ай бұрын

This video never ends. Just after I say "wow! What a video" It continues to show another cool thing. Because the video is so dense it felt like I was watching this for an hour. Once again, great job!

@mu_zines 11 ай бұрын

Great vid! There's a lot of my music, gear and Atari history in there! And thanks for the shout out!

@charleswiltshire 11 ай бұрын

What a nice surprise to see another video from you :-) And about a part of growing up in the UK during the late 80's' I'd forgotten about! Our music studio at school had maybe 20 of these synths including a few impressive ones with a lot of buttons and all with red LED displays. Imagine 30 odd 12 year old kids playing them together, it must have driven our music teacher mad!

@CTRIX64 11 ай бұрын

What really sent the teachers mad (because every student world-wide thought it was the funniest thing) was when kid turned the volume to max and everyone pressed the demo button at the same time! 100% did that as a kid. 100% got a detention for instigating it!

@0dysseus__ 6 ай бұрын

These videos inspired me to start making music after a decade of false starts. I would download Ableton, get overwhelmed, and quit out of frustration. It was so helpful to see a walkthrough on a simpler interface. More importantly, you're the first person who made it look fun. So glad you're making videos again!

@calaveralovesyou 11 ай бұрын

Mind-blowing production values, my face hurts from smiling for half an hour :)

@Miles64k 11 ай бұрын

Incredible to think just how much of a powerhouse the ST was for music production, truly ahead of it's time.

@RudeMyDude 11 ай бұрын

i'm actually surprised just how hard that first track went, who knew a cheap Yamaha could do that!

@CTRIX64 11 ай бұрын

It can actually do even wilder / harder stuff. I might explore programming sub-osc-kicks in part 2. I've made a hard-house banger with a donk on it, and when I ran it though a compressor (RNC1773), I was laughing for about an hour at how legit it sounded. Never underestimate FM!

@RudeMyDude 11 ай бұрын

@@CTRIX64 Oh damn, I would love to hear it!

@davyydsummers 11 ай бұрын

this really took me back. Well done getting the yamaha to play mulitimbral, I never could figure that out with mine and an Alesis mmt-8. My friend had a Kawaii K1-ii, and another had an atari with midi. Then I got a yamaha SY-22. Good times. Thank you for taking the time to make this video.

@BassFunMusic 11 ай бұрын

Keep those sick beats coming! Your channel is my musical haven! 🎧❤

@bad.sector 11 ай бұрын

Nice to see you back again - I've always appreciated the quality of your videos, and this is no exception! My first job was at Steinberg, and at least in 2008 their support (never been there again as a dev) STILL had an Atari ST with the copy protection extension standing there and running... that's also where I got my second MT-32 - it was on a pile of trash that should be sorted out soon. Thankfully wih a newer ROM version that fixed buffer overflows... I think it's worth mentioning that some musicians STILL use their Atari ST and made entire tracks on it - Norman Cook alias Fatboy Slim is such an example. Also hats off for your performance - I was especially impressed what you could get out of the Yamaha! I own a Yamaha FB-01, and I think it could have been another cheap synth (can't remember its original selling price at the moment) that could companion the ST!

@CTRIX64 11 ай бұрын

Got lucky with that MT32! I thought about the FB01, I guess the thing is it's not super easy to get good drums from it. And if you are using 3 of your 8 voices for a kick, snare, hats and percussion... you are getting a bit low on poly. It was certainly considered, but Yamaha really wanted you to buy a drum machine to go with it (lets face it!)

@bad.sector 11 ай бұрын

@@CTRIX64 Ah, interesting thing... honestly I got it for cheap and got never really to play with it - but still want to! I (also) wanted the boxed version of the IBM MFC, which had at least a few quite well-sounding games. Just saw you're at Evoke this year! Can't make it this time, but good luck with your performance there, and enjoy it!

@BlahBleeBlahBlah 11 ай бұрын

Fantastic video, your compositions are always so damn good! Super impressed with the K1, I don’t know much about vintage synths but I’m surprised it’s classified as “Lo-fi”. Unless they mean in terms of budget. It sounds great imho!

@CTRIX64 11 ай бұрын

I agree! I think it's because of the 8bit oscillators in it - although they are maximised so you don't really hear any artefacts. You can tell when playing some instruments that it has a fuzziness under it (the slap bass I demo for instance). But once playing a few notes at once, you don't hear the 8-bit osc at all. Go figure!

@BlahBleeBlahBlah 11 ай бұрын

@@CTRIX64 ahhhh! - I just watched AudioPilz’s “bad gear” review and playing individual instruments the 8-bit “crunchiness” noise is more noticeable. You did a really good job with your composition. It’s really difficult to hear quantisation noise until the very end fade-out👌

@donnied8127 11 ай бұрын

@@CTRIX64 I recently picked K1 up for a sixpack and saved it from dumpster. From the memory, EMF used one back in the day. Saying that, I had a privilege to get M1 in 1990 and a few mates got bored with theirs DX7s and 909s that I could "borrow". Shame I could've never put my grubby mits on Emulator II back in the day, nobody could afford one, unlike Ferries Bueller

@bcastromusic 11 ай бұрын

It’s because it’s 8-bit and noisy. The K1 II was my first synth. It was the poor mans M1 or D50. It didn’t approach the sound quality and the effects (K1 II) were terrible compared. The drum sample were lame. If you like the character of the sound forget the K1 and to immediately to the K4. It basically a 16bit K1 with expanded single-cycle samples and effects

@wattage2007 2 ай бұрын

Back in '87 I became friends with a guy who had a 1040STFM, Roland MT32 and Axai X7000 sampler. At the time I was using a casio SK1, Specdrum (for ZX Spectrum) and tape recorders. I thought I was in heaven when I was let loose on his setup!

@GraemeSPa 7 ай бұрын

I had an Atari ST - plugged in into a Yamaha keyboard and used the cubase software. While on a plane I got talking to a guy who was a professor of music and we talked computers, music and MIDI - he recommended Cakewalk software, a Roland Sound Canvas sound generator and a midi interface to connect to a PC. I was in a music store in LA and asked about the Sound Canvas - it was pricey but after being shown the inbuilt demo tunes - wow! - take my money! - that was in 1992. I still use it these days for piano sounds layered with an electric piano. I also stayed with Cakewalk , upgrading software and PC as it grew from a DOS based MIDI editor to a very powerful top of the range DAW, Sonar Platinum - until Gibson dumped it. I vowed never to buy another Gibson product after that - guitar, plectrum or polishing cloth - NO more Gibson - ever.

@bluelive23 11 ай бұрын

Thanks for this hit of undiluted nostalgia :)

@connorkiss2614 11 ай бұрын

This was amazing. My dad and grandpa were huge Atari ST users so I enjoyed showing them this video to. Excited for part 2

@Jukestar Ай бұрын

I missed these kind of videos back in my time of watching 8-bit Keys. Glad to see these!

@lemlemlem5282 6 күн бұрын

You're easily of the best music tech KZfaqrs. Very clearly put a lot of time and consideration into it. Honestly, it's very professional. Easily broadcastable (if tv was still a thing) Also the tunes are wicked

@nevilovermann797 11 ай бұрын

Djiisus, this video is spectacular! Thank you, cTrix! I wish there were more thumbs for me to raise..

@CTRIX64 11 ай бұрын

Appreciate it!

@nevilovermann797 11 ай бұрын

@@CTRIX64 Now I wish I had an Atari ST, but I've always been an Amiga user. I've got an MT32 and a SC-88.. Cubase looks great os the ST. Is there an Amiga alternative out there? I suppose I'm just a couple of years to young to have attempted making music on my Amiga. ProTools was my first music software, but you've really inspired me to give it a go :)

@dnielv 11 ай бұрын

Great video. Brings back fond memories of simpler times. There is no doubt that Atari was the best choice if you were into music back then. My setup was an Atari STe 4mb, Cubase 2.01 connected at first to a Korg O1/w, and aa Kawai Digital Piano and later to a Korg Trinity. Instead of sending program changes at the start of the song I saved the sys exclusives message that configured the whole Trinity mixer in its sequencer page in the first bars. Btw it's amazing how much you get out of the Yamaha.

@CTRIX64 11 ай бұрын

Awesome! I actually saved the SysEX to config the K1 too. Just dumped it as a patch. Like the Trinity, The K1 actually does amazing dumping back and forth. The little joystick works as a volume / pan control in the "mixer" mode on it too. It was very much designed to be tweaked with on hardware rather than in MIDI.

@Mopark25 11 ай бұрын

Wouldn't exactly call this simpler 😅

@SproutyPottedPlant 11 ай бұрын

Korg Trinity ❤️ they used it in the Sonic Adventure soundtrack!

@EgoShredder 11 ай бұрын

@@Mopark25 Early on in my MIDI journey I would agree, but once you become more experienced its much easier to use SysExc as the commands are short and snappy (easier for the synth's CPU to process), plus there are a ton of features that bog standard MIDI commands simply can not access, e.g. tweaking reverb settings for room size, density etc.

@johnhodgetts6617 11 ай бұрын

I am absolutely gobsmacked that the MT-100 existed because I've never heard of it until now! My local music shop sold me the PR-100, which contained no sound module, just the MIDI recorder part. Had I known about the MT-100 I would have jumped at it like a shot! The PR (which stood for Piano Recorder) version suited my purposes at the time though, as I needed a portable sequencer to take my Amiga MIDI creations out on the road for gigs. (BTW, I got my PR-100 out of storage for nostalgia reasons recently and got the QR drive working again using a thin bit of knotted elastic because the drive belt had perished. Worked well enough to read the 30-odd year old data on the disks!)

@peterm3352 11 ай бұрын

In 88 I bought an Atari ST, a Roland D10 and Notator by C-Lab. My first home studio. A year later I bought a MT32. Both synths are still in my studio. I sold the Atari and Notator last year.

@johntammaro 11 ай бұрын

Been waiting too long. Glad your back.

@jacobj436 11 ай бұрын

Good to see you pop on my recommended again! Thanks for the watch during work :) I just finished watching. I never grew up with this generation of hardware, but I feel like my father helped me to have a closer connection to it than I realized it. Also crazy just how powerful Yamaha's "toy synths" have become; I have a PSR-260 that we picked up at a yard sale for $20 years and years ago, and with a copy of FL Studio and some midi cabling, voila! It's kind of like I'm living a semi-modern version of this experience! To this day I still make music using it as a midi controller, and its seriously one of the most reliable pieces of equipment I've ever owned. Thank you for sharing the first part of the story of midi home production studios, I absolutely love how far we've come and seeing where its roots grew!

@obsoquasi 11 ай бұрын

Fantastic video!!! Not only brought this back a ton of memories, but also how I got hooked on game music meets jazz fusion.

@liotier 11 ай бұрын

I wish I had seen this video in 1988, when I was 12 years old. Alas, for lack of anyone around to tell me and for lack of the Internet, I discovered the joy of MIDI only 25 years later. Oh well, never too late !

@paul_shuler 11 ай бұрын

So awesome! Very impressed with your ability to figure this all out and explain it so well. Thank you.

@MelonadeM 11 ай бұрын

Man this was one of the coolest things I've seen this year, gave me a pretty good insight too into how you'd go about sequencing this stuff back in the late 80s/early 90s too. Looking forward to the next part!

@AmyDaisy69 11 ай бұрын

I did my sound engineering course in a studio with an Atari ST at the heart of it. The studio is gone now sadly. I will never forget the huge tape machine in the corner.

@jamessisson3703 10 ай бұрын

The MT32 and a Yamaha YS100 were my window into making a small living, making backing tracks for cabernet acts. Great trip down memory lane thanks for posting:)

@djwilduk 11 ай бұрын

Tremendous! Hoping to have a play around with MIDI on my Atari ST. Liked the video and little details like the VHS tapes used to prop up the keyboard. Period correct support.

@CTRIX64 11 ай бұрын

I was wondering if anyone would notice that... cheers! The MIDI timing is super tight on the Atari; especially with sending SysEX and the like. Synths that just don't want to program on a USB MIDI interface are often rock solid from the ST.

@MrSammotube 11 ай бұрын

My family had an STE for 10 years! My mum was a musician, so we actually had decent synths and keyboards to plug in. Also the RCA jacks to output stereo to your HiFi was nice. Yes, played a lot of games too.

@pyrotas 11 ай бұрын

The last guitar overdub is *a blast*! Very very tasty, composition-wise and from a sound design standpoint!

@keith303 11 ай бұрын

cannot express how impressive, entertaining and informative this was. it's truly stunning how powerful cubase has already been back then. looking forward to part 2 ! :)

@brianbergmusic5288 11 ай бұрын

I love the sense of optimism and leveling up with this era of tech throughout this entire video. You had me rooting for the music-made-with-less, and it always punched higher than its weight class. Loved the arcade-y tunes!

@roedrev 11 ай бұрын

The best vid in my feed for ages and my fastest like ever. Great job in finding interesting topics and fun angles for your videos, and kudos for the setup. It's easy to see that a lot of time and work went into this. Keep up the good work, you are easily in my top 3 on yt. Looking forward to pt 2.

@CTRIX64 11 ай бұрын

Appreciate this very much :) It'll take a few months, but I'll get there! Might have a part 1.5 in the middle. Take care!

@LEdHeadW 11 ай бұрын

Mate, your videos are just the best! I'm a modular synth guy but you make such interesting and fascinating stuff and often I can take little nuggets of info and apply them to my own work flow. I recently shared your deflemask video on reddit because it's the video that really helped me get my head around FM synthesis. Looking it up, I was sad to see you hadn't posted in 3 years - and now I've come off a long 12 hour night shift at the hospital and came home to this lovely video of your triumphant return to KZfaq to wind down to! What a lovely surprise!! As always, I'm astonished by your musical and compositional talent. When you busted out that electric guitar I went bananas! I hope your time away was lovely and I can't wait to see what else you've got in store. Can't believe I've watched so many of your videos and hadn't yet subscribed. Thank you so much for all the hard work you put into making your videos. From the work bringing this gear back to life, sharing the history from the magazines, making sense of it all and putting out amazing tracks - It really shows!! We appreciate you, welcome back!

@CTRIX64 11 ай бұрын

Much appreciated! Likewise, I've learnt many things from watching my friends in the modular world 🙂

@TayWoode 7 ай бұрын

That song was phenomenal! Proud to say I still use my PSS680 in my setup for nice crunchy lo bit sounds, it sounds great with some extra effects

@craig7810 11 ай бұрын

What a great video. Having gone to college in 99 to study music technology i'd love to see you continue this series on how things developed over the next decade withthe introduction of General MIDI and various rack mount synths.

@CTRIX64 11 ай бұрын

I'm certainly following the GM story. I've got version 1.0 GM boxes from Yamaha, Roland and Casio. Need to pick up a Korg one! It was amazing knowing they all agreed on a soundset but comparing them before things inevitably picked up the SoundCanvas-like set is interesting. I don't have much in the way of Rack synths... might be able to borrow some tho :)

@EgoShredder 11 ай бұрын

@@CTRIX64 Having a rack full of gear was a real status symbol in the 90s, and gave visitors a clue to what you were about and what to maybe expect during a session. It was often something that documented your own music journey to date, with old gear mixed with the new. Maybe people today do something similar with their plugins I dunno, but there is something truly magical about sitting in front of your rack gear with all the memories they evoke.

@hunterrogersmusic 11 ай бұрын

Mate, you are a fantastic composer and musician. Thanks for sharing this with us!

@carlomeoli8236 7 ай бұрын

Hi, today everything is so easy. VSTs everywhere, multi midi outputs, usb connections, what u want is quickly to have. I remember about 1987 (I was 17) to connect (via midi) D-50, DX-7 and so on, you must used in and thru in cascade mode....it was so artificial but was marvelous. Thnaks for this video just to remember to new generations how it worked before. Cheers from Italy.

@KnapfordMaster98 11 ай бұрын

I love how almost 30 years later, quantize in Cubase is still "Q". Cubase is my main DAW of choice and idk it just made me smile :)

@Estamir 11 ай бұрын

I was born in '88, so while I lament not having been immersed in this stuff growing up, there's a bit of irrational joy to know that my year had some amazing stuff come out in it. And as usual, you make all of these synths shine fantastically! Great work! And it's great to see your return!

@HeyItsLollie 11 ай бұрын

So good to see a video from you again, this was super solid. Great music as always.

@sonidoexperiencia2800 11 ай бұрын

Nothing beats these old sounds and samples. Thank you for sharing !

@azrael-labs 2 ай бұрын

You just bring so much memories back in my head rn, I think I'm becoming a child again, thanks dude, and see'ya for the part 2

@Y1001 11 ай бұрын

Fantastic as always. Your tunes are amazing.

@maestromike8694 11 ай бұрын

Great history! Great gear! Great tracks! Keep this content rolling, man!

@jbognap 11 ай бұрын

Thanks for the trip down memory lane - those were heady times. In 1988 I can C-Lab Notator running on a 1040ST with an Ensoniq ESQ-1 and a Roland U-110 for natural sounds (no filters and awful to program).

@neverendingfire 11 ай бұрын

Thoroughly enjoyed this trip down memory lane. I remember testing a Korg M1 in a music shop and being amazed by the Saxaphone Sound. Loved the Yamaha's though and I had a few of those myself, they were great machines for the budget. I still own a Yamaha PSR 730, which still produces some amazing sounds even though it's 26 years old ! I now own a Yamaha Montage 8, which is just delightful too!

@gamingcult 11 ай бұрын

that Kawai sounds amazing!!!!!

@CTRIX64 11 ай бұрын

With a touch of reverb, it's wild. After I first repaired it I just sat with it plugged into a Lexicon verb straight into a headphone pre, and played it until 5am. Kawai also released tons of presets for it that you could get for free on a floppy if you wrote to them. Some of the creativity in those sounds.... stunning.

@zsigmondkara 11 ай бұрын

The amount of talent and hard work in this video is humbling. Your Amiga Sampler videos already blown me away, but this one is really next level!

@ha_tinkerer1191 11 ай бұрын

Hey, I beat that Atari ST with an Atari 400 and a Roland D-5. I special-ordered the Atari with 16K because it came with 8 (yes, K not G or T). Bought it with money from cutting lawns and delivering newspapers. I even wrote a custom Sys-ex program to change the D-5’s parameters. Good memories, thanks for bringing them back!

@CTRIX64 11 ай бұрын

If you were mainly using the Atari 400 as a patch changer, then it would have been a great value synth for 1989! It's amazing how long some of those 8-bit machines hung around for. They had solid accessible software and did the job, so you can see why people didn't bother with the expensive 16-bit gear!

@the_dice_man 11 ай бұрын

So excited to check this out. Thanks again for making these. ❤🎹 Loved your Amiga one! I miss my SY55.

@josephmorrell5336 11 ай бұрын

we see the crazy level of effort u put into making this and we thank you!! i could literally watch this for hours, please keep making more

@kurtiunlisted8589 11 ай бұрын

What a video ❤ Brings back so many good memories! Thank you so much! Also, if I may say so, fantastic composing and arrangements, love it!

@pgrvloik 11 ай бұрын

This is what I had :) I had an Atari 1040STF and a cheap Yamaha Midi keyboard with drum pads. Loved it!

@welbymarketing9030 11 ай бұрын

Mind blowing! I kicked about with setups like this back in the 80’s and all I got was frustrated! 😂 Pure genius mate. Absolutely loving your channel.

@katachiaudio 11 ай бұрын

Back with another awesome video, please keep it up.

@camp0017 11 ай бұрын

My home studio in the early 1990s was Atari ST (upgraded with a hard disk), Casio VZ + an effects unit. Enough to make music and learn programming sequencers. In fact, there was even a program on Atari ST that allowed editing the sounds within Casio VZ, which was way more efficient than working with the synthesizer on its own.

@ProjectFrugal 11 ай бұрын

Great content. Had a 520STFM upgraded to maybe 1MB Ram (It's been a while), a black and white 12" TV, an Alesis SR-16 and a D-110 that I use to lug round to gigs in the early 90's as a one man band. Mastertracks Pro 6.2 was the sequencer of choice and I played guitar and sang with all the usual program changes. A lot of work back in the day! :)