|
|
|
History of MED
Having a computer music program as your interest isn't always that easy,
it's a constant battle to keep a good product selling instead of being
stolen!
|
MED through the years!
A long time ago, (it`s all a haze now), I was fed up with my Vic20 and
as soon as the first shipment of Amiga 500's arrived here in the UK, I
bought one.
I immediately contacted the International Commodore Users Group,(icpug),
and volunteered to help and ended up looking after/distributing things
like the Tampa Bay Amiga User groups disks for them. At the same time I
set up my own Public Domain library called "Amiganuts United" which went
a bomb! It didn't earn any money, but it was very popular and as I am at
home all day, it kept me occupied.
|
Teijo and MED
During this time, a chap called Teijo sent me a prog he had made called
"MED". (I don't have to explain what it was)
I liked the prog a lot and contacted Teijo suggesting that if he were to
add eight channels and other bits'n'bobs I believed that it would be
worth me copyrighting it and going commercial. He sent me a few updates
and eventually I liked it so much that I decided that the commercial
name should be "OctaMED"
(Adding the "Octa" from it's eight channels)
We went ahead and published it with a great deal of help from Tony
Horgan of the late CU Amiga magazine who arranged for a demo of it to go
out on the coverdisk.
The program went from strength to strength and with the backing of Tony
and others at another mag called Amiga Format, (who Tony contributes
articles to), it became so famous that in 1995 a German mag called
"Amiga", produced by Magna Media, awarded us the "Best Music Software"
award.
|
Crackers!
There was only one fly in the ointment, the program was being
"cracked/distributed" in it`s thousands by those evil idiots who like to
be known as 'pirates', (I call them thieves!), and after paying for
advertising etc., there was very little profit.
We were therefore literally "forced" to sell the program to magazines
like CU Amiga & Amiga Format, so we could continue with new versions.
Everytime we released a new version, it was literally stolen in it`s
thousands!
So, a vicious circle of us having to let the mags have each version just
a little while after it`s release, became inevitable, much to the very
understandable annoyance of those honest users who actually bought the
program! :(
This has now also occurred with the first PC V1.x release, so I have
decided to let the next Windows V2 be make or break time and when released in
late spring 2004, if it should also be pirated badly, I will stop all future
programming/publishing of the program.
|
*The last Amiga version
*
By the time we were ready to release the Amiga V1 (which had been
renamed, "OctaMED Soundstudio"), there were thousands of users, thanks
to not just the "thieves" but previous versions going out free on
coverdisks.
Trouble was that although we attempted to protect the CD from being
pirated too, the "thieves" soon got to work and two Months after we
released the Amiga OctaMED Soundstudio V1 CD, we learned of lots of
"cracking" sites that were distributing hacked copies of it and being a
small concern, we could simply not afford to take court action around
the globe against those "criminals", even if we could actually have
caught them.
In the end thousands were using the new OctaMED Soundstudio V1 illegally
How do we know?, we were inundated with requests by e-mail and letters
for help/advice about one thing or another, relating to the prog, one of
the biggest being, "where can I get the help guides from".
The thieves who spread it, had forgotten to include the help files from
the CD!!
Finally, we literally "gave" the remaining unsold CD's away to an
Amiga software distributor for "one" pound each!!
(far less than they cost us to produce, so yet again we lost money)
Let`s face it, those who cry, "But I can`t afford to buy it" and those
who "pirate" it for them, are all nothing more than "crooks"
I wonder how they would feel if they worked day and night for a year to buy a
new car and the moment they park it outside, it gets stolen! (that`s just
how we felt!)
*Update....
December 05...well, we thought it was the last version....*
Select here:
Amiga pages
Read about the next generation
MED Soundstudio
v2 for the Amiga OS4 |
The first Windows version...........
Teijo was really fed up with all the piracy and in the autumn of 97
after discussing all of this, I persuaded him not to stop, but take his
talents to the PC and try again, obviously there are still the "thieves"
to face, but as I explained to Teijo, there are also 'millions' more
users of the PC and the great majority are honest people who want a
legal copy. So, in late 97, work began on the Windows version. Things
went well for a while, but then, for me, disaster almost struck again,
by the middle of 98, Teijo had all but stopped work on the prog and when
I confronted him about all the broken "release date" promises made to
potential customers, he admitted that he'd found "life" outside.
I suggested that I get another programmer who was not only very keen on
continuing the work, but would also be able to bring "fresh" ideas to
it. In late Autumn 98, an excellent programmer, Andy
Philpotts, took up the challenge. Poor Andy had a 'tremendous' amount of
work to do and therefore although we did intend releasing the CD early
in 99, it just had to be delayed til July 99 to allow the MIDI code to
be re-written!
Anyhow, it went on sale and has received a few reviews.
However, the PC users were not happy with it and in truth, Andy and I
were not satisfied with a lot of the 'Amiga to PC' ported source code
along with it's GUI presentation and limited MIDI facilities either.
so......
|
The Future!
We plan the addition of some pretty exciting new features to "blow your
socks off" in the next windows V2 and with this in mind we a new
programmer, George, who has replaced Andy who, just like Teijo befoe him,
sadly decided he could no longer find the time to work on the program.
George is now laying down the foundations for version two and he intends
to add a 'LOT' of features, ( routines/graphics/buttons etc. ), not least of which
will be, hopefully, a better user interface and more tracker/Sequencing facilities.
Release details of the next Win V2 will be given in the News when ready.
However, we hope to release it to the public in late 06 / early 07, we think you will like it!
Registered Windows V1.xx users will be offered an "upgrade" discount to Win V2
(Amount of discount is yet to be decided)
Ray, RBF Software, September 2006
|
Top of Page
|
|
