LETTERS TO THE EDITOR    *********************************** AM/FM ***********************************   Dear AM/FM, Are there any editors/librarians available for the Yamaha SY22 or SY35? If there is one, will you be featuring it in AM/FM at some stage? Whatever happened to the MED tutorial promised in issue 1? M. Trueman, UK  Dear Mr. Trueman, 1. Are there any editors/librarians available for the Yamaha SY22 or SY35? Not that I know of. Not in the Public Domain anyway. These synths are relatively new on the market, and it always takes a while before someone makes an editor for it. Dr.T Software has released a very good editor package called X-OR, which is compatible with hundreds of synths - I should think it also supports the SY22 and SY35. However, the package is very expensive - you must be prepared to pay at least the same amount as you paid for your Amiga. Probably more. 2. If there is one, will you be featuring it in AM/FM at some stage? If and when one appears which is not commercial, you can rest assured it will certainly appear in AM/FM. 3. Whatever happened to the MED tutorial promised in issue 1? We decided to drop the MED tutorial because of lacking interest among the readers. Indeed, you are the first person ever to ask what happened to it? We felt we were spending too much time with it, considering the fact that hardly anyone read it. If people start asking for it, we will think about starting it up again. We did print two parts of it - in issues 2 and 3. We hope you will also enjoy many future issues of AM/FM. Ed. *********************************** AM/FM ***********************************   Dear AM/FM, I'm writing in the hope that you can help me obtain the manual for OctaMED Professional v3.00. The program was featured on CU Amiga's cover disk #36, but there was no manual with it. If you have the manual, I would like to order one. Please send it, and I will pay on delivery. Trond E. Haveland Norway  Dear Trond, I'm afraid we can't send you the manual for OctaMED Professional. The reason is that OctaMED Professional is a commercial product, which can't be copied or distributed just like that. When CU Amiga had the program featured on their cover disk, that was all planned. The idea is that people should be able to try out the program, and, if they liked it, they could buy it and get the manual and everything else that's needed. Therefore, it would be both unfair and illegal to give you the manual; and even more so to sell you the manual! I recommend that you buy OctaMED Professional, which is now on version 4.00. You can get it from: Amiganuts United 169 Dale Valley Rd. Hollybrook Southampton, SO1 6QX ENGLAND I can't remember the price right now, but it's not a lot. (Next to nothing, compared to other "full-price" music packages.) If you find a reasonably new Amiga magazine, like CU Amiga, Amiga Format etc., I'm sure you will find an advertisement from Amiganuts, where the price is stated. You can write a letter with your order, and at the same time send an international money-order as payment. Good luck! Ed. *********************************** AM/FM ***********************************   Dear AM/FM Editor, I have just received your video SPACE WARS and the 16 disks of your fantastic colletion AM/FM. As we would say in our country: "BESTIAL!". We are, of course, interested in distributing this great software in our country. With this payment you can send us some labels in order to begin. There are some questions for you: Is the video tape "Space Wars" freely distributable? I am waiting for your answer shoting with a stick in the heads of most of my Amiga friends. Is it a serious problem for you if I pay using my own currency, Pesetas? Thus it is much easier and cheap for us. M. Selvas, Spain  Dear Mr. Selvas, Thanks for what you said about AM/FM - I'm happy to hear that AM/FM also reaches Spain and the Amiga enthusiasts down there. Thanks for the order for original AM/FM labels, and welcome as a new "AM/FM Dealer". I hope you will experience great success with AM/FM in Spain. About "Space Wars": No, it is NOT freely distributable. The video is very much copyrighted Tobias J. Richter and Bjørn A. Lynne. The video can be bought from AM/FM - refer to the advertisement elsewhere in this issue of AM/FM. It is not at all any problem for us that you pay with Pesetas. We handle all currencies without problems. Ed. *********************************** AM/FM ***********************************   Dear AM/FM, 1. When I´m playing my (newer) keyboard Yamaha SY 22 and using the sequencer (Bars&Pipes Pro) as "taperecorder", the first few bars are recorded right, but the more polyphonic the input (playing Moonlight Sonata p.ex) is - or if I use some aftertouch effects - the sooner it will be stuck with false and stuck notes. The "Unstick" or similar tools doesn´t help much. Other type of sequencer software seem to act the same way. When I used my more simple Casio CZ-230S as input device, the problem above is minor, but not entirely gone. Is this problem common? Is it because the flow of information becomes too big for the standard A500 to handle (1 meg chip, 2 megs fast)? Does accelerator help? Please help me if you can! 2. I have made many pieces of music using "Octalyzer" musicprogram earlier. The octalyzer format seems to be so special, that I can´t play that music using any of the other trackers (specially OctaMED which allows me to use my MIDI equipment, too) or moduleplayers. Is there any converter program which converts octalyzer data to format that is readable by Octamed and/or other trackers? Aarno Yliselä, Jyväskylä Finland  Dear Aarno, 1. I certainly don't know what causes this problem, but if it is of any comfort to you, I'm experiencing the same thing. Whenever I use a master keyboard, MIDI-connected through the Amiga and out to my Ensoniq SQ-R Plus, notes often get "stuck" and sometimes even lots of random notes seem to be tossed around. When I do the same thing on my Kawai K1-R II, I don't have the same problem. My best guess is that the Amiga isn't able to handle all MIDI information properly, and starts tossing around more or less "random" information on the MIDI out or through ports. The more complex synthesizers will perhaps have a wider coverage of MIDI events, and thereby reads the "noise" that the Amiga sends. While the simpler synths are made to read and react to a more limited range of MIDI events. This is my best guess. I wonder if any readers out there can help us? 2. YES! There is a program that can covert Octalyzer modules to OctaMED modules! Read all about AMFC (Amiga Music File Converter) in a full covering article in this very issue of AM/FM. [Ed] *********************************** AM/FM ***********************************