OctaMED

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OctaMED family
(MED; OctaMED Professional; OctaMED Soundstudio, MED Soundstudio)
Basic data

Maintainer Teijo Kinnunen et al.
Current  version OctaMED Soundstudio 1.03c ( Amiga )
MED Soundstudio 2 (Windows)
operating system AmigaOS , Windows
category tracker
www.medsoundstudio.com

OctaMED is a tracker written for the Amiga by Teijo Kinnunen . It loads and plays .mod formats (soundtracker music modules), but also has its own format: .med (MMD0-3)

Development history

The first version was published in 1989 under the name MED (for "Music EDitor"). In 1990 a version with MIDI support appeared: In addition to the 4 sample channels of the Amiga, several MIDI tracks could be inserted, via which external synthesizers and samplers could be controlled. This made it possible to use MED in a semi-professional studio environment. As early as 1991 a version appeared under the name OctaMED (Octa for 8) with a completely new concept:

For the first time it was possible to use a trick to reproduce 8 channels (4 stereo) over the 4 channels of the Amiga: For this purpose, the volume of the digitized instruments was halved, mixed and output. Track 0 and 2 of the 8-track format were output on hardware channel 0 of the Amiga, tracks 1 and 3 on channel 1 and so on. The major qualitative disadvantage of this technology was that it was no longer possible to use the finely graduated hardware playback rates for both sounds on one hardware channel. I.e. At least one of the two sounds had to be converted to a different playback frequency (with a loss of quality). In addition, the use of this trick quickly reached the limits of the Amiga's computing power.

Further innovations of the (Octa) MED format compared to the MODs that have become the quasi-standard in the demo and game scene were variable pattern and block lengths and new effects. However, MED was not exactly economical in terms of CPU load ; one reason why the MOD format was still used in the demo and game scene , and MED was mainly used in "stand-alone" music productions (here in combination with MIDI).

Up to version 6 nothing changed in the basic principle of the 2 × 4 sound channels, which are closely linked to the Amiga sound system. With the "OctaMED Soundstudio" released in 1996, however, OctaMED became much more powerful in one fell swoop. OctaMED Soundstudio made it possible to play back up to 64 tracks, which were mixed in real time and distributed to the physically available output channels with any stereo distribution (so-called "mixer mode"). In contrast to "Octa" music, all sounds now had to be converted to a single playback frequency (no longer one playback frequency per pair of tracks). In principle, this would result in a poorer quality than with "Octa" music, but in contrast to this one could now use globally high sampling rates. This made it possible for the first time to convert pieces of music into audio data that could be written directly to CD without going through analog media . In addition to the 8-bit “Paula” sound chip, 16-bit sound cards (such as the Toccata) are now supported as output media. This made OctaMED Soundstudio the first tracker that could play music in 16-bit and 48 kHz. There was also a "Paula 14-Bit" mode, in which the four 8-bit channels of the sound chip were combined into two 14-bit stereo channels, which enabled a significantly lower-noise music quality on standard Amigas.

In addition, the typical Amiga chip RAM limit was blown: the virtualization of the sample channels made it possible to store the samples in the Amiga's Fast RAM. This made it possible for the first time to accommodate more than 2 MB (maximum size of the DMA-capable chip RAM) of samples in a song. The samples could now be in 16-bit, max. 48  kHz and stereo are available. Along with the good MIDI support (u. A. With very good MIDI Sysex could -Message capabilities) with OctaMED Sound Studio from suitably equipped Amiga (with 68030+ for CPU-heavy mix of channels, lots of fast RAM for samples, a 16-bit sound card and MIDI interface) build a powerful music workstation.

At the end of the 90s, initially by Teijo Kinnunen, the Windows version was created, which was functionally identical to OctaMed Soundstudio, but was not programmed particularly error-free. Since then, the development of the tracker has dragged on and OctaMED became MED Soundstudio. In the years up to 2006, a large number of programmers tried their hand at the RBF Software project (the English distributor since the Amiga days) without any noticeable progress.

The current Windows version 2.1 (as of 2014) is available for download as a trial version on the RBF Software website.

Version 2 should also be available for the Amiga and a test version was also available for a short time. But here too the development does not seem to have continued.

Meanwhile, the time has overtaken MED Soundstudio. Professional trackers, etc. a. with excellent MIDI support, are numerous available for PC and MAC (e.g. Renoise , Aodix , MadTracker , Jeskola Buzz ).

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Claudio Matsuoka: Tracker History Graphing Project . helllabs.org. November 4, 2007. Retrieved January 29, 2011: " Tracker History Graph "