Pea Hicks has shared a set of videos that demonstrate what music sequencing on a Commodore Amiga computer (The Best Damn Computer In The World) looked like in the 80’s.

The first video, above, demonstrates Dynamic Drums (later called Dynamic Studio).

“I noticed that hardly anyone else used this thing or remembers it,” notes Hicks, “so I thought I’d make a little video of it playing its factory demo songs. I always liked the lo-fi punchiness of the built-in drum samples, and I used them on a lot of tracks back in the day, usually synced to my Ensoniq ESQ-1.”

The next two videos demos Amiga Deluxe Music Construction Set.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikCryGuamlY

“In 1987, Bloom County had a contest where you could submit your own original song for Billy & The Boingers, the band in the comic strip,” explains Hicks. “This is what I came up with on my Amiga. A couple of the sounds had gone missing, so I had to replace them with other sounds, but, well, I don’t think that matters very much. Needless to say, I didn’t win the contest.”

“This is an original fugue in D minor more or less in the style of JS Bach that I wrote on my Amiga when I was a teenager, around 1987. I wrote this before I’d had any formal music theory training, so I’m sure the counterpoint and voice leading is all wrong wrong wrong, but oh well, it sounded authentic enough to me back then.”

Here’s a version of Gary Numan‘s Cars, sequenced in Aegis Sonix:

The last video clip captures one of Hick’s original tracks. “Here’s an old song I rescued off a floppy from 1987 or so. An original piece of music I made for Activision’s The Music Studio for the Amiga, back when I was in high school. It’s being played on WinUAE here, but the sound is pretty authentic!”