Can the STE's PCM sound chip play Amiga modules?

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Never getting bored from this prehistoric Amiga vs ST stupidity ?

[Foebane]

 

What I think is true though, is that many Paula stuff sound a bit muffled and squashed (if they are the correct words in english) while the YM is higher fidelity (if that's also the correct word).

 

The muffling is caused by the separate low-pass filter in the A500, added by Commodore later because low memory limits resulted in poor samples which sounded harsh until they were muffled by the filter. However, with more and more memory, Paula can sound amazingly clear.

[zzip]

 

Mad Max, David Whittaker, 505, Dma-Sc, lots of composers really. To be honest, Paula sounds more modern but the YM is not a bad chip at all. What I think is true though, is that many Paula stuff sound a bit muffled and squashed (if they are the correct words in english) while the YM is higher fidelity (if that's also the correct word).

 

With the limited memory and disk space of the era, it wasn't uncommon to use low-sample rate samples to save space. The muffled sound probably comes from that.

[fedepede04]

 

Bleepity-blip-bleep-bloopy-blop vs real-life instrument sounds. Yeah, right. Who's the troll here?

nice answer

just in this thread i will consider your post 4 to be troll / post 5 to be semi troll, 16/18 troll post and 90 to be an Atari bashing.

plus many of the other is a lot of Amiga sweet talk. that make you shine like a true Amiga Fanboy.

so in my view you are a troll, when coming to this section (THE ST section) of the forum with you crap

 

the problem with your definition of sound quality is that you are missing some very importing things.

such like playing frequency. the Paula have a playing around 28khz, and you you want to have +1 octave in a music program you sampling can max be sampled at 14 khz, in the ST the max frequency was around 130khz, this was the reason why the ST had a clearer sound and also you had full 8 octave, you could do high frequency that you never could achieve on the Amiga.

already in the 80' Xenon1 sounded like shit on the amiga compared to the ST, and it is even worse today.

and that is the same for many game from that era, i still got nightmare from the el guitar they used.

funny enough what i think was the best game music on the amiga was hybris and the battle squadron, but it was probably because they drop the "real instrument sound", and use synth sounds.

and an other thing is that you think you view is the only and right one.

we are many that really like the "Bleepity-blip-bleep-bloopy-blop" sound, look at the chiptune community, most are using synth chip like SID ay8910/ym2149, and the ym2612, how many do you think use the amiga for making music on today, probably only a handful personally i have only read about one.

i think the biggest advantage the amiga had/have over the ST, on the sound part was, it had 4 channels, and it was also probably easier for noob to make something that sound like music.

but on the STE you can have 2 channels of digi drums, and 3 synth channels and i will much rather have that.

so i am glad they did not put a low playing Khz lame sound sampling chip with a sound reminding of a low quality mono tape deck. in the ST, they only thing there could have been better was if they had put 2 ym2149 in it.

[fedepede04]

 

Examples of this? I owned an ST for years and didn't like most of the music I heard from the YM.

hi

i was thought about it, but i went away from the idea, because is something personally. when i write like i do is what i think and you are of curse perfectly entitled to have an other another view.

and if i post something here i would be afraid of it just would add more fuel to the bonfire.

 

but if you like to hear some of my ym stuff, when i could pm some for you.

Edited December 18, 2017 by fedepede04

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

Never getting bored from this prehistoric Amiga vs ST stupidity ?

Hahahah I know right?

 

[Lynxpro]

ok while we have the troll here, so let me say, in the right hand the Ym2149 beat the crap of the paula any time of the day.

problem was many did not know how to use it. so go back to amiga land and crawl back under the rock you came from......

 

First off, I was an ST guy and I'll admit the YM2149 is horrible. It's in the ST only for 2 reasons [other than handling printer tasks]:

 

1. Atari Corp couldn't get Atari Inc's revolutionary AMY sound chip to work in the ST.

 

And

 

2. Yamaha refused to sell the much better YM2151 to Atari Corp for use in the ST. Yamaha wouldn't sell that chip to any "music computer" competitors at the time. They would sell the chip to arcade companies such as Atari Coin/Atari Games who also ended up using the YM2151 because the AMY fell through [and ownership thereof too].

 

I'd rather take the POKEY, Dual POKEY, or Quad POKEY over the YM2149. But I agree with you on the part where using 2 YM2149s would be interesting. There is such an upgrade for one of the Spectrum computers to use dual YM2149s for dual mono sound. Much as there are Dual POKEY boards for the Atari 8-bits and Dual SID for the C64s. It surprises me it hasn't been done for STs, either back in the day or now. It certainly would've been better than the Tweety board....

[fedepede04]

 

First off, I was an ST guy and I'll admit the YM2149 is horrible. It's in the ST only for 2 reasons [other than handling printer tasks]:

 

1. Atari Corp couldn't get Atari Inc's revolutionary AMY sound chip to work in the ST.

 

And

 

2. Yamaha refused to sell the much better YM2151 to Atari Corp for use in the ST. Yamaha wouldn't sell that chip to any "music computer" competitors at the time. They would sell the chip to arcade companies such as Atari Coin/Atari Games who also ended up using the YM2151 because the AMY fell through [and ownership thereof too].

 

I'd rather take the POKEY, Dual POKEY, or Quad POKEY over the YM2149. But I agree with you on the part where using 2 YM2149s would be interesting. There is such an upgrade for one of the Spectrum computers to use dual YM2149s for dual mono sound. Much as there are Dual POKEY boards for the Atari 8-bits and Dual SID for the C64s. It surprises me it hasn't been done for STs, either back in the day or now. It certainly would've been better than the Tweety board....

to be honest i did (DO) not think YM2149 is horrible, like i said many did/do just not know how to programmed it, and i will say that i no wizard my self many better then me. but a dual POKEY could also have been great, i my book a synth chip is better then a low level sampling chip, i will say technically the chip in the amiga was groundbreaking, and it lay down the road for many things, but i did not like the sound from it in many things.

Edited December 18, 2017 by fedepede04

[fedepede04]

btw i know that i said that i did not want to post any example.

but here is some made by ultrasyd he know how to punish the ym

 

 

 

Edited December 18, 2017 by fedepede04

[Foebane]

1. i my book a synth chip is better then a low level sampling chip, i will say technically the chip in the amiga was groundbreaking, and it lay down the road for many things

2. but i did not like the sound from it in many things.

 

1. I can't bloody STAND synths, like SID or the massively overrated Vienna by Ultravox (I never saw the appeal of that song).

2. What you heard, I'm assuming, is many old Amiga games (no doubt ST ports) from the late 1980s. I would suggest that you look at the highest-rated examples from the Amiga Demoscene from the 2010s to see how good Paula can be.

[Foebane]

Never getting bored from this prehistoric Amiga vs ST stupidity ?

 

Wow, ST zealots. And I consider myself an Amiga zealot.

[Nebulon]

btw i know that i said that i did not want to post any example.

but here is some made by ultrasyd he know how to punish the ym

 

 

 

I'm pretty sure the first and third videos also make use of the STe's two digital sample channels.

 

As for synthy Amiga music, here's something from an Amiga 500 (albeit with a bit of reverb added):

http://www.blitter.com/~nebulous/otherworld/MP3/JS_Bach%20-%20Brandenburg4%20(Amiga).mp3

[fedepede04]

I'm pretty sure the first and third videos also make use of the STe's two digital sample channels.

 

As for synthy Amiga music, here's something from an Amiga 500 (albeit with a bit of reverb added):

http://www.blitter.com/~nebulous/otherworld/MP3/JS_Bach%20-%20Brandenburg4%20(Amiga).mp3

i think they all are, but that does not take away that it is YM power on a plain STE.

to your Amiga music i think it is ok, but you can still hear that it struggle with the high freq, but i would not be bothered or annoyed by listen to it, like i use to be in the old games.

and just to put the record straight, i have hear a lot of amiga music that i liked, in games like hybris and the battle squadron, speedball. also i had a couple of friends making music on it, in a home build editor, but the comment factor was that the use synth sound on the amiga instead of samples.

Edited December 19, 2017 by fedepede04

[fedepede04]

 

1. I can't bloody STAND synths, like SID or the massively overrated Vienna by Ultravox (I never saw the appeal of that song).

2. What you heard, I'm assuming, is many old Amiga games (no doubt ST ports) from the late 1980s. I would suggest that you look at the highest-rated examples from the Amiga Demoscene from the 2010s to see how good Paula can be.

1. that is fair we can't all love the same things.

2. it could be a ST port or the ST could be a amiga port, or they could just share comment code base, i think to remember that the ST and Amiga version or Xenon was release at the same time. but the player was not the same, the music both on the ST and amiga was code by DW, maybe he reused some of the ST player in the amiga, but i will guess that the ST player is a code conversions from the 8bit machine, so it also not optimal solutions for the ST.

and i have not been listen much to the amiga the last many years, i already switch to PC in 92, and never looked back, first around 2010 when i got an ST again, so i have not spend much time on the amiga this time around, but i think i listen to one or 2 new demo of the amiga on youtube.

 

but why i reacted to your post is because, you come here as an amiga fanboy, on a Atari forum in a ST topic and start a flame war and trolling around.

it is fine by me that you feel and think like this, but could you not do this in a amiga forum. you don't see me or others ST user go on the amiga forum and start making silly Atari threads.

Edited December 19, 2017 by fedepede04

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

[Foebane]

 

 

 

but why i reacted to your post is because, you come here as an amiga fanboy, on a Atari forum in a ST topic and start a flame war and trolling around.

it is fine by me that you feel and think like this, but could you not do this in a amiga forum. you don't see me or others ST user go on the amiga forum and start making silly Atari threads.

 

I thought this thread was done until it was bumped up again the other day. I wish an admin would lock it so it will sink without trace.

 

[fedepede04]

100% agree..

Please moderator could you please look this thread ?

[zzip]

First off, I was an ST guy and I'll admit the YM2149 is horrible. It's in the ST only for 2 reasons [other than handling printer tasks]:

 

1. Atari Corp couldn't get Atari Inc's revolutionary AMY sound chip to work in the ST.

 

And

 

2. Yamaha refused to sell the much better YM2151 to Atari Corp for use in the ST. Yamaha wouldn't sell that chip to any "music computer" competitors at the time. They would sell the chip to arcade companies such as Atari Coin/Atari Games who also ended up using the YM2151 because the AMY fell through [and ownership thereof too].

 

I'd rather take the POKEY, Dual POKEY, or Quad POKEY over the YM2149. But I agree with you on the part where using 2 YM2149s would be interesting. There is such an upgrade for one of the Spectrum computers to use dual YM2149s for dual mono sound. Much as there are Dual POKEY boards for the Atari 8-bits and Dual SID for the C64s. It surprises me it hasn't been done for STs, either back in the day or now. It certainly would've been better than the Tweety board....

I think the real reason was because much of the ST design work was done before Tramiel bought Atari, by ex-Commodore engineers. They didn't have access to Atari sound chips, Amy or Pokey, early in the design phase, and adding them later would have caused delays.

[Nebulon]

 

The Falcon has still two digital sound channels (stereo) but because it has a DSP to do the software mixing, the number of channels is flexible. There are even trackers that do 32 channels like Ace Tracker, Digital Home Studio, Graoumf Tracker and Megatracker. And because the DSP does the software mixing, playing music does not impact the main CPU.

 

On ST/STEs, software mixing takes indeed more time than "plain" 4-channel Paula music, but it is also much more flexible. The four Amiga sound channels are strictly divided with 2 left, 2 right and for me the stereo separation is sometimes too much. With software mixing you can pan a sound channel between left and right softening the stereo separation or have effects where a sound moves from one side to the other side. Thus software mixing has its advantages (flexibility) at the cost of CPU time. For the STE there are various MOD players that can play Amiga MOD files at the same or better quality than the Amiga although it indeed cost more CPU time but not so much that it can't done anything else as many demos (and some games like Obsession, StarDust) prove.

It is funny that Amiga programmers used Atari ST techniques (started by Atari ST musician Jochen Hippel with 7-track TFMX player used in for example Turrican and Lethal Xcess) to overcome the limitations of the Amiga sound hardware like more than 4 tracks and stereo panning in OctaMED where the hardware has strict left/right separation. But the 7/8 channel mod players had the same problem as on the STE that it took more CPU time so it was usually only used in title/intro screens and not during game play.

 

@Foebane

You are right that the Amiga is technically superior to the Atari ST/STE in the sense that its graphics and sound hardware makes effects possible with little CPU time that will take on the ST lots of CPU time. The one advantage the ST has is that it has a slightly faster clock speed.

But you have to remember that the ST, in the first few years was far more affordable than the Amiga. The Amiga was technically superior but at a price which made it too expensive as "16-bit family" home computer for most. Only after the Amiga 500 was released about two years later, the price came down to a level that made it compete as family home computer. But until that time the Atari ST was the most sensible choice because it gave you the most value for your buck. But in 1990 things were indeed different and the Amiga 500 gave you most value for your buck.

So for me both are great machines if you put their price/performance in perspective.

 

Robert

 

That's a really good response.

 

To those who haven't seen it, it's worth checking out Stardust on the STe. The in-game and title menu music is pretty much identical to the Amiga.

 

And yeah, I second the issue of the Amiga's two channels to the left and two to the right. I recall doing a cross-wired four-speaker arrangement to try to alleviate that.

[Lynxpro]

I think the real reason was because much of the ST design work was done before Tramiel bought Atari, by ex-Commodore engineers. They didn't have access to Atari sound chips, Amy or Pokey, early in the design phase, and adding them later would have caused delays.

 

 

That's not the reason why the AMY wasn't used in the ST. Shiraz wanted the AMY in the ST. But there were problems with the chip and the tight deadlines on the ST's design made them move onto other things. That's why Atari Corp then decided they'd use it in the 65XEM. But then they never were able to get the AMY working in that either and they ended up selling the chip tech to Sight+Sound. Then there was a huge lawsuit against Sight+Sound so the AMY also didn't get used in the STe, not that they ever had any plans to use it by that point. Maybe we'll get more details in the Business is War book as to why a better - and compatible - YM chip(s) wasn't used in the STe.

[oracle_jedi]

 

But you have to remember that the ST, in the first few years was far more affordable than the Amiga. The Amiga was technically superior but at a price which made it too expensive as "16-bit family" home computer for most. Only after the Amiga 500 was released about two years later, the price came down to a level that made it compete as family home computer.

 

The original price differential is a good point that is often overlooked, or simply ignored.

 

I read with some exasperation, a piece in The Guardian, by technical writer Keith Stuart about the Amiga where he claimed:

 

In 1985 my family made a terrible mistake – a mistake that would have far-reaching consequences; a mistake that would blight my life for several painful years. I still look back at it with a sense of sadness and, yes, if I’m honest, fury. What happened was this – and if you’re a gamer of a certain age, you may want to sit down: my family bought an Atari ST instead of a Commodore Amiga.

 

Right Keith, so back in 1985, your family chose to buy something affordable over something insanely expensive. That's like saying your family made the mistake of buying a Ford Sierra and not the Jaguar XJ6, as if that was a common alternative purchase option at the time. My dad chose a second hand Volvo 245DL, and it blighted me for many years that he didn't buy the new Mercedes that I really needed to compete with the cool kids at school. I feel your pain man, I really do.

 

Indeed Mr. Stuart's claims are even more ridiculous given that the Commodore Amiga wasn't even launched in the UK until May 1986 at a suggested price of £1500 for the basic 256K version without a monitor. By comparison the Atari 520ST was selling for under £350. A double sided disk drive would have cost you about £150. In a launch review for Your Computer in May 1986, reviewer Geof Wheelwright called the Amiga a "dream machine" but a "nightmare price".

 

See Your Computer May 1986 page 80.

Edited December 27, 2017 by oracle_jedi

[fedepede04]

 

 

The original price differential is a good point that is often overlooked, or simply ignored.

 

I read with some exasperation, a piece in The Guardian, by technical writer Keith Stuart about the Amiga where he claimed:

 

In 1985 my family made a terrible mistake – a mistake that would have far-reaching consequences; a mistake that would blight my life for several painful years. I still look back at it with a sense of sadness and, yes, if I’m honest, fury. What happened was this – and if you’re a gamer of a certain age, you may want to sit down: my family bought an Atari ST instead of a Commodore Amiga.

 

Right Keith, so back in 1985, your family chose to buy something affordable over something insanely expensive. That's like saying your family made the mistake of buying a Ford Sierra and not the Jaguar XJ6, as if that was a common alternative purchase option at the time. My dad chose a second hand Volvo 245DL, and it blighted me for many years that he didn't buy the new Mercedes that I really needed to compete with the cool kids at school. I feel your pain man, I really do.

 

Indeed Mr. Stuart's claims are even more ridiculous given that the Commodore Amiga wasn't even launched in the UK until May 1986 at a suggested price of £1500 for the basic 256K version without a monitor. By comparison the Atari 520ST was selling for under £350. A double sided disk drive would have cost you about £150. In a launch review for Your Computer in May 1986, reviewer Geof Wheelwright called the Amiga a "dream machine" but a "nightmare price".

 

See Your Computer May 1986 page 80.

thx for the Mag.

i use to love buying those magazines.....

[Foebane]

 

 

In 1985 my family made a terrible mistake – a mistake that would have far-reaching consequences; a mistake that would blight my life for several painful years. I still look back at it with a sense of sadness and, yes, if I’m honest, fury. What happened was this – and if you’re a gamer of a certain age, you may want to sit down: my family bought an Atari ST instead of a Commodore Amiga.

 

Perhaps his memory of when this purchase happened has warped with time? Maybe he's thinking of 1987? It would make more sense.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

 

Perhaps his memory of when this purchase happened has warped with time? Maybe he's thinking of 1987? It would make more sense.

Amiga was launched in 1985. Although, there were no many games until late 1987.

All it changes not fact that this thread is so f*d up with total off topic crap ...

Hopefully next year will be better .

[Christos]

I totally agree with him though. It was a waste of a perfectly good ST.