Sunday 20 August 2017

Commodore 64 High Resolution Audio Capture

In my last post I captured the audio output from an Amiga A1200 using a M-Audio ADC.  For fun, here's a few lossless recordings I made of my favourite Commodore 64 tunes.

These SID files were played on a real Commodore 64c fitted with a MOS 8580 SID chip, played from Sidplay64.  Audio  is captured from the AV DIN jack with a M-Audio M-Track MkII and recorded using Audacity on Linux at 48kHz 24bit PCM.

Google Drive Link for C64 FLAC files

Files:
C64_Cybernoid_II.maudio.flac               C64_Ocean_Loader_2.maudio.flac
C64_Deflektor.maudio.flac                    C64_Ocean_Loader_3.maudio.flac
C64_Equinox.maudio.flac                      C64_Out_Run_tune1.maudio.flac
C64_Finders_Keepers.maudio.flac         C64_Out_Run_tune2.maudio.flac
C64_Flight_Path_747.maudio.flac         C64_Park_Patrol.maudio.flac
C64_Mask_II.maudio.flac                      C64_Rebounder.maudio.flac
C64_Monty_on_the_Run_High_Score.maudio.flac  C64_Thing_on_a_Spring.maudio.flac
C64_Monty_on_the_Run_Main.maudio.flac   C64_Wizardry.maudio.flac

Sidplay2 on C=64
If you enjoyed these files, there's a project to record the whole of the HVSID collection from a real C64 called the Authentic SID Collection: http://www.6581-8580.com/
 
M-Audio M-Track MkII
 
Enjoy!

Saturday 19 August 2017

Amiga A1200 High Resolution Audio Capture

I'm working on a customer's M-Audio M-Track MkII and couldn't resist the opportunity to test it by using it to capture the audio output from the Amiga A1200.  This is the same Amiga 1200 with the Rev 1A board which I've blogged about previously.

Amiga A1200 (ignore the MIDI cable, that's for a later post)
The M-Track MkII is a 2 channel analogue to digital converter and I have it connected to a Linux PC running Fedora 26 which immediately recognised the device and it showed up as as both a stereo input and output device in Pulseaudio.  I used Audacity to record and edit the audio at 48kHz stereo, exporting as 24 bit FLAC.

M-Audio M-Track MkII
The M-Audio M-Track is a pretty awesome bit of kit and worked well under Linux.  I was even able to play audio to the device and mix between Direct (analogue) Input and USB using the front panel mixer control.  Very nice indeed.

The Amiga audio captured directly from the rear panel L+R phono sockets also sounds amazing.  Unfortunately I don't have another A1200 to compare with so I don't know how this Rev 1A computer compares with later hardware revisions.

You can download a selection of audio files in FLAC format here which are obviously quite big being lossless:

Google Drive - Amiga A1200 Audio Files

The files available are:
  • A1200_mod.chippermodphosis_maudio.flac
  • A1200_mod.fresh_house_maudio.flac
  • A1200_mod.human_invasion_maudio.flac
  • A1200_mod.milk_punch_maudio.flac
These are just a few of my current favourites which I've been using for testing and repair of this particular A1200.  Only Amiga makes it possible!