Atomosynth & L.E.P. are really good boutique synths that offer interesting & different from the usual sounds & possibilities, particularly like the unusual approach of Laboratorio Elettronico Populare! Keep up the programming & creativity!
A piece of the story that almost never gets told is that digital synthesis existed (albeit non-realtime) since at least 1957, with MUSIC-N. It was likely mostly sine waves until John Chowning started doing FM stuff with it in the 1970s. The successor to MUSIC-N is Csound, which is a fun rabbit hole to go down. I've done a fair amount of experimentation in Csound, but never finished a piece ...because not finishing things is how I roll. A MUSIC-N voice synthesis version of "Daisy Bell" was allegedly the inspiration for that iconic computer shutdown scene in 2001, A Space Odyssey.
Yes! I've messed around in Csound many decades ago. It's not the *most* intuitive language, what with (if memory serves) having to make an orchestra file to define all the instruments and a separate score file to say how to play them. That's the kind of steep learning curve I used to almost thrive on. I think I programmed it in Linux or BSD using Vim or nvi. 😄 It's a classic case of "I can't afford a modular synth, but instead of money, I have some time..." Of course, back when the original MUSIC-N ran on mainframes, that would have been prohibitively expensive too! I forget, aren't all the notes' timings relative to their full lengths? That's something that intrigues me! The advantage of not being realtime is that you can essentially "see the future", and measure things relative to note lengths. I keep meaning to make a sequencer that, being programmed rather than played by hand, knows all its note lengths in advance and can send out proportional CV or MIDI CC (or even velocity) values. Surely useful to hook up to envelope generators...
Totally! With its built-in MIDI ports, it was a popular choice for musicians. There are lots of MIDI sequencers for the ST, which were at the heart of making electronic music in the '80s and '90s, before DAWs replaced them. Most required a whopping megabyte of RAM, but there's a few that used just 512 KB. Tiger Cub and Sweet Sixteen should both work just fine on your 520 ST! 😊
Thank you for this clip! I never bought , all my disks came with a second hand purchased ST in the mid 90's, and yes, ST speech was probably included. I used this voice extensively in cheesy dance music.
I am further in from Vancouver between the FVR/Canyon. My wife has Autism I myself am a Type 1 Diabetic (Mellitus) I have 9 synths. Into synths due to undying, love of EDM, VGM (Nobuo Uematsu), and creative outlet. Like yourself, sound design is paramount. Great content!
wow i had forgotten about that program on atari. ive still got 2 of them with that mono screen in the loft with a copy of logic and ‘ahem’ that copy of cubase everyone had. what i wanted to say is i did manage to find an original speak and spell in a charity shop. what struck me at time i found it is its hardwired power supply and home made jack plug output. it gets me thinking, i wonder if my old speak and spell was ever used in a studio or a band for something iconic? 😳😮😬😃⚛️☯️👾👽
Been into synthesizers and sound design for 50 years, got my autism diagnosis last month. I did have a similar feeling of things about me I thought were special were suddenly pathologized... "Sensory Sensitivity"? Yep, I'm a golden-ears person for an audio company. Sensory seeking and stimming? Yep, monstrously loud Buchla-esque weird noises for hours on end. "Rotating Special Interests"? I'll ditch synths altogether for a few months in favor of guitar or chess.
Ooh, I don't think I've heard of that variant before. They're all so fascinating, cheers! I must admit, I'm pretty jealous of "proper" synaesthetes. I can't see or feel music or anything, I just know which digits are which colour, which... doesn't help me much. 😅
Many times I understand that people are hinting at something, but I can’t always decode what it is. This has led to a lot of frustration both on their part and mine.
It is, yes! It's the one modern comfort I allowed myself in this system, and totally worth it. That sounds like a nice setup! It's not lost on me that you could have a 72 HP wide system with a top row that's a 960 + 962 + A-156, and a bottom row that's a Model D + 2 HP blanking panel. (I could have sworn I figured out a gapless version, but if I wrote it down, I can't find it...)
@@TransistorSounds Thanks Zoe, I have a two row 140HP wide case with the 960, then 962, then Model D top row. Bottom row is Neutron, 914 Fixed filter bank and the CP3A-M mixer. I would like to replace the Neutron in the rack as I'm not 100% sure I like it, the Neutron coming out for more System 55 modules and an A-156.
@@TransistorSounds i played with trackers on amiga in the time. and one tracker had a speech engine that sounded the same as the one you showed. Idk was it octomed?
@@shinysun2283 Huh, I haven't heard anything about any trackers having speech synthesis built in. The Amiga did come with Say though, although it would have been tricky back in the day to get its speech into a sample file.
@@shinysun2283 Oh, Say's a much fancier speech synthesiser compared to ST Speech. More realistic, less stylised. I used it in one of my songs a few decades ago now. Good stuff!
I remember hearing a 90s techno cover of Yes Sir I Can Boogie using this around 1994, but I've never been able to find that version again. I particularly remembering its stumbling way of pronouncing Boogie-Woogie.
Ideally, if you can afford it, I'd ask you to sponsor me on Patreon for $5/month at www.patreon.com/zoeblademusic to use any of my non-commissioned music, including this song, in any of your small productions (RU-vid videos, podcasts, etc). If you can't afford it, you can still use it anyway, just remember me when you can. 😊
Yes, if you have an Atari ST or emulator to run it on (I recommend Hatari), then you can download it from my site at notebook.zoeblade.com/ST_Speech.html -- the link's near the bottom of the page.
@@TransistorSounds Thank you so much for the video and the software. I am new to Hatari/Emutos, I can't figure how to load your .tos file into Hatari. I watched tutorials on creating .ts disks but I must be missing something obvious...
A genuinely fascinating video, thank you! - I had no idea about the history/post work of the authors (I got st speech as part of my discovery pack so just assumed it was made by Atari). And it's not entirely forgotten ; Billain used it in his 2023 neurofunk track 'F4K YOO' (which is NSFW btw) - at least I'm pretty sure it's ST Speech.
Yeah, that definitely sounds like a contender, cheers! And yes, the authors didn't exactly make it obvious who they were, which is kinda surprising. It's a really good program to just give away and not tell people you made it, you know? Calling it "ST Speech" didn't exactly dispel the notion it might be by Atari, either!
I remember from my childhood that there was a pc dos tennis game from the mid 80's which announced the scores and tennis lingo(like "fifteen love") via speech, over the pc speaker. The game wasn't much fun, but it turned out that the speech wasn't prerecorded, it was generated on-the-fly by an external program that shipped with the game. You could run the program and give it text to speak as a parameter. That was a LOT more fun than the actual game was...
i had to watch this rather interesting video more than just once... simply because i was very distracted by the lava lamp! ;-) thanx & cheers! :-) listening to your music next... *waving*
Thanks! That would be my own track "Voice", which you can download for free from www.zoeblade.com if you'd like. I used ST Speech in it, so it seemed appropriate.
Thanks! That would be my own track "Voice", which you can download for free from www.zoeblade.com if you'd like. I used ST Speech in it, so it seemed appropriate.
Yeah, in all fairness I wanted to keep things moving along so didn't include U96, Quadrophonia, Lionrock, FSOL, Snap!, etc. There were lots of fine uses of ST Speech, to be sure!
It sounds very similar to others I remember, but I never had an ST sadly. I remember SAM on Amiga and C64, and also this sounds a lot like one I remember at EPOCT back in the day. Also that Atari monitor is bass ass!
It's absolutely fantastic! A cool tip if you are using plugins - record ST Speech then put it through the granular engine of Omnisphere or Pigments etc. Marvelous fun!
Hello Zöe, hugs from Spain :) Thanks for the Video :) I never used synth with amiga500 but i know about that :) (I was C64 user and the synth was very limited lol) Although we had a very good SID Chip! I later worked with Pc (Soundblaster PRO, later Roland) By the way, the voiceprogram you could really manipulate, if you write Nö and pitch it down, and write it NöNöNöNöNöNöNöNöNö it later was like a motor sound lol
Ah yes, a prime candidate! I can't believe I missed that one, I love that album. I'll check them side-by-side to make sure, but it definitely sounds like it. "Close your eyes and let the music flow." Brilliant, thanks!
