Hi all,

since oldskooldaw.com is down again, i´m thinking about a place to share, discuss and play around with old audio sw releases. Maybe a discord or something?
Im talking about the radium, oxygen, h2o, ... 199x-2005ish area of time.

I collected about 1800 releases (99% PC, still lots of gaps) and want to make them public (archive.org?) once everything is sorted and stuff.
I feel like the time is right to start a preservation action since HDDs are dying (like mine lol) and its super hard to come across online unlike old games f.e.

Are there people out there interrested in this stuff and maybe want to help?
Let me know.

Much Love <3

 

@BEAT16 is the man to ask about this sort of thing. Hell, maybe a collaboration between you two and anybody else that has a large collection of old plugins could go down in history. Not only are hard drives dying but some older sites are gone too so this is a great idea, especially since I still use and love old plugins.

 

archive.org for sure
and please share the link
for mac stuff there is macintoshgarden
as always pc is lagging behing a few years

 

I have quite a few!! on old DVDs stored away!! Hoarding disorder

 

I have sent you a link with a list of software / plugins that I have.
Maybe you feel like creating a list too, which we can then exchange via PM - private.

User ziked also collects and exchanges plugins. Write him a PM.
He had even created a list to swap.
I have exchanged some plugins with him, he also collects old plugins.

 

Last edited: Nov 22, 2022

I like that!

It will be available to the public for sure, but at first i want to build a solid (data)base which we all can expand to.

Awesome! Do you mind uploading and PM them?
..you can justify a bit of your hoarding for the sake of preservation.

Very cool! I´m currently creating a master list with every release information i can find in various databases. The process is not fully automated so it takes quite some time and love. However i will PM you the list later that day.

 

Thanks @smurf121, it also took me weeks to copy and rename all the files, but it was worth it.
I look forward to your PM then and wish you enough strength to tackle and complete the new project.

 

Oh i feel you. "Sisyphusarbeit" i would call it... Luckly im almost done, thanks for the kind words <3

 

Excelent project. When ready I`ll check your list and if lacks something that I have, I`ll be in.

 

I can tell just the same as rudolph. I'll check your list and if there's anything I could contribute... there you'll have

 

Just finished the first draw of the "preservation master list". PM me if you want to take a look.

 

anything online doesn't guarantee you anything, dying HDDs is unreasonable excuse to throw your valuable collection into clouds,

if we're talking seriously, you'd need some NAS for personal use (nowadays 18TB HDD costs around 340$ so you can become a data hoarder fairly cheap (just 4 drives and get around 49TB usable space in RAID5) - especially when older software usually takes less space than latest fancy stuff,

for online/sharing, hard to tell - something like MEGA gives personal space worth of about 50 Gigs, most filesharing sites delete stuff after few years of no access at best, if not months or weeks - if we'd prefereably talk about legally-shareable stuff, something like simple online spreadsheet with up-to-date links is enough, or maybe some more sophisticated request-reup portal/forum/database whatever.....

anyway, sharing is caring, and seeing posts in the thread, people care

 

Oh i will keep my NAS (now with parity drives) till i die i guess. Most important stuff got a offsite copy aswell, nothing to worry about.

I think something like archive.org would be suitable in terms of easy access for the people.

Copyright is still a thing but i honestly doubt that anyone goes after 20+ year old software.
Preservation is much more important imho. If nobody preserves, shit will be gone forever.
Not that anybody will dust off his windows 98 rig to produce a number 1 hit.
But maybe some guys will fire up a vm just to experience the first possibilties you had as an early adopter regarding making music in the box.

Im a big fan of projects like TDC, eXoDOS, redump.org, ... which all have copyrighted material and are still going strong and are available to the public.

...a discord or something like that for likeminded retro heads would be cool anyways. Not that i like discord, haha...

 

Agreed! If it wasn't for people like you, Beat16 and the rest of yas here in this very thread hoarding or collecting then we won't even have memories to go by because I'm sure those would fade over time too.

I saw a video of beat16 with over 3 hours worth of different ancient plugins earlier today so he came to mind first. You never appreciate the people going around with their camera taking pictures for memories today but tomorrow those people are valuable because they have memories you didn't even know how to remmember anymore.

 

Some manufacturers whose business model was no longer profitable gave their software as a magazine product (CM Magazine / Beat Magazine etc.) after the last cannibalization to generate a few dollars (by the way, their trade secret / in reality intransparency) After the appearance of the plugin in the magazine, the plugin was no longer available for purchase or free for all. It is virtually a funeral of good software.

I think we have a right to save the plugins and make them available to every musician. Of course I would like to see a different business model - maybe donation financed.

I made a soundbank for the Genesis CM and asked other sound designers if they would mind making their soundbank free to share their music with the world. The legal basis is still not understandable for me today. But I then released the Genesis VSTi with 4 soundbanks.

If the manufacturer writes me an email and complains I will delete the download. I'm glad that you see the same here, so you are not alone and save the tonal treasures (cultural asset?).

Computer Music - Genesis v1.0.2 VSTi with 4 Soundbanks
https://audiosex.pro/threads/computer-music-genesis-v1-0-2-vsti-with-4-soundbanks.31897/

 

Last edited: Nov 24, 2022

Cool, but the mediafire link doesn't work...

 

Thanks @Xenon for pointing it out and sorry I fixed the error.
https://mega.nz/file/b6p21SzI#i169cmKQssJdiQawh7F70cVg_qkllC48SsB3AqgyC4g

 

Hope this project goes ahead. Looking for abandoned software like Jump by Hard Note; even trying to find the creator a few weeks ago I contacted the wrong man hahahaha!

 

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