Audio device world record?

[fgh]

A silly world record attempt - 7 audio devices in an amiga

Paula (Native amiga audio)
Perisound 16 (16 bit AHI)
Prisma Megamix (MP3/FLAC/etc decoding, MHI)

On the a2486sx bridgeboard:
Gravis ultrasound (Demos, tracker music, some games)
Soundblaster AWE64 (Adlib/SB/everything else)

Connected to both Amiga and PC:
Roland SC-55 (General Midi, games)
Roland MT-32 (Games)

I’ve misplaced my game port to midi cable, but everything else works perfectly.

It’s certainly quite silly, but every device does have a different purpose

[cloverskull]

Very cool What kind of mixer are you using?

[fgh]

Thanks. I do have a four channel mixer but I’m out of jack cables/adapters

So for now I’ve daisy chained the amiga side by using the Prisma and SC-55 mixers (the Perisound forwards Paula audio)
PC side is on different amplifier inputs.

[Jope]

Hmm, so if MIDI devices count, this is pretty easy to max out. Set every module to answer to only one channel and daisy chain sixteen of them.. :-)

Or heck, don't set them to different channels, daisy chain even more, and have insane stacked carpets of sound when they all play the same note at the same time. :-D

[fgh]

Sure, you could hook up a bunch of USB sound cards too. But it would be as pointless as throwing 9 graphics cards in one amiga.
(CVPPC, 5xZorro cards, Bridgeboard+3 ISA VGA cards, = triple screen MacOS, triple screen Linux (ISA), and quadruple screen Workbench simultaneously. Haha, see? I did consider it )

These 7 audio devices do fill different roles though, although they do overlap a bit


Edit: I had the ISA and MIDI stuff on my retro PC (Pentium 1), which makes more sense. then I got the silly idea to try to put them all in the amiga after I had the bridgeboard fixed and upgraded.

And although I've never had AHI + MHI cards in one machine before, I think those will stay, it's great!

[Paul_s]

only the Amiga makes it possible

[Calabazam]

Hi.

I have heard about your setup in latest news from Obligement.
Nice effort there, but it seems you are using your A2386 without a VGA card? What do you actually do with both PC soundcards then?

I also have a very audio stuffed A4000 (sorry no picture yet).
- Paula (obviously)
- Prelude + MPEGit (half zorro version or it won't fit, with breakout board stuffed internaly and chained to the next board)
- MK8330 ISA card from Keropi/Mames for the A2386 bridgeboard and E-Wave waveblaster port from Serdaco
- Creative Play 3 USB card on the Deneb mounted internally (another AHI unit)
- SIDBlaster USB mounted externally, connected to the Deneb
- Several MIDI devices including Roland MT32, Roland SC55, Yamaha MU100, Korg X5DR, MIDIPlus miniEngine, Windows PC with various Synth emulation, connected to every Amiga i have on the desk and to the bridgeboard PC and the Win10 PC with a Roland A-880.

The setup is quite complicated to manage on the A4000, needs a Roland M-10 Mixer and to chain some MIDI devices and some boards. Hence the SIDBlaster goes to external line in of MK8330, the Prelude line out goes to the internal CDROM in of the MK8330, the Soundblaster USB goes to the line in of the Prelude, the CDROM of the computer goes to Paula through the A4000 mobo header. On the mixer, i have first knob for Paula+CDROM, second for everything going out of the MK8330 including Prelude/MPEGIT/SIDBLaster/Waveblaster, third for Yamaha + Korg, fourth for Roland MT32 + SC55, MIDIPlus goes to the monitor line in.
It is possible to use the MK8330 as a central part because it is a very clean card with very low noise thanks to the good work of the makers.
Of course the A2386 has to be working in the background. Hence such a setup won't be possible with a GoldenGate bridgeboard which dosn't work the same way.
At first, i wanted to use an Amiblaster CP card instead of the Prelude and save a zorro port for something else, but it didn't work with the clockport of the Deneb unfortunately.
The Roland Mixer is also mandatory because of the differences of audio level between all those things.

[fgh]

Hi there,

Originally Posted by Calabazam

I have heard about your setup in latest news from Obligement.
Nice effort there, but it seems you are using your A2386 without a VGA card? What do you actually do with both PC soundcards then?

Haha, not bad - I didn't expect anyone to actually write about it

I do have a nice ET4000 VGA card in there.
A3000T has four ISA slots like the 2000 and 4000T, and I'm using the IDE on the AWE (2,6MB/s without a network card/EPROM!)

Originally Posted by Calabazam

I also have a very audio stuffed A4000 (sorry no picture yet).
- Paula (obviously)
- Prelude + MPEGit (half zorro version or it won't fit, with breakout board stuffed internaly and chained to the next board)
- MK8330 ISA card from Keropi/Mames for the A2386 bridgeboard and E-Wave waveblaster port from Serdaco
- Creative Play 3 USB card on the Deneb mounted internally (another AHI unit)
- SIDBlaster USB mounted externally, connected to the Deneb
- Several MIDI devices including Roland MT32, Roland SC55, Yamaha MU100, Korg X5DR, MIDIPlus miniEngine, Windows PC with various Synth emulation, connected to every Amiga i have on the desk and to the bridgeboard PC and the Win10 PC with a Roland A-880.

Very nice, that's a lot of cool audio equipment! MK8330 looks really nice, and the prelude replica as well!
With two AHI cards, and lots of MIDI devices, you beat my total of 7, haha.
I also have a couple more MIDI modules (and a usb sound card), but MT-32 + SC55 covers games and casual stuff more than well enough for me.

SIDblaster would be fun, and would make some sense as a further addition to my setup.
I have very fond memories of SID songs, but my C64 with 1541U-2 also works perfectly for SID playback

Originally Posted by Calabazam

Of course the A2386 has to be working in the background. Hence such a setup won't be possible with a GoldenGate bridgeboard which dosn't work the same way.

Never had a Golden Gate, so I don't quite follow you here?

[Calabazam]

Originally Posted by fgh

SIDblaster would be fun, and would make some sense as a further addition to my setup.
I have very fond memories of SID songs, but my C64 with 1541U-2 also works perfectly for SID playback


Never had a Golden Gate, so I don't quite follow you here?

Yeah SIDBlaster is awesome, especially as it works on the Amiga with Poseidon and with playsid.library, making it usable with emulator Magic64.

About the GoldenGate, i mean that, as you already know, Commodore bridgeboards work in the background and start when the Amiga boots, working in parallel with the Amiga.
The GoldenGate 386/486SLC/486SLC2 don't work the same. Their software has to be launched from the WB and from that point they more or less multitask until the software is closed, but the Amiga will slow down in the meantime, especially when there are IO involved. So it can't be used the same way as i do, to use the audio card as some sort of central hub for the computer.