High Fidelity Dreams (1992) — by Aura | Code & graphics: Aeon | Additional code: Chris | Musicians: Firefox, Jester, Mantronix, Tip
High Fidelity Dreams is an ST/STE audio demo with a number of tracks pulled from previous Amiga demos. It was essentially built to show that the ST/E could replay Amiga-style tracked music at a much higher standard than people expected. Aeon, a member of Aura, later said the project was meant to show that the ST/STE could handle Amiga-style sample music convincingly, using his own replay code for Phenomena-format tracks.” It uses the STE’s 50 kHz DMA audio, which gives it a higher raw sample playback rate than stock Amiga Paula playback, typically around 29 kHz max on PAL machines.
Back in the early-mid 90s, whenever it was I had this demo, I used to play it a lot. Hard to imagine now I suppose but back then, using your computer to just listen to music and watch stuff happen on-screen thanks to clever coding tips was very much a thing we did. The visuals in this case were4 rotating 3D graphic equalisers and a nice text spreader, with some interesting factoids about the demo's development.
There are a number of tracks, and over time I plan to record and upload all of them, and embed into this prompt. (I won't be the first person to do this of course - I've listened to all the tracks from the demo quite a few times over the last few years, tracker music just doesn't get old! - but I want to record each one myself as well, because I can...)
Some of the tracks will probably be instantly recognisable to anyone who owned an Amiga (or possibly ST, but I don't remember if they were used outside of this particular demo disk) or who spends time perusing the 16-bit demoscene. I think Jester is the most famous musician mentioned - I've certainly come across many of his excellent tunes before - although, not having been an Amiga owner, I'm not too sure. This demo made sure that while we ST owners were usually forced to listen to Amiga owners gloating about how much better their machine's sound was, at least on this occasion (for those of us with an STe, anyway), we could claim superiority 🤣
Anyway, enjoy the music!
Act of Impulse by Mantronix & Tip - this is an upbeat track with a great beat that makes good use of the "slide" effect or whatever musicians call it - I think you'll know what I mean when you hear the track.
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