OctaMED SoundStudio For The Amiga Gets An Update

by Francis G. Loch

Some very welcome news was posted by RBF Software on the OctaMED-Amiga mailing list recently that the Amiga version of OctaMED SoundStudio, arguably one of the best music creation tools ever, has just received a (very) long overdue update. However, before you get too excited, this is only a minor update which involves a clean up of the code, some bug fixes and a re-compile for 68020 processors and above. Although the update does not contain anything new feature-wise, it does give hope to those that still use the Amiga version of OctaMED SoundStudio that new features will eventually be added as work continues.

The update archive contains only the main executable file so you will need a working installation of the previous version of OctaMED SoundStudio. If you do not already have this then it is freely available and can be downloaded from the following link:

http://www.med.uk.com/bin/ossv1.zip

The archive of the updated executable can be downloaded from either of the following links:

http://www.med.uk.com/bin/OMSS_exe.lha | http://www.med.uk.com/bin/OMSS.zip

To install the update simply unarchive the files to your main OctaMED SoundStudio directory. As always it is a good idea to ensure that you have a backup of your files before you proceed just in case anything goes wrong. A new icon called OMSS will appear which is the new updated executable.


Screenshot showing the new OctaMED SoundStudio icon (highlighted)


Screenshot of OctaMED SoundStudio showing the new copyright notice

There are reports that some people have had problems unarchiving the .lha file, although it worked perfectly here on my system using AmigaOS 3.9's default Unarc utility. If however you find that you have problems then use the .zip file.

Those that use the popular NSM package, a plug-in and patching system that allows users to add more features and functionality to OctaMED, will be disappointed to hear that this no longer works with the new update. This will no doubt be a major problem for a lot of people. After contacting the author of NSM it looks very unlikely that this problem will be rectified as it would need to be re-coded for each new release of OctaMED. Hopefully the features that NSM provided will find their way into future updates of OctaMED.

Personally I welcome this new version of OctaMED, however small an improvement it might be over the previous one. It shows that there is something being actively done to bring it up-to-date. However, the author will need to concentrate on getting new features added, especially since the NSM package no longer works. The NSM issue is going to be a big stumbling block for RBF Software if they want to get as many people as they can using the latest version. I just pray that the new developer, Gerd Frank, has more success at bringing OctaMED SoundStudio V2 (or even just V1.1!) to fruition than the previous team did that took over the development from Teijo Kinnunen, OctaMED's original author.

Gerd Frank can be contacted at mainactor@gmx.net

RBF Software can be contacted at rbfsoftware@med.uk.com or visit the official OctaMED website at http://www.med.uk.com

To subscribe to the OctaMED-Amiga mailing list send a blank e-mail to OctaMED-Amiga-subscribe@yahoogroups.com or visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OctaMED-Amiga/


Previous