Neat! I did the same thing for Impulse Tracker, which can take good advantage of an AWE32/64 and has some extra features (hardware filters, MIDI output) that way. Here are a few pointers - YMMV, of course:

- Skip the 486 and go with a Pentium MMX or Pentium 2 with 64MB RAM - AllSound needs a lot of horsepower for a DOS app, and you'll get a ton of quality-of-life stuff like larger HDD support, onboard IDE controllers, you'll be able to use a better quality ATX PSU, etc. Plus the platforms are an order of magnitude cheaper AND more reliable.
- DOS, Windows, etc. are readily available, but don't ask for links here as that's still considered a legal grey area. Search around. I'd skip DOS 6.2+Win95 personally and either go with the latest FreeDOS or Win98SE (which includes DOS 7.) Drivers for every Sound Blaster card can be found on https://vogonsdrivers.com .
- If you can't find an AWE32, grab an AWE64 Value and use a SIMMConn from SerdaShop (search around here). It's probably the cheapest way to go & works great.
- You used to be able to pick up "Dolch Pac 6x" (64/65/etc.) luggable PCs for relatively cheap, they had expansion slots, built-in LCDs, a nice keyboard layout for tracking, and a handle... But the supply of those seems to have dried up. It's worth a search anyway. Keep in mind they had wildly different specs and not all of them had ISA slots, so be sure you know what you're getting. There are SOME older Thinkpads and Compaq/HP laptops with expansion bays that would take an ISA card, but space is super limited in those and I'm not sure a full-length AWE32 or 64 with a RAM upgrade would even fit.
Otherwise you might have to give up on the portable idea and just build a small tower you can bring with you if you need to. IMHO you don't lose that much, especially not if the machine lives 99% of its life in your studio.

Who's the musician you're referring to using AST? I'd love to check their stuff out. It's a really underused tracker and incredibly powerful.

xjas wrote on 2020-07-30, 18:19:

Neat! I did the same thing for Impulse Tracker, which can take good advantage of an AWE32/64 and has some extra features (hardware filters, MIDI output) that way. Here are a few pointers - YMMV, of course:

- Skip the 486 and go with a Pentium MMX or Pentium 2 with 64MB RAM - AllSound needs a lot of horsepower for a DOS app, and you'll get a ton of quality-of-life stuff like larger HDD support, onboard IDE controllers, you'll be able to use a better quality ATX PSU, etc. Plus the platforms are an order of magnitude cheaper AND more reliable.

Thank you for your thoughtful and thorough response!
I thought AST didn’t work with AWE64? Either way, lots of evidence points to AWE32 being better as far as sound quality and FM operation. Is there any reason to specifically choose AWE64?

xjas wrote on 2020-07-30, 18:19:

Who's the musician you're referring to using AST? I'd love to check their stuff out. It's a really underused tracker and incredibly powerful.

Autechre has been known but I didn’t confirm which songs. I know for a fact Dabrye used it exclusively for most of his music, specifically his album One Third.

AllSound Tracker works fine for me on my expanded AWE64 + FreeDOS + Pentium MMX 233. AFAIK there aren't really any incompatibilities between the AWE32 & 64.

The output quality on even the "cheap" AWE64 cards is substantially improved over most of the AWE32 range, which can be pretty noisy. AWE64 Golds are another level up in output quality but they go for a decent chunk of money (I wouldn't pay more than $100 for one, but that's up to you.)

In general, for the AWE32, the physically smaller cards with less individual chips on them tend to be less noisy. You can get nice ones but it's a crapshoot, and most/all of them have variants of the infamous "hanging MIDI note" bug. No AWE64s have that bug.

The Yamaha FM chip was replaced with a Creative "CQM" knockoff on all AWE64s and some (most?) AWE32s. You'll find endless threads on here with people moaning about how "inferior" the Creative chip is, while they play the same tired old '90s games with cheap general-MIDI conversions and really uninspired patch sets. If you're actually programming the FM synth itself, like you do in AST, you can make some really nice stuff out of both chips, but they are a bit different.

The few variants of the AWE32 with a Yamaha OPL3 chip are considered a bit of a holy grail, and are both hard to find and expensive. There's also the AWE64 Legacy project, which aims to make a modern "perfect" re-creation with everything you could want, but I'm not sure how far along they are and those are gonna be expensive when they're released.

Thanks for the artist suggestions! Had no idea Autechre did stuff on trackers, that's really cool. Will check both of those out. 😀

xjas wrote on 2020-07-30, 18:55:

The few variants of the AWE32 with a Yamaha OPL3 chip are considered a bit of a holy grail, and are both hard to find and expensive. There's also the AWE64 Legacy project, which aims to make a modern "perfect" re-creation with everything you could want, but I'm not sure how far along they are and those are gonna be expensive when they're released.

Thanks for the artist suggestions! Had no idea Autechre did stuff on trackers, that's really cool. Will check both of those out. 😀

Thanks again! Knowing myself, I would be going after the holy grail. Noise doesn’t bother me so much. I’m more concerned about the 1/8 TRS output being scratchy haha. Do you have any more information on specific variants? (Model numbers?)
Money is no object in this case as I’ve set a healthy budget.

The Dolch looks great! Will be looking out for one.. I’m seeing them 500-1500$

Also, Machinedrum early music is all Impulse Tracker 😉

I did find this info very useful:

“ Don't forget the SoundBlaster 32 model CT3930. This is actually the only card in the SoundBlaster 32/AWE32 family with a true discrete Yamaha YMF262. The CT2760, CT3900 and CT3980 all use an ASIC variant of the YMF262 found inside a custom Creative ASIC labeled CT1747. However, the sound is identical between the ASIC-based YMF262 found in the CT1747 and a discrete YMF262.
Also, some models of the SoundBlaster 32 and AWE32 have solder spots for the Yamaha YMF289, a low-power variant of the YMF262. This is true for the SoundBlaster 32 model CT3600 and the SoundBlaster AWE32 model CT3990. But Creative, being the cheap ******** they are, decided to leave the solder spots for the YMF289 and all support circuitry for the accompanying DAC, the YAC516, empty and use CQM instead, which doesn't reproduce OPL2 and OPL3 music with 100% accuracy. I'm still curious as to what would happen if you were to add in the YMF289, the YAC516 and all support circuitry to a SoundBlaster 32 model CT3600 or SoundBlaster AWE32 model CT3990. Would the output from the YMF289 be mixed with the output of CQM or will CQM be automatically disabled(I know some models of the SoundBlaster 16 with CQM have YMF289s on them, and I believe only the YMF289 outputs sound. CQM is left silent)?”

Newreality wrote on 2020-07-30, 19:10:

Thanks again! Knowing myself, I would be going after the holy grail. Noise doesn’t bother me so much. I’m more concerned about the 1/8 TRS output being scratchy haha. Do you have any more information on specific variants? (Model numbers?)
Money is no object in this case as I’ve set a healthy budget.

If you want the top of the line, I'd honestly still go with an AWE64 Gold (CT4390) and a SIMMConn upgrade to max out the RAM. You get discrete stereo RCA jacks instead of 1/8" TRS, and can add a simple header to get S/PDIF digital output, which sounds really nice. It really was the premium end for these cards, better than any AWE32 IMHO.

Or wait for the AWE64 Legacy, which was slated to cost around $200-300 IIRC? Check that thread for more info.

I don't know the model variants of the AWE32 off-hand, but if you search around there's a thread on here detailing them all.

BTW nothing wrong with grabbing a cheaper variant of both and figuring out which one you like better. AWE64 Values go for ~$10-$40 typically, or you can find them in used PCs sometimes. Adlib Tracker 2 comes with a ton of modules you can try out the FM chip with. Personally, I love how a lot of AT2 modules sound on an AWE64 with CQM chip, especially if you use the EMU8000 to add a bit of chorus+reverb. 😀 It's mostly down to personal preference there, though.

Newreality wrote on 2020-07-30, 19:10:

The Dolch looks great! Will be looking out for one.. I’m seeing them 500-1500$

Yeah, don't pay that. A few years ago you could pick them up for $50 all day long, although I think $200-300 would be reasonable for one in good condition if you really want it now & don't want to wait around for a bargain. There's an issue that a lot of those got scrapped for their keyboards, but that's another whole thread worth of brough-ha.

BTW Creative's DOS drivers for all the AWE range were a bit crap - overcomplicated and buggy. Check out UniSound for a modern alternative driver that's being developed here.

Great info again! Haha thanks

I’m not super familiar with PC capabilities but what exactly is the compability with All Sound Tracker as far as processor chips? Would some later processors not work? I suppose I am trying to gauge whether I could purchase a new build retrofitted with ISA slots...

For that matter, I will need to look up Sound blaster AWE compatibility 😀

Honestly I couldn’t find much information about AST compatibility

AllSoundTracker should run just fine on anything that has an ISA slot - there's no CPU sensitivity as far as I know. Pentium 2, P3, Athlon, etc. should all work.

Note: I haven't personally tested machines over ~1 GHz but that's an unlikely scenario anyway. Issues would start showing up earlier than that.

Every now and then it happens. Someone finds AST and wants to build a machine. OK. A small guide from a developer:

- Avoid SB32pnp cards unless you have Windows95 / Win98 for initialization (only start it once and exit to DOS again), same goes fow AWE64
- AST works best with "long" card of type number CT2760 or CT3980
- AST versions prior to 1.62f2 have a Turbo Pascal delay bug, which causes it to crash on AMD CPUs above 166MHz (I have heard of problems with CPU above 800MHz anyway)
- Use the digital out. You won't have OPL synthesis there, but ... yeah, is this really a problem? Find the SPDIF pins and connect a RCA jack to it near the EMU8000 cpu. Sometimes on SB32 cards these are missing and must be soldered manually.

When you are lucky, find 30pin SIMM modules for RAM upgrade, a lot of the formerly cheap SB32pnp don't come with RAM at all. AWE64Gold has 4MB Ram, but you will be out of luck with any upgrades at all.
Because of stupid bugs in AST refrain from using the help function too often. You might run out of lower memory.
Because of some other problems Windows9x does some background activity. And this will cause trouble with timing while playing a tune. In worst cases I experienced corrupted *.ast files when Windows does something while AST is saving your song. So do regularly backup your tunes! I never found the cause and lived with using it in DOS Mode only.

And now go for it! Have fun!
Best regs,
jamram

Hello,

jamram wrote on 2020-09-08, 21:34:

Every now and then it happens. Someone finds AST and wants to build a machine.

That's exactly my case 😄
i'm looking for a DOS or WIN 3.x program to sequence external midi devices, (home made) internal FM sounds & samples, and output the metronome on the PC speaker so i can clock my analog gears. AST seems to be the program that can do it all. (which other software can do all of that anyway... ? )

i managed to dowload version 1.62f from here:
http://www.maz-sound.com/archives/ast162f.zip

but the manual, while mentioning 8 chapters, ends abruptly after paragraph 2.21 with your message:
"I know, this file is not finished, but I got bored today. You may continue
it if you like, prolly I would, when there's enough time left, but I think
you all know, how to handle AST, don't you? "

Would you ( or any other member ) be so kind to send me the full manual please ?
So that i can evaluate if AST is the program that i need, and therefore if it makes sense to proceed with the purchase of an AWE32 😜
( or a sound blaster 32 maybe ? )

Or put the link to the full manual in this thread for every next person to discover it 😉

PS: joyeux noël 😀 Et si t'as la version française du mode d'emploi ça me le fera aussi bien 😉

for those of you who are familiar with AST: any chance for it to play sound via the covox speech thing?

It sometimes takes years to answer....

1. I see AST isn't available on the interwebs any longer. OK. I will put up a website with all content I have. I will post more details here, when it's done. Might take a few weeks.
2. I never finished that manual. In the end of the 90s it was also the end of the DOS era and when I started it, we had around 300 users worldwide. Everyone knew how to handle AST and no new users were coming.
There is a file, help.dat, I think which is the in-game help with F1. This is plain readable ASCII. Open it with a text editor. Its comprehensive on a lot of functions.
3. If you encounter "registration file needed" error messages, look for versions prior to 1.58 or use 1.62f2 where it was removed again. Registration was set up just to count users.
4. No Covox. It can do: Beeper, OPL, MIDI and EMU8000

Any more questions, I'll try to reply as soon as I'm aware there are new posts.

Best regs, jamram

jamram wrote on 2022-05-31, 19:55:

Any more questions, I'll try to reply as soon as I'm aware there are new posts.

Have a nice day!
Have you thought about open source All Sound Tracker?
There was some bugs. Maybe users fix it? 😀
Now there are communities of downgraders who use DOS and other similar software.
Perhaps people from this communities will be able to support the project (in github at least, at the "accept pull request" level).
IMHO, it is the only one tracker that supports EMU8000/AWE.
P.S.
For example: https://github.com/mywave82/opencubicplayer
http://www.adlibtracker.net/downloads.php
http://schismtracker.org/
and others.

Timur wrote on 2022-08-17, 11:58:

Have you thought about open source All Sound Tracker? There was some bugs. Maybe users fix it? :-) Now there are communities of […]
Show full quote

Have you thought about open source All Sound Tracker?
There was some bugs. Maybe users fix it? 😀
Now there are communities of downgraders who use DOS and other similar software.
Perhaps people from this communities will be able to support the project (in github at least, at the "accept pull request" level).

I think Feilei had put the sources on private website. But as I see, it is offline now. I will take care of it, needs a bit more time to compile all my AST stuff.
AST was coded in Turbo Pascal 7.01, this might become a challenge, if you have no physical hardware below 200MHz. Yes, there are a lot of bugs. But I remember musicians using these bugs as feature, e.g. some weird LFO overflow. When I fixed the overflow, I got complaints some music wouldn't sound as intended any longer, haha!

best reggies, jamram

You can patch TP7 software if it was built with Borland tool chain, and there is also a runtime TSR that works for a lot of executables.

I love the interwebs. Someone discovers an old tracker software, gets inspired, posts on a forum and BAM! one of the devs of the program hops on the thread. Heartwarming stuff <3
Personally, I'm hoping dosbox-x will get AWE32 emulation going so I can have a play with AST, it sounds like a total beast. I mean per-track swing settings!?!! Not expecting to have the time even to knock together a machine on 86box anytime soon, let alone time, space and money to build a period-hardware machine, though that'd be the dream!

I have used an AWE64 in Impulse Tracker, and I have to say the 86box emulation sounds really off if you can directly compare it to the real thing. Especially the resonant filters are completely off and sound harsh and thin. So I hope Dosbox will not (directly) adopt the 86box code.

ah well. i've reconciled myself to probably not experiencing the real thing, so honestly i'd settle for being able to have a play around with it even if it sounded a bit crap! If audio fidelity and quality were all I were after, i'd just use some boring modern DAW with outboard audio interface ¯\_(ツ)_/¯