SNDHRECORD

[AdamK]

On STNICCC 2015 (http://www.stniccc.com/) SNDHRECORD was announced.

Aim of the project is to record all tunes from SNDH Archive (http://sndh.atari.org/) do formatów MP3, OGG oraz FLAC.

All tunes were played on ATARI STE, without any emulation. Total playing time of all tunes is about 14 days.

Thanks go to all musicians that worked on Atari ST and maintainers of SNDH Archive.

You can find recorded tunes here: http://sndhrecord.atari.org/

[ataricrypt]

LOL this sounds (sorry) superb!!!

[Grazey]

Great stuff!

[Monk]

Aah!

 

I wanted an easier way to play Atari ST tunes than using "WinJam" (which is, frankly, a bit user-unfriendly). If I use my Amiga 1200 to draw something, I like having hours of inspiring audio waves punching my eardrums, and I have handy key shortcuts for Winamp, but not WinJam.

 

Also, as I have been re-discovering the joys of the REAL during these recent years, as opposed to 'emulation' (which I still appreciate and marvel, but let's face it, if you have the choice, REAL always beats emulation, at least in some aspects (though I am aware that emulation can 'enhance' things, like resolution, etc.), and if nothing else, then at least 'feeling' and 'authenticity'), and as wonderful as the SNDH collection is, and as great as WinJam is in many ways..

 

..after realizing how much more fun (a) real VIC-20, real C16, real C64, real Amiga 1200, real Dreamcast, real Atari 800 XL (the list goes on) (is) are, suddenly 'emulated YM2149' left be a bit cold.

 

I wanted to hear the REAL Atari ST, the real audio, authentic sound and the proper feel and energy that only a real machine can provide. If the SID sounds and feels so much better on a real C64 than emulation, why shouldn't this be true for Atari ST as well?

 

So I started searching ... and found this! SNDHRECORD!

 

It's a dream come true.. I think the SOASC guy was a bit nuts, but he had the right idea, letting a real machine record the authentic sound for posterity for those, who can't or won't be able to have the real machine to play those tunes for them.

 

I'd like to thank everyone that was involved with this project - recording must not have been easy! What a wonderful gift to the world!

 

This inspires me to want to start dabbling with the Atari ST music a bit more.. MaxYMiser seems like a nice tracker for this purpose, though slightly too cryptic for me to really understand it properly yet. I've only composed two Atari ST songs, and I do love the chip. Of course coming from the Commodore side of the veil, I miss the filter, but you can't have everything, and Atari ST sound chip has its own, unique, quirky sound that I have grown to love so much.

 

Also, it presents another challenge, which can be fun! Plus, I don't have to make decision as to what to use the filter for, I can focus on other things.

 

So many of the Atari ST songs sound just so amazingly good - for example, almost anything that Tao has composed.. I can't wait to be able to properly explore the other composers and hear what they have concocted.

 

Perhaps I should purchase a real Atari ST as well. The more real machines I have, the less satisfied I feel about the emulation of the others, even if the emulators are great. There's something about the 'feel' of the real machine, plus being independent of 'certain OS' is always great fun, like a vacation from work!

 

As Grazey so gracely expressed: Great stuff indeed!

 

P.S. My real machines so far (besides PCs):

 

Atari 800 XL, Commodore 16, Commodore VIC-20, Commodore 64C, Commodore Amiga 1200 (030), Sega Dreamcast, Nintendō Wii, Nintendō　DS, Atari 2600 jr.

 

All have either some kind of SD/CF-solution with lots of stuff installed, or just 'enough good ones'. C16 gets by nicely with just 1541 II disk drive, but C64C needed an 1541 Ultimate II. Atari 800 XL would need SIO2SD, but for now, it has SIDE2, which runs almost all games I want to play, and some demos, too (plus, it plays my own songs). SD2IEC was good enough for VIC-20 until I ordered the Behr-Bonz. The Amiga obviously has a hard drive (could replace it with a CF IDE-drive, just like I once had), Wii has a hard drive, DS has a SD-card, and Atari 2600 jr. of course utilizes the Harmony Cart. The Amiga is loaded with 192 MB memory and a TFT monitor for 640x480 and 160x200-stuff, plus a bright CRT television for other resolutions.

 

After all this, it feels somehow annoying to just emulate Atari ST - can't watch demos on a bright CRT on authentic resolution, because Steem doesn't let me change the resolution to something like 320x256 or such. A great emulator, but IMHO all emulators should mimic MAME in the configuration department; it lets you use any resolution your gfx card and system can handle (I am using Soft15kHz and a card that supports even 256x224 and other quirky resolutions for Super Famicom (and NES) and arcade games, with VGA2SCART-cable that lets me output VGA port's signal directly to a SCART port on a bright CRT television - looks great, and the emulation is very good, but I really want to see what a real Super Famicom looks like).

 

Anyway, sorry for this long digressing almost-rant or something, but I just wanted to make a point about how much I appreciate this project, because I have grown to appreciate "REAL" over "EMULATION" so much lately.

 

Thank you.