Now they're back, with an audio "fest" designed to, well, to sell lots of copies, but to provide a comprehensive, one-stop resource for Amiga audio hobbyists and professionals.
To that end, they've brought together utilities by the dozen, including sound and .mod players, rippers, and converters, along with commercial demos, including Octa-MED V6. In addition, a healthy collection of MODs, MEDs, and MIDI files is included, as well as a number of free trackers with which to compose or edit them.
The item of the CD that the most attention is drawn to is the AKAI sample library, an IFF and WAV collection of a large collection of (originally 16-bit) sound bites. The quality is quite impressive, as the sampling rate is rather high-not quite the sort of material you'll find in the average MOD, at least not without having been reduced through any one of the many sampling software packages included on the disc.
There is no interface as such to the CD, but there is an AmigaGuide index, with some descriptions, for all files contained. Most work will by necessity be done with some sort of directory utility, and to that end, DirWork 1.62 is included on the CD. In fact, a complete suite of all necessary tools (including MUI, XIcon, and DMS) are available for automatic installation, as some programs require their services.
The concept of an "Audio Amiga CD" is not a new one, but unlike the "mod collection" CDs I have encountered, Makin' Music has a decidedly professional slant to it-more concerned with high-quality orchestral strings than cartoon character samplings from TV.
It's not hard to take a decent theme and implement a compilation badly, and it's particularly easy to make a mediocre music collection. Many aging bands do it all the time. But the blend of enjoyable, pre-composed music, genuinely useful musical tools (the mere inclusion of AmiSOX and other format-conversion programs is a significant boost to its usefulness) and "springboard" samples turns Makin Music into a successful product. Convenience is part of the game, and the CD puts just about everything within close reach.
(Note-Makin Music is not autobooting. In addition, non-Amiga versions do exist, offering the AKAI library and a different set of utilities.)