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RaveTogether
New Member
United States
20 posts
Joined: Aug, 2024
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 Posted - 2024/09/17 : 21:39:01
I'm wondering what it was like for producers using only software based music production in that era. The same programs were around, Ableton, lots of VST plugins etc.
I can't find any information online. Was the workflow smooth and fast? We you waiting for things to render after each change? Was it all sample based? Did artists make complete quality songs with only their computer and no external keyboards or hardware?
The reason I ask is I had a powerful Mac back then, but I never tried cause I didn't know how to get started. Today I'm making music using a modern fast computer utilizing all my CPU, the plugins are fully emulating classic instruments as opposed to samples in most cases running up that CPU. YouTube says we always need faster and faster computers.
What was it like? Could it be done today with a classic mac and abandonware?
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DJ_FunDaBounce
Advanced Member
Colombia
2,114 posts
Joined: Nov, 2001
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Posted - 2024/09/18 : 02:54:29
I bought my first production computer (PC) back in '97 along with a version of cubase and re-birth. Can't recall the specs but I'm pretty sure it ran lower than 200 megahertz. I used cubase to trigger samples on a kurzweill with 8 outputs and a roland juno 106. Had a little rack with a novation bass station and an E-mu "orbit" and an mc-303, too. All fed to a tascam 16-channel mixer. My soundcard was a midi-man, which was the predecessor of m-audio. It only had a stereo input and output and midi/in/out/through I believe. everything was daisy chained through midi. mixdowns went to a sony DAT recorder.
Through the years I've come to realize how lucky I was as many artists of the time had more humble setups than that.
I don't have much to show from that era in terms of recordings, except for a track I made for my girlfriend at the time.
__________________________________
"Fun with a capital F-D-B!"
http://www.brightspeedrecordings.com/
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DJ_FunDaBounce
Advanced Member
Colombia
2,114 posts
Joined: Nov, 2001
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Posted - 2024/09/18 : 03:04:01
quote:
Originally posted by DJ_FunDaBounce:
I don't have much to show from that era in terms of recordings, except for a track I made for my girlfriend at the time.
said track (for the curious):
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"Fun with a capital F-D-B!"
http://www.brightspeedrecordings.com/
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DJ_FunDaBounce
Advanced Member
Colombia
2,114 posts
Joined: Nov, 2001
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Posted - 2024/09/18 : 03:41:31
This thread got me digging up some stuff! lol!
I made these 2 on a cracked version of reason v1.0 around 2001-2003. The pc at that time ran at 233 mhz.
__________________________________
"Fun with a capital F-D-B!"
http://www.brightspeedrecordings.com/
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RaveTogether
New Member
United States
20 posts
Joined: Aug, 2024
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Posted - 2024/09/18 : 05:45:44
Thanks man, I'm actually listening to your stuff now. I think it's good to look back and keep the history. I was listening to some old HHC today and noticed a lot of stark jumps where the producer didn't use sweeps or risers, but the raw cuts made the song better, I think. maybe all he had was a simple setup and going by instinct he made the most of it and proved you don't always need to follow rules to get the vibe across.
I'm emulating the Juno 106 with a VST and filling in the notes on Ableton. I just don't have room for the equipment even if I could track all the hardware down so that's something better about today's music production. I've heard of Cubase and rebirth, and I've been reading about them a bit but there is a lack of articles where people just talk about them, its like old software and peoples experiences with them vanishes without a trace on the internet today.
I found this forum post on Reason V1 https://forum.reasontalk.com/viewtopic.php?t=7523173
It looked like a great program, nice interface. Do you remember if you still needed your external hardware or was the software complete back then? Were Stars and Hearts and Little Pie made with only Reason's default samples or did you have to search around for sample CD's or use your external patches from your Juno?
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Edited by - RaveTogether on 2024/09/18 06:10:26 |
DJ_FunDaBounce
Advanced Member
Colombia
2,114 posts
Joined: Nov, 2001
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Posted - 2024/09/18 : 13:25:14
quote:
Originally posted by RaveTogether:
Thanks man, I'm actually listening to your stuff now. I think it's good to look back and keep the history. I was listening to some old HHC today and noticed a lot of stark jumps where the producer didn't use sweeps or risers, but the raw cuts made the song better, I think. maybe all he had was a simple setup and going by instinct he made the most of it and proved you don't always need to follow rules to get the vibe across.
I'm emulating the Juno 106 with a VST and filling in the notes on Ableton. I just don't have room for the equipment even if I could track all the hardware down so that's something better about today's music production. I've heard of Cubase and rebirth, and I've been reading about them a bit but there is a lack of articles where people just talk about them, its like old software and peoples experiences with them vanishes without a trace on the internet today.
I found this forum post on Reason V1 https://forum.reasontalk.com/viewtopic.php?t=7523173
It looked like a great program, nice interface. Do you remember if you still needed your external hardware or was the software complete back then? Were Stars and Hearts and Little Pie made with only Reason's default samples or did you have to search around for sample CD's or use your external patches from your Juno?
Starz n Hearts was done using Reason only, using the stock synths and samples taken mostly from vinyl. Reason didn't have vst support until version 9 (2018) I think. I used sound forge to sample and edit.
I used to have the jungle warfare sample CD's for the amen and stuff, but I had to leave the cubase setup behind for health reasons (ie. excessive drug use). That's why I had to start over with the pirated version of Reason for a while. The only hardware I had with the reason setup was a midi keyboard.
__________________________________
"Fun with a capital F-D-B!"
http://www.brightspeedrecordings.com/
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DJ_FunDaBounce
Advanced Member
Colombia
2,114 posts
Joined: Nov, 2001
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Posted - 2024/09/18 : 16:17:23
Btw, Cubase and Reason were used by practically all the big names of that era. Especially Cubase.
Sy & Unknown, Breeze and Styles, Brisk & Ham, just to name a few.
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"Fun with a capital F-D-B!"
http://www.brightspeedrecordings.com/
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RaveTogether
New Member
United States
20 posts
Joined: Aug, 2024
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Posted - 2024/09/19 : 01:08:19
You can find all of those sample CD's on archive.org, here is Jungle Warfare: https://archive.org/details/zg-jungle-warfare_202407/VOL+1/
The best way to search is to go into google, then search for archive.org "name of sample cd"
Archive.org's own search is too complicated alot of times and brings up lists that are too huge and unsorted.
Good to know about what they used, I'm trying to make more songs with that vibe so maybe I should simply, my current setup has too many options.
Maybe in the future, when we are all on subscription based computers and software, there will be a fresh group of new artists that go back to the early versions.
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Kalymero
Starting Member
Canada
4 posts
Joined: Sep, 2007
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Posted - 2025/11/13 : 05:10:51
All these peeps on a 200mhz had it worse than me  poor yalls for real, yall the real MVP.
In 2002, I got a 600mhz with Fruity Loops 3.5. I didn't know about VST and plugins, not even about sample packs. So there I was, alone without any tips or clues, trying to recreate the happy of the time with a barebone Fruity Loops 3.5. I spent a few years like this and even my song that was posted here back then was made with that poor's man setup.
The thing was difficult to deal with. Even tho I was using only stock plugins and stock samples, it was rushing to provide. I was using the computer's built in audio device which was noisy and wasn't working well at all. All I had as speakers were some kinda suspicious loudspeakers from the 70s because that's all we could afford, and we had to pass the computer audio through an old Akai something and then into these speakers and a DIY subwoofer we made. So not only the computer was a pain to deal with but I was also very badly equipped and had to do a lot of guessworks with my ears to ensure it would sound good enough everywhere else, which means lots of A/B/C between my songs and others to compare how it sounds WHILE I make the song. This also included finding ways to hide the bad built in soundcard's noise that would insert itself in my exports. ??
I had two choices to make music and finish a song. Either I would endure the stuttering and lags all the time, which includes the heavy digital distorsion and trying to guesswork what is truly happening behind all that ****-shit-noise, or to export constantly at every changes of a single knob even if only 1mm has changed.
We weren't as knowledgeable as today either so many of us didn't know we could save CPU by bouncing plugin tracks to audio. That didn't stop us from being creative tho. And with stock plugins, I had to layer the 3xOSC multiple times if I wanted to create a very simple super saw or any other sounds, then FX them differently so lots more plugins on each. I.e. For a supersaw, a 3x OSC had only 3x OSC with minimal configs, but it was sounding better with only 1 OSC ON, so it would require at least 7x 3xOSC to make a super saw, detune and pan them differently, had reverb and delay on each, then sacrifice one of the 99 mixer channels for a buss, add comp, eq and etc there to try and beef it up to make it sound huge and big.
If I wanted a 303 then it was the stock TB303 something from FL, plus FL Overdrive, some EQ, delay, reverb, EQ, lots of automations and etc.
For sidechain, I had to find ways to make do which was often lots of painful & manual parameters' automations. I.e. adding a random plugin that has a gain knob, then manually creating each up and down of what a sidechain would do, or do it on an EQ low band or some other shit.
All while the computer is like:
"**** YOU, YOU WONT DISTIGUISH SHIT GRSSHHHHHH NOIIIIISEEEE STUTTERING NOISSSEEE LIKE THE COMPUTER IS GONNA EXPLODE GRSSSHH"
And since it was the stock samples of back then, they were all sounding like stinky dirty horse shit. So I had to layer theses too, and FX them differently too. Often I would end up having the full 99 mixer channel used, and had to double the samples and plugins on each channels and try to do a median of the "mixdown" for a bass and maybe a cowbell playing at different part in a song.
It was such a hassle, but it was fun AF and I learnt a lot. I don't think I would have become as creative in my make-do approach if it wasn't for that experience so in a way, that's a good thing.
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DJ Omnimaga
Starting Member
Canada
18 posts
Joined: Jan, 2007
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Posted - 2025/11/19 : 15:41:59
To this day there are even people who still produces various kind of music on the Playstation 1 version of Music 2000 (although almost everyone is on PS1 emulator so that they can reload savestates whenever the software crashes and not wait several minutes to save track progress) and someone even repackaged the Windows version so that it runs on many Windows 10/11 setups.
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Dream of Omni
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Captain Triceps
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
2,214 posts
Joined: Dec, 2011
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Posted - 2025/11/20 : 10:48:48
quote:
Originally posted by DJ Omnimaga:
To this day there are even people who still produces various kind of music on the Playstation 1 version of Music 2000 (although almost everyone is on PS1 emulator so that they can reload savestates whenever the software crashes and not wait several minutes to save track progress) and someone even repackaged the Windows version so that it runs on many Windows 10/11 setups.
Yes, I am often sent tunes by someone who makes them on Music (or Music 2000) though I am not sure if it is on an actual PlayStation or not.
My first PC was bought in 1998. I have absolutely no idea about megahertz or what the CPU was or any of that carry on. I remember at the time it was absolutely top of the line (at consumer level) with its 10Gb hard drive! I used Rave eJay followed by FL Studio. As for its real capabilities, I remember the first time someone wanted to do a collab (about 2001 or so?) they sent me their Fruity Loops project. It was basic as anything and only used stock plugins but my PC simply couldn't handle the project haha! All my tunes were sample based simplicities it would have been just as easy to do on a tracker.
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Some of my remixes, original tracks and mixes here:
https://soundcloud.com/bradders-tracks-and-remix
https://soundcloud.com/bradders1982
https://soundcloud.com/paulbradley1982
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