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Sampling on the Amiga with the GVP DSS8+

Posted: Sat Jun 15, 2019 2:08 pm
by intric8
I've had a GVP DSS+8 that I was given last year by my buddy Mattsoft. I'm under the weather this weekend, and one of the things I seem to do when I'm sick is experiment with things I've been putting off for whatever reason. The GVP DSS+8 is a sampling board and audio software package. DSS stands for "Digital Sound Studio."
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This capture board is really long. I had to pull the 3000 away from the wall just to get it to plug in. Maybe I should use a parallel cable to then move the DSS8+ elsewhere... I wonder if that would introduce a lot of extra noise artifacts?

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Here it is plugged in. Spread out and gimmie some room wouldja?

Features include:
  • 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
Anyway, I first installed the included disks. I have two sets from GVP, and went with the disks that looked the newest.

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.
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The software is really sophisticated and high-quality. I'd expect nothing less from GVP. In my mind, they were one of the few firms that could meet or beat the quality of Commodore.

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.

Re: Sampling on the Amiga with the GVP DSS8+

Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2019 2:58 am
by McTrinsic
Great story.

Weren’t there 90 degree angled adapters that could make the DSS8 point upwards?

Re: Sampling on the Amiga with the GVP DSS8+

Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2019 3:16 am
by Bulletdust
Is that a retro bit of hardware/software Intric8 or is that a 'modern day' implementation?

Very cool nonetheless!