Which Amiga for Retro Music Production?

I'm aware that nostalgia, a bustling community & perhaps even my own hyperbole, have all helped to raise the profile of Amiga music in recent times. One consequence: more and more people are buying Amiga hardware. I'm regularly asked for opinions on the best machine to buy, so wrote an article on the matter!

Software Considerations

The question of which machine hinges on what you plan to do with it. Do you want to run trackers like Octamed V4, Protracker and also do a little tinkering with early soft-synths Aegis Sonix? Then buy an Amiga 500, swap out the disk drive for a "Gotek" floppy emulator and go to town. A disk image for your tracker, another for your samples (or "mod" song files to dissect) and that's it! Much classic music was made with such a setup. Many trackers have MIDI out so you can even do some sequencing. Any Amiga can access MIDI through a simple serial interface, by the way. These days, the software is easily downloadable online, plus you can always create blank disks in an emulator, copy files to them, and use them on a real machine.

A500s usually come with Kickstart/Workbench 1.3 - an older variant of the operating system - plus 1 megabyte of RAM; enough to make full tunes. But Amiga music doesn't end there - and if you want to explore the wild, interesting boundaries mentioned in my video (below), you'll want to upgrade to a better spec'd rig.

Emulation?

It's worth mentioning that emulation is definitely a viable option for those exploring Amiga audio - I do a lot of composition on my Windows laptop, running the emulator WinUAE - I have cloned my Amiga's compact flash hard disk for a consistent experience across machines, and copying new files/samples is as easy as mounting a Windows folder as a secondary hard disk.

WinUAE emulates some of Paula's more esoteric features (like audio rate channel modulation!) and sends MIDI through your chosen interface, but it might not compete with a real Amiga's MIDI latency and jitter. Sometimes, I like to synchronise 8-bit sample playback with MIDI events (eg to filter Amiga audio via a modular, whilst triggering that same filter's envelopes via Amiga MIDI) and some of the emulation options (like inexpensive Raspberry Pi solutions) didn't work out to well when I tested them. I haven't tried the A500 mini console either, but OctaMED does run on it.

Sound & Vision

All classic Amigas are endowed with stereo RCA phono outputs - four channels combined into a stereo signal that is panned at extremes. So far, so good - but how are you gonna see anything without an old CRT monitor? In the UK, all but the newest televisions have a SCART socket, which usually displays a crisp RGB Amiga image via the appropriate cable. US friends unfortunately may struggle to find anything better than composite video. Modern solutions like RGB2HDMI exist though, and these are popular with UK Amigians too.

If you can spring for an Amiga 3000, then you can just plug straight into a VGA monitor - we'll talk more about the "big box" machines in a moment.

RAM Considerations

Here we go. On the Amiga, RAM isn't just RAM. There's chip RAM - this interfaces directly with the Amiga's custom chips, including Paula, our sound chip, and fast RAM - which the CPU must address (I've oversimplified this somewhat). Each model has an upper limit on the amount of chip RAM, like so:

512k

• Amiga 500 (can go up to 2MB with a pricey later "Agnus" chip & aftermarket upgrade)
• Amiga 1000 (can be upgraded to more if you replace half the computer with a "rejuvenator" board - an arduous task!)
• Amiga 2000 (later revisions 1MB as standard, same upgrade path as A500)

 

1MB

• Amiga CDTV (same upgrade path as A500/2000)

 

2MB

• Amiga 500+ (came with 1MB as standard)
• Amiga 600 (came with 1MB as standard)
• Amiga 1200
• Amiga 3000/4000
• Amiga CD32

Why is this important? Well traditionally, audio data is stored in chip RAM! Later software allows samples to be stored in fast RAM and copied over when needed - but earlier applications are stuck with that 1-2MB, so you're going to want as much as possible. It's entirely possible to add a blazingly fast accelerator and 128MB of fast RAM to a machine with only 512kB chip RAM - resulting in certain picky software not running.

The Boy's a Timebomb

Generally, Amiga 500s are well built, they'll outlive us all. It's recommended to get hold of an aftermarket PSU and check for batteries on expansion boards, but that's it! Other models haven't aged quite as well though:

Leaky Battery Carnage: A500+, A2000, A3000, A4000

Leaky Capacitors: A600, A1200, CD32, A4000

Internal PSU to service: A1000, A2000, A3000, A4000

Remove components to fix timing stability: A1200

Early revision sound issue, replace components: A1200

Leaks especially can destroy machines, but there are tinkerers out there to help you! You might also experience unhappy floppy drives, knackered mice and other niggles; so it's a good idea to make contact with your local user group who will, undoubtedly, have one or two soldering boffins.

Mass Storage & Upgrades

Much Amiga music software requires Kickstart 2.0 or 3.1, which was the last commercial version until recently (3.2.2 now exists). A Kickstart ROM chip may therefore be your first upgrade - though some expansions negate the need for a physical ROM. In order to have a nice installed OS, you'll need a hard disk (or more likely, a Compact Flash/SD Card solution).

The A3000 is, again, the fancy boi - with on-board SCSI. Similarly, IDE is available on the A600/1200/4000, merely requiring a cheap CF to IDE adapter, but for other models you'll need a combined CPU/RAM/IDE upgrade solution.

I want to briefly mention FFS - which stands for Fast File System, though it sure has made me blurt out "for f***'s sake" once or twice! It turns out that the A1200, whilst desirable and sleek, is kinda garbage. The key-scanning isn't very good, plus that onboard IDE is finicky! The theoretical beauty of using a CF or SD solution is that you can build your install via emulation, pop out the card and then boot it in the Amiga. This has often worked for me - but my A1200 with a super fast TF1260 accelerator threw up all sorts of errors and crashes when I booted the card. The same install was tested with several identical A1200's and it only worked in 50% of them! The culprit was FFS and the IDE port, and though it's possible to mess around with a setting called "MaxTransfer", formatting a new drive with PFS3 and then copying my files was the easier solution. It just worked.

Many upgrades and accelerators exist. If you want to do a spot of gaming in between your break-beats, then WHDLoad is a good solution, letting most games work on most systems. Here are a few upgrade examples for each machine, I've chosen a mix of real 68K silicon, FPGA and ARM solutions to appeal to most tastes:

• Amiga 500/+/1000: HC533/TF536/PiStorm/Vampire (Plus Parceiro - a nice 1000-only option)
• Amiga 600: A630 Rev3/PiStorm/Vampire
• Amiga 1200: TF1230/TF1260/PiStorm 32/Vampire/Warp 1260
• Amiga 2000: TF536/Dicke Olga/PiStorm/Vampire
• Amiga 3000/4000: A3660/TF4060/Z3660
• Amiga CD32: TF330/TF360

Moving Samples Around

Amigas have varying connectivity options, too. The A600/1200 have external PCMCIA, making large file transfer pretty trivial, but other models may require splitting files onto multiple floppies, or even opening up the machine to take out the card. My Amiga 3000 has an external SCSI CD drive so occasionally I'll burn a CD of files! I use Cool Edit Pro to convert 44100Hz WAV files into 16726Hz 8VSX IFF files, but I'm sure there are other ways to do it! When moving files around, let's not forget that various networking options exist, and these vary from machine to machine too, here's a guide: https://amitopia.com/connect-amiga-to-internet-guide/

As one more alternative, a parallel port sampler cartridge enables the user to sample sounds directly into the Amiga and with the right software, even turns the computer into a real-time effects unit!

Exotic Things

With the mention of the A3000 we return our focus to the big box Amigas. The 2000, 3000 and 4000 (plus tower models!) feature an expansion bus known as Zorro. Those with unusual tastes will want to explore this Zorro card format, which hosted various musical expansions:

• 16-bit sound cards like the AD516 (8 channel simultaneous 16-bit playback!) and Prelude are utilized not only by some games, but by later DAW software like HD Rec, ProStationAudio, Samplitude Pro, Studio 16 and the recently developed Octamed V8.
• The One Stop Music Shop is basically an Emu Proteus 1 on a Zorro card! You can edit patches from the desktop and it also offers extra MIDI connectivity.
• There's a recent Commodore 64 SID soundcard too!

Nostalgia Costs!

So, "how much is this going to cost me" you might be wondering? Here's a rough guide to current Amiga market prices, as of August 2024 - you can laugh at these in 10 years, one way or the other:

• Amiga 500: £90 to £150
• Amiga 500+: £150 to £200 (huge battery leak risk!)
• Amiga 600: £150 to £250 (recapped machines are most expensive)
• Amiga 1200: £300 to £450 (recapped machines are most expensive)
• Amiga 2000: £250 to £600 (depending on expansions)
• Amiga 3000/4000: £1500-2000 (yep! The tower versions are even more!)

So which Amiga for Retro Music Production? I'm going to go with the A500+, if you get lucky and can score one without battery damage! Pop a TF536 or PiStorm in and get writing. Alternatively, the A600 is a compelling option with easier file transfer. Both can take 2MB chip RAM and, if music is the main focus, the A1200's improved graphics aren't worth the expense. Saying that, I owned an A1200 and it's enhanced AGA games growing up, so I needed one for my collection.

If you're an audiovisual tinkerer - then I'm going to recommend the monstrous A2000. You could then explore the outer limits of Amiga creativity, perhaps adding a Video Toaster card or similar. I'm currently building an A2000 system with some neat additions, exciting!

Whatever you choose, come join the Commodore Amiga group on Facebook and join computing's most passionate community! Thanks.

Links

Dreamland Exotica - an Amiga music software archive with Kickstart/memory/processor requirements listed.

Turran FTP - a huge server with all sorts of software in ADF, ISO & LHA format.

The Amiga Buyer's Guide - with a focus on general computing, not just music.

Posted by MagicalSynthAdventure an expert in synthesis technology from last Century and Amiga enthusiast.

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