Atari 520ST & Cubase 2 - Old School 80s programming

The Atari 520ST was a great Midi capable computer in the mid 80s. You could do alot with it if you had a couple of synths.
Here I program some drums from a Roland R-8, a Yamaha TX802 and then some. To get a little beat going. This is a short edit of an older and longer video showing the capabilities of this early Midi computer and a sequencer software. Cubase 2.0 from Steinberg.
The song I'm working on here is a cover of Rah band's "Clouds across the moon". Also from the 80s.

[@dagobertkrikelin1587]

Reminds me of "Clouds Across The Moon" - RAH Band.

[@EspenKraft]

It is. Read the video description. ;-)

[@dagobertkrikelin1587]

@@EspenKraft Ah, sorry - I usually don't. Anyway, you are close enough to make it recognisable to me. ;)

[@EspenKraft]

No worries. In the longer, more in-depth video this is taken from I expand on the cover with vocals and all.

[@larswillsen]

Ohh, those were the days - I was a beta tester of Cubase and used it on all the tracks I've now re-recorded and released :-)

[@DerbJd]

Tangerine Dream ran their live gigs with two ST-E's and Cubase too. You can see them in the album cover photos for their Poland LIVE record.

[@no1uknow457]

Wow! That takes me back... an Atari 1040ST running a dodgy copy of Cubase is where my love of writing and producing music began.

[@MarcoStrano-bt6np]

I am rebuilding my studio right now. It’ll have Atari Cubase 3 (original dongle) and Steinberg (waldorf) SMP24 for sequencing. I am back to the oldskool!

[@Reg-Edit]

Well, there is a blast from the past 🖐 Everybody used to have a cracked copy of that on floppy disk 😂 I used to have pro 24 with an Atari 1040 STE 1 MB of RAM 😂 Pure nostalgia 🙏❤️

[@SpikesStudio3]

Was it and "MCA" cracked version? I recall that coming up while it was loading. Has there ever been and emulation for a mac? Wheni got rid of my atari, i stopped using a daw. I would love to midi sequence again, like in the day...

[@MacMelmac]

Steinberg Pro 24, In mid-resolution aka. black, white, red and green!

[@DerbJd]

ONe whole Meg!

[@TheMontyfire]

PSB meets broken wings ❤️

[@dosgos]

Atari timing was rumoured to be fantastic. I get that sense here too. The groove is solid.

[@kentaccordionist]

Not just rumoured it was bang on.

[@carstenaltena]

It's weird that timing is a thing in the digital domain, right? You'd expect modern day DAWs to be bang on but apparently that's not always the case?

[@Magnus_Loov]

​@@carstenaltena It is bang on with vst insruments. Then you get sample accurate timing which is even better than on the Atari ST. It is another story with external instruments where Midi goes out. Although it used to be much worse back in the day with PC:s when they first compared the Atari ST version to the fist PC Cubase versions on Windows 3.1.

[@MacMelmac]

As it was dedicated MIDI ports, and not and additional cartridge, the latency was very low!

[@carstenaltena]

@@MacMelmac Ah that makes sense!

[@lab-by-the-sea]

After a short time with a 16 Track sequencer in C64 i had Steinberg 24, then Cubase on the Atari, liked that cubase more back then, than any version later...

[@DerbJd]

The opening chords sound like Heartbeat by Steps. Also, this is where I began too - a Yamaha TG300 and DS55 keyboard to control it connected to a 2mb STE with Cubase 2.0 and the old Hi Res Monitor emulatore for TV. I got a track on the UK's Future Music Magazine cover - June 1997 called "Plexi" by Jon Dow (it's on Discogs) anad it's in Soundclound as "pixieboyjon". I later bought a copy of Cubase VST 3.6 for PC and a Yamaha SW1000XG when it was Windows XP. I was so annoyed with Yamaha for stopping supporting the audio card for newer versions of Windows.

[@EspenKraft]

The song in the video is "Clouds Across the Moon" from Rah Band. A hit in the 80s of course. ;-)

[@chloedevereaux1801]

yes i still have my TT in my loft..

[@djJustJay]

Wow. I never realized cubase went that far back. Super cool

[@EspenKraft]

Oh, it goes further back than this. Check out my video where I show the Pro 16 sequencer on the C64. That's the oldest commercial Cubase.

[@kerzwhile]

Oh the memories!❤ still Dead on solid timing!!!😊

[@Magnus_Loov]

I remember this foundly. Love the clean uncluttered look of the interface. And the fact that it isn't so dull in colors (The DDR look of washed out "greyish" colors that Cubase have now and is only adjustable in the "dull" color range). Yes, only black and white. But much clearer! Midi-wize it already had most of the features that you use today. A very complete package!

[@stoffenl]

When it became available on Mac I think you could choose whether you wanted to buy a color or monochrome layout for Cubase. I don't know if there was any price difference though.

[@udiorockmeamadeus]

Amigas cpu was syncd to the frequency of the video so it could adjust the copper's instructions on every scan line, thats why it was perfect for the video toaster. The Atari ST's were sold with midi adaptors builtin to the computer, meaning it was going to attract sequencer apps and patch librarian apps.. Even though the Amiga didn't have a midi port, the 31250 bps was supported on its serial port.

[@chaton51]

I started with atari and cubase... Great computer very stable

[@dubmaverick69]

Best Midi Timing, miss the 1040st!!

[@rhill109]

Great blast from the past. I've gazed at that screen for many happy hours.

[@ulrichkliegis4138]

Almost exactly what I started with, just a 1040 instead of the 520. I still have that in the basement, together with a Steinberg SMTP interface. And yes, about 1986 or so... Sigh... My first synth was a DX7 (what else? ). Later, I added a KX88 keyboard and an Oberheim Matrix 6R. Still my very favorite! And some drum machine. And the Atari was also a good home for graphical editors for the DX7 and the Matrix.

[@saulcross9690]

That brings back memories. I used a similar set up and before that it was Steinberg Pro 24 that I used.

[@fillrobs7726]

the best system ever!

[@perkelix]

The 1040 STe was awesome.

[@michaelmichalskimusic]

I used a 1040ST and EZ Track from Hybrid Arts for almost 10 years. Built in MIDI ports were the bomb.

[@johnsmithkeysareme]

I used Hybrid Arts Software and their MIDI interface on an Atari 130 XE. I actually still have it. Good stuff!

[@gameon2000]

❤ thanks Espen for reminding me, how foolish Inwas to sell my Atari based studio. Gotta get it again no matter the cost! 😂

[@madgikegamings2142]

que de beau souvenir ^^

[@Bin909able]

Sweet memories! Tight timing indeed. The logical editor was fantastic too. Still miss that. I dont miss the little bombs when it crashed though, or the loading times. but its still weird that in a lot of years after that things were so much worse...

[@ottovonnekpunch1268]

I remember back in da day, my studio partner had his Atari 1040St with Cubase and I had my Commodore 64 with a Russ Jones Steinberg Card-32 sequencer along with our Ensoniq ESQ and EPS-16 keyboards! We made a lot of tracks with that MIDI setup that still stands up well even today! By today's standards (I'm looking at you Pro Tools), the limitations of those early years forced us to be more creative! Oh, those were the days...

[@ubncgexam]

Yes... Definitely the best... ❤

[@SuperRingoffire1]

Fantastique 👌☮

[@willthornwillthorn85]

1040 and Cubase was my setup

[@Projacked1]

That sounds like very stable (MIDI) clocking.

[@matt_phistopheles]

Sweet memories. I still have the disks somewhere in the basement. Too bad I had to send in my dongle when I switched to PC.

[@CraigRodmellMusic]

My first computer was an Atari 520 ST, with 512k RAM. I used Master Tracks Pro on it. (I still use Master Tracks Pro today, but on my PC). By the time you loaded up the program, I had about 72k left to do sequencing with. It goes without saying that I frequently used to run out of memory. When that died, my next computer was an Atari 1040 STE which had 1Mb RAM. While that meant I wasn't running out of memory near so much, it was often really slow, as it used the floppy drive for swap space. When I upgraded it to 2Mb, that problem largely disappeared. It died in 1997, and was replaced by my first PC laptop, also running Master Tracks Pro.

[@Magnus_Loov]

Very strange that it shows "1989" for the Cubase 2.0 startup splach screen. It came out in the latter half of 1990. Cubase 1.0 came out in mid 1989.

[@cortical1]

This is really interesting to see. I never had or saw the earliest versions of Cubase; I'd only heard about them and read about them in magazines. Really surprisingly powerful system for writing music! Did you have this in the mid 80s? Very cool.

[@EspenKraft]

Once again, this is part of a much larger and older video where I show much more of the process. I did indeed have this setup, but with the competitor at the time, C-lab's Notator. But some years before this Steinberg had their Pro-16 sequencer for the Commodore 64. I have a video about that as well and THAT is old. ;-)

[@cortical1]

@@EspenKraft Thanks.

[@Peter-nf3wp]

ohh that days ✌

[@classicarcadeamusementpark4242]

Cubase came out at the time both the Atari ST & Amiga 16 bit personal computer platforms were almost dead here in America. The winner of the computer platform war was.....the PC. Personally, I got a lot more exciting about saving thousands of dollars on hardware synthesizers (especially sampling) than using my computer as a MIDI tape recorder. I'd rather focus on my playing, and let the studio engineer worry about the recording. Cubase totally missed the the opportunity to come out with the VST soft synth format on the Amiga, the first personal computer that included a sound chip capable of soft synths that sounded like synthesizers and not toys or gaming sound chips.

[@Mr_A_Mia]

👏🏾👏🏾

[@itayrousso1527]

I had this system with the Midex Midi expansion - that was a major leap forward from my old system - Steinberg 64 sequencer that run on my Commodore 64. I think this is the pre-Cubase sequencer...

[@EspenKraft]

Before Steinberg Cubase on the Atari, it was Pro-24 from the same company. Before that it was Pro-16 on the C64. I should know. I had them all. ;-)

[@itayrousso1527]

@EspenKraft you have a better memory than me... 🙂

[@EspenKraft]

I also have all these systems to this day. Software and hardware.

[@itayrousso1527]

@EspenKraft I only have the Atari system and the C64.... One thing I remember with the Steinberg, was that you recorded a sequence at 1/8, and then when you switched it to 1/16 it created a cool and interesting pattern... If you get the chance and time, I'd love to see the C64 sequencer...

[@EspenKraft]

My C64 and Pro-16 video is right here on my channel.

[@frequincyrecording4286]

Do you know if Cubase 2 has MIDI compression processing like Notator? I know one can manually adjust velocity of notes, but a compression algorithm in Notator is really fascinating to me given that time period.

[@richcolour]

Couldn't afford Cubase, had to make do with a free cover disk copy of Gajits Sequencer One

[@mibo747]

40y ago? looked like todays software

[@Substance242]

When I recorded my first "album" to cassettes, each copy was a bit different because my Cubase randomly missed some notes here or there. :-)

[@rickst]

Cubase missing some notes?? No way. You were possibly playing a monophonic sound polyphonically.

[@sauermusicDE]

@@rickst Maybe the used playback instruments had issues with their DVA (dynamic voice allocation) or were simply running out of polyphony? I recall that the Roland U-20/-220 had a "voice reserve" feature where you could assign a fixed amount of polyphonic voices to each part in multi-mode...probably to avoid these "dropping notes".

[@Substance242]

@@rickst It was in 1996 but I swear it's true, it was just Atari 1040 STF and Roland D-110. I think something was wrong with the "special" Cubase version I had. Otherwise of course Atari was 100% solid. And it was not some note stealing on D-110, happened also in parts where almost nothing was playing.

[@finebalance]

The 520ST couldn't run Cubase unless it was upgraded to 1 meg of RAM. My first computer was a 520 STFM and I to use Steinberg 12 which was a cut down version of Pro24. I remeber I tried to upgrade my ST but it was before they sarted using SIMM's and it involved a lot of soldering and ultimately didn't work! :-(

[@normalizedaudio2481]

I got to go pick out my grey hairs. We just play chess on this computer. This is what Digital Research software looks like. I take this over the new Cubase.