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| AmigaOS 4.1.6 with EasyColorBlue AmiTheme! |
The theme you see here is the EasyColorBlue AmiTheme with a horror dark background wallpaper!
You might be wondering what i have done the last week. Well, i have tried to do what might be the most important thing i have ever done in my life yet, and that is to resurrect a famous, most used and most known music tracker program for the Amiga - OctaMED SoundStudio! Allow me to explain.
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| OctaMED SoundStudio v1.03c in AmigaOS 4.1.6! |
A lot of game companies and a great number of superstar artists like Prince and Madonna were starting to use this tracker to create their awesome music, especially with the fact that OctaMED always had, and still has, full support for MIDI! With NSM plugin, MIDI-lovers get endless possibilities to create stunning MIDI music with this tracker, far extending the later Windows versions of MED SoundStudio!
Since the late 80-ies, the tracker has been improved and changed in several versions, up to the very latest version, with the name OctaMED SoundStudio v1.03c from 1997. 16 years old!
SoundStudio differed from earlier versions of OctaMED in a way that it provided a brand new, powerful mixing routine. Instead of being limited to 8-channels, it could now provide up to 64 (!) channels in Mix mode, and using several audio outputs. Not AHI, but direct support of several audio outputs like 14 bit Amiga audio, Maestrix Pro 16 bit and supported direct-to-disk recording!
The 14 bit Amiga audio was a very rare, unique feature of the Paula soundchip found in all classic Amiga models. It allowed the use of the 6 bit volume feature along with the 8 bit quality of the Paula soundchip to produce 14 bit audio, which provided much better dynamic audio from the old Paula soundchip. This feature is best optained if you have a powerful, fast Amiga system like the PPC.
Maestrix Pro 16 bit audio is another output that is supported by OctaMED SoundStudio for the Amiga. Tell you what. If you use a tool called TheMaestrix, like i do with my AmigaOS 4.1.6 system, you can use your AHI audio system as a Maestrix Pro 16 bit audio system in OctaMED SoundStudio for excellent result!
With such a tool, even AmigaOS4 users can now use this tracker to produce amazing music, both with samples and MIDI, and with such powerful combination, this tracker becomes the easiest and the most powerful tracker to use, even today!
Ok, so OctaMED SoundStudio lacks PPC, AHI support and some new, modern functions, but these things can be implemented, merging modern features from other modern trackers into a whole new version of OctaMED SoundStudio made from scratch.
Unfortunately, the tracker has not been updated for 16 years. It was to many thought dead and ignored, with the excuse that they who didn't bother with it, didn't want to start from scratch. Perhaps they are just lazy that way? I'm not to judge on that, but these who ignored this tracker, never actually fully understood the true power and easiness of the tracker. They underestimated it!
Such also caused problems for the author whom himself lost faith that a new version would be made, until now. So what is actually going on now?
Well, because i personally have great experiences with this tracker and actually love the tracker, i fully refuse to see the tracker die, so i simply had to do something to prevent that from happening, so i contacted Ray the author.
We emailed each other about the situation, as many of you from AmigaOS and AmigaOne X1000 group on Facebook already are aware of. We found out that one possibility is to contact Robert Trevor Dickinson of A-EON Technology and see if he can help us resurrect the tracker by buying all the source codes and to find the right people with the right talent and interest to resurrect the tracker by starting from scratch, creating a brand new OctaMED SoundStudio with modern features like PPC, AHI support and a lot more! There is hope after all!
More information on this will be revealed as soon as more is known. Stay tuned!
Written by
Helge Kvalheim, Norway
