WHAT'S HAPPENED SO FAR? - Simon Lewington takes a look...
Richard Bannister (also known, somewhat strangely, as Barney) had the idea of starting up a MED Users Group in December 1992. After talking over the idea with Ray Burt-Frost (who jointly holds copyright to OctaMED) the group was launched in March 1993 and consisted of a dozen or so OctaMED enthusiasts communicating through the mail, swapping songs, ideas, and often, rather rude and disguisting jokes... In April, Richard decided to compile a disk magazine for the group and with the help of Chris Wright (infamous for his 'Friends Of Paula' disks), he produced the first issue of TI which celebrated it's second anniversary in May 96.
"The idea behind TI" said Richard in July '93 "was that it was a direct rebellion against some other Amiga disk magazines which were all rather boring and straight laced about things. TI tries to be a fun sort of experience which also tries to be informative. Whereas most specialist magazines will publish articles that go completely over a lot of heads, TI looks at everything from the angle of a good read so is quite easy to get into whether you're a beginner in the world of OctaMED or a seasoned pro...". TI is now a much older and wiser publication and contains a wide variety of news, reviews, articles and tutorials as well as some of the best OctaMED modules available anywhere and usually exclusive news on the program's development.
Since the first issue of TI, the group increased its membership to hundreds of members ranging from Daytona to Dudley and has become a respected movement in the Amiga music industry.
The magazine has also spawned the 'NoSampler' PD disks compiled by article writer Mike Richmond and also helped to bolster the works of Dave Sullivan and Steven Gane into the forefront of Amiga music PD. Other people who regularly write for TI include Kevan Craft who (along with his brother, Gareth) has released a compact disc of Amiga musical material...
With the appearance of TI5 in January of this year, TI became licenseware. "It is the end of an era" said Richard recently, "I loved the fact that people could get TI all over the world for a couple of quid but running a user group does cost an incredible ammount of money and I could simply no longer afford to pay for everything myself..."
The group's next big change came in January 1995 with the introduction of new membership policies which basically meant all OctaMED users could access the group more easily and get copies of TI much, much cheaper than before. The group tries to get the best offers possible for its members and details of the latest offers and services for its' members are featured on this very disk. The group really is ruthless when getting deals for the group... for more information about joining MUG Click here...
What's for the future for MUG/TI? Well, with OctaMED Soundstudio due in late July 96 there will be plenty to keep us busy. TI looks like it is set to improve throughout the year and hopefully the group's modules and our public domain releases will go from strength to strength.
Remember, MUG and TI are there for anyone who wants to have a good time using OctaMED. TI is compiled by people who hopefully know what they are talking about but aren't at all pretentious about what they do and aren't afraid to have a laugh about it. MUG is here for you, 365 days a year so if you've got a problem or just fancy a chat outside the confines of the magazine, don't hesitate to get in touch with us at this Address.