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Author Topic: The Atari STe – Still The World’s Tightest Music Computer? (2010 article)  (Read 5748 times)

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Offline chrisNova777

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Offline Mixermap

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Re: The Atari STe – Still The World’s Tightest Music Computer?
« Reply #1 on: June 02, 2017, 06:55:47 PM »
Definitely!
Here is mine running Cubase 3 next to Pro Tools 12.
The Pro Tools + USB MIDI timing is pathetic in comparison!
(I have the VGA, PS2 Trackball and UltraSatan SD Hard Drive mods)

Offline chrisNova777

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Re: The Atari STe – Still The World’s Tightest Music Computer?
« Reply #2 on: June 03, 2017, 03:17:54 PM »
awesome
im trying to find an atari in ontario canada for some time
its not so easy to find them here where i live!


are u running this with just hte one midi port or do u have a midi expansion of some sort?

Offline Mixermap

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I have an SMP 24 on the Atari ST and use three separate MIDI outs.
Each output goes to a separate rack of modules. That way I have 48 MIDI channels.
I also have a Steinber Midex + and a Emagic Unitor (they all work with Cubase) but the SMP 24 is nicely racked out of the way instead of hanging out of the cartridge port.
BTW, the SMP 24 needs to be ROM version 1.6 or higher to work with Cubase on the ST.
To see the version number, switch on the SMP 24 while holding the "Tap/Shift" and "Start/Stop" buttons (the two on the left), it will beep and the numbers will scroll on the screen.

PS.: Although the SMP 24 has four MIDI outs, so far I only managed to get the first two to work (I need to read the manual :D), for the third output I use the Atari's own MIDI out.

Offline chrisNova777

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im about to buy a 1040 STF i think with 1mb of ram

Offline Mixermap

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You should wait and get an STE. It's the only model where you can upgrade the memory to 4MB by just putting simms in it. The other models need extensive soldering and messing about.

Offline chrisNova777

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unfortunately im not about to wait another 2years to get an STE when this is the first atari i been able to find in years where i live

Offline Mixermap

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I see! I didn't realise they were so scarce over there...
Thinking about it though...it's probably because they were so much more popular in Europe and didn't do too well in Canada and USA.
Hence finding 110Volt ones is way more difficult I suppose.

About the STF model: the floppy drive is 720KB so it's fine.
It's best to format floppies in a PC first and then use them in the ST, that way you can copy files to and from PC very easily.
I am sure you know all this but, just in case... :)
Also, USB floppy drives will not be able to format 720KB floppies on modern PCs, any old laptop will do though.
One last thing, if you do not have any 720KB you can use 1.44MB ones by covering the second hole with some dark tape but the disks will be unreliable. I am saying that because it is now very difficult over here to find 720KB floppies.
There are lots of those formatted on the Amiga but unfortunately, once formatted on an Amiga, the floppy cannot be used by a PC or ST EVER AGAIN!!! (I discovered it after I bought a bulk 50 floppies from an Amiga guy...)

If you have one of those Yamaha MDF2 units though, they can be recovered to PC format. The added bonus of bulk formatting with an MDF2 is that it's very sensitive do faulty disks: if the MDF2 formats it ok, then you can be sure it's a 100% reliable floppy :)
The MDF3 will not do because it uses 1.44MB and the MDF1 uses the crappy QuickDisks.

If you need any help with running music software on the ST, let me know :)