MoonSound Music Studio announced

For quite a while TNI has been working on MS², a new tracker based on MBFM and MBWave but nowadays with almost entirely rewritten code. MBFM and MBWave are by now stone age tools to create music for the Moonsound, and utmost creativity was required from composers to deal with the limitations in order to get something decent out of it. However, no one has been able to use the full potential of the Moonsound yet using MBFM and MBWave; that's where MoonSound Music Studio comes in. It's finally been announced as an official product, but an estimated release date hasn't been given. The features of MS²:

Hybrid of tracker and MML; offering the overview of trackers and the details and flexibility of MML (multiple events per step)
Channel count is custom, as well as whether they're wave or FM
Freedom in choosing and creating instruments and (complete) drumkits
All initial settings in one screen
Improved input method for manually entering notes
MIDI support for playback and recording
Support for musical temperaments
Use music and sound effects in your own programs

For this new tool, the specifications have gone up compared to the original MBFM and MBWave: 256KB RAM and MSX-DOS2, which is still nothing earth shocking however. As said, there's no estimated release date yet. People who wish to become Beta testers can sign up to become one by donating at least 15 euro. It's expected to go on sale for 25 euro when it's ready, free for beta testers, and it might get shipped along with new Moonsound cartridges.

Relevant link: TNI - MoonSound Music Studio

Comments (21)

By FiXato

Scribe (1743)

01-07-2011, 10:38

Looking forward to the first arrangements (perhaps a video recording of an arrangement being made) of MS²

By MicroTech

Champion (388)

01-07-2011, 11:20

Cool to find that Moonsound has still lot of emotions to deserve to MSX users

Is standard 128K-SRAM Moonsound supported?

From the point of view of a developer I would warmly recommend to design code/data to target a replayer code as much as possible non-cpu-intensive.

And obvioulsy I hope to find the sources of the replayer included in the package

Looking forward for a stunning demo/sample...

By chaos

Paladin (809)

01-07-2011, 12:35

Sounds interesting! I'd like to see some demo's or screenshots!

By Paulbrk

Hero (611)

01-07-2011, 15:14

I hoppe it has more than 16 pattern positions, 64 positions will be better, and, please, make a nice interface, with some colors in char mode, not a monocromatic Moonblaster style.

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10109)

01-07-2011, 15:16

But 4 colors is all you have in text mode..

01-07-2011, 16:16

4 colors is better than 2 monocromatic colors Wolf

By Huey

Prophet (2694)

01-07-2011, 16:44

Moonblaster already uses 4 colors

By snout

Ascended (15187)

01-07-2011, 17:37

This is very, very, very good news! looks like the MoonSound finally will get the tracker it deserves! And knowing GuyveR800, the replayer will be blazing fast as well!

By edoz

Prophet (2482)

01-07-2011, 17:39

cool.. is there somewhere already a demo movie ?

By NapalM

Master (234)

01-07-2011, 17:49

I want a Symbos version!

By SolidEric

Champion (332)

01-07-2011, 19:07

This is great news. Finally more options!! This news make me wanna use my moonsound again(after I put the dust away)

By Jorito

Mr. Ambassadors (1790)

01-07-2011, 19:16

Great news! Unfortunately I won't have any time to beta test it, but I'll buy a copy when it's released for sure!

01-07-2011, 19:40

I mean 4 colors like Arkos tracker for Amstrad CPC, it has a very good interface design.

look http://www.pouet.net/screenshots/13618.png

It has small fonts and wide fonts, in 320x200

01-07-2011, 20:04

@JRT: you could also already make a donation, supporting the development of the project. Whether or not you get to actually test the beta versions is of less importance (although TNI would probably appreciate beta testers that actually give feedback over those that don't).

Just wondering, but for the Japanese composers it might be interesting for them to be able to ditch the tracker altogether and allow them to compose in their precious MML. Is this already possible?

By Edwin

Paragon (1182)

01-07-2011, 23:05

A note on the current state of development. Most of the changed that have currently be implemented were those that were necessary under the hood to make the whole thing more flexible (memory management, dynamic channel assignment, etc). Only the more recent changes were about the interface and getting some new functionality into it. The one big thing that still needs to be implemented is a new file format that can deal with the new and expected functionality. So it will be a while before you'll actually be composing in it. Especially if you're me. But things seem to be going along a nice pace. But some patience is required though. It's still a massive effort if you consider that eventually nearly everything will have been rewritten in order to fit all the new stuff in a program that will still run inside reasonable memory limits.

By sd_snatcher

Prophet (3659)

02-07-2011, 02:58

A new tracker is excellent news. For the MIDI support, apart from record/playback will it also support MIDI importing? I ask because my brother is a musician, but from the new generation: he never used a tracker and don't intent to. If he could only use his usual PC/Mac programs and then import the MIDI on the MSX it would be perfect.

By ro

Scribe (4964)