Welcome to... The Bereau. ============= ...where you can tell it like it is. A rather larger letters section this issue but I still don't receive enough mail, so get writing! If you have an opinion on TI/MUG/MED/Amiga in fact anything (as shown by one Norweigen letter last issue!) scribble a note down on any scrap of paper you can lay your hands on (e.g. back of a Cornflakes packet) and send it off to the Bereau at the usual address. Now, this first letter was written by Mr. `NoSampler?' himself, Michael Richmond. Dear TI, I must give you great congratulations on a superb magazine (TI2). It was simply MILES better than the first - More music, more articles, more colour... In fact, altogether it was a much more polished and professional looking magazine than issue 1! Thanks! But partly because of my quest for the ultimate perfection, partly because you wanted feedback and mainly because I like picking holes in everything and annoying people, I would like to address a few minor niggles to you... I knew there was a catch... I have a ROM sharer running Kickstart 1.3 and Kickstart 2.04, and 1mb of chip RAM. Under 1.3, I couldn`t get the mods to load by EITHER of the described methods - I'm not sure if it is me, TI, my computer or what, but I had to run Kickstart 2 to load them! What`s wrong with Kickstart 2, you may ask - after all, OctaMED v5 only runs under Kickstart 2! Well, you know the way the menu scrolls up the screen when you load up a program? It is sooooooo sloooooow and so J ER K Y it drives me M E N T A L ! ! ! ! ! ! Apart from that the mag is great. I think the editor`s comments in blue are great and break up the long list of black on grey. One point, though :- PLEASE do not change the blue - on my cranky old TV it is right on the limits of legibility and I have one of the best modulator borne pictures around (I like to think) A red or even that AWFUL yello that Amiga Computing always use would just end up as an ugly blob of colour on the screen. Yes, the OS1 problem only occured on the first batch of TI2's that were sent out. As you had an article published in that issue (as you have in this issue in fact), yours was one of the first available copies. Sorry about that one! We really are trying to make TI compatable with all Operating Systems and Configurations but beleive me, this is no easy task! I feel I must plea for a list of the titles in TIPD. If not on the disk itself, perhaps you could do a catalogue disk with music, pictures and (of course) a list of ALL the available titles. I think the new prices are a good idea and as soon as enough decent tunes are in the Pick `n' Mix, I`ll order a couple of disks full! As you may have read already, TIPD no longer exists! We all know that you can get the same disks cheaper elsewhere so we thought "What's the point, we're a User Group, not a PD Library!". We thought the cheaper prices would be popular... HOWEVER, I'm afraid they've gone back up. This is because my supply of cheap blank disks has run out and I'm forced to get more expensive ones. If anyone knows of a CHEAP blank disk supplier, please get in touch. Check out the article for the things you can STILL buy from TIPD (for a limited time only) and the Pick `n' Mix library is going to keep on running so please feel free to order as may P`N'M disk as you like! On a totally different subject altogether, there was a letter in TI2 asking how to load MED Modules into AMOS. Because AMOS is one of my specialities I can help. The easiest way is to convert the modules into SoundTracker format (By using an ST Save). The problem with this is that many of OctamED's commands are not in SoundTracker so your tune may be ruined. Also, the primary tempo setting isn`t saved so if you have used it your song`s tempo will be screwed up. Plus you can only have the first 32 samples. Once you have done that, you load it into the music convertor and convert it to AMOS format. Once done, you can load it as a normal bank. If you have version 1.32 of AMOS or above, you can load the Mod directly without conversion using the command TRACK LOAD "",3 Then the commands TRACK PLAY 3 and TRACK STOP To start and stop the music, respectively. If you don`t want to convert them, there is a Deja Vu licenseware disk called Music Engine that supports direct loading and playing of MED (and, I think OctaMED 5-8 channel) music. Its disk number is LPD79 and it is available from Deja Vu Licenseware at 7, Hollinbrook, Beech Hill, Wigan, WN6 7SG For pricing, ring 0942 495261 Alternatively, you can upgrade to AMOS Professional. This only supports MED 4 channel or OctaMED 4 channel tunes (no splitted channels) so has a limited use. Well thet`s my lot now. I`m off to moan at somebody else! Thanks for reading, (The one and only) Michael Richmond Well, there you have it! Next, last issue's Tune-Of-The-Month winner has decided to let us in on a few little tips... Dear MUG Brothers and Sisters, May I present... TRANK'S MASTER TIPS When Sampling, try and get away with the lowest sample rate possible without it sounding gritty. It saves an awful lot of memory. On average I sample around 14Khz, but it obviously depends on how rich the sound is. In TI1 there was an article about using `Y-Leads' to create a Mono image. It's all well and dandy if you own a Primitive Amplifier but most good HiFi's have a SURROUND or WIDE MODE button these days. If you have something like this, `Y-Leads' are pointless, believe me! I hope that none of what I've said is already obvious and apparant becuase I'll be awfully embarrassed if it is... NOT. That's all for this issue I'm afraid. NEXT ISSUE I'll be telling you how to behave properly at Tupperware parties. Bye Bye Trank Mast. P.S. Stop putting tea and coffe mugs on your mouse mat. It ruins it. Oh No! I've been caught. To tell the truth there are currently three, yes THREE mugs on my mouse mat. There isn't even enough room to move the mouse about. Oh the trials of running a club and disk-magaizne. I'm walking a thin line here. Whoops, nearly fell off. A A R R R G G G H H H H ! ! Last issue, Andy Baxter debuted in TI with his own PD reviewing section. A number of readers felt sorry for him as he told a sob story which basically told the world that he didn't have a `funky' pseudonym. One wrote as follows. Dear Bereau, I read with interest (and a tear) how Andy Baxter is lost for a cool and trendy pseudonym. After sacking my brains for a while I've come up with the following: 1) Laxative - This sounds brill, the `Lax' of course rhymes with `Bax', so this is ver appropriate, of course, the fact that he talks a lot of doggy doings helps as well. Brillient - Don't ya think? 2) Randy - This rhymes with `Andy' and makes him sound like a cool and trendy `American Geezer'. It also rhymes with `Dandy' and if he happened to read Comics, then I'm sure the `Dandy' would be one of them. Brillient - Don't ya think? 3) DP - You see, Andy reviews PD and DP is PD backwards! Brillient - don't ya think? 4) º - Because if a symbol is good enough for Prince, it's good enough for Andy. Brillient - don't ya think? Hope these suggestions have been of some help. Maybe you could make it into a competition. It would be much better than that `Three Sample' effort which was the biggest pile of monkey's droppings I've ever seen! Ha ha! Yours Cool and Trendly, Marcus Adams. Thanks Marcus. I've passed your ideas onto Andy, has anyone else got any ideas as to what he can call himself? I think `Andy' would make quite a good pseudonym, brillient - don't ya think? The Bereau just wouldn't seem complete with out it's letter from... ...yep, your worst nightmare seems to come true again. It's Tom again !!!!!! Heh heh !! Well, Hi folks !!! I just want to say that I don't like U96 anymore!!! I like mostly UNDERGROUND techno, but it's HARD to get hands on underground Techno where I live, so I had to bye commercial techno. So, I searched for some good techno at the local music-store. And, actually I found a CD I liked. It was called 'Technocop'. Yeah, it was great, exept from the singing. One of my friends borrowed the 'Technocop' CD. And he said that he had bought the U96 CD called 'Das Boot'. Well, U96 was mega-commercial, but what about giving it a try ? I said to myself. So I decided to borrow it. And it was much better than I expected!! I actually LOVED it !!! So, I wrote to MUG and told about U96. Well, let's get 2 the point, shall we.... Some days ago I was at a music-store in a town 130 KM from where I live. They had the new U96 CD. I heard it, and it was..........CRAP !!!!!!! Urgh! May U96 drown in a vat of oil!!!! After a so good debut, how could they do something like this 2 me ??? How dared they !!!!! So, if U have some underground rave music, then contact me, and I'll send you some of my self-made rave/techno mods as well as techno made by other dudes. And of course I'll send your tape back with some other techno (or rave/trance/ tekkno) tracks on it. Or if you wanna swap demos, Utils, MED (of course!) modules, then contact me....... Tom "Blockhead" Cozzolino Nedkvitne 5710 SKULESTADMO Norway. Now, you can rave on to the next BUREAU letter....... Oh, I garantee an answer!! I'm NOT a diskstealer !!!!! I answer lamers too !!! GIVE LAMERS A CHANCE !!!!!!!!!!!!!! No Comment. Except that you shouldn't send a COPY of anything copyrighted to Tom as you will be breaking the law, if you feel like dropping down to your favourite music store however (mine, incidently, is Plum Records in Swindon and buying Tom some Techno, please feel free, meanwhile all sane people will probably want to just read the next letter.... so I'll shut up. Dear Bereau, Can you please put this letter LAST in your letters page. Thanks, Alex Hiam Certainly Alex. MUG MUG MUG MUG MUG MUG MUG MUG MUG MUG MUG MUG MUG MUG MUG MUG MUG MUG