David Whittaker - Sinclair User - Megamix Tape

On the creation of AY or Beeper music, including the packages used to do so.
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MonkZy
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David Whittaker - Sinclair User - Megamix Tape

Post by MonkZy »

In 1987, Sinclair User issue 65, David Whittaker did an interesting article talking about making music for the Speccy. Along with the interesting interview was a coupon to cut out and send away for a cassette containing a studio re-mix of Glider Rider and The Tube AY soundtracks. As a kid (and today) I was really into electronic music (Jeane Michelle Jarre, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Tangerine Dream etc.) so I forked out the 99p and sent off for the tape.

Sinclair User 65 - Internet Archive
ALL ABOUT THE MEGA TAPE

The Quicksilva Tube/Glider Rider mega-mix was created with many hours of toil in the studio of Fluffy Banana Music.

The original music was transfered directly from the Spectrum 128K to one track of a Tascam 38 eight-track recorder, with a little digital reverb and delay added for depth. Parts of the computer music, including the end themes of both games, were also sampled for later use.

The overdubs were then played by hand (since it wasn't possible to synchronise a sequencer with the original music!) using a Yamaha DX100 FM synth, Korg DW 8000 analogue/digital synth, Akai S900 sampler, Sequential Circuits Drumstraks digital drum machine and ART 1500 and Alesis Midiverb effects units.

The sampled sounds, manipulated with the S900, included trumpets, heavy-metal guitars and snare drums from chart records, and Spitfires from WW2 - the explosion at the end is a mixture of a bomb, a clap of thunder and a crashing aircraft!

The whole shebang was mixed down in genuine stereo on an RAM 10-8-2 mixer, and is presented for your delight by Fluffy Banana Music - the coolest and cuddliest music outfit in the entire galaxy.
The quote is from the Project AY page , hosted on WOS

Until recently there was a recording of this tape available on the Project AY page, today that link is broken. I am sure at one time there was also a YouTube video with a recording too, but the video was very low view count and seems to have been eaten by the search algorithm. After much searching I could not find a recording of the tape.

So I had a root around in the attic.

Image

SU-David-Whittaker-Mega-Tape.mp3

For your listening pleasure, I have recorded an MP3 of the tape. I recorded it using Audacity and a rather old Sony Walkman so the quality is pretty rough.

If anyone knows of a better quality recording, please let me know.
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Alessandro
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Re: David Whittaker - Sinclair User - Megamix Tape

Post by Alessandro »

33 years later reading about it, I finally can hear what it was all about. Thanks a lot :D

Edit: searching on the Web for "TheMegaTape.mp3" yielded this result, where you can listen to and even download what was probably the same file hosted on the Project AY page:

https://musiclib.org/artist/David+Whittaker

Note that you must disable any adblocker extension in order to listen to, or download, the tracks.
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Re: David Whittaker - Sinclair User - Megamix Tape

Post by djnzx48 »

Another version of it is available from here, but the quality of that recording isn't much better.
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: David Whittaker - Sinclair User - Megamix Tape

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Great find.

I read about it some time ago but as it was said above, the link was broken.
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Re: David Whittaker - Sinclair User - Megamix Tape

Post by 5MinuteRetro »

Thanks for this. Glider Rider's music was right up there with my favourite tunes during my Spectrum heyday. Indeed, it's one of those programs that I'd load up *just* to hear the music. Listening to this transported me back to long, lazy summer days holed up indoors playing video games when I really should've been outside becoming less pale. :)
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Re: David Whittaker - Sinclair User - Megamix Tape

Post by XoRRoX »

Yay! Finally a good quality version! And the fact that's it from the original tape you had from the day makes it even more exciting to seeing it appear :)
Thank you :D
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