Just a heads-up:

I just found the web site and contact information for "Ultra Force, which was the demo group that Bram Graveland was a member of back in the day. Anyhow, I just fired off the following email 😀

To: Ultra Force Development <info@ultraforce.com> Subject: Bram Graveland and Tetra Compositor […]
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To: Ultra Force Development <info@ultraforce.com>
Subject: Bram Graveland and Tetra Compositor

Message: Hello,

I was wondring if there was any contact information available for Bram Graveland?

I have a copy of the retail version 1.3 of "Tetra Compositor", which Mr. Graveland developed back in 1990, and was later published by Creative Labs. What I'm hoping and asking for is permission to upload the full version of Tetra Compositor (as well as PDF scans of the original manuals and box) to several sites on the Internet that I frequent.

I've been a big fan of Tetra Compositor since 1991 or so, and the program is really of large historical significance, as far as the IBM PC and module trackers in general. As far as I know, it was one of the first (if not the very first) module trackers for the IBM PC... this at a time that the only available module trackers were all coded for the Amiga.

Anyhow, you would have my deepest gratitude if you could help me in my quest to find contact information for Mr. Graveland, or possibly give the "go ahead" for uploading Tetra Compositor to various web sites on the Internet 😀

P.S. If you're interested, see my video tribute to Tetra Compositor here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpypDIkOm4g , as well as my tribute web pages here: http://jasonwilliams400com.startlogic.com/sno … eds/Echoing.htm and here: http://jasonwilliams400com.startlogic.com/sno … /weeds/Lars.htm 😀

Cheers, and many thanks for your time,

Rich Nagel

Nice! Hopefully Bram can be reached now. 😀

Malik wrote:

Nice! Hopefully Bram can be reached now. 😀

Unfortunately, not yet 🙁 I just received an email reply from Josha Munnik, one of the main Ultra Force members who are still active:

Hi Rich, […]
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Hi Rich,

I'm afraid I have no contact information at all for Bram Graveland. The demo group (of which Bram was a member) kind of broke up during our years at the various universities and with some I lost contact. I've tried to keep the list of members and information updated; but I have not been able to find any details on Bram.

I can not say anything as far as putting the Tetra Compositor online, I'm afraid it's not my call to make.

Still nice to see there are fans outthere and you managed to get it running on todays PCs 😀

Only thing I can tell you Tetra Compositor was not the first tracker, there were a few other players already existing (one of them programmed by me 😀. But I guess it was the first one distributed commercially bundled with the Sound Blaster.

With best regards,
Josha Munnik
Freelance Software Developer
Ultra Force Development

P.S. The tracker music players that he coded and was refering to are available here (at the bottom of the web page) -> http://www.ultraforce.com/en/demogroup.html 😀

P.P.S. I think he was mistaken though about the first tracker format music composing software for DOS and the IBM PC... in his email reply he's only refering to players, and not actual tracker composing software. IIRC, Tetra Compositor even pre-dated the old "MODEdit".

Attached is a ZIP containing my latest "Tracker" "MOD" format song, "The Gatorade Song".

An extremely simple Chiptune that I created from four samples that were recorded by striking a plastic Gatorade bottle in various ways (bottle cap on, bottle cap off, bottle cap on with bottle muted, and bottle cap off with bottle muted), Tracked using Fast Tracker II and MilkyTracker.

Hehe, I bet you've never heard a plastic Gatorade bottle sound like that before 🤣! Surprising, isn't it? 😀

P.S. A video of the old Open Cubic Player playing the tune here -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aqugJCh5DY

P.P.S. Download a MIDI and SoundFont version of the song here -> http://jasonwilliams400com.startlogic.com/sno … ts/Gatorade.zip.

Attached is a ZIP containing an old "Tracker" "MOD" format song of mine, "Computers On Line! (Redux)".

The song was something that I threw together for one of the "Cracktro" styled demo scrollers that I created back in 1994-1995. I created the pack of demo scrollers to upload them to various local BBS's (back when I lived in Miami, Florida USA) as advertisements for my new business at the time, "Computers On Line".

P.S. A YouTube video of the demo scrollers is here -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzi4K4ZeJCI 😀

P.P.S. The original complete scrollers demo pack ("COLPRES2.ZIP") is here download/file.php?id=12596 .

Hehehe...all these demo scrollers bring fond memories. Always amused by these. 😁

Malik wrote:

Hehehe...all these demo scrollers bring fond memories. Always amused by these. 😁

Hehe, and here is yet another:

This is a video of a "Cracktro" styled intro demo scroller that was created back in 1997 by some shady hacker, for some questionable "Warez" CD of the era <grin> 😀

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMmNdpPTovk

P.S. You can download the original "Tracker" format song file "OverDrive!" here -> http://modarchive.org/module.php?174120 ("OverDriv.mod") 😀

P.P.S. The original demo scroller ("RunMe!.zip") is here -> download/file.php?id=12591 .

rfnagel wrote on 2013-06-11, 11:22:

I downloaded a few of them, and saw comments with the sample names of "S.L.L." and "S.L.L" as well... so, I'm thinking that whoever that "SLL" is, THAT who is composed the original "LARS.MOD" 😀

Extreme apologies for digging up this ancient thread, but something that I recently learned. "LARS.MOD" was DEFINITELY composed by "SLL"/"S.L.L.". The composer's full name is Sten Lysholm Larsen, and he was a member of the "Bamiga Sector One" Amiga cracking group (formed in Belgium circa 1986). MYSTERY FREAKIN' SOLVED!!!! NOW, my life is complete 🤣!

rfnagel wrote on 2025-11-02, 09:16:

rfnagel wrote on 2013-06-11, 11:22:

I downloaded a few of them, and saw comments with the sample names of "S.L.L." and "S.L.L" as well... so, I'm thinking that whoever that "SLL" is, THAT who is composed the original "LARS.MOD" 😀

Extreme apologies for digging up this ancient thread, but something that I recently learned. "LARS.MOD" was DEFINITELY composed by "SLL"/"S.L.L.". The composer's full name is Sten Lysholm Larsen, and he was a member of the "Bamiga Sector One" Amiga cracking group (formed in Belgium circa 1986). MYSTERY FREAKIN' SOLVED!!!! NOW, my life is complete 🤣!

Sten Lysholm Larsen is Danish 😀 And is still making music. As far I am aware 😀

I was recently inspired to update my really old web pages about the demo and retail versions of Bram Graveland's "Tetra Compositor" Tracker format music composition program (distributed by Creative Labs, circa 1990-1991).

A Tribute to "Echoing": https://jasonwilliams400com.startlogic.com/sn … eds/Echoing.htm

A Tribute to "Lars": https://jasonwilliams400com.startlogic.com/sn … /weeds/Lars.htm

After DECADES of research, the unknown composers of these two old Tracker format tunes "Echoing" and "Lars" (circa 1988) that were included with "Tetra Compositor" have FINALLY been discovered. My life is NOW COMPLETE 🤣!

Download a ZIP containing the whole schmear right here: http://bhservices.us/weeds/Temp/Tetra_Compositor_Tribute.zip

P.S. The web pages include embedded MIDI files that will play in web browsers that support this (some do NOT), but you can download my versions of the MIDI files (as well as my versions in MP3 format of the tunes) from the web pages.

rfnagel wrote on 2025-11-03, 04:35:

I was recently inspired to update my really old web pages about the demo and retail versions of Bram Graveland's "Tetra Composit […]
Show full quote

I was recently inspired to update my really old web pages about the demo and retail versions of Bram Graveland's "Tetra Compositor" Tracker format music composition program (distributed by Creative Labs, circa 1990-1991).

A Tribute to "Echoing": https://jasonwilliams400com.startlogic.com/sn … eds/Echoing.htm

A Tribute to "Lars": https://jasonwilliams400com.startlogic.com/sn … /weeds/Lars.htm

After DECADES of research, the unknown composers of these two old Tracker format tunes "Echoing" and "Lars" (circa 1988) that were included with "Tetra Compositor" have FINALLY been discovered. My life is NOW COMPLETE 🤣!

Download a ZIP containing the whole schmear right here: http://bhservices.us/weeds/Temp/Tetra_Compositor_Tribute.zip

P.S. The web pages include embedded MIDI files that will play in web browsers that support this (some do NOT), but you can download my versions of the MIDI files (as well as my versions in MP3 format of the tunes) from the web pages.

I managed to get my hands on a sealed copy of Tetra Compositor. Luckily, the first thing I did was to image the disks. They had some bad sectors, but after some rinse and repeat I was able to pull off clean images without any errors.
Good thing I made that, as the software has a very sneaky installer that allows you ONE and ONLY ONE installation on HDD. After that, the disks are burnt and cannot be used for HDD install anymore. Luckily the copy-protection doesn't involve unconventional track formats, so the disk images are faithful. I reproduced new disks out of the images, and they were able to install successfully (only once of course). Moreover, the final step during installation will validate the disks and if it doesn't like what it sees, it will skip an additional manual-based copy-protection question. The end result will be Tetra Compositor in demo mode (again). But if you get the installation right with the correct answer to the last question in the installer, then hurray.. you get a fully working copy of Tetra on your HDD.

The retail version is significantly different than the so-called Sound Blaster demo version, which I'm still in search of in disk image format. I'm still unable to locate the original Sound Blaster disk which contained Tetra demo. Seems it got removed quickly, as my full Sound Blaster 1.5 box doesn't have that demo.. so probably it only shipped in the Sound Blaster 1.0 package?

BTW, the software is able to play through PC speaker, and if you have a proper PC speaker (the cone one, not the piezzo buzzer) then give it a try.. it sounds surprisingly good!

wbahnassi wrote on Yesterday, 01:11:

I managed to get my hands on a sealed copy of Tetra Compositor. Luckily, the first thing I did was to image the disks. They had […]
Show full quote

rfnagel wrote on 2025-11-03, 04:35:

I was recently inspired to update my really old web pages about the demo and retail versions of Bram Graveland's "Tetra Composit […]
Show full quote

I was recently inspired to update my really old web pages about the demo and retail versions of Bram Graveland's "Tetra Compositor" Tracker format music composition program (distributed by Creative Labs, circa 1990-1991).

A Tribute to "Echoing": https://jasonwilliams400com.startlogic.com/sn … eds/Echoing.htm

A Tribute to "Lars": https://jasonwilliams400com.startlogic.com/sn … /weeds/Lars.htm

After DECADES of research, the unknown composers of these two old Tracker format tunes "Echoing" and "Lars" (circa 1988) that were included with "Tetra Compositor" have FINALLY been discovered. My life is NOW COMPLETE 🤣!

Download a ZIP containing the whole schmear right here: http://bhservices.us/weeds/Temp/Tetra_Compositor_Tribute.zip

P.S. The web pages include embedded MIDI files that will play in web browsers that support this (some do NOT), but you can download my versions of the MIDI files (as well as my versions in MP3 format of the tunes) from the web pages.

I managed to get my hands on a sealed copy of Tetra Compositor. Luckily, the first thing I did was to image the disks. They had some bad sectors, but after some rinse and repeat I was able to pull off clean images without any errors.
Good thing I made that, as the software has a very sneaky installer that allows you ONE and ONLY ONE installation on HDD. After that, the disks are burnt and cannot be used for HDD install anymore. Luckily the copy-protection doesn't involve unconventional track formats, so the disk images are faithful. I reproduced new disks out of the images, and they were able to install successfully (only once of course). Moreover, the final step during installation will validate the disks and if it doesn't like what it sees, it will skip an additional manual-based copy-protection question. The end result will be Tetra Compositor in demo mode (again). But if you get the installation right with the correct answer to the last question in the installer, then hurray.. you get a fully working copy of Tetra on your HDD.

The retail version is significantly different than the so-called Sound Blaster demo version, which I'm still in search of in disk image format. I'm still unable to locate the original Sound Blaster disk which contained Tetra demo. Seems it got removed quickly, as my full Sound Blaster 1.5 box doesn't have that demo.. so probably it only shipped in the Sound Blaster 1.0 package?

BTW, the software is able to play through PC speaker, and if you have a proper PC speaker (the cone one, not the piezzo buzzer) then give it a try.. it sounds surprisingly good!

I got a boxed copy of TC some time ago. I didn't image the floppies, but I did zip up the whole schmear after a fresh installation for safekeeping 😀

As far as the TC Demo, the non-interactive one (that you're referring to) may have came with the SB 1.0 install disks. I previously said 1.5, but my memory is hazy... It might have been the 1.5.

And yeah, it sounds surprisingly good on a paper cone PC beeper 😀

P.S. Sending you a PM in a bit.

If I'm not mistaken, the TC demo could have come with SB 2.0. Since I still have my boxed SB 1.5 with four 360kb disks, and there is no TC demo in them.

And when the first SB Pro came out, the ever elusive TC Pro also already came out with it, (to showcase the stereo capability of the Pro card), but I'm not sure if that was also a demo version or not. Anyway, the original TC demo should have come before this.

From online Creative Labs SB driver disk scavenging, for the life of me, I couldn't get any floppy images with TC demos. I know they exist, since I remember seeing TC demo somewhere sometime...

I too got a standalone copy of Tetra Compositor originally.

Malik wrote on Yesterday, 20:01:

If I'm not mistaken, the TC demo could have come with SB 2.0. Since I still have my boxed SB 1.5 with four 360kb disks, and ther […]
Show full quote

If I'm not mistaken, the TC demo could have come with SB 2.0. Since I still have my boxed SB 1.5 with four 360kb disks, and there is no TC demo in them.

And when the first SB Pro came out, the ever elusive TC Pro also already came out with it, (to showcase the stereo capability of the Pro card), but I'm not sure if that was also a demo version or not. Anyway, the original TC demo should have come before this.

From online Creative Labs SB driver disk scavenging, for the life of me, I couldn't get any floppy images with TC demos. I know they exist, since I remember seeing TC demo somewhere sometime...

I too got a standalone copy of Tetra Compositor originally.

Yeah, I'm confused as well as to when the TC demo was released. I had bought two SB cards baick in the day. The first one I got for my dad's 286, and I think it might have been either the 1.5 or the 2.0. He soon thereafter bought an SBPro, which judging by the timeframe must have been the SBPro1 and not the SBPro2.

I could have sworn that the demo came with the first SB that I bought for him (as my fading memory seems to remember that was one of the first things that I ever heard on a PC, excluding the little PC beeper), but for the life of me, I can't really remember.

The only thing that I'm fairly certain of is that the TC demo came with either the first SB card that I bought for dad, or the second SBPro that he got shortly after that.

As far as the elusive TC SBPro version, that definitely didn't come with his specific SBPro that he bought.

The only thing that I know about stereo sound in TC is what I've posted earlier in this thread... the part about where you had to run the older SBPro TSR resident mixer utility and enable the stereo checkbox (which didn't provide Amiga styled LRRL hard channel panning, but rather a pseudo type stereo effect).