Amstrad Advert c. 1985

[dilwich123]

I bought mine from Kwik Save in Holyhead in 1988.

[mickyboy321]

i have just got one of these off ebay for £10.50 allways wanted one back in the days.lol

[danielearwicker]

I was given one of these in 1989, when they'd dropped massively in price and were stacked up in a shop window in town, desperate to get rid of them. It was shoddy, but I practically lived in it until about 1995, recording extremely hissy layered guitar/bass/drum ideas. It only had to be repaired once, in 1992 (funny how many people mention a period of 3 years before it broke down).

[matt9741399]

I had one of these, a Yamaha PSS-580 and a DD-10. What a setup! Oh for the good old days.

[triumphadelic]

..I might add that I HATE Amstrad & Alan Sugar BUT I have fond memories of Anthony over the moon with this in his squat in Kentish Town , even though we would take the piss but he would be able to play his LP's, listen to rave pirate radio , record 4 track AND then master onto the built in 2nd 2 track cassette... and if I see one of these for sale I will buy it just for sentimental reasons... but they must be rare because I never come across any in Cash Convertors and only rarely on ebay..

[triumphadelic]

a friend had one of these in late 80's and I still have 3 demo tracks he made on it and it sounds as good as a normal speed Tascam or Fostex portastudio, if i find the tracks I will upload .. his music was like a cross between Big Black & Joy Division , ie drum machine, dist guitars & angst vox

[Maurizio95ify]

bellissimo lo tengo :)

[ketrinweb]

AMSTRAD used to make some fantastic kit - why dont we see this sort of thing on the high street any more? Sadly the name when stuck on technology became synonymous with cheap tat.

Come on Lord Sugar get your act together and create some innovative new AMSTRAD technology products to help put the 'Great' back in to Great Britain.

[One2isThisOn]

it's a hi-fi, it's a studio!

lovin the ad lol

[thatmuse76]

Interesting. Although isn't Amstrad usually pretty horrible stuff.

[StackCityEntOfficial]

word!

[97channel]

Stop..........Hammertime!

[brigha1234]

Just bought one of these at a car boot sale. Has anyone out there got an instruction manual?

[jfjf2007]

@brigha1234 I'm selling one on ebay that has the manual with it, have a search and you'll find it. Manual is a softback book.

[brigha1234]

@jfjf2007  Don't suppose you will sell the manual seperately?

[jtblackwater]

I have one, I love it!!! had it for 10 years now, bought it for $25.00.

[supahdupahguy81]

Yeah, well check this.....My dad bought one of these, I've got it now & it's still in practically full working order.

My dad bought it in 1988.......

[BillKendall6]

God that was the biggest hunk of crap ever. The echo was a white noise machine and the controls went scratchy after 5 minutes of use. Some dick I knew bought one so I was always amused by his "demos" .

Amstrad were an insult to cheap crap. Alan, you're fired you huckster.

[MustNotRead]

wow, i had one of these. :)

it certainly impressed my friends, but but back then i never really knew what i was supposed to do with all those channel sliders! :)

[andyjee86]

lol it actually looks really good.

[NoveltyMop]

I couldn't care less that it's a piece of junk

I

want

that

setup

[Zeldaartist]

my dad used to work for amstrad he got tons of the machies and models upstars i used to play them alot to, when i was little because then olther then the sega it was the only console in the house.

my dad got about 700 games for at least! classics i like the 'Dizzy' games.

[newkillergenius]

And now, let's blow one the fuck up in the commercial! Haw!

[meestahp]

God, I want one!

[DiversionUK]

Oh my word......when I was a lot younger I wanted one of these. Thankfully.....I never purchased one!!!

I ended up buying a couple of Dixons cassette recorders, and bounced tracks from one cassette to another......those were the days!! :)

[dreamalie]

I've got one!!!! I bought it at a dump for £5 about 5yrs ago, but haven't been able to find a manual, or anyone to explain to me how it works!!!!???? Any advice please? Suggestions? (Nothing rude tho' please!!)

[MICKEYISLOWD]

ok you need to take it back to the dump...sorry

[Zeldaartist]

my dad knows lots about the amastrad, which model do you have and what is the problem?

[MICKEYISLOWD]

this was total shit in a plastic carton i had one couldnt record anything it sounded rubbish beyond belief just hiss and background noise i made a better recording on a panasonic tape player with built in condenser mic

[MKUltraProject]

God, even this 80s advert made this system look good too, it brainwashed me.

[richardsnow]

My 1st multitrack. served me well. ALthough when I replaced it for a Yamaha I realised what an awful machine it was. Loads of hiss, the noise reduction on it was awful. The Eq was almost non existant and the echo on it sounded like bouncing a ball in a subway. Otherwise, great :-)

[rareads]

Amstrad were awful products. Total rubbish.

[MKUltraProject]

Id have to agree

[digidexter]

XDD

[sheizermanelly]

hey guys mine is for sale on ebay at the moment, with manual and mics!!

[hoofbags]

We've (our band) got one of these and we love it, it's brilliant! Still works perfect too. You can't get, even a digital multitracker, that can record 4 separate channels all at once, at least for a reasonable price, but our 4 member group each has their own dedicated recording channel that enables perfect mix-downs. The resulting sound quality is better than a Zoom MRS 4 but U must use ferric tapes. Prob with this is you have to learn how to use it: most folk don't have the patience. Liz :o)

[wisteela]

Classic. I always wanted one.

[dendenman8]

wooow i have one of thoose

[djmykill]

classic!

[LIVERLADD]

I have one without the mics any offers?

[teaveecee]

still got one!

[watchitnz]

So cool, I would of loved one of those

[Lachlant1984]

That sounds like Grandmaster Flash in that ad. What an interesting stereo system.

[yeahproductions]

I don't have the original speakers, or the mics ,or the cans(headphones).

Mine kinda works - everything is running at a slow speed, even the turntable is slow. Obvious power supply problem. Inside is just a mass of spaghetti - a real pain to work on.

[wisteela]

Could just be the belts.

[yeahproductions]

I'm pretty sure I replaced the cassette belt and didn't do much. If one has the turntable and cassette player running it runs even slower, so I think its a power supply problem.Funny, just got it out of storage the other day and will take another look at it with the volt meter.

Cheers anyway!

[wisteela]

Yes, that is rather odd.

[yeahproductions]

This machine is a Amstrad 100. I own one and I need the schematics/manual for one.

[rebornonline]

I've still got one of these in my studio, it still works too....JUST!

I'm only just now considering replacing it as the phono sockets are faulty.

A very cool piece of kit. Nothing like it has been made before or since!

Kudos to Amstrad for thinking outside of the box!

[shootsfx]

It was shot in reverse, but it wasn't blown-up. If it had been the action would have speeded up in the last second (like all reverse explosions). In fact, the set was built on the studio ceiling. Thus the wooden floor was facing down. The product had been sliced up and was dropped sequentially. At the last minute 2x2000psi air mortars were fired at the falling sections which blew them spinning out of shot. The four mikes and the cans were pulled out first. The explosion was fine magnesium flash.

[debuglive]

Shootfx, that exploson description is Genius mate! All this new age 3D rubbish - they don't make ad efx like they used to :-/

[shootsfx]

Thanks for the message. I was the director. The camera was a 35mm photosonics (developed for NASA originally) running at 360 xps. I did quite a lot of film fx stuff back in the day. Cheers.

[debuglive]

Nice one. That is a lot of film to be running though the gate!! There is enough rattle and shake with a 16mm at 24f... I can't imagine rolling at 360. Did they use some kind of spinning prism system to expose multi frames on one cell? Must have needed some major lighting too...

[Watcher3223]

Very nice to read of some great insight from a person responsible for the commercial.

Great work! This commercial was a real treat.

And, this would've been a great product to a young kid interested in audio and music production. Too bad we never had something like this in America.

Amstrad was cheap, but they certainly had some imagination unlike a cheap brand we Americans were familiar with in the 1980's: Soundesign.

[wisteela]

Thanks for the info!

[aahbut]

I bought one, they were awful

[iTalented]

The state of them speakers! Although it didn't stop me buying one!

[Jerraph]

Amazing - I never knew such a thing existed! I would have LOVED that when I was a kid in the '80s.

I'll stick to my Cubase and synths now though... a bit more versatile... :)

[dmt2]

I always wanted a set of octagonal drums and a piano guitar

[monsigna]

Hey!.......ive still got one and it works fine lol....

[johnnyjohn2005]

Ok ok, find a picture of Sir Alan Sugar, look at it whilst playing the advert. The aim is to see how long you can go without laughing. Seriously, it sounds sad, but do it a few times and ull be on the floor in stiches

[Mozza3322]

And to think Alan Sugar had the cheek to rip the piss out of the ads his wannabe Apprentices made!

[Truthreexamine]

I have to admit. I was given one of these for christmas and I used to use it in conjunction with my dx 7...then the blasted thing broke after 3 years!

[SamTheSuave]

They blew the crap out of it!

[offrampt]

Please: for your own sanity, DO NOT buy ANYTHING from Amstrad!!!

[raymondleeleggs]

They did make a good Component stero sysem that included a silver face receiver, a cassette deck and turntable and a ack ant Two huge floor speakers with "15" woofers. I wish I had it too.

[MarkWillsUK]

Yeah, I think that was the Amstrad TS-88. Er, apparantly.

[slushypup]

I have one at home, It's currently a great coffee table!

[Mollweidekadet]

I remember the ad, but what year was it 1985ish?

[dmt2]

Yup, it was 1985. Only 23 years ago...

[Mollweidekadet]

Jesus Christ!

I've just seen the title of the post!

....1985! I feel a right fool now, haha!

[rogerthehat]

I wonder what the vertigo vinyl was ? ummmm

[justtakinalook]

i had one of these it was a bit fucked when i had it, crackling faders and that but it was an instant "ive got to have it" when i saw it

[comradecooke]

I used to own one of these. It was my first multi-track recorder and opened new possibilities at a time (late 80s) when professional quality gear was out of my price range. Before then I'd been restricted to recording between two separate cassette decks. It was odd that Amstrad included a turntable. It made the whole unit unwieldly when it could have been a more portable package suitable for taking to band practices. I have fond memories of my Amstrad Studio 100. It taught me a few things.

[raymondleeleggs]

I want one! I like odd audio gear

[hageir]

holy FU*KING SH*T!

that is the most awesome ad, I've EVER seen!

BLOWN AWAY!!!

[dmt2]

Amstrad usp seems to be to make stuff that nobody else makes. That's fine except that its stuff that nobody wants. Take the @mailer for example...

[museumoftechno]

Keep an eye out for old Amstrad gear - they've released some mad (by which I mean "apparently designed by someone with a fractured personality and no grip on the real world") products over the years, including crappy keyboards with FM synthesis engines and strange green-screen computers.

[sendermen]

It exists. In Amsterdam I've seen this thing in a second hand shop. The first time I saw it...OMG!

[orthooo]

This kinda seems too good to be true. Could this be a joke or did this thing really exist?

[syncplay]

This sure would have come in handy back in those days, but then again, there was Radio Shack-grade stuff that was better.

Notice how they had to blow one up and reverse it for this ad.