Fred was an experienced TV presenter, and if anyone should have known this needed more cowbell, it was him.

Peter Howell from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was apparently one of the earlier musicians to make computer music, and one of the main reasons was that he could save projects and continue later on. Until music-based software first appeared, he used to stay in the workshop hours after the work day ended, speaking into a tape recorder in his studio in the Workshop, saying, for example, "Attack - 2, Decay - 6, Sustain - 7, Release - 5" etc.

@count69

6 жыл бұрын

Haha I had a matrix that I created on a sheet of A4 for all my custom Yamaha synth settings!

Indeed he did. Boots used to sell home computers in the 80's; I remember going into the Sutton branch (with its round orange security cameras) and trying out the systems there. A favourite trick was to go to a C64 and turn the screen and border black, the text colour to white, and type 'Ready >' to leave it looking like a BBC or Electron display. WH Smith used to sell micros, too, at the time.

Imagine how dubstep will sound on this advance piece of tech!

makes me drool thinking of how exciting all that stuff was back in those days. we are spoiled now......

You don't have great television like this today.

@MarkPentler

4 жыл бұрын

You absolutely do and I am so sick and tired of this cliched response on every single post of a show form the 80s or 90s. It's illogical and a completely ridiculous a position to hold.

@benanderson89

4 жыл бұрын

@@MarkPentler The BBC hasn't done education programming like this for daytime television for at least a decade now.

It's hard to imagine Boots selling stuff like that SpecDrum today isn't it?

Holy flashback, Batman. Computer's were so much more fun back then. We were literally adults happily pushing buttons for sounds and lights like little children. Now you only get that with games that offer no creativity, like Bejeweled and shit.

Wow, this is GREAT! I remember when the whole MIDI revolution started - as a (painfully young and stupid) guitarist, I was neither interested in computers nor keyboards. Took me several years - about the time I bought a Yamaha RX-5 drum machine - to realize how very much I'd missed the boat on both fronts.

To my knowledge, that package 'The Music System' appeared on the BBC Micro first. It was produced by Island Logic & System Software. Firebird must have done that C64 conversion.

I remember using the Music System on the BBC B - damn Im getting old.

Its a shame that there isn't a show out there today that provides the public with this kind of education and information.... Screensavers in the USA was close, but is dead now :( Used to love MicroLive! back in the day - I remember them showing Marble madness... I was blown away.

lol Thanks to these pioneers, I can create now a great music on my i7 Macbook pro using Logic, protools and cubase. unlike the modern sampled batches, these old computers used real analog synthesizer module.

I remember a time before the advent of home computers when the only places in this country where you could get games consoles and software (Atari VCS, Intellivision, etc) were TV hire shops like Radio Rentals. They were seen as an extension of TV more than anything else.

Thanks for sharing! 🌟

7:38 gives me this sense of relief

Need to check this program out .

Wow! i loved this video. thanks a lot!

At age 14, I bought the Music System from the distributor in Sheffield (actually went to their door!). The sodding disks stopped working after a few months. Arse!

Fred Harris! Had forgotten all about him. Smart guy. This band were touring with micros in the mid-80's- In KZread, search for 'LELULUS'

Just ordered my copy. Can't wait to get it.

I thank this grandpa computer for the ones we have today.

Only available at Boots. Oh, how times have changed...

If only Fred had used more cowbell. Tony from Rainbird knew it, too.

Look at how large the Commodore 64 is, the Commodore 64 C had a much lower prophile, quite a sleek design for that time.

The music is just fabulous.

MIDI is sure showing it's age, and there are faster and higher-resolution protocols, but for universality, interconnectivity and general convenience, it is still the gold standard.

haha, i love the pun at 00:44, robots can be an uphill strugle whilst it is going up stairs ..

Now I miss MusicWorks for my old Mac Classic.

And one of those whistles they used to use in disco.

Alan Townsend - Roland Product Specialist , able to phase in and out of reality.

The unfortunate part of early midi was a many devices had no multitimbral capability

It's hard to decide my favourite bit. How does one choose between Fred chipping in a clunky scripted question to get to the segue-way that takes us to the MIDI section... no it's definitely the Roland demonstrator pointing at his finger at 8:43! Joy.

imagine if they invented jungle there and then 7 years early and they then all started brocking out.

awesome post! (I don't quite like that he made that remark insinuating that skateboards are a toy, though. oh well, it was 1985.)

amazing...

Great stuff

I feel so old.:(

in a time before usb and firewire! Amazing how much things changed!!:-)

I would love to have those drum samples. It sounds better than a LinnDrum almost.

he added cowbell heheeh.. wow..loved this..

They're still used in some devices. Some lighting desks use DIN plugs so you can remotely fire cues.

@emailrob , a lot of Spectrum games had the Kempston code compiled into their binaries (look at Jetpac for example)..

SpecDrum samples are easily found online. It sounds pretty close to a Linndrum and has a great retro quality. Goes well with a SID emulator!

WOW imagine what computers will be doing next

I want these programs.

I didn't know midi was so old, or could be connected to keyboards. I just thought it was a music system for PC's.

Brilliant... those were the days! :-)

LOL, Advanced Music Studio. I remember that. It used LensLok. It would take about 4 hours to get past the copy protection, and that was with a 100% legal copy.

Ha! Ha! Fred Harris!! I remember him! 'Play School', 'Rag Time' and a whole bunch of kids programs in the 70's and 80's....Erm, I guess you would have had to have been there.... I'm showing my age now! Ok, I'm gonna watch the rest of the video now!

But 10 years before that it rocked the earth from Detroit to Ibiza!

Good God, I feel old. SID chips kicked ass, now I feel like I lived in the time of dinosaurs.

Yes,It is true.Everything in Fruity loops sounds 25 years old.

i wanna travel back in time and show them logic pro running on a macbook pro...

@keddebork Yes - 'Little Drummer Boy' springs to mind. But there are other options.

Great vid, thanks! The SID still sounds awesome (when used properly). 2:24 = More cowbell. And agreed, it only just hit me how outdated MIDI really is.

haha the opening of this is so great, it reminds me of coast to coast am if it were a tv show

Ableton live of 1985

sweet - the music at 5:47 sounds like Belbury Poly

@GPhotography101 Boots did sell Computers back in the early 80's.

Oh, and they didn't mention the Apple Mockingboard, which was really impressive and even older. :)

Shit...22 years on from this and am still confused. WOW!!!!

i remember this

This dude is my idol ;D

"Ah yes, we heard a few envelopes."

Ah....the specdrum....the memories!! :-)

cool stuff like it!!

Man Daws have come a long way!

:) pretty good sounds

AHHH I MISSED IT.

didnt realise terms like 'cut and paste' dated back that far!!

WOW! 3 TRACKS ON A C64

No appearance of Synthesiser Patel?

@eccremocarpusscaber5159

4 жыл бұрын

obadiah normal 😂

My Commodore 64 has many add-ons for music and storage, including classic keyboards, PCs and music interfaces. I enjoy my home studio work immensely with classic gear. Look at CHIPTUNE: COMMODORE 64, HAMMOND B4, ROLAND JD-800); "COOTY" for my latest Commodore chiptune. Either that or grab COMMODORE 64 MUSIC MAKER PROMOTIONAL FLEXIDISC for an old advert for the old keyboard tool. Do drop in and rate.

Lol @ the semi-plastic red tie :D Pretty good sounds compared to it's age. Kewl :)

this is how music will be made in the year 2000!

The midi expert from Roland TELEPORTS in!! Awesome!

Is that the disk drive next to the Stectrum? I like the sounds of the Specdrum software, I think it sounds more realistic than the software on the Commodore 64. The Commodore 64 sounds very much like the Atari Lynx.

Little known fact- Fred Harris is now the drummer for Cradle of Filth...

Hi. I don't suppose you have a decent quality MP3 of the recording of the theme tune on this? It's a great track. If it has the beginning on it also, great :)

Wow, whatever happened to the Specdrum? A somewhat expanded 303-a-like, for just thirty (1980s) quid...

Cirtainly the SID chip in the Comodore 64 is well known for what it could do back then. Were there any hardware synth add ons for the Comodore 64 that could enhance the sound and make it more realistic? I know that a lot of games took advantage of the SID chip, and the sound capabilities of the Comodore 64 were far above any IBM PC without a sound card.

yeah i saw that too :)

Cool

Look Around You!

@JOCKATEO They sure did; they bought the rights to release the Acornsoft game Elite for non-Acorn computers, for one. I seem to recall the non-Acorn versions of Zarch - known as Virus - being distributed by them, too.

cooooooooooooool

OMG BRAWL THEME!!

where can i get a copy for the bbc b 32k?

WOW. I wondered about the source code.

@CottonInDerTube well yeah, if it sounded like that today

other than sample quality FL doesn't really have anything to do with the sounds it can make because it supports vst plugins which i believe is something that reason doesn't even have for some reason which i'm guessing is that they want you to purchase upgrades from them exclusively

1985 - Computer drum machine from BOOTS! 2011 - What went wrong?

This has Yerzmyey written all over it

Things are very different now...

um, I know of several bands that have put out albums using fruity loops. Make sure you have the latest version, and I believe there are tutorials online. I've used FL for almost 8 years and have always loved it and had several tracks from my band on local radio in heavy rotation.

lol, midi, it just seems so ancient today

This software isn't the ableton/reason/cubase grandfather. The real "grandfather" is Steinberg Pro-16 on the commodore 64, which came out in 1984. It became pro-24 on the Atari St and later Cubase in 1989!

I want to ditch cubase sx and get this. I love the cutting edge sounds!

Kempston joystick! Have to load the joystick driver on tape (5 minutes) then load the game (5 minutes). Keep quiet and don't move too much, else the loading will crash :)