Retro midi machine!

[Mattias Westlund]

(11-07-2016, 11:34 PM)Samulis Wrote: Wow! Mattias, that is a really great project there. I love the shot of all the sound card I/O ports after you installed them, reminds me of this picture- XD

Haha! I think I've seen that one before. Makes me wonder if that's a shot from a Metallica recording session. "Wow, Lars' playing is really inconsistent, but if we put ALL the mic's we have on there, we should at least have a chance of capturing something that sounds decent."

(11-07-2016, 11:34 PM)Samulis Wrote: I am definitely looking forward to hearing how they sound! Maybe find a good MIDI orchestral demo and run it through each card or something.

Great idea! I remember Warcraft II having some really tasty midi stuff going on and it sounded awesome on the Soundscape. Maybe I can track down some actual mid files from the game.

(11-07-2016, 11:34 PM)Samulis Wrote: Interestingly Yamaha (I think) made a range of children's keyboards that essentially were early soundblasters with keyboards attached. I've wanted to get one for a while (especially since they're like $30-100), but none of them have MIDI input, so they wouldn't do so well with my subpar piano skills.

I know the ones you're talking about. There's a fella on Youtube who calls himself The 8-bit Guy who has reviewed these keyboards (and tons of other retro stuff). Great channel, lots of uber-nerdy stuff there!

(11-07-2016, 11:34 PM)Samulis Wrote: That case is definitely classic. I remember when everything was in that sandy-colored plastic. It was the "plastic of the 90's" I feel, haha.

Actually... most computers and other hi tech stuff from the 80's and 90's were actually a light gray when they were new. The plastic has just been yellowed by time into that disgusting institutional beige color. You can actually reverse the process by dunking the plastic parts in peroxide and put them in the sun (or under an UV lamp) for a few hours. If you think it's worth the trouble, that is.

(11-07-2016, 11:34 PM)Samulis Wrote: I wanted to find an earlier copy of Windows for my project, but as I said, I ended up using XP because it's the last one I remembered that WASN'T a crashy pain in the bum to use, despite what my fondly-remembered childhood self would say otherwise. I remember how big 40 GB would have been back then! I grew up right at the tailing edge of the 3.5" floppy disc era and the dawn of the CD. I had a CD-RW I would store all my files on as a kid and I always thought I would NEVER fill up that (then) 600 MB of space.

Haha, I remember my first CD burner. I was like OMG I WILL NEVER RUN OUT OF SPACE NOW! And now less than 20 years later the majority of all those CD's are unreadable...