Calvin Harris playing the Amiga remix of "Miracle" for Ellie Goulding at Brit Awards

[RetroPassionUK]

Originally Posted by str0m

Awesome. Do you know what spec the system was you provided for them ie ram, storage etc, curious.

Sure:

Polymer recapped board.
TF1230, 50Mhz, 128Mb ram (we specced an 8Mb card but we had none left at the time of the build).
8Gb CF Card.
3.1 Roms.
PCMCIA CF Transfer card for file transfers between Amiga and PC/MAC.
RGB to Scart to the Sony TV he had.

Thanks!

[activist]

Originally Posted by RetroPassionUK

Sure:

Polymer recapped board.
TF1230, 50Mhz, 128Mb ram (we specced an 8Mb card but we had none left at the time of the build).
8Gb CF Card.
3.1 Roms.
PCMCIA CF Transfer card for file transfers between Amiga and PC/MAC.
RGB to Scart to the Sony TV he had.

Thanks!

It's a great story indeed, good job Steve

edit: was it Octamed (ie the classic version) or SoundStudio you installed? Just wondering

[str0m]

Cool, thanks for the info

[RetroPassionUK]

Originally Posted by activist

It's a great story indeed, good job Steve

edit: was it Octamed (ie the classic version) or SoundStudio you installed? Just wondering

OctaMED SoundStudio.

[RetroPassionUK]

Originally Posted by str0m

Cool, thanks for the info

A pleasure.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by RetroPassionUK

Sure:

Polymer recapped board.
TF1230, 50Mhz, 128Mb ram (we specced an 8Mb card but we had none left at the time of the build).
8Gb CF Card.
3.1 Roms.
PCMCIA CF Transfer card for file transfers between Amiga and PC/MAC.
RGB to Scart to the Sony TV he had.

Thanks!

Who knows, with this config he will maybe dig into there seeking whdload advices

[kriz]

That is really cool to see From an interview with him (from August 2023):

"Released in 2007, Harris’s debut album, I Created Disco, was made using just the Amiga, OctaMED, a “little sampler”, one keyboard and his own vocals, but that would prove to be this primitive’s setup swansong.

“After the first album came out the computer died,” Harris reveals.” And I think it was telling me, it’s time to move on mate. I would have used it for the second album - it would have been awful - but I needed to move on, get with the times somewhat.”

Reflecting on how computer music technology has evolved, and what today’s budding producers have access to on their laptops, Harris has mixed feelings.

“You can do anything now, and all the problems are so advanced, you can literally go from doing nothing to an orchestral piece with 200 tracks, which I don’t know is always the best route. I think it’s a good job to impose your own restrictions sometimes and work to that.”"

Link: https://www.musicradar.com/news/calv...-amiga-octamed

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by RetroPassionUK

RGB to Scart to the Sony TV he had.

Strange - i recall these small (14 inch) Sony TV's suffered from signal level from Amiga - they tend to smear/bloom at the edges of shapes - probably issue with 700mV vs 1V (overdriven amplifier).
Poor ad for Sony - they could donate some small PVM/BVM series CRT. On opposite side this looks so amateur and home like...

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by kriz

“After the first album came out the computer died,” Harris reveals.” And I think it was telling me, it’s time to move on mate. I would have used it for the second album - it would have been awful - but I needed to move on, get with the times somewhat.”

How convenient... Lame excuse from Calvin to not fix his Amiga and change it for Apple... I still have my first Amiga and i will fix it for sure (luckily it should work fine).

[sokolovic]

Well he probably changed his mind since (or had some surge of nostalgia) since he mades his production buy a pretty nice retro A1200 setup perfectly calibrated to use Whdload and Octamed. I suppose it won't end up in a Sony warehouse but at his personnal studio.

[BigD]

Originally Posted by RetroPassionUK

When I saw his story on instagram, I had to take a few seconds to digest what I was seeing because I recognise that A1200 and as soon as I had confirmation from Sony UK, my mind was blown and it all made sense! It was indeed one of our refurbished A1200 units and yes we did preinstall OctaMED before shipping it out to Sony UK lol.

https://www.retropassion.co.uk/at-th...200-units-was/

This is indeed a big year for the Amiga!

Great story Steve! Even the wife was impressed! What a scoop getting one of your machines on the Brit Awards! Wow!

The Amiga might have been acceptable in the 80s but your A1200 had achieved legend status in 2024!

[CCCP alert]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Stupid dumb comments after the Brexit vote.

rightly or wrongly over half of UK citizens voted for Brexit, not getting into politics but there's a clear 50/50 split that the subject is literally 'different opinions'.

As for the tune ummmm it's not exactly on the awesome scale of the MODs in Super Stardust AGA People watching that might think Paula is a duff as OPL2 rubbish Megadrive-ish music.

[str0m]

Originally Posted by pandy71

How convenient... Lame excuse from Calvin to not fix his Amiga and change it for Apple... I still have my first Amiga and i will fix it for sure (luckily it should work fine).

It failed after his first album in 2007, the 1200 would have been 13+ years old? I think treating himself to a new computer after the albums success is OK...

[S0ulA55a551n]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

rightly or wrongly over half of UK citizens voted for Brexit, not getting into politics but there's a clear 50/50 split that the subject is literally 'different opinions'.

As for the tune ummmm it's not exactly on the awesome scale of the MODs in Super Stardust AGA People watching that might think Paula is a duff as OPL2 rubbish Megadrive-ish music.

Turn out was not even close to 100%

[dreadnought]

"no politix" is a very simple rule, kthxbai

[pixie]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

rightly or wrongly over half of UK citizens voted for Brexit, not getting into politics but there's a clear 50/50 split that the subject is literally 'different opinions'.

I never understood how a decision of such kind was able to pass with a simple majority. It should have been treated akin to when one changes the constitution.

Around the world it is usually around 60% at least

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by pixie

I never understood how a decision of such kind was able to pass with a simple majority. It should have been treated akin to when one changes the constitution.

Around the world it is usually around 60% at least

Long story short - not in EU. Such rule is commonly violated by EU itself.

Originally Posted by str0m

It failed after his first album in 2007, the 1200 would have been 13+ years old? I think treating himself to a new computer after the albums success is OK...

Well... accordingly to same source (https://www.musicradar.com/news/calv...-amiga-octamed) - C.H. A500 used by him worked long after making his first album (so it is a bit contradictory to story that A500 broke immediately after album release) but as i've wrote earlier - it so convenient that his A500 failed after success and he had impression that A500 telling him to go forward and buy something new and fancy.

“I made my first album on that (A500)- I used it long after I should have stopped using it”

But to be honest i was not so serious - a bit provocative perhaps - i don't blame Calvin - i even like his "Summer" video - there is high concentration of cute babes there.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by pandy71

Long story short - not in EU. Such rule is commonly violated by EU itself.




Well... accordingly to same source (https://www.musicradar.com/news/calv...-amiga-octamed) - C.H. A500 used by him worked long after making his first album (so it is a bit contradictory to story that A500 broke immediately after album release) but as i've wrote earlier - it so convenient that his A500 failed after success and he had impression that A500 telling him to go forward and buy something new and fancy.

“I made my first album on that (A500)- I used it long after I should have stopped using it”

But to be honest i was not so serious - a bit provocative perhaps - i don't blame Calvin - i even like his "Summer" video - there is high concentration of cute babes there.

No that's not contradictory. He used long After he should have stopped because the album was released in 2007. And then it brokes, as he says in the very link you have posted.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

No that's not contradictory. He used long After he should have stopped because the album was released in 2007. And then it brokes, as he says in the very link you have posted.

Well - i have different impression reading both (probably having opportunity to read whole interview will shed some light on this) especially that we have 2024 and he use A1200 so A500 seem to be in overall not outdated as you may think reading this interview but once again - not criticizing CH - people has right to choose tools they like (as i wrote earlier - this was small provocation from my side).

[AmigaBill]

Originally Posted by RetroPassionUK

It was indeed one of our refurbished A1200 units and yes we did preinstall OctaMED before shipping it out to Sony UK lol.

https://www.retropassion.co.uk/at-th...200-units-was/

It was super cool to see Calvin Harris still using an Amiga, but this makes it personal and even more awesome. Huge congrats Steve! I recently did a job with Tony Hawk and I brought up the Amiga and he laughed and said "it was like making music with math" He is not wrong. I would have loved to talk Amiga with him more, but time was tight. Stoked to see Calvin still rocking it!