scott wrote:

> I remember on my Acorn there were lots of programs that would let you 
> play and edit all those amiga music formats.  No doubt that the Amiga 
> really invented (or at least made popular) that method of creating and 
> storing music.  Actually just a few months back I ripped all the data 
> off my Acorn to my PC to run under the emulator and came across all 
> those music files that are just a few 10's of kilobytes.  Amazingly 
> WinAmp could play them straight!

Yes, the default install of WinAmp handles (IIRC) SoundTracker, 
NoiseTracker and ProTracker file formats.

Unfortunately, it does *not* correctly handle the newer features of 
OctaMED's files. (E.g., synthasounds, 8-channel mode, mix mode, etc.) It 
plays the files, but it plays them incorrectly, blindly ignoring the 
newer features. It's like people think that the tracker linage stopped 
with ProTracker.

> Actually there are more sophisticated programs still available and used 
> today based on them, my friend used to use "FruityLoops" or something to 
> make music on his PC.

Jeskola Buzz (AKA The Crash Monster) uses a tracker-like sequencing UI. 
It's still quite popular in a few places. Certainly it's quite a fast 
way to quickly enter perfectly quantinised notes. (Few tracker 
interfaces seem to have the advanced features of OctaMED like chord mode 
or autospacing, or the sophisticated editing like block split/join, 
track remap and so on.) For expressive lead playing, a more modern MIDI 
sequencer with realtime record/playback works better.

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