Commodore Amiga

AmigaOS with Workbench 3.x was truly a breacktrough in stability! And the original manual is't that good, but the original Amiga-books are!

The Amiga 2000 scores best in this category to my opinion, but now I use a Amiga 500+ ... whitch still is a great machine... a disadvantage to me is the sepparate power-adaptor

All my compliments to any Amiga games-programmers, they used all possibilities optimal, as now i't yet done for PC's

Tja, since my 500+ was standing in dust for some time, sometimes it won't boot... But overall... !!!

I never needed it, so just to add some score to the overall, i give it a 10... Cause it must be great if no sopport is needed

Well, I allready replaced it once... I would really miss it if I had none! 10! 10! 10!

The Amiga operating system (Version 3) has become quite old nowadays, but still very easy and intuitive to use. And it's fast in response. It has a very straight forward structure.

I use OctaMED Soundstudio, which is possibly the most powerful "Tracker" software for Amiga. It features 64 Audio and/or Midi tracks.

I used to have a "high-end" music Amiga featuring: A4000 with 68040/40, Toccata 16-Bit soundcard, Prelude 16-Bit soundcard and more. The system was able to play 24 Audio tracks (16Bit/48kHz through Toccata) plus Midi tracks and harddisc-record the output of my line mixer (with Amiga sound, synthsizer sound etc) through Prelude(16Bit/48kHz) in real time with having lots of CPU time still free. No lock ups, no latency.

However, real time software DSP-ing was not available because the 68040 is to slow.
Mastering (with Samplitude) of HD-recorded tracks was very slow because of the slow CPU, too.

Toccata: very good sound quality, much better than the average PC soundcard
Prelude: as well as Toccata
Paula (inbuild Amiga soundchip): 8 Bit only, a bit noisy because of low SNR, but very flexible in use (e.g. no fixed sample rate, hardware modulation supported etc.).

Never had any problems. No hardware failures, no HD losts, nothing.
AmigaOS can be screwed up easily since it has no memory protection, but that's not your issue when working only with stable software (like OctaMED).

No support for Amiga and Toccata.
Good support for Prelude from ACT back in the '90, but nothing left today.
Neat contact with the engineer of OctaMED soundstudio, but nothing left today.

It's a pitty that C= got bankrupt because the Amiga system was very good for multimedia software. I've never seen a system which is so fast, easy to use and powerful.

I'm using the classic workbench 1.3 rom. 256 kb gives you a easiest OS for a computer than hundreds of mb of MS Windows. It launches much faster and is by very far much simple to use. I use it with many programs and teh specifications of my great thing are this:

Motorola MC68000 ECS set
1 Mb expanded ram
no hard drive
no midi sequencing
just 1 floppy disk unity for saving your work
it has plugged in an autoconfigurable sampler

Boring? Hej! Let me finish my explanation! The sounds are simply great! depending on the program you manage, you can get korgs, moog or analog rolands in a second. I'll say mor in the expressiveness part.

Polyphony? I work on Octamed 6 running 8 parts at the same time. Some interesting filters and some interesting sampler quealities in Octamed 6. Of course, it can have a midi implementation. Octamed 6 is much better and intuitive than Logic and Cubase VST.

Choose FMSynth (as its name says is an Amiga FM superb-synth program). Its pianos are similar to dx7 ones. No velocity, but very good effects on it. Octamed has some good filters and a bit more. But Oktalyser is real-superb. This program occupies less than 200 kb and it has a really good real sampler that can make as many fractions as you want of your samples, add reverb, add delays, define the delay level,how many times will the delay repeat the initial sound. If you are into Amiga programming, you can make even more interesting things. I and a friend have programmed a new version of Oktalyser that we have called Otalyser FM. It's similar to Oktalyser, but it has an improved FM-FX section. The effects on the sample are based in eight algorythms that we can mix in the way we like or make a route through them in some order that we can program. This mean that one algorythm define the kind of effect first launched (within 122 different FX), the second defines the first variable in the effect (ie, the tempo in the delay effect), the third defines the second variable of the FX... And we can save a sample with that FX-algorythm settings and then apply more FX once saved. We can in practise add the 122 FX at the same time to only one sample. And it only occupies 216 kb! Try it with a PC.

I could drop it from Everest to the ground and when i got the machine it will still be playing the so good way it's been.

No opinion. Only a zero (if possible).

Do you know someone who wants to sell his/her Amiga?

It is very easy to use. in it's prime it was years ahead the pc's.

it has got 4 channels ( eight if you use octamed), lots of available software and possibilities for hardware expansion

software like sountracker, med and octamed is sample based. I rember there was alot of disks with samples in circuit. The quality of the samples varied alot, but many of them was really good.

I never had any trouble with mine at all ( it didn't crash 5 times aday like some other computer-standards tend to do.....). I sold my amiga to a friend (big regret!) , and he somehow managed to destroy it before 6 months had passed. To this day I can't figure out how he did it, but i'm sure it has no connenction with bad quality!

I'm really a guitarplayer, so it has never been any reason for dragging a computer to a gig, but if there were i'd probably bring an Amiga!

As far as I know, commodore no longer exist so it would be hard to get aby support through official channels.

I miss my Amiga!

The best Operating System ever made for a micro-computer.
One the few to boot up in graphical mode (no lame BIOS or
DOS in text mode).
Do you know how to click ?

The first micro-computer to introduce polyphonic sampling.
4 voices in 1985, 8 voices in the late 80's and actually virtually
unlimited.
Add a 50 bucks sampling board to your Amiga & a Soundtracker's clone to have a really huge tool for the producer.
Precision and visual confort allow you to create faster and better.
The Amiga was the first true multimedia system.

Its 8 bit ADC were really better to the creative labs soundblaster
series even the soundblaster 16 and awe32/64. Only the SB live
introduced in 1998 has an acceptable signal to noise ratio & some
really high cost professionnal boards.
Do you know the "schhhh" sound on the 16 bit samples on PC ?
Amiga users do not.
The max. sampling frequency of early Amiga > 48 kHz.

I installed my Amiga HD twice because I needed a bigger fonts partition.
There's no intempestive reset each time you install something.
There's no handbrake O.S. which eat your RAM & CPU power.
There's no plug&prey_any_religion_but_don't_shout_after_your_wife
but there is autoconfig and it works.

Commodore was not headed by people able to manage the leading micro-computer concept. In the hand of somebody the Amiga would in every home now.

Let's restart from scrath and make the 21st century Amiga e.g. the best hardware architecture and operating system we can build, today,
with our actual knowledge.
Dollar people go2hell ! The industry is fucked up !

I found it funny that a guy review the C64 as a musical instrument, so I thought , what the hell, the Amiga was a great sampler as well. Started the whole MOD revolution. There were many sound digitizers to get the sound into the Amiga, DSS-8 probably being the best ( GVP ). The computer is easy as hell to get around. Amiga with Octamed (5.0 and up is the ultimate )

Running Octamed, you can get up to 8 channels of sounds ( samples ) although Octamed also has a synth editor. This is a little harder to use. Samples are easier to deal with. The sample editor is cool, and even gives you different effects. The tracker was a little hard for me at first to understand, but once you get the hang of it , it's very powerful and handy. You do complete tracks with this thing. Granted, they may be in 8 bit sound, with some work, they can kick ass.

The Amiga has two RCA out jacks for sound. 2 channels pan to each side , so you may want to invest in a mixer ( most DJ ones will do ) if you want to record the stuff in stereo. There's no after touch or velocity as far as I have seen. The 8 bit sound really lends itself towards dance. In the early 90's , the band " Urban Shakedown " had a hit called " Some Justice " using just 2 Amigas. There are several different Amiga models from the A1000 to A4000. The most popular are the A500, A2000 and A1200. The latter 2 in my opinion are the best for music making. The 2000 allows you to upgrade the audio to 16 bit with a card. Also , look out for the A3000 in rack mount. This is great if you have a rack kit !!

Amigas have been the most reliable machines in my mind. I would take one to a gig, In fact, I know a dude who does use his in a live situtation.

Commodore is long gone, but many different companies have taken over the computer. It's still out there and many people still fix these. It's also very upgrade able ( Power PC boards ).

The Amiga is mostly know for it's video capablities, but the 8 bit chip set was something revoltutionary at the time of it's release back in 86 when computers were making " beep " sounds. Full game soundtracks could be played on this thing. This is a great music computer, where you can everything in one box ( with Octamed software ). You can even add MIDI and us real synths with this thing. I had the A 2000 and I sold it for a Mac :( I'll never for get the day I packed it up and sent it away. It was like losing a friend. Since then , I have had assorted gear , but nothing like the Amiga. So I am getting another one. It's much more fun to make music on one of these. Everyone is going crazy over the Akai MPC, when you can get an Amiga 2000 for 150, maybe a 16 bit card for 200/300 bucks and Octamed SS for 20 and have a cool little sampler , tracker set up. Long live the Amiga.