- AmigaDOS 1.3, 2.0 and 3.0 compatible
- 68020, 68030 and 68040 compatible
- Intuitive, graphically rich interface designed for productive use
- Recording speeds of 51,136 samples/sec (mono) and 42,613 sps in STEREO
- Three real-time oscilloscopes and spectrum analyzer
- Work on as many as 31 sound samples in memory at once
- Saves in IFF, Sonix and RAW formats with 1, 3 or 5 octaves
- Stand alone DSS8+ Control Panel allows the use of the sampler with other popular programs
- ARexx utility allows programmers to control DSS8+'s custom features
You plug one end of it into the parallel port of your Amiga. On the other end are audio inputs for left and right channels. In the manual, it shows examples of hooking into your stereo tape deck, or a CDTV with CD player. Those would be the source.
I simply plugged mine into my iPhone, and fired up the Bandcamp app, then navigated to one of my all-time favorite synthwave artists, Waveshaper. I was lucky to meet him last year when his tour brought him from Sweden all the way to Seattle, and I snagged a blurry selfie with him. He's a very cool, very nice and generous guy.
In any case, after installing the software and plugging everything up I spent a little time figuring out how to capture audio off my iPhone onto the Amiga. It was a little tricky because my manual is all about version 2 of the software, the actual program I installed was 3.3, made in 1993. So a lot of the screen examples in the manual don't match as the UI is pretty different between versions. Regardless I was able to figure it out after a few experiments. I ultimately sampled about 40 seconds. The quality is pretty remarkable considering I had things set to 8-bits. The resulting file was almost 3MB.
I then added a fade to the beginning of the sample as well as the end. The software is pretty powerful, and beyond a simple sampler/recorder it also has a Tracker and what looks like a mixer, where I could layer in 100 layers of samples and even add some basic effects. Pretty danged cool!
Waveshaper chimed in: Social media is often part of what's rotting our society away. But when used in a targeted and friendly way, it's really amazing sometimes. To have the artist be aware of what I did and respond to me simultaneously directly and publicly (within an hour!) is just too cool.
I've still a ton to learn with this device. I've only just glimpsed the tip of the iceberg on the horizon. But it's pretty exciting to imagine the possibilities.