Take an Atari ST, 4 budget synths from 1988, and spend months seeing how far they can go - all while staring at a black-and-white CRT! I took me over a year to make this given most of the equipment was DOA and keeping in mind there's another part coming later this year.

Massive thanks to mu:zines and archive.org for their incredible collections. This led me to all the cheapest gear that people were actually using back in the day. Thanks also to all those I reached out to who verified most of the findings and gave me amazing insights to the gear of the day.

Gear used: Atari 520ST (mostly), Roland MT-100, Yamaha MusicStation PSS-580, Kawai K1, Yamaha EMT-10, Dr T MIDI Recording Studio, Cubase 1.5 and Rotel mini system.

00:00 - Intro
01:10 - Atari's Sound and finding your first synth
02:40 - Synth - Yamaha MusicStation PSS-580
05:02 - Atari - DR T's MIDI Recording Studio (demo)
08:32 - DEMO - MusicStation & Monitor
11:13 - Synth - MT-32 Intro
14:00 - Atari - Cubase 1.5 (demo)
17:56 - DEMO - MT-32 Solo & Polyphony discussion
19:52 - Synth - Kawai K1 Intro
21:50 - Synth - Kawai programming and MIDI assign
23:12 - DEMO - Kawai K1 and Guitar Jam
26:00 - DEMO - Yamaha EMT-10 + MT-32
27:45 - Conclusion and End tune (demo on the Kawai K1)

Please do not copy this entire video to your own channel without permission. Using 45 or 60 seconds as a quote (fairuse, etc) is fine. I'd love to see your video if you are making similar content, @CTRIX64 on twit :-)


LGR video on MT-32 :    • LGR - Roland MT-32: Retro PC MIDI Mus...  
Lestyn demos Roland:    • Roland MKS-7 Super Quartet and MC-500...  

Finally, don't be fooled by the badge, the Atari is an ST520 not an STe - we'll explore this more in part 2 when I open up the case!