SCA's Miami Vice

[gklinger]

The first demo I ever saw on the Amiga that really blew my mind was the Swiss Cracking Association's "Miami Vice Maxi Soundtrack" and I was wondering if anyone has a complete/working version? (The one listed at the URL I just gave is incomplete.) I've communicated with the original author and even he doesn't have a copy. He's also looking for the demo for old time's sake which is an extra motivator for me to hunt down this piece of Amiga history.

If you haven't seen the demo you can check out part of it here. The quality of the video and the sound in particular doesn't do justice to seeing and hearing the original on an Amiga. It's really impressive.

[Leffmann]

ftp://ftp.amigascne.org/pub/amiga/Groups/S/SCA/

[gklinger]

Thanks. Unfortunately those are exactly the same disks that can be found at the first site I linked to. I'm hoping someone will know where I can find the demo in its entirety.

[dirkies]

oh boy, good memories, I remember this was the first thing I tried when I bought my A1010 external drive, finally I could listen to the full mix without interruption when the 2nd disk was required. I believe it were FOUR floppies in total, containing each a large AIFF file. With an external drive the music was fluid, if not it would just loop until you inserted the next disk. (it does not ask for a next disk with a popup or so, you just should insert it while the other drive is streaming the sound)

And as it was developed for A1000, SCA did a nasty thing by using the red power led to flip all the time on/off, but the sucky thing was that on an A500 the sound filter would kick in and out all the time, ruining the whole thing! I believe I fixed that by using a LED-OFF bootsector on the first floppy, which kept the led OFF all the time, then the sound was clear!

But I have no idea if I still have the original floppies, it has been 21 years since I saw this baby

[gklinger]

Originally Posted by dirkies

But I have no idea if I still have the original floppies, it has been 21 years since I saw this baby

If you do it would make me and the original author very pleased.

[Photon]

Could you explain further the differences between this

http://kestra.exotica.org.uk/demo.php?id=17659

and the complete version?

[andreas]

There are none ... ANYMORE.

For quite a lot can happen in 3 hours from when you posted ...

[dirkies]

the audio is incomplete, the whole track lasts 6:52, here multiple disks are missing
it was sampled from here: (A track) http://www.discogs.com/release/113375

But you could ' reconstruct' the demo, as you can simply resample the miami vice track into whatever format it was in

I am too lazy to connect my A500 and try this out on a real thing, so if someone wants he can try this:

we need to know what the format was: I did some investigation and found the following
audio is actually PCM RAW 8-bit signed at 10KHz, and each disk is about 1m22s long, 820KB, except 1st is 1m18s (786KB).
I converted this mix (CD rip) into this format and it is 4100KB in total, thus it means it should have been a FIVE DISK set, but the IFF picture on the first disc tells there are FOUR disks


So I think they just cut off the last 1m27s (?)

as the demo will stream the audio disk after disk, it does not check what audio it is playing, it just blindly streams the files from disk. Respect the labelname, and since I saw an assign on disk2 it could be both names, I dunno:

assign SOUNDDISK1: "DemoDisk 8:"
assign SOUNDDISK2: "DemoDisk 9:"
assign SOUNDDISK3: "DemoDisk 10:"
assign SOUNDDISK4: "DemoDisk 11:"

Just for trying you could create disk 5 and see it if keeps spooling after disk 4

assign SOUNDDISK5: "DemoDisk 12:"

Now get the NEW soundfiles from here and put them on the respective floppy

http://.com/files/147166785/SCA-MV-REDO.rar (3MB in rar format)

I hope the last part fits on an Amiga 880K floppy, as it is 866KB

And it should sound better, as you downsample from 16 to 8 bit

Now try and see wot the F it does

[Striker01]

Hello dirkies, hello all,
could you please reupload your 5 disk SCA-MV-REDO.rar?
The download doesn't work anymore.
Thank you very much!

The http://janeway.exotica.org.uk/release.php?id=15585 says: "This is now the 100% working version." but the computer crashes after playing this cool tune a while on disk4.

I would love to have a fixed version since Stingray already did a WHDLoad Patch:
http://whdload.de/demos/SCA_MiamiVice.html


What do you think of a harddisk 68000 compatible full 22KHz Stereo update of this cool SCA Demo with Play16 as wav player?
The only bad thing would be the Play16 requirement for >=Kickstart 2.04 or better an the big soundtrack data which is in 22KHz about 17.2 MB and in 14KHz about 11.2 MB.
This would be harddisk only of course but the sound rocks!!!!

[dirkies]

in the zone

but remember this is an experimental remaster FIVE disk version, not for WHDload, I must try it myself since now I have my A500 back assembled together

[Striker01]

Great dirkies!
My Play16 wav is in the zone too.

[Striker01]

Good and bad news, Dirkies. Your sound works for the Demo discs but as for disk 5 the sound needs to be shorten a little bit and after a while playing the Theme hangs in a loop.

Could yo tell me please the correct sound import settings?
I tried it with Goldwave
Raw (snd, raw)
PCM signed 8 bit, sereo
Rate (Hz): 11025
Playbackspeed in Goldwave 0.48

[dirkies]

Hi Striker, oh well, it is a miracle it accepted disk 5 to begin with

What do you mean with "sound need to be shortened for disk 5" ?

Rate is 10.000 Hz for the original SCA version AFAIK, not the usual 11k, also not sure if the SCA was mono or stereo. Anyway I remember it was jawdropping to hear this on a home PC back in mid 1987!

[Striker01]

Another possibility for Kick 1.3, 68000 Amigas:
DSOUND150 !!!!!

Load a workbench.
Goto Directory Opus -> Configure your Buttons -> see screenshot and choose under Flags... Run asynchronously too(!) -> save your config and now play your IFF tune just by clicking a button.

That works great with 68000 and KICK1.3

Its all in the zone.

[Striker01]

Hi dirkies,
sorry for the misunderstood. No, the beginning is with disk 1 not with disk 5.
As you can see in the screenshots the sound is to big to fit on the Sounddisk 5. The sound should be shortened (Goldwave, Audacity?) so it fits on the disk.

[Striker01]

Yiieeehaaaa I made it.
Its in the Zone!
Make a quick checkout in WinUAE or even better on your real Amiga.
Choose a Quickstart Amiga 500 OCS setting and mount the contents of the zip as harddisk SOUNDDISK.

Now boot and enjoy this great Miami Vice remix on your Amiga!
It works with Kick 1.3 and just 512KB Chip and 512KB Fast Ram but I think it will work even better if you add a little bit more Fastram.

Stingray can you please WHDLoad this?!

[Striker01]

300% volume gain version is now in the Zone!

Please avoid the Amiga 500 filter sound settings as the sound "flickers". Please use a sound setting like attached in the config.

[Striker01]

Kickstart 1.3 bootable HDF is in the Zone!

[Saturnus]

At last, the SCA Miami Vice Demo featuring the original four disks is 100% working on https://www.sca.ch/amiga/demos/miamivice.html (modern browser required). It plays until the end and reboots. Enjoy!