WTB: The Ultimate Soundtracker

[1988]

Please PN me if you wanna sale...

[Mark Wright]

To the best of my knowledge, this was never released to retail. It never made it to a boxed copy you could buy in a store, even in its native Germany.

How do I know so much? As I hang my head in shame, see here:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=70465

[Mark Wright]

Link in that thread is dead, here's what I wrote in 1997:

http://www.textfiles.com/artscene/mu...enobarski.html

[1988]

Originally Posted by Mark Wright

To the best of my knowledge, this was never released to retail. It never made it to a boxed copy you could buy in a store, even in its native Germany.

How do I know so much? As I hang my head in shame, see here:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=70465

Now what?!

[1988]

Originally Posted by Mark Wright

Link in that thread is dead, here's what I wrote in 1997:

http://www.textfiles.com/artscene/mu...enobarski.html

"Realising its merits as a viable creative tool, EAS decided that The Ultimate Soundtracker was of merchandisable quality and so released it commercially in mid-1987."

Why did you wrote this and now you claim that it was never sold?!

"However, Soundtracker was to quickly find its niche. Other programming teams adopted it as their own music creation system and, once EAS had given up on it and released the source code to the public domain, the legend began."

They never released it as "PD". They just stopped further development AFTER all those cracking groups released "their" own versions for free...

[Mark Wright]

OK, OK! Don't attack me please! :-) I am sitting here listening to Lapeltheme with a tear in my eye. I'm glad that my original text was correct about it being released, but this is the very *first* time I've seen evidence it was actually available. I've been asked about this many times over the years.

I wrote that article almost 20 years ago using various sources, Amiga User International magazine (I *think* who reviewed it and from which I took the quotes), an interview with Karsten Obarski himself from an edition of the AM/FM Amiga disk magazine, and a long since deleted (though may have re-surfaced, I haven't checked in years) online interview with him. This was all in the early days of the internet, no wonder I was quoted so often in the absence of any more detail.

I've already said I'm ashamed that what I wrote (partly incorrectly) has been a source of reference for many years. I'm certain that when I said, "due to low sales EAS released the source into the public domain" was based on what I read in a UK magazine. Now that you mention it, it's blindingly obvious that with so many "PD" versions in circulation (remember, here in the UK, every Amiga magazine was filled with adverts from companies selling their "PD" wares) there was no future for a commercial version of Soundtracker.

I've always wondered what Karsten made of it. Was he pleased that suddenly everyone was able to use his tool (no matter how badly) to knock out thousands of ST-01 sound-a-like modules, or was he hugely miffed at receiving a few deutschmarks for his hundreds of hours of effort...

[1988]

Originally Posted by Mark Wright

Now that you mention it, it's blindingly obvious that with so many "PD" versions in circulation (remember, here in the UK, every Amiga magazine was filled with adverts from companies selling their "PD" wares) there was no future for a commercial version of Soundtracker.

Yeah just look at the timeline:

01/1988: Official release of "Soundtracker v1.8"
03/1988: Illegal release by The Exterminator/The Jungle Command
04/1988: Illegal releases by DOC, AFL etc.
10/1988: Official release of "The Ultimate Soundtracker V2.0"

As you can see only 2 months after the official release many illegal versions were available for free. I'm sure most users never saw the official release but the versions from DOC (they also had more "cooler" modules and samples).

With the word "ultimate" they have meant "the one and only".

Originally Posted by Mark Wright

I've always wondered what Karsten made of it.

Really not much. I've chatted with him some months ago on Facebook but it looks like he isn't signed there anymore ;(

Originally Posted by Mark Wright

BACK ON TOPIC.. I have no idea what your copy of Soundtracker is worth, but I suspect far more than I can afford as it's genuinely rare

I would pay 100€ for a copy in very good condition!

Originally Posted by Mark Wright

... anyone got the email address of Thomas Dahlgren, Jimmy Fredricksson, Eike Steffen, etc.?

There you go:

thomas.dahlgren@marine.gu.se
jimmy@firefox.se
info@romeoknight.net

[onkelarie]

wow. to see that image of an actual retail version. that's just awesome.... as for many, ST kicked off my ventures into tracking/sequencing music.

[1988]

Obarski: After I'd sold my copyrights to a company named EAS for a few bucks, and the Soundtracker clones started to come from all directions, I didn't have the inspiration to code any more on that program.

Also very sad:

In July 2012, Obarski posted a song on YouTube, telling how he wished to contact his former reLINE-boss, Holger Gehrmann, only to learn he had passed away 4 years earlier

On the right Obarski:



But i got some good news also: finally i got a nearly new copy of the boxed version for only $50