Vintage studio, midi, software, macintosh

P

pip2012!

Member
Hi all,
Bear with me on this. I’m a vintage apple macintosh hobbist but also nostalgic for all things late 80s early 90s. Long story short I’d always wanted a studio even though i have no musical talent what-so-ever and the time has come I’d like to combine my fascination with 90s studio equipment and my vintage macintosh hobby.
I’ve managed to find an old midi adapter to fit my late 80s Apple macintosh and had been considering purchasing a Roland, Yamaha or Korg sound module, a midi keyboard, possibly some other sequencer, beat box type electronics and linking them all together with some vintage software and having a play basically.
1.) i really don’t know anything about this or any of the sound modules I mentioned or how they work so any advise or suggestions would be great.
2.) will any midi keyboard work or should i match say (example: a korg NS5R sound module with a korg keyboard or doesn’t it really matter)?
3.) any advice on the best novice vintage software to use, i hear Trax or Cubase possibly. I was hoping someone may have used a macintosh in a small studio back in the late 80s early 90s and have suggestions.
4.) finally keyboard size.

Ultimately I’m only planning on spending a few hundred pounds on ebay gear to give it go and attempt to make a track.

Now i maybe talking rubbish and you suggest something else completely which is fine I really don’t know much if any on this stuff hence the shout out on the forum for ideas and advice on my nerdy endeavours.

Thanks in advance.

Neal
 
better off with an ipad and cubasis, seriously, we're in 2018 and it'd be cheaper.

I don't understand the nostalgia, I was around back then and would never want to go back, the only good thing about it was no internet and less distractions...things got done.
 
You are completely right of course and i do have an ipad, iphone and modern computer so could do much more a lot easier but the retro computer thing is my hobby, gee’s i even do desktop publishing on my black and white 1989 macintosh for fun so this is just something else I’d like to do on it because i can, i few hundred £ i get a bunch on vintage stuff from eBay so yes it sounds a silly thing to do but i like a challenge
 
Hi Pip and welcome. Now, I know very little about all this and NOTHING about macs of any age but, I do know old MIDI gear was not all "quite the ticket" and by that I mean it dod not communicate with other stuff correctly (I have an old Yamaha Portasound that send out the wrong MIDI codes, e.g. drum sequence triggers a clarinet!) But for a hobby and the craic? No MATTER! Get the old kit and plug it up (buy a rake of 5 PIN din CABLES) and have at it!

Have you thought about monitors? Since you just want the "noise" I would look at some cheap ass active PA bins, 15" or 12" and a tweeter and let it rip!

And, BTW there will be plenty of guys over at Sound On Sound | The World's Premier Music Recording Technology Magazine that are probably still doing this!

Dave.
 
Some thoughts:

Any midi keyboard will work, but it will need DIN midi output and you will need a midi interface for the Apple. You don't need to match brands.

Keyboard size depends on your available space and your budget. I have a full-sized piano (88 key) but I'm happy doing midi stuff with a 48 key keyboard. I would like to go smaller than that, though smaller keyboards are around.

I have no idea what software was available for the Mac in that era. I was in the Amiga camp, and my go-to program was Music-X. I also used Sonix and Bars and Pipes. Notator was a program for the Atari. There are sites around from which you can get vintage software.
 
fair enough, if anything I only feel pain when I think back to the late 80s, I used to spend hours on end reading equipment manuals, you really had to know your stuff when it came to midi and midi sync, I used to have 2 keyboards and a drum machine hooked up to my mac, sometimes it'd take me over 50 takes to get it all to sync perfectly, I am not exaggerating, lets just say you've been warned haha
 
Thanks Dave thata useful info. i have been reading these older modules can be a pig to setup right but i thought it would be a bit of fun trying and seeing what happens. No plans for any mega bins as such as this is for my really small office/ man cave so an active 2.1 computer speaker set up will be more than enough otherwise my wife may get suspicious of my purchases :)

Neal
 
Ah cheers gecko and btyre just seen your messages. Yes i have a midi hub for the old macintosh, a random ebay find i offered £10 for, i’ll just need a few din cables, some drivers, a module and a keyboard and possibly a drum machine. Good advise i have a really small room and cant play a keyboard more than a few jingles so 48 key might just do the trick and a cheaper tester keyboard. If i can actually get if to work i can always trade it up to a bigger keyboard. Thanks btyre i hear you. It could well be a fruitless and frustrating endeavour which is a why I don’t mind a few hundred pounds on old kit I can most likely sell on if it doesn’t work but i still have this nagging nostalgic trip telling me to try as I wanted it all as a child and never got to try it, add in my vintage macintosh just for giggles and if i can make a track or two that’ll be amazing even if its just for my ears only. I know i could do it way easier on my iphone but it really is about the challenge of doing it. Really helpful all of you.
 
Hi Neal,
I am a bit of a nostalgic about gear too, but my era is the 1970's/1980's (and earlier if possible).
I would look for items all from the same era to help match things up and keep the look vintage.
SO, what you need is:
A sound module- You dont need to match anything to this, but some gear has better MIDI implementation than others. Try Yamaha, Roland, Korg etc all pretty good.
A MIDI interface for the Mac (uses the serial port)
Software- in those days, Cubase may have been around and I like it. You may have to research what gear was there in the time period you are playing with.
I would find an old version of Cubase, myself. Make sure it comes on Mac diskettes unless your mac has a CD drive.
A MIDI keyboard- you can find a LOT of cheap keyboards from the timeframe. Try Yamaha PSRxxx or Roland. DONT GET A KEYBOARD that doesnt have MIDI.
For you being a non-player it doesnt have to be big nor fancy.
Speakers- Here you might not stick to the period unless you are a stickler, cause there are nice monitors with built in amps now. The vintage stuff needs a separate amp. I still have a pair of Alesis 100 speakers and RA-100 amp.

-Rory McDonald
Asciirory@gmail.com
 
Talk about old audio kit? Bit OT but I have just been given a complete hi fi system. Rega Planar TT, Ortofon cartridge. Arcam Alpha 6+ amp and best of all, two Mission 775 speakers. They are fabulous. The bass is terrific but most outstanding is the imaging. I played Beethovan, piano sonata #8 (rmstd CD) The piano is "out there", behind the speakers and definitely in the hall. No trace of piano from the speakers themselves.

I don't think the 775s are nearly as "accurate" as a modern top monitor from say Neumann but they DO sound good!

Dave.
 
I don't think this is going to be quite as difficult as people make out. I started out making music on a PC in the late 80's and by that time there were very few devices with non-standard MIDI implementations. The secret is to understand the MIDI chart that you'll find at the back of every manual from that time.

MOTU have always supported the Mac right from the early days so it might be worth looking for one of their interfaces and software. Opcode's Vision was another program around at that time. I'm not sure when Cubase was first ported to the Mac but I think you might do better with a native Mac program rather than an early version of Cubase.

Take a look at some of the early Sound On Sound issues at mu:zines - Music Magazine Archive which feature the sort of gear you are interested in.
 
Thanks Rory, thats really insightful. Yes i agree to keep period my old macintosh SE/30 is cicra 1990 so gear from early 1990 would be the stuff people actually used. I am looking for general midi standards so roland sound canvas or yamaha/korg but likely the roland i like the look it seems more fitting somehow.
Yes to smaller keyboard with midi. Still not sure about monitors as its only a small office and i havd a nice stereo in my front room (naim audio and monitor audio speakers) so mini monitors or computer speakers will be fine its just a bit of fun
 
Thanks James thats really useful as well, i think cubase will work but i agree with trying some mac only programs, im lucky enough to have an external hhd for my old mac so i can have 5-6 different programs to try. The advantages of buying this old stuff is being able to spec it out beyond what was really possible back in the day due to costs at the time. My mac has 128mb of ram 32mb in the day would have been £10,000. Add the now cheap home studio modules and kit also resonable i can have setup of my childhood dreams. I’m so intrigued with trying it out and having a play with the kit, it maybe a few years newer but i have a sony dat recorder so may add that in for mastering to make use of it. I hadn’t used it for years and just fixed it. Just read some reviews from your link, really interesting reading reviews from the era and got some useful tips to so thank you.
 
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Just to get you started with software, this list:

The Vintage Mac Museum >> Mac Software

If you need something specific, I'll delve into my own archives. I do need a name to find things, though, as these are on about a hundred CD's and a few dozen DVD's.

A while back, I set up an OS 9.2.1 mac for a mastering engineer, cause he was fed up with the state of modern software. Subscriptions and built-in stores made his head spin. He claims it's faster on the G4 he's now using...

I was using BIAS' Deck in those days, but I'm not sure I would recommend that. It was buggy as hell. There is, however a recent build from Reaper that I run on a G5, with OSX Leopard. Maybe not vintage enough, for you? It's experimental and unsupported, of course, but it has all the features of a modern Reaper.
[MENTION=51]Dave[/MENTION]: that's a nice kit. Much better than the stuff that comes out of factories today. Especially the Rega and the speakers.
 
Hi Cyrano
Thanks for the info, i do actually have several old macs including a 2010 mac mini, a 2001 transparent/grey imac, 1994 powerbook, 1996 PowerPc and my beloved 1990 SE/30 so it is possible to have a play around on the newer machines as well and I probably will do but my main goal is to use oldest machine for the challenge and nostalgia. Using old 1990’s gear and software on 1990s machines. I’m sure there’s other folk out there somewhere doing similar because they can ��
 
I’m keeping an eye on eBay at the moment for the gear i want. Software wise I’ll likely download everything people suggested and try then one by one and pick my favourite 3-4. All the old software is free so easy enough to try :)
 
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