A R E Y O U E A S I L Y C O N V E R T E D ? AMFC V2.0 (Most2MM) ------------------- A utility for converting Tracker Modules to either OctaMED or Music-X Programed by Brian Thom (c) 1992 ( c) Copyright 1992 Bert Frost An Article by Kevan R.Craft. Written for AM/FM Amiga Musicians Freeware Magazine Music is one of the fastest expanding areas in the computing industry. In a few short years musicians have gone from expecting nothing more than a simple beep from their machines, to demanding nothing less than a full-blown orchestral extravaganza. The Amiga has the power to realise your musical imagination without having to buy any other electronic instruments. So, I won't be producing a best selling hit using my computer alone, I hear you say, but there is a demand for music that has been created and played purely on a computer with no need for other peripherals - especially for use in other computer programs such as games. And where would demos be without computer generated music? Software houses are crying out for good computer musicians and the only limitation is you. Only experience and knowledge of the software lies between you and a possible future in making music. Whether for pleasure or profit, the public domain and Licenceware has the software and is the ideal testing ground. No matter how big your ambitions, the one essential ingredient is software. Music programs vary, but through the mass available, a standard for producing music on the Amiga is the 'Tracker'. The basic problem encountered with 'Trackers' such as Noisetracker, SoundTracker,ProTracker, the early version of MED, and the later StarTrekker is their incompatible data formats which confounded an increasing body of work within the public domain. Indeed, commercial MIDI software also tended to contribute to this problem until recently a new version of ProTracker was released containing the facility to import MIDI data from eiher another computer, hardware or keyboard sequencers which simplifies the imputting of musical data into these mind boggling 'Tracker' programs. My personal favourite is Teijo Kinnunen's OctaMED V3.0 Professional, which possesses all the functions of Protracker, together with a sampler, and the ability to Load or save a 4 track music module as ST/NT Format. It stands above the rest because it can produce 8 track sample mudules as well as 4, 8, 12 or 16 track MIDI modules or can be played from inside OctaMED itself. It also provides you with score staves to write you music with the mouse option. Again, if you are a musician who likes to produce music using MIDI software, then this should not pose any problems as long as you have the appropriate software and hardware. The same can be said of those who prefere to employ the 'Tracker' method using stand alone samples. But what if you want to be interactive and convert between formats? For example, a score is composed using the Music-X software. As you may or may not know, the Music-X software has the ability to play sounds using a combination of both MIDI along with the appropriate synth hardware and Amiga sound samples. Music-X also comes with a utility to convert Music-X sequence data files to MIDI format. Once you've composed your masterpeice using Music-X, it can be converted to a MIDI file ready to load into anything which supports MIDI, either software or hardware and even downloaded to another computer. But can you convert a 'Tracker' containing all its musical data and accompanying samples to Music-X? Well the answer is yes! Now you can by using a new product on the market called - 'AMFC V2.0 (Most2MM)'. This new potential for creating music enables the computer musician a greater potential for multi-compatability and this is the clever idea behind the 'AMFC v2.0 (Most2MM) program. The only drawback, is as an Amiga computer musician, that you possess Music-X software along with your plethora of 'Trackers' and or OctaMED software. If you own a dedicated MIDI software package too, then you should be able to produce music in one format and convert to either one or the other formats in the twinkling of an eye, well almost anyway. 'AMFC V2.0 (Most2MM) is the brain child of a programer called Brian Thom from North Wales in the U.K. who wanted to convert his music from 'Trackers' to OctaMed or Music-X. Basically, 'AMFC V2.0' can convert from most 'Tracker' formats, hence the Most 2 MM title in the program's name. Convertion can be from SoundTracker/Noisetracker/ Protracker/ StarTrekker or SMUS to either OctaMED or Music-X. The convertion of the 'Tracker' actually saves the samples as well, whether this is in the OctaMED or Music-X format. For converting SMUS music modules, the user has to load the accompanying samples into either OctaMED or Music-X after loading the tune. I have experimented with this excellent program and discovered quite a few interesting features. Using an Amiga 500 Plus with a 2MbChip ram expansion the convertion process is very quick indeed. Converting your trackers is done from the CLI by entering a 'newshell'. Once in a shell the user justs types Most2MM which activates the program. Next, you are presented with a simple shell text requester asking you to type in the complete path of the data file to convert eg. Df1:MyMusic.mod (originally a Noisetracker module) You are then presented with a second text requester asking you the name and where you want the converted module to be saved. As using ram speeds up the process you could type this:- Ram:MyMusic.MED You've retained the name but provided the file with a .MED extension because you are going to convert the module to OctaMED format. Next a third requester will ask you what format? and you type 'med' med When the conversion has taken place you will be told so through shell and the converted module will be sitting pretty in the ram. All that's remaining to do is pop in the disk which you want to save the new data file to and type Copy ram:MyMusic.MED df1:MyModulesDisk/Modules/ And hey presto, a converted tracker to octaMED format. The same process is undertaken for the Music-X format. For converting toMusic-X the user just follows the same process but instead of typing med you type in 'x' for Music-X format. eg. df1:MyMusic.mod ram:MyMusic.MX x The result will save a converted 'Tracker' module to Music-X format. I discovered that, I couldn't convert 8 track modules, success was found with the 4 track OctaMED modules saved out as ST/NT and then converted to Music-X. The conversion process actually saves the samples in the new Music-X file, although Music-X possess the potential for 16 samples only, any more samples in the module being converted after the first 16 within the module will be lost. The converted Music-X module then loads into Music-X in the first four sequence tracks being 1, 2, 3 and 4. There is also a problem with Music-X concerning memory allocation for loading the converted module as the samples contained within are quite memory intensive. This can be solved by altering the 'BUFFER'tool type supported by Music-X. For example, on an Amiga 500 Plus with 2 Mb of memory, the Music-X BUFFER tool type was ammended to read BUFFER=600K or BUFFER=600000 The resulting effect upon entering Music-X is that there is a reduction of memory 'events' for the actual sequencer but entering the Amiga Samples page reveals an increase of 960K as the largest sample. This increase of memory is more than adequate for Music-X to load the converted 'Tracker' module together with its accompanying samples. * (See the included Buffer Table Pic and Buffer Doc by Gareth for more detailed information.) Once the converted 'Tracker' module is loaded into Music-X the user can then cut and paste the relevant tracks from 1 - 16, depending how many there are in the module and then re-program the sequences for MIDI and the samples can be removed. Once saved as a new Music-X file configured for MIDI this can then be converted back to a generic MIDI file and so the circle continues. good eh. Furthermore, this problem with converting 'Tracker' modules using 'AMFC V2.0 (Most2MM)' is also encountered with Packed data files. Because the majority of those who produce 'Tracker' modules employ a packing method to compress the data file to conserve on disk memory, the resulting effect is that it will not load into the converting program unless the offending packed data file has been unpacked. This is no longer neccesary as there is a PD utility called Powerpacker Patcher V1.4 available which enables the Amiga to read packed files. What this utility does is make packed files invisible and therefore facilitates normal loading. (The Powerpacker Patcher has been included on this disk in the 'c' directory along with a document in the text directory explaining how to install together with the relevant information needed in the CLI.) Again, this also tends to be the case with Music-X. Indeed, AM/FM includes its accompanying text and music data files as packed files containing a dot pp extension or .pp meaning that it has been packed. By installing the Powerpacker Patcher, setting the BUFFER tool type in Music-X, this will enable Packed files to successfully load into Music-X. There remains a few problems with AMFC V2.0 (Most2MM) and I have written to Brian Thom the author of the program outlining some possible suggestions of how to improve the operational methods and also mentioned the PowerPacker patcher utility which would compliment this really interesting software. I understand that Brian Thom has been considering the possibility of adding a further conversion method to AMFC which will facilitate MIDI file format conversion to OctaMED. The possibility of this idea opens new doors for multi-interactive music software for the Amiga musician. And I for one am glad that I made the decision to purchace this great program. I just can't wait to see if Mr Thom produces his MIDI converter to OctamMED. If you would like to get in on the act, then AMFC V.2.0 (Most2MM) is accompanied by AMFC V1.3 which is a graphic styled intuition screen program activated by mouse clicking which converts 'Trackers' to OctaMED format. 'AMFC' is actually Licenceware and is therefore not available through public domain libraries. The cost of AMFC V2.0 together with AMFC V1.3, both on the same disk, is £10.00 or ten English pounds Sterling and is available from :- Amiganuts or Seasoft Computing 169 Dale valley Road The Buisiness Centre Hollybrook 80 Woodlands Avenue Southampton. SO1 6QX. Rustington England. U.K. West Sussex. BN16 3EY. England (U.K.) Tel:0903 8500378 Kevan R.Craft.