Yes, I remember "Night Owl" as a series of shareware CDs, too.
The content of these discs usually can be found on FTP servers scattered around the world.
The internet archive has some copies of these CDs, too.

The music that came with them often was MIDI and MOD (Amiga tracker), maybe also VOC/WAV (wave) sometimes.

For MIDI playback, you can use any modern computer normally. Sound quality depends on the system's General MIDI (GM) sound font.
Or, for more authencity, use a DOS based MIDI player. Windows 3.1 and SEAL2 have some support built-in, I think.

MOD is like MIDI, but with WAV snippets instead of FM synthesis (simply said).
Good players were MOD4WIN, Impulse Tracker, etc. On Mac, just try XimpleMOD.

Edit: Also have a look at http://modarchive.org/
Edit: Found some songs called "Rhapsody" and "Art" there.

I recently came into possession of a whole box of shareware CD's (given to me by a now retired vintage computer collector) and some of them are Night Owl CD's.
Wil someday go through them and see what's on there (if they are still readable 😀).

Jo22 wrote:

Yes, I remember "Night Owl" as a series of shareware CDs, too.

I didn't. I thought they were music-only.

The music that came with them often was MIDI and MOD (Amiga tracker), maybe also VOC/WAV (wave) sometimes.

So there was a music player on them despite being geared towards shareware? This is my main question. Because I remember these music tracks being playable in some kind of menu, not with a third-party player, with the Night Owl title and a picture of an owl present while you played/cycled through tracks.

For MIDI playback, you can use any modern computer normally. Sound quality depends on the system's General MIDI (GM) sound font. […]
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For MIDI playback, you can use any modern computer normally. Sound quality depends on the system's General MIDI (GM) sound font.
Or, for more authencity, use a DOS based MIDI player. Windows 3.1 and SEAL2 have some support built-in, I think.

MOD is like MIDI, but with WAV snippets instead of FM synthesis (simply said).
Good players were MOD4WIN, Impulse Tracker, etc. On Mac, just try XimpleMOD.

I've had my own songs on MOD Archive for many years now. I know what a MOD is. 😉

Edit: Also have a look at http://modarchive.org/
Edit: Found some songs called "Rhapsody" and "Art" there.

I've searched there before as well but I can't be sure of any of them. None of the 3 "Rhapsody" tracks there sound familiar or anything like the remnants in my memory. There are way too many "Art" MODs to figure out one way or the other. The only single "Art" title track on there sounds pretty terrible. The only way I'd know for sure is to run the discs myself. I'm fairly certain I only knew about the first and second CDs. I definitely remember Night Owl 2, anyway. I assumed the other one was Night Owl 1.

I found the contents of each Night Owl disc on CD.Textfiles.com but it seems that you must download/view each file separately which could take ages. I've also not seen any mod, mid, or wav/voc files on any of them so far. Archive.org only has a handful of them and none of them are the first and second CDs. Any further help in tracking these down would be appreciated. I'll keep looking.

MusicallyInspired wrote:

So there was a music player on them despite being geared towards shareware? This is my main question.
Because I remember these music tracks being playable in some kind of menu, not with a third-party player,
with the Night Owl title and a picture of an owl present while you played/cycled through tracks.

I see. Well, it wasn't unusual to see pictures, clip arts and MODs/MIDIs on such disks, as well.
Maybe you're looking for a music disk ? Some demoscene groups released them in those times.
Also, some disk mags (diskette magazines) had music, too. 😀

Ediit: Or maybe the night owl discs had a menu ?

Jo22 wrote:

Ediit: Or maybe the night owl discs had a menu ?

Again, this is exactly my question.

MusicallyInspired wrote:

Jo22 wrote:

Ediit: Or maybe the night owl discs had a menu ?

Again, this is exactly my question.

MusicallyInspired wrote:

Jo22 wrote:

Yes, I remember "Night Owl" as a series of shareware CDs, too.

I didn't. I thought they were music-only.

I googled "night owl cd msdos". You can see the ascii menu and categories in action here:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IgKo5tk8WMo#

I did find that video as well. But it's CD #17 (not 1 or 2) and the menu is nothing like what I remember. And there's clearly no music options. Do they all have that menu? If so, then perhaps Night Owl is not what I'm remembering and I've confused the two. Or I mistook the Night Owl CDs for whatever music program it was that I remember and recorded on tape around the same time.

But then Jo22 seemed to imply that there was music on the Night Owl CDs. Seeing as I have no experience with them other than that I'm just trying to get some clarification because I'm still a bit confused as to the nature of these discs.

Hmm.. I've got some results for night owl at the internet archive.
Maybe you're lucky and recognize one or more of the covers of your old CDs or their jevel cases. 😀

I'm going through again now and have been downloading them. There seems to actually be more than what I initially found. Hopefully the entire library.

Well I haven't found any music yet. I wonder where those discs came from....maybe I am completely confusing two different things.