After my tinkering with the C-64 I discovered that messing with software was not really my thing. Even though hardware was interesting, but I really wanted to get ahead with this MIDI stuff. So I had to find out who used that, how it was used and what I needed to really get started to record and playback MIDI signals.
Many visits to the book store, sifting trough all the music magazines spending precious pocket money on the magazine that actually had about four full pages of info that actually helped! Go back home read read and read again. And that Atari 1024ST really turned out to be the machine I needed. Yet I had no clue how it worked. But it was clear that this was what I needed so lets find one in the classified section of the magazines.
So every time I was near a book store I had to do a lot of classifieds mining in the hope to find one of these ugly grey boxes + monitor + mouse + software. And it also had to be In my area. Weeks on end I searched, and saved every penny. As these things where not cheap back in the day. And then I actually found one. Some gamer who discovered that he needed a different machine wanted to rip me off, so NO DEAL. And the search continued. More weeks went by, until I found another one, and this turned out to be a reasonable deal. Even though there was not much software with it I took the gamble and the next battle was around the corner.
SOFTWARE
Where the hell do you get Atari software when you live in a town that seems to have NO Atari users. And worse, I needed music software no word processor. Completely unable to get a hold of any music software. The local music store was not into 'computer music', nobody knew anything NOTHING. So back to classified mining...
I just stated to call everyone who was selling their Atari ST in the hope to find someone who had music software nothing... Then one guy said hey, didn't you call me 2 weeks ago with the same question? And yes what would have been me...
And this guy turned out to be very helpful, he introduced me to a 'mailing list' Just send them some money, and ask for Music software. Hm odd, but OK I had to move on.
And there it was a Little list with all kinds of software. And on the list was a program by the name of Emagic C-lab Creator! YES lets have a look at that! I had seen that advertised in the music magazines with insane price tags, and here it was on a mailing list that only cost a monthly subscription. This is how I got introduced to 'tryb4buy ware'.
It was the only way to get software, as the actual legal software was not even available in local stores.
It was an older version but good enough to get started. And I slowly got started with using a 'sequencer'. I eventually found a more recent version. Then discovered i needed more RAM, bought more very expensive RAM so that I had a whopping 4MB RAM.
All the slots filled and on with the program But this new version of C-lab was highly unstable.
And eventually I also found Steinbergs Cubase. And this is where I finally could make sense of it all. As Cubase was far more intuitive then Emagic's clunkyness.
Cubase got it right and I sure as hell was happy that I never wasted even more on Creator as compared to Cubase it was just horrible software. And far as I know there was no other option available either.
This is the marvelous Cubase environment of the day. And even when I closed my eyes this pattern was still visible
Keep in mind, VST's where not invented yet.
All was about hardware and MIDI.
It took some time until I managed to make money with music but eventually I bought into Cubase several years later. Without the 'try b4 buy' scene I never would have been able to to this. And that tells a lot about the flawed business model behind software like this back in the day.
Let's leave it at that for now.
Previous articles in this series:
My First Drum Machine [Alesis HR-16:B]
MIDI that 5 pin mystery
Editing on a cassettedeck
When belt wow and tape flutter where just part of the music
Turntables
What was so special about the Atari 1024ST? MIDI on board!