Author: Brian (adsl-19-164-233.jan.bellsouth.net)
Date: 06-06-2004 12:38
Here's how I do it for a midi workstation.
A Falcon CT2b running at 50mhz, 14mb Falcon RAM, 32mb Fast RAM.
SVGA Monitor
I use HDDriver 7.93 (has to be THIS version, as later ones do SCSI in a way that CAF can't cope with). It seems to be the only drivers on the market that support both CAF and later protocols that I need for my MintNet setup. Another great thing about HDDriver is that you can mount and use DOS partitions! With a ZIP drive, or something similar, you can even make media that can be read on both your PC and your Falcon! To the PC it looks like DOS, and to the Atari it looks like BGM. Really comes in handy!
I have a pair (a 2gig narrow and a 4gig wide w/adaptor) of Seagate Baracuda SCSI drives that are pretty much exclusively for CAF. Inside the Falcon I have an IBM 20gig EIDE drive that holds everything else. I have a ZIP drive that usually stays on my Sampler, but can easily be daisy chained to the Falcon for access (the FAlcon also sees the Sampler this way for SMIDI sample dumps). Finally, a Yamaha CDRW for burning CDs.
The Falcon boots up with NVDI and EXtend DOS in Fast RAM, CentScreen slaps the Falcon in 1024X768 monochrome mode, then it boots Geneva and NeoDesk 4. STing is also booted to put the system online via Dynaport Ethernet adapator.
CartMaster Lite holds my CuBase and Zero X dongles.
CuBase Audio and all its M_ROS bits do just fine under Geneva.
Now I can also get at XOR for editing and libraries of midi instrument patches, while Zero X talks to samplers via SCSI and or MIDI.
On the hardware end, I have an SMP24 which offers 4 extra outputs and two inputs. It also provides SMPTE sync capabilities and a few other things we won't go into here.
For a MIDI patch bay I use an Anatek SMP7. It's a pretty standard patch bay with 7 inputs and 8 outputs, with 2 MIDI processors and MTC (and some other MIDI protocols) to SMPTE. The cool thing about this box is that it has a mac lan port which can be hooked to the Falcon and addressed via MROS as yet another input-output.
Next, I have a Unitor 2, which again adds 2 inputs and 2 outputs. CuBase can also use this device to lock to SMPTE.
My Audio is clocked via Soundpool FDI connected to an ART DIO Analogue to SPDIF converter. The art box is cool because it has MUCH better A/D converters than those built into the Falcon. It has a tube in it to optionally warm up the sound and take out the gritty digital edge. The FDI setup can serve as audio inputs or outputs, and the DIO box has several clocks to choose from, ranging from 32k up to 56k (the Falcon doesn't support all these clocks, but they are there).
There is also a Soundpool FA8 which gives 8 analogue outputs. Again much better than those built into the Falcon.
CuBase isn't my favorite sequencer ever made when it comes to building MIDI files, and definately not my favorite for live performing, but it's the only thing going for Atari that supports so much hardware (extra ports and so forth). All these MIDI channels do come in handy ;)
The ethernet comes in very handy. There's always that something I want to exchange from the PC to the Atari or vice verse. Note that the Dynaport is on the SCSI port, and can sometimes cause problems with CuBase Audio when using the hard disk recorder...but the good news is that it's easy to enable and disable STing as needed via simple CPX module.
ExtenDOS, likewise, can sometimes cause problems with CAF. I.E. Playing an audio CD with the control panel constantly pings the SCSI bus and CAF doesn't like that much. No real problem so long as you aren't accessing CDs at the same time you are recording/playing an aif with CAF.
I've yet to try it, but Master Tracks Pro is reported to work under Geneva.
While your KCS will indeed run from Geneva, you'd better stick with one of the ST resolutions. It takes some flag tweaking in Geneva to get it just right. Really tho'...KCS has its own multitasking system called MPE. With that setup...it's just as well to stick with the MPE system and tools fine tuned to go with it.
Nope, Notator will not run on a Falcon period, and it's my favorite ever for live gigs. Good thing ST machines are cheap, and a STacy is perfect ;)
I've never tried it...but they say LogiC will run under MagiC. AFAIK, it's the only MIDI sequencer that performs worth the bother under MagiC.
To wrap things up...
If you have an Atari, buy Geneva. It's worth it!
MagiC is also really nice but it's something you'll likely not use as a Music workstation. For everything else, on a Stock Falcon, it's the way to go. The main advantages I see to MagiC over Geneva for things non-midi are: Support for long file names. More partitions can be mounted at once (26 total). Larger disk drives and partitions are supported (with HDDriver), You can put alot of disk activities in the background using DMA (with HDDriver) that under single tos or Geneva take over the entire system (I.E. while playing an mp3, you open the file selector from your text editor...the music stops until the file is loaded into your text editor). Preemtive multitasking. Faster in alot of ways than TOS. There's alot of great software out of europe designed to take advantage of MagiC's 'enhanced properties' such as multi threading, shared libraries, enhanced menus/dialogs, etc...
Mint/Multitos in its most modern forms on a stock Falcon of any flavor is horribly slow in my opinion. Few if any MIDI apps were coded to survive under any of the AES versions available for Mint (AES 4.1, N_AES, XXAES). So, in short...unless you're running a CT2, AB040, or CT060, don't bother with it. With a beefed up machine however; it's nice to have around because it opens up a plethora of utilities and applications from the unix world.
And now I relinquish the soap box to the next Atarian ;)
Brian
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