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It also made home music production affordable for the average person, thanks to Paula[1] which had 4-channel audio playback. It's not a case that all music trackers for Amiga, such as ProTracker[2], had 4 tracks.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_Chip_Set#Paula

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eclMFa0mD1c




Oktalyzer had a maximum of 8. If I recall correctly it downscaled sounds on the fly to 7 bits to gain a maximum of four more tracks. Its samples were noticeably worse in quality and less loud, but back in the day I still had a lot of fun using it.

https://www.robotplanet.dk/amiga/oktalyzer/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXTuWQDCylE


Nice, I didn't know about Oktalyzer.

> Its samples were noticeably worse in quality and less loud

I think I get the idea - I remember those trackers for Atari ST that also used some similar tricks to play multitrack audio even though the ST didn't have native multitrack PCM playback[1]. I remember that the sound was worse than ProTracker but still "serviceable" if you get what I mean.

But at the end of the day many ST owners would just use it as a sequencer of external gear (thanks to built-in midi ports and SW like Cubase) - those were actually rich people, they didn't need trackers LOL - my uncle had a Roland sound module and an Akai sampler hooked to the ST! I was just a kid and didn't have money for external gear but I was proud of what my Amiga could do for a fraction of the price.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST#Music_and_sound


StarTrekker also had 8 channels: https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=13415


Ahah I love the comments tread in the pouet page, with Exolon replying! Thanks for posting the link.




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