I used to make music on the Amiga. There is one aspect that the article doesn't explain too well - what allowed the Amiga to flourish as a music making platform, is that it had onboard audio which was much more capable than most other computers of the time, thanks to Paula, which allowed multi channel, high sample rate audio playback [1]<p>These hardware capabilites in turn allowed the development of the Amiga music software scene, in particular music trackers [2]<p>The Amiga was the first mass produced computer where you could make music without plugging in expensive synths or samplers (like was common on the Atari ST for example - I remember my uncle connecting his ST to an Akai sampler and a Roland synth, as a kid I could never have afforded a setup like that). But, if you wanted to sample on the Amiga, you actually needed one external piece of hardware: an audio sampling interface, however these were generally very cheap [3]<p>Just a few hours ago an article about making music on the Atari ST made it to the HN home page (I also commented there), might be an interesting read for those interested [4]<p>[1] <a href="http://theamigamuseum.com/the-hardware/the-ocs-chipset/paula/" rel="nofollow">http://theamigamuseum.com/the-hardware/the-ocs-chipset/paula...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_tracker" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_tracker</a><p>[3] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9MXYZh1jcs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9MXYZh1jcs</a><p>[4] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31222980" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31222980</a>
I haven't seen it mentioned here, but Bassoon Tracker is a web-based tracker that can play most old MOD, XM, etc files:
<a href="https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/" rel="nofollow">https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/</a><p>There's a few demo-mods along the left side, several mod archives listed in the File menu, and you can load your own as well.<p>That and I figured out you can actually use it to compose your own tracks if you like, just like the old days!
Good article! I dabbled with MOD files myself in the nineties, but until recently wasn't aware that music made on the Amiga actually managed to get into the charts.<p>However I can't agree with the last paragraph: "Thirty-five years after the debut of the Amiga 500, a new generation of retro-curious musicians will have the chance to experiment with the machines, as the A500 Mini has recently launched. Perhaps it could be as loved as the original..." - since the A500 Mini is just an emulator running on an embedded board, and it doesn't even have a functional keyboard, you're probably better off running an Amiga emulator on your Linux/Windows PC or Mac...
The Amiga wasn't a "poor man's studio," it was the "EVERYMAN's" studio.<p>The affordability, community, and platform itself created a creative environment that wasn't separate from the music itself.<p>This ambitious platform combination of creativity, hardware, software, and community made the Amiga a superior music production environment for every home audio producer.
Oh shit there's actually still people who get old Amigas specifically for making jungle. Cool to see an article in a mainstream publication about this. You can legit roll up to a party with two amigas and a mixer and bump an entire jungle set out of them... It's that thick 8-bit bassline and the fact that you're programming the song in a scrolling wall of hexadecimal that makes jungle sound the way it does.<p>The sound is definitely getting a kick lately. I was playing tech house at a party and some random came up and was like why aren't you playing jungle? Like damn I haven't heard that in over a decade, good question
There's a nice clip "Retro Jungle Production With Pete Cannon" from 2020 where he showcases both the Atari ST with MIDI and the Amiga with the OctaMED tracker, and is getting an LP pressed with some new Jungle of his: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDn7ZDcx9w0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDn7ZDcx9w0</a> (<a href="https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/retro-jungle-production-pete-cannon" rel="nofollow">https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/retro-jungle-product...</a>)
There’s this great documentary about the history of tracker music by “Ahoy” on YouTube: <a href="https://youtu.be/roBkg-iPrbw" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/roBkg-iPrbw</a>
> even the software was free!<p>This brings back memories of dank school basements with "software flea markets" where everything, anything (ok maybe save for hot new releases) cost 5zł per floppy. There was a whole sub-genre of programs dedicated to copying disks, with various counter-techniques to work around each copy protection advancement.<p>The software definitely wasn't free, but piracy was king, and us teens just rolled with the waves. It was the only way to get warez, there was no internet nor BBSs there/then. Quaint to look back on now.
I was delighted to discover "Bars and Pipes" which was a very well designed software for comping and far superior than using trackers. Even the earlier versions of Cakewalk on the PC were still missing some of the interesting features that made you productive in BnP. To this day some people still fire up BnP and use it to create music!
My first encounter with an amiga audio as a music/audio tool was at an amiga-specific computer store that had Audiomaster running off a sampler with some demos.<p>I was totally blown away watching waveforms and simple audio editing, speeding up, etc.. Remember, this was back when PCs were 4 colors, and sucking at best, for anything audio or video related.<p>It looked like magic from my, kid's eyes, perspective.<p>I ended up with a "Perfect Sound" parallel port sampler and messing around with MED, later OctaMED on my A1200 with ECE Midi interface and good ol PSS synth. Good memories.<p>In some parts of the world, electronic music was a thing, where I was however, you looked like a complete weirdo if you were into that stuff. Seriously.<p>"Its not real music" up until the PC could catch up and do the same eh ;)
If you'd like to hear more Amiga music, there is one channel I enjoy that puts out a lot of great mixes:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQnWIt2N1hnWszI2d-j-6Aw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQnWIt2N1hnWszI2d-j-6Aw</a>
If your interested, Ahoy made a very good Youtube documentary on the rise of trackers and their impact on music: <a href="https://youtu.be/roBkg-iPrbw" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/roBkg-iPrbw</a>