The cheapest MIDI home-studio of 1988

Take an Atari ST, 4 budget synths from 1988, and spend months seeing how far they can go - all while staring at a black-and-white CRT! I took me over a year to make this given most of the equipment was DOA and keeping in mind there's another part coming later this year.

Gear used: Atari 520ST (mostly), Roland MT-100, Yamaha MusicStation PSS-580, Kawai K1, Yamaha EMT-10, Dr T MIDI Recording Studio, Cubase 1.5 and Rotel mini system.

00:00 - Intro
01:10 - Atari's Sound and finding your first synth
02:40 - Synth - Yamaha MusicStation PSS-580
05:02 - Atari - DR T's MIDI Recording Studio (demo)
08:32 - DEMO - MusicStation & Monitor
11:13 - Synth - MT-32 Intro
14:00 - Atari - Cubase 1.5 (demo)
17:56 - DEMO - MT-32 Solo & Polyphony discussion
19:52 - Synth - Kawai K1 Intro
21:50 - Synth - Kawai programming and MIDI assign
23:12 - DEMO - Kawai K1 and Guitar Jam
26:00 - DEMO - Yamaha EMT-10 + MT-32
27:45 - Conclusion and End tune (demo on the Kawai K1)

Please do not copy this entire video to your own channel without permission. Using 45 or 60 seconds as a quote (fairuse, etc) is fine. I'd love to see your video if you are making similar content, @CTRIX64 on twit :-)

Finally, don't be fooled by the badge, the Atari is an ST520 not an STe - we'll explore this more in part 2 when I open up the case!

[LGR]

Well this was just delightful. Loved your Amiga sampler video some years ago too and this feels like a perfect sort of follow-up. Glad to see you back on YT and I’m stoked to see part two!

[liotier]

I wish I had seen this video in 1988, when I was 12 years old. Alas, for lack of anyone around to tell me and for lack of the Internet, I discovered the joy of MIDI only 25 years later. Oh well, never too late !

[m.a.freund]

This is kinda basically Worst Jobs In History: Late 80's Bedroom Producer Edition and I could watch a season of it.

[livvy]

My middle school choir teacher used one of those proprietary-floppy-format Roland boxes to record her accompaniment and then play it back while we practiced! I remember taking the floppy disk for a song I really liked, and then being extremely disappointed when the format wasn't MIDI.

[jmclabexperience]

Great video !
My obsession for Atari ST Cubase (esp. v2) is so high that I created a cheap SD card adapter for the ST (electronics and all): the ACSI2STM. This was a 3 years journey of reverse engineering, painful tweaking, and a bit of help from a small community. After 4 versions, and a few dozen nights spent understanding the hardware and the horrible OS of the ST, I have something that can actually provide full SD card compatibility, up to 2TB per card, and removes/works around most ST's filesystem bugs. What a journey, but well worth it !

[mspeter]

Seeing this old version of Cubase displaying a VERY familiar UI is kinda impressive.

[ColdFusion]

Just so you know, you've got unbelievable talent bringing these old sounds to life within your compositions. Love to see it!

[onesong]

3:02 I love how Yamaha managed to squeeze one of their motorbikes into that picture. 🤣

[kflyingtoaster]

That demo on the music station, such a good sound!

[rorz]

My guy just casually drops a banger video after being MIA for 3 years

[KnapfordMaster]

I love how almost 30 years later, quantize in Cubase is still "Q". Cubase is my main DAW of choice and idk it just made me smile :)

[busyworksbeats]

The amount of research for this video 😱🚀

[angry_wizard]

My dad, a musician, bought an Atati ST the same week I was born in 1988, so I grew up on the things and have had an affection for them ever since. But man he used that thing for Midi with Notator and the C-Lab Unitor-N midi port peripheral (he had that roland MT-32 as well, and a bunch of Roland guitar synth stuff too) well into the late '90s when he then replaced the ST Atari STacy, the laptop/luggable version of the ST which he used until like 2006. I remember he did all sorts of really cool shit with the MIDI capabilities like sequencing the entire score to Little Shop of Horrors for a high-school musical production.

He wound up selling the STacy to a computer museum because it was one of the rare 4MB RAM/40MB HDD models and has a very low digit serial number. Still 18 years of use out of a platform ain't too bad.

[BaconFire]

As a teen in the 80s, I had no clue what all this was, how it worked, etc. So I stayed away from synths and workstations and just played acoustic instruments. Decades later this video just brought it all together and now it makes sense. I understand now how it works and I really appreciate it. Thank you.

[chrisicotec]

this is actually quite bizarre, ive seen your videos before, it wasnt until near the end i realised you are ctrix... dude, you are what got me started with music on the amiga, your protracker mods were an exellent source of samples and techniques for me as a young kid with no money but eager to learn

[madagreement]

Man ! You just made an awesome 1993 fighting game stage track !
I really hope you compose for some retro video game projects in the future ! You'd nail it !

[mudeth]

I clicked for the nostalgia, didn't expect to watch a high-quality documentary and great music making. Thanks for sharing!

[lexacutable]

The synth sounds on that Yamaha are unlocking ancient childhood memories. I must have had something from the same line as a kid, though certainly a cheaper model. I didn't know what I was doing with it, and it was long gone before I started learning about making music for real.

[blakberi]

This takes me back... the Atari ST was the main staple of my studio for such a long time as a cash strapped young man. I started with the Alesis MMT-8 sequencer and then graduated to the Atari with Emagic Notator Logic (before it was bought by Apple). My keyboard was a DX11 without velocity sensitivity. I did have use of an MT-32 for a while, but my drum machine was a TR-606 Drumatix - frickin' loved it. My most expensive purchase back then was a Roland U-20 keyboard which really pushed my music forward... I could go on, but thank you for this trip down memory lane

[reptilejesus]

Genuinely... these videos set the bar for what a YouTube video can be. These are a joy to watch which is why I rewatch them constantly. Your passion for the subject matter, your cahrisma and the production value make for an experience you dont get a lot on this platform.
So yeah
Thanks for making these (: