Amazon II / Aphrodite - Booyaa - Original OctaMED Drums Mod

[Stevieboy74]

Quick question - if the second amiga on the finished track was used for the bass and vocal samples etc, then how did he achieve a total stereo sound? Meaning one Amiga basically gave you 4 mono channels to play with, 2 left and 2 right, and if you wanted a sample to play in stereo then you had to play it thru 1 left and 1 right at the same time, only leaving 2 others free. Gav must have been using other kit to achieve stereo whilst having the freedom of using 4 channels at the same time right?

[bristolyoutubization]

@Stevieboy74 Yep, It's all mono with a bit of stereo reverb / delay. I think by the time he did the Fire remix he'd got an Akai S3000, because the vocals in that are nice and clean, and they wouldn't fit in the Amiga any way! Either that or it was done in another studio. I'll have to ask him. Arsonist is crunchy as hell though, especially the vocals.

[turricaned]

@bristolyoutubization *dons NHS specs and bri-nylon kecks* - In actual fact, the only limitation the Amiga had regarding sample length was the Chip RAM, limited to 512K on the A500/1000/2000. The A500+/600 had 1MB of Chip RAM, so you could store roughly double the length, and the A1200/3000/4000 had 2MB, so you had 4x the length.  By that stage you had software which could write sampled audio to disk though, so the limitation was less of an issue.

[bristolyoutubization]

@turricaned OctaMed would only play samples up to just over 22050 (at least we never found a way to play faster), and with no fast ram it took up memory that could be used for samples, so there were limitations of the tracker. It was plenty though.

[turricaned]

@Stevieboy74 OK, so the Amiga output was channel 1 and 4 on the L output, with 2 and 3 on the R. What you'd do is mix the channels the way you wanted them in the tracker and record each output into a mono channel on the mixing desk/multitrack, which you could then pan or centre using the pan control. My guess would be that the bass and drums were centred, with the leads retaining their original pan settings. It required some planning ahead, but worked fine.

[bristolyoutubization]

@turricaned Nope, it's all dead center, maybe a tiny pan left or right here or there, but there would be a stereo delay on the sends and reverb etc... to add stereo effects, exciter and compression sometimes too I guess. An eq was used on some of the bass in Aphro tracks. Some Justice for example, the bass is an OctaMed synth sound, which has a high pitch tone on it because it's low bitrate, but that is eq'd out so it's just a sine wave sub.

[turricaned]

@bristolyoutubization Sure, but the method would still be the same, no? Rather than send the Amiga's L and R to the left and right channels, they were sent to a mono mixer channel where any panning could be done later if necessary on the pan pot. At any rate that's the way I did it back in the day. It wouldn't surprise me if the tracks were largely mono, as most party/club sound systems were also mono back in the day...

[bristolyoutubization]

@turricaned Sorry, misunderstood what you wrote, yes same process. :)

[Stevieboy74]

Holy shit, I can't believe Gavin Aphrodite made this tune on 2 amigas?! I was heavily into octamed around the same time and use to make my own D&B tracks with tearin chopped and sequenced breaks that I used to sample from vinyl with an A500 hardware sampler. I'm stunned that such a legendary tune was made the same way, I had no idea!

[EliotBoonHuat]

Big up Mulder for this upload and for your contributions to the scene. Respect.

[systematika]

Amiga is awesome, I got into mods in the DOS era with FastTracker II and use Renoise now but I always thought about getting an Amiga/Atari Falcon/tx81z/proteus and clock em just because i like that era of sounds. :P

[ThosePeteCannonBeats]

Wicked. I know the sound is straight out of the amiga but which sampler cartridge did you use? I've been using the stereomaster with octamed v4 which is 8 bit and up to 40 odd khz, is your audio in the vid 8 bit or 12 bit?

[turricaned]

@ThosePeteCannonBeats OctaMED didn't have 12-bit output, so what you're hearing is the 8-bit Paula output direct. I wouldn't be surprised if some outboard compression/EQ and limiting was used to beef up the sound a little, but judging by my nearfield monitors even the raw output is generating a surprising amount of bottom-end.

[bristolyoutubization]

@turricaned Re: The bottom end of the Amiga - It's got some serious BASS, even if it is a bit fluffy. I think 8-bit audio just has that quality to it because the top end is less well defined, especially at 22050. I managed to disguise the fluffiness on an Eric Clapton sample by using a light phase effect on it. Previously, the sample just sounded awful. Another thing is that I found amping the drums until they were really clipped didn't sound too distorted and gave drums power.

[NTC01934]

Neither you nor aphrodite have contributed to the demoscene have you??? ;)

[bristolyoutubization]

@NTC01934 There was a demo using VideoTracker with a remix of Some Justice written by Aphrodite. It should be available somewhere on the net. I know the audio is available as I have it, but can't remember how I got it.

[muckleby]

nearly 20 years on and this 1/2 a tune is still amazing.

[zeepster]

Nice post! Too bad it's low quality

[danzvash]

BAAAAAADDDDDAAAAASSSSSSSSS

[hoody232]

You know how much time this costs to create all those variations of beats and soundmixing, it's so complicated. I use Modplug, it's almost the same program. I use it to mix/loop samples. I wonder if I can play KTel Beats on Modlplug. Fascinating stuff.

[AnthonyDavid94]

Since YouTube doesn't allow real screams I'll just say AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHFAC­KINGWICKEDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!­!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!

Best amen programming ever. I remember having this on my shitty mp3 player when laying in the bed of a nighttrain from Holland to Germany about 2 years ago. Wot a tune. Thanks for sharin mister!

[Uprising95oooDiRT3]

OctaMed JUNGLE IS THE WAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ascidro]

does any one knows synergy from sheffra?

Was the best med ever... and sheffra the idol of my time :)

[Infiltrate808]

Amazing stuff, good video and one of my fav and first jungle tunes i ever heard.

[doghartdon]

very nice

[thePOLYGIRL]

wow, thats heavy cool ! i got some old Aphrodite vinyls... i was really surprised as i've heard many years later the most was made with Octamed.

i see this is a octamed ( replica ? ) for windows... but let me know :

are you the man behind Aphrodite ???

and when have you programmed your early D&B trax on an Amiga with Octamed ?

i also have use an Amiga and the noisetracker in that time to make music with.

did you use this program to make D&B today ?

by the way...very good D&B track !!!!

[bristolyoutubization]

@thePOLYGIRL This is straight out of a real Amiga :) I'm not Aphrodite but I am Mulder, I did stuff for Urban Takeover. Aphrodite uses Logic these days, as do I.

[thePOLYGIRL]

@bristolyoutubization

uhh... straight out of an Amiga ?! halleluja !

also very good idea to sync the Amigas ! ; )

i use my one sometimes again to make music with !

Amiga is still alive !

ciao

[Ornsman]

@bristolyoutubization Tell him to use Octamed again, as he made better stuff back then :)

[GbProductions1]

Just makes you realise how talented the guy is makin beats lke that on tht software , i use logic to make jungle beats but i cant do anything close to tht even with the new technology thts about theses days. Legend

[iffypops]

this is amazing man. thanks so much for putting this up here, its fascinating. Have loved this tune for years and to see it under the covers like this!

[benwatchesvideos]

@migraine516 Yes I would say this is definitely the original sequence file. I was heavily into experimenting with OctaMED between 92 and 96, so I know exactly how things work and how to achieve certain effects with it. I've also still got the original set of audio sample floppy disks that Urban Shakedown released in the public domain, which had a demo-edit version of Some Justice on one of the disks. This certainly looks and sounds very much like Gav's work.

[droidus]

The Beat BOOYYAAAAAA! Large inna the area!

Great vid - thanks.

[deadvideokid]

easy mulder. these drums, still so rough; after all these years.

[migraine516]

This is THE original sequence file from back in the day? Not like some ones reconstruction of it ?

[bristolyoutubization]

@migraine516 Yes it is. Like I said in the info, I'm not sure it matches the 12" 100% because the filename is tagged with 'K-Tel Beats', which suggests this was a tweak to distinguish between the original 12" and a version on a compilation (K-Tel used to make compilation albums). These beats might match with the version on Drum and Bass Selection 3 which came out on Breakdown Records (an offshoot of Suburban Base).

[migraine516]

@bristolyoutubization That is so fucking cool. This is like a holy relic of the golden days of jungle to me. Awesome video. Makes me wanna rev up Renoise and go nuts !

[LulaJake]

I loved drum programming on octamed - this takes it to a whole new level though.

[741146]

OctaMED ruled the trackers back in the day, now Renoise does :)

One of my favourite Aphrodite tracks.

[goatheif]

You've just made my year! This is one of my all-time favourite jungle tunes (still have it on white label somewhere), to see it in OctaMED... wooooooow.

Now I just need to learn how to properly chop like this in a tracker (hehe). Thank you for sharing.

[DRIVEBYSHOTTA]

incredible man. probably my favourite jungle tune ever!

[bristolyoutubization]

Yes. I am Mulder, of Urban Takeover fame. Gav gave me the file to study when I first got in contact with him.

[smbtg]

:OOOO

[jbentley83]

@bristolyoutubization Oh. My. God. I used to make music in Octamed.. I knew Aphro used to make his beats in octamed, and I always wanted to see it.. And now I have.. a checkbox on my bucket list has now been filled :)

[TheJunglist76]

@bristolyoutubization Hello mate. Gav was kind enough to help me out with a bit of work experience when I was on a music course about 9 years ago. I used to mail your promos out : ). He was still using octamed then, I told him to get reason. Around the time I think you did a remix of callin all the people that never got released...I was just thinking about it today and I stumble across this vid at 3.30 in the morning...mental

[bristolyoutubization]

@TheJunglist76 Hi, I can just about remember doing that Calling All The People remix. I don't think it was very good IIRC. I'll have to dig out some of my DAT tapes before they rot. I was still using OctaMED up until the middle of 2003 too, and then I tried moving over to Reason and Logic but the scene changed, I was ill for a long time and I lost interest in most DnB.

[mistergeneration]

is this for real????