Orphaned in childhood and now suffering a PC brain‑drain, the Amiga needs all the help it can get. So, could tracker programs like OctaMED v6 be the platform's saviour? Paul Overaa asks whether the future's IFFy...
The best thing to happen Amiga‑wise for me this month was to have the Beta version of the new OctaMED Sound Studio package drop through my letterbox. OK, so the program isn't going to be available until later this year, but it's still something you should know about. The current version of OctaMED, version 6, is without doubt the best tracker program seen on the Amiga to date, but from what I've seen so far, the new Sound Studio package is going to provide some significant advantages. One of the new features, for example, is a player mode which can handle up to 64 virtual channels, mostly independent of the kind of audio playback hardware being used. This will allow for easy support of different soundcards.
Existing OctaMED users are going to get a special deal on the new program when it arrives. In a sense, this is a way of saying thankyou to existing OctaMED users, although the main reason is of course to encourage anyone thinking of jumping on the OctaMED bandwagon to do it now, rather than wait until the Sound Studio upgrade appears.
OctaMED v6 is available on CD‑ROM at £29.95 from Weird Science of Leicester (tel: 0116 234 0682), or on two floppy disks at £25 + £1 p&p from RBF Software (tel: 01703 785680). Because of the extra room available on the CD‑ROM version, a lot of extras are provided. As well as OctaMED v6 itself, you get tracker modules, about a thousand IFF sound samples that come from the Walkabout Music sound library, MIDI files, and a variety of other goodies.
Incidentally, if you are one of the few OctaMED users who have still not upgraded to version 6, then you are missing out on some important benefits. The main screen is now split into a main control window, a separate tracker editor window, and an information window. The tracker editor display has also undergone several changes, including the addition of scroll bars and a sizing gadget. The bar equalisers, which in earlier versions had been part of the tracker display, have now also been given their own separate window.
OctaMED v6 can handle both 8 and 16‑bit sound samples. Options for temporarily freeing up the Amiga's audio channels have been added (so that other music programs can be run without having to quit OctaMED completely), and MIDI file types 0 and 1 can be read, although only type 0 saved. There are file compression options (XPK and Powerpacker), provision for saving modules as executable files, and support for MAUD, AIFF and PC WAV samples. There's a Toccata Capture window for users of Toccata soundcards, improved internal buffer arrangements, and even a tempo operations window to allow easier tempo conversion. ARexx support is also now available from within OctaMED Pro itself, rather than only through a standalone OctaMED player.
And Now For The Bad News
Over the last few weeks, the Amiga music scene has been rocked by the news that Blue Ribbon Soundworks, creators of SuperJAM and the Bars & Pipes sequencer, are pulling out of Amiga software development in order to concentrate on developing software for the PC. There's no denying that the loss of Blue Ribbon Soundworks is something that the Amiga could have done without, and doubtless it has been prompted by concerns about the survival of the platform. After the Commodore Amiga fiasco, everyone knew it would take time for the Amiga to re‑establish itself, but a lot of Amiga developers are still struggling to make a living. It's little wonder that a few have thought it safest to move to other areas.
The trouble is, whilst we've all been waiting for the last couple of years to hear good news about the Amiga, our hard‑earned cash has either stayed in our pockets or been spent on other things. You can't blame people for not rushing out to spend money on gadgets or software for their Amiga, but companies selling Amiga software or hardware can't survive on thin air. They need people to go out and buy things, and if this doesn't happen, those companies either go under or move into different areas (like the PC)!
Let's look on the bright side, however. There are tentative signs of an Amiga comeback. The question we all need to be asking is, what can we do to encourage things along? Amiga Technologies, while not getting everything right, are trying desperately hard to do their bit, but it's a hard slog when you haven't got an advertising budget like Microsoft or Sony to thump the word 'Amiga' on every TV screen in the land. The message is very much, 'use it or lose it'. How many Amiga users out there, for example, have yet to get a hard disk?
Software‑wise, the Amiga has barely started to show what it is really capable of. This is an area we would do well to promote. And don't forget the Amiga still multi‑tasks better than the PC, as well as having minor advantages, such as the ability to use long filenames — Windows 95 has only just got around to that.
More than anything though, the Amiga is a machine that offers affordable computing and cost‑effective sequencing. Most software runs perfectly happily on a 2Mb machine, and few other machines can boast of that. In recent months, I've met PC users quite blinded by the 'latest is best' hype, who've gone to their local dealers to see about upgrading to Windows 95, only to be told that they're going to need a minimum of 8Mb of RAM to be able do anything useful!
So, remember the advantages. And also remember that the one thing that Amiga Technologies do not need at the moment is Amiga owners going around talking as though the Amiga is still dying. It isn't, or rather it needn't, but in some respects, we users hold the key to the Amiga's successful re‑birth. So, next time someone asks you for your opinion of the Amiga — think before you speak!
Tracking — What's It All About?
Tracking is one of the oldest of the Amiga's music areas, simply because right from the machine's early days, programmers needed a convenient way of creating music for games and demos. One early utility that appeared was called SoundTracker, and within a few years of that, other similar programs had appeared. The only trouble was that, being essentially tools for programmers, these utilities used programmer‑style conventions for creating music sequences. Song definitions were built around awkward‑looking lists, showing the times and the pitches at which various samples should be played. Editing facilities were also very limited.
Now, whilst none of this was ideal from a musician's viewpoint, this 'tracker' method of composing music caught on in a big way within Amiga programming circles. What everyone needed, however, were tools that everyday Amiga users could work with — and it was during this time that Teijo Kinnunen produced his public domain tracker called MED. This wasn't perfect by any means, and initially not particularly easy to use either, but over the course of a few years, MED got better and better. Once 8‑channel sound facilities were added, the first commercial version of the product OctaMED was released.
OctaMED Professional then appeared, which included some basic MIDI options so that you could link up synthesizers to the program and play riffs, bass patterns and so forth, using a conventional keyboard (better than bashing away on the musically meaningless Qwerty Amiga keyboard). The rest is history. As development continued, the program became both more powerful and more user‑friendly, and eventually OctaMED Professional v6 arrived. Nowadays, people don't ask each other what tracker program they're using — they just ask what version of OctaMED they're using!
Amiga News In Brief
- AMIGA SURFER PACK
John Smith, sales manager of Amiga Technologies, has announced that their new internet‑specific Amiga packs will soon be on sale. Purchasers will get an A1200 with 2Mb of RAM, a 256Mb hard drive, plus a 14,400 baud modem. The comms software will allow access to the web, ftp file transfer, IRC electronic teleconferencing, email and so on, and the usual Amiga Magic software, namely Wordsworth, Datastore, Organiser, Turbocalc and Personal Paint packages are also going to be included. Price including VAT is expected to be £599. - A LOGIKAL DROP
Soft‑Logik have reduced the price of PageStream v2.2 by an incredible £160, and are now selling the program for just £24 (and that includes a new 100‑page manual). The idea is obviously to encourage more Amiga owners to jump on the PageStream bandwagon, in the hope that they will eventually upgrade to the latest PageStream 3. Contact Soft‑Logik on 001 314 256 9595.