What is MED? Med SoundStudio is a music tracking tool for Windows and started life in similar design to the Amiga legends called MED and OctaMED which were originaly conceived by Teijo Kinnunen, who, after seeing the SoundTracker program released for the Amiga in 1987 by Karsten Obarski, (sometimes called the father of Amiga tracking), decided to program his own version which slowly developed in the following years to become the very popular and award winning Tracking/Sequencing program it is today. The first Amiga version, ( called simply MED - short for Music Editor ), started off as a 4 channel sequencer, outputting channels 1 and 4 on the Left speaker and channels 2 and 3 to the Right. The samples used were 8-11Khz, and each sample could be played at a different pitch to compose tunes. By clever positioning of the samples and using the built-in effects available, some classic tracks were written. There were various ‘Trackers’ available on the Amiga, of which MED was one of the first 8-channel trackers to appear, ( hence the term 'Octa' was added to the title ). It was also the most widely used version throughout the lifetime of the Amiga, becoming the tracker of choice for many Games-Houses and Demo Crews. From this grew many replicas of the original, also developed on the Atari ST and Mac, although none, ( in the opinion of many ), were able to match the simplicity or features of OctaMED. Unfortunately after the complete fiasco of the CBM bankruptcy, the Amiga has become used far less these days with many of the owners parting with their favorite machines to upgrade to the now more powerful PC’s that have become available in recent years, first running Windows 95/98/ME and now the much improved/stable Win2000 and XP versions. During the early development of the first windows version Teijo decided that other things in his life had to take precendence over his continuing programming and asked Ray, (the copyright owner & publisher ), to find another co-programmer and in September of 98 Ray signed up Andy as the new programmer. Andy worked very hard to complete the severely unfinished work on the new V1 first started by Teijo and it eventually went on sale in July 99. Because of my worsening illness, Andy took over as the main programmer and started looking into the next V2 and that is where things went completely haywire. Unfortunately Andy found his workload far heavier than he expected and made the mistake of assuring Ray and subsequently the users, that V2 would not be long. He kept sending assurances that all was ok when Ray asked him and this continued for nearly two years before Ray confronted Andy at which time he admitted he was having some personal problems and had done very little with programming V2. Ray knew this was very bad news and told Andy he would have to look for new a programmer to take over and in mid 03 he signed up not one, but two, programmers to take over not just from Andy but also from Ray himself because he had now lost the sight in one eye due to his tumour and decided he could only manage promotion and sales from now on. The intended main programmer, Simon, made many claims regarding what he intended doing with V2, but after 6 Months he came back and said he was finding it difficult and had decided not to continue, so back yet again to square one!! George fortunately stepped in and offered to take on all the work and is now extremely busy working on V2 and has planned lots of new additions, DX plugins etc., just how long it is going to take is not clear at this time, but you can be assured you will be kept informed in the news section of this web site. UPDATE: DECEMBER 04 George has now also been joined by another MED enthusiast, James, who, time allowed is going to look into getting rid of the last few bugs found in V1.7a, so there 'might' just be a v1.8 The Windows V2 of MED Soundstudio is now planned for release 'sometime' late 06 /early 07, we say 'sometime' because George intends to make sure it offers as many new features as time will allow but he says it 'will' be completed this year.

The Present V1.7a The Windows version of MED Soundstudio is now a Stereo sequencer, with a range of real-time effects and sound sample editing facilities. It is now on sale and gives PC owners the chance to produce tracks of their own. It does not require any additional hardware, although it can be used to control a MIDI keyboard if required. Many of the software apps currently available on the PC are limited as to the flexibility given to the user, with most limiting the speed of the tracks and samples. MED Soundstudio gives the user full control over what is produced, allowing them to develop and become their own studio engineer. It allows the user full control over the MED ‘Module’ via a simple windows interface. The quick editing facilities of Teijo`s old Amiga versions remain in MED Soundstudio for Windows, along with all the other features that MED users have come to expect. The user can save a composition out in many formats beside the normal MED MMD ( Mod ) file, you can save your completed music out as a .WAV file so it can be encoded into the now widely used MP3 format, or burn your WAVS to a CD. You can also save your work out as a single playable self-executing file which means other Windows users you know can be sent the file and do not require a music player to listen to your compositions. The V1.7a upgrade not only offers plugins capabilty which allows the use of the 'out' dll's available in the famous free player called WinAmp. It also means you can now save your music in MP3, OGG, or other file formats. Okay, so it sounds like a good thing to have....but....................

Why would I want to use it? Well, any home Windows user with even just an 'interest' in music can fiddle around with it, just to make their own music. Anyone currently using different types of sequencers should definately have a look at the demo to see how easy it is to create the same results as many of the rival high powered, ( not to mention higher cost ), applications offer. Games/ programmers can, ( and do ), use the music in their games, office types can use the music for MultiMedia presentations or whatever... It can also be used, ( and is ), by amateur/professional studio’s to control racks of MIDI equipment in addition to using the built-in sample editing and arranging power of MED Soundstudio. DJ types can ( and do ), make up their own tracks and write it to CD, playing it to hundreds of people the next night! With a free demo of what’s available, why would you not want to use it!?

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