Foebane Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 I played around with sound a lot on the A8 back in the day, in Atari BASIC, and I still remember that of the four parameters in the SOUND command, the third one was known as "distortion" and was an even number and determined if the type of sound was "tone (10)", "white noise (8)", or "distortion (12)". I remember noticing that the range of the tones were 0-255, with 0 being nearly inaudibly high but as you went down, the changes in pitch were uncomfortably discrete and large, and I remember the lack of really low notes. The octave range (and pitch control) in this regard were woefully lacking. However, I played with distortion 12 and didn't think it was much use, and then I heard the first A8 game soundtracks to use the perfect musical scale found in 12 (in amongst the "off" sounds, if you know what I mean) and I was amazed at the distinct bass and quality they gave A8 sound, and I've loved Distortion 12 ever since then. Hence my example above, which I would swear uses two channels for that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 After testing a little through emulation, I would say that the SID is like an acrylic painting - mostly pastels, reasonably easy to work with but perhaps not the lively results. POKEY seems more like an oil painting where each colour uses a different kind of oil that takes varying amounts of time to dry, some will not be possible to paint over eachother, others will need to be carefully mixed to get the desired colour. It probably takes longer to learn how to paint your image using the oiley POKEY than it using the acrylic SID, and some people simply prefer acrylic paintings anyway. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 I love the texture, full richness and depth. Nice comparison. Water colors, acrylics, and oils. That applies to the displays as well. Of course one machine requires a master painter to get all of them out of it. The other even with a master painter can never obtain oil works in its medium, for it's canvas is not able take the oil. They can be enjoyed just the same as you walk through the gallery of of works. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 I forgot about the water colours, but I think I'll reserve those for the AY. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foebane Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 After testing a little through emulation, I would say that the SID is like an acrylic painting - mostly pastels, reasonably easy to work with but perhaps not the lively results. POKEY seems more like an oil painting where each colour uses a different kind of oil that takes varying amounts of time to dry, some will not be possible to paint over eachother, others will need to be carefully mixed to get the desired colour. It probably takes longer to learn how to paint your image using the oiley POKEY than it using the acrylic SID, and some people simply prefer acrylic paintings anyway. I love the texture, full richness and depth. Nice comparison. Water colors, acrylics, and oils. That applies to the displays as well. Of course one machine requires a master painter to get all of them out of it. The other even with a master painter can never obtain oil works in its medium, for it's canvas is not able take the oil. They can be enjoyed just the same as you walk through the gallery of of works. I forgot about the water colours, but I think I'll reserve those for the AY. And Paula is photography. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 Paula is a 70's Instamatic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foebane Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 Paula is a 70's Instamatic. Well, by photography I didn't mean professional studio quality. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 In the other end, we probably should sort out which sound technology corresponds to the coloured felt pens, the wax crayons, the chalk crayons, the coloured pencils, the coloured ballpoint pens, the finger paint and so on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 (edited) Paula is a 70's Instamatic. No. It's even better. There are two channels on both sides. Every channel is able to sample at 28kHz in 8 bit. And can be enhanced to 56kHz. Also every two channels can do modulations the other. So it's just up to the memory and the playing media how "professional" things can get. About clean 8 bit sampling. Well, 99% of customers sweared back in the days they'd hear no difference between 8 and 16 Bit sampling. Actually, one bit turned out to be the best solution, but that's another story. Also, a statement about Rob Hubbard. I wrote it more than one time: He might be named "God of SID" music. And, if one listens to some tune, done by him, understands the point. But POKEY never was his playground. Particular, to tell on such a conference, to say POKEY was out of tune, shows the loose field of stereotypes. POKEY is mostly out of tune, IF 4 channels have been used, without any technical hindsight. As soon as 16 bit had been used, the resolution is even better than SID can do. You just have to deal with less available channels. And there is the "Filter" which is none. It is a modulation feature a divider, a "not and" feature that does what? It pushed 2 channels 100% together to a common "modulo" sound. Which means that the filter and the base voice were in tune "100%" . Similar with two tone 16 bit, where the high tone can be adjusted 100% correct to the low tone. But is 100% always useful? NO. 100% in tune means to have always a single resulting wave. As physically a sine wave is an endless adding of modulo fitting square waves. So, POKEY can actually have one 16 bit modulated channel, for 100% music creation. Add some softsynth, and feel happy to hear real music from the Atari No muffling, no angry bees... Edited February 15, 2018 by emkay 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foebane Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 Thanks for cheering me up about both Paula and Pokey, Emkay! Have you heard 14-bit Amiga audio? Demos like Ghostown and Loonies' "Human Traffic" use it to great effect. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 Thanks for cheering me up about both Paula and Pokey, Emkay! Have you heard 14-bit Amiga audio? Demos like Ghostown and Loonies' "Human Traffic" use it to great effect.Sounds nice, even if Amiga is for me more like the ECS/OCS generation Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 (edited) I stumbled upon a real great video.... I post it here, because it shows how advanced music making on the Amiga was (and still is) . It also might give a "feeling" how a tracker is meant. Btw. she does a really great job I wonder if somewhere in time POKEY music could also been that "easily" adjusted Edited February 17, 2018 by emkay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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