When did you first come across OCTA / MED? Mine was in the good old AMIGA days when it was just MED, of the front of a mag (with the little dancing pointer I think!)

Just like me, nickydude. I found MED years ago when I needed to make my own tunes for a cheesy PD demomaker (anyone remember Red Sector?).

I didn't understand how hex worked back then, so I sat and analysed every single command used in the demo songs by writing all the commands were (ie D01: slides volume down) onto paper.

How things have changed!

Since its first release on amiga format (think that was the one)

I seen my step day trying to use it and snuck into his room when he was in work to use it.
After a few days I had made a pretty reasonable beat but since i was not allowed to use his amiga I had to keep it to myself.

I ended up teaching all of his friends how to use MED and answering their queries, after a while i could not hide the fact i was sneaking on his amiga so i just told him and played him my tune, he was so impressed he went out and bought me my own Amiga (well for christmas anyway)

ahhhh, the dancing pointer.... the memories...

Mine was v4 on the Amiga from a coverdisk. It was either CU Amiga or Amiga Format, can't remember which. Back then I used to record my creations to tape by putting a stereo up to my TV speaker and hitting record!

I think we all did!

Started with protracker in the real early days, then came a *really* early version of octamed on a PD disk (good lord it was awful - kept crashing!), then got the CU-Amiga mag with the coverdisk with the amiganuts tune - wow!!! I was hooked!!

Hi folks,

I started with an old version of MED on a grey coverdisk with "ARGASM" written on it (Argonaut assembler) - I can't remember which mag, but I've still got it somewhere. My favourite version, OctaMED Professional 4, came free on a CU Amiga disk. That was brilliant. I got v5 on another disk, but I didn't use that because A: it didn't look as nice and B: it didn't run as well on my A500. I always planned to register OctaMED retrospectively as soon as I could afford to (I only got 50p a week pocket money :-)). I've now paid for two Windows iterations, but I've only had time to use them on a couple of occasions.

So, my favourite MED was Pro V4 on the Amiga, and my favourite mod was the C64 style one that came on one of the first versions of OctaMed. I used MED to do most of my GCSE music compositions, and had to take my Amiga into school to prove I'd really done them myself! Nobody had any idea you could do that sort of thing with a computer, because most people only knew 486 DX66s and Windows 3.1!

For future versions, I'd welcome a move back to a V4-style bitmap interface and copper gradient effect VU meters, etc. I think an old-skool DirectDraw interface would be faster at redrawing than the GDI one as well as looking gorgeous.

Well done for keeping the best music editor ever going!

Its been a few years now, but i think it was V6 I prefered. The one with the PC style layout. I think it was because that type of thing was jsut becoming the "in" thing and the Amiga did it so well.

Oddly V4 served my purposed better as when you pressed the key to travel to the next block, the change would not take effect until the block had ended. It opened up a whole new way of using MED, and one that i still use now.

(Making one or 2 blocks with may columns, and micing the tracks in and out manually using the track mute options. Its a fantastic hands on way to mix tunes, gives you a real adrenalyne rush)

(please excuse my bad english. i hope their making sense)
It was sometime back in 1990-1992 when a good friend borrowed some disks with games from another guy from school. One of the disks had OctaMED (v3 or 4 - i'm not sure). We were 16 years old then and we were listening hard-rock and metal stuff (unlike most of the people who made music with computers and listen to dance music). I was always in love with music but as a listener. I didn't play any instrument or had any studies on music theory. I admired the music i heard on Amiga in Psygnosis's games or Red Sector's demos. So when i found OctaMED, i stopped playing Kick-Off and Nitro and started playing with MED. Day after day, MED became an everyday hobby for me. I began making music which mostly reminded free jazz and twelve tone music :-) It was a confusing mix of samples and nothing else. As time went by, i started learning a few things on music theory and bought my first keyboard. My compositions became listenable and bearable by other people. Untill then, only i could hear my tunes. I had also plugged the Amiga into an old amplifier and through that i recorded my tracks on cassettes. I recorded about 20-30 cassettes! Back then, i thought they sounded perfect. I still got these tapes and their sound is awful! I did this almost everyday until 1997. At that time i had to join the army (in my country you are obliged by the law to serve for 1 1/2 years in the army).
After that i bought my first PC so i stopped using MED untill 2000 when i discovered MED had ported for Windows.
Last year my first CD was published and now my music is played by local radio stations. Many serious local music magazines wrote the best words for my work. Music for me is like breathing. I can't live without it. I'd rather lose my job than stop making music.
I think i always had that deep inside me but if it wans't MED i would probably never found it and bring it to surface. What i want to say is, if that disk of MED hadn't fall by chance into my hands, i would probably never got into making music. I would still be a fanatic listener and nothing more.

Thank you Teijo, Ray, MED.
Manolis (sorry for the long post, i just became very emotional)

Amen manolis. I know exactly how you feel...I'm emotionally attached to MED too. It brought out the musician in me as well

That's our Manolis

Ray

Here Here...

I first started editing music on the computer using Enhanced Sidplayer on the C64.

I got MED back when I first got my A1200 back in '93. I never got very far with it but I did a rendition of the Peter Gunn theme. I liked that it used samples to do the instruments and sounded fairly realistic.

I got OctaMed Pro v4 off of the Aminet when it was released as freeware. I tried it out with a MIDI interface once but didn't get very far with MIDI. I liked the extra commands that it offered over the ProTracker clones.

I got OctaMed Soundstudio v1.03c off Aminet Set 6 CD-ROM sets and that's where I am today. I once downloaded a PC version of MED Soundstudio for the PC but I never registered.

This year I'm going to try to program a music datatype for AmigaOS 4. Maybe when it's done I can see about trying to write datatypes to play all of the old sound formats and some new ones as well.

I've been a mooch long enough. Its time I gave back something. Do you need any code written? My music playback engine will probably have some Altivec support on the PowerPC Amigas...

Amiga coverdisk as well...

Did anybody buy the program...?

I got mine from a coverdisk too. Perhaps it could have used a a bigger publicity budget! Until I saw it on CU Amiga, I had never heard of it before. Once I got into it, I was hooked! As I was about to buy the upgrade however, it came out on another cover disk! Then soundstudio came along the same way! I would have been quite happy to pay for upgrades and new releases, but they were being given away for the price of a magazine. Hats off to Ray for sticking with it all this time!

I think when version 2 is out, we should inundate computer music magazine with emails telling them how good it is. That should make them sit up and take note! If enough of us do it, thay may do a feature on it...