Amiga Format 12/af012.adf/IntuiTracker/intuitracker.doc

Text File | 1978-03-02 | 11KB | 335 lines

INTUITRACKER V1.1

Jan-Ivar Bruaroy

IntuiTracker V1.1 is a soundtrack module-player.

IntuiTracker is an attempt to bring the music-world of the popular
Soundtracker/Noisetracker programs, to the common amiga-user.

It's purpose is to play music of your choice in a multitasking-
friendly manner. This gives you the opportunity to listen to your
favourite Amiga 8-bit-digital-stereo-music-trax while you do other
things, like programming, writing, painting, downloading or whatever
you do with your amiga. (No! you can't use IT with "Xenon II"!)

Sure, you could just turn on the CD or cassette player, I hear you
argue. Ok, but haven't you ever been humming on a tune from a game
or a demo, while doin' some coding ? No? (I have!)

With IntuiTracker you can have your own collections of songs on
either disks or on your harddisk.
(At present I have about 10 Mb of modules on my harddisk!)

Features:
- Supports Soundtracker V2.0 - 2.5 and Noisetracker V1.0 - 1.1 modules.
- Multitasking friendly.
- Control panel for easy control of play.
- Volume control
- Graphic spectrum-equalizer display
- Programmable sequence of play of selected modules.
- Random play of selected modules.
- Introduces new format for Composers to sign their work (*)
- Leave a song playing, when exiting program.

(*) - musicians: read chapter 6!

1. SHAREWARE:
   ~~~~~~~~~~
This program is released as shareware. This means that if you like
this utility, you should express it by sending around $10
to the the author (that's me).
I will mail you updates of this program when available, (if you don't
specify otherwise). I will charge for the disk only.

Jan-Ivar Bruarøy,
Tiurstien 31a,
3190 Horten,
NORWAY.

I can be reached on these norwegian BBS's:

Crusaders BBS:    (068) 1088
MediaFoto BBS:    [phone]

2. INSTRUCTIONS:
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
IntuiTracker V1.1 will play music produced by:
Soundtracker V2.0 - V2.5 or Noisetracker 1.0 - 1.1 or compatibles.
Songs must be saved (or ripped) as ´modules´ in order to be played.

(Nearly all songs on demos and most games are made on a
Soundtracker program. There are several soundtrack module-rippers
available that will extract these as modules for you.)

IntuiTracker can be started from either CLI or Workbench.
Click on the IntuiTracker-window to access the menus.


HOW DO I PLAY A SONG ?!

1. Find a disk which you know has some soundtracker-modules on it.
   (Any soundtracker disk or a music-collection disk that's not
    crunched and not a NON-DOS disk should do.)

2. Click on the IntuiTracker-window.
   Choose the menu/menuitem:  Tracks/Choose Disc.

3. Enter the name of the disk:directory where the module is located.
   (Probably DF0:modules or just DF0:)

4. After loading, examine the Tracks-menu. If a module-name has
   appeared, select it. If no names appear, don't panic. Do this:

- Select the menu/menuitem:  Prefs/MOD.files ONLY
- Do step 2, 3 and 4 again.

(Explanation: IT assumes all module-names begin with: "MOD."
When you do step 4, IT will treat ALL files
as modules. BE CAREFUL; Trying to load a file
that NOT an ST-module is generally not healthy! )

5. The song should now be loaded and played.

6. You can select PREFS/Equalizer and PREFS/Control Panel to get some action.


3. MENUS

Menu: Control -

PLAY/PAUSE/STOP - Obvious.

EJECT - Removes song from memory. To play it again, it
has to be reloaded.

PLAY NEXT - Loads and plays the next song on the menu.
In PROGRAM MODE the next in sequence will be loaded.

If RANDOM PLAY is active, the song to be loaded
will be a song on the menu chosen at random.
With RANDOM PLAY in PROGRAM MODE the songs
chosen at random is limited to the those
which are programmed.

PLAY PREV - Loads and plays the previous song on the menu.

PROGRAM MODE - This command allows you to program IntuiTracker
to play several songs in a certain order.

To program, select this menu-item.
The text "Select tracks" should appear in the
window.

- Enter the "Tracks"-menu.
The first menu-item has now changed to:
"END PROGRAMMING"

- Select the songs you wish to enter in the
program, in the order you want them to be
played. The menu-item's short-keys will indicate the
order you have chosen.

(HINT: You can multi-select songs by pressing
the left button and drag the mouse over several items)

- To remove an item, just select it again.

- When you're finished, select END PROGRAMMING,
and the first song in the program will be loaded.

- Program is now running.

- To end program mode and go back to normal
operation, select PROGRAM MODE again. (checkmark will disappear.)


REPEAT SONG - Option. Checkmark indicates ON.

When this option is on, a loaded song will play
continuously until the user desides otherwise. This is the default.

When this option is off, the song will stop when
the final position in the song has finished,
or when a position-jump to an earlier position is found.

When in PROGRAM MODE, this option is called:
REPEAT PRG, and it enables/disables repeat of
the whole program sequence.

RANDOM PLAY - Option. Checkmark indicates ON.

Random play affects the sequence of play in PROGRAM MODE.
It also affects the use of the PLAY NEXT
and the PLAY PREVIOUS commands in both PROGRAM
MODE and normal mode. The default is off.

ABOUT - Checkmark indicates ON.
When a song is played, turning on this option
will (when possible) display the name of the
composer for that song. (musicians: see notes in chapter 6)

If no song is loaded, this option gives you
some additional notes on IntuiTracker.

LEAVE SONG - Will quit IntuiTracker, but the last song will
keep on playing. In technical terms:
The program is unloaded, but the player-interrupt remains.

If REPEAT SONG is on when you exit this way,
the song will go on forever.
If REPEAT SONG is off, the interrupt will kill
itself when the song finishes, and memory will be free'd.

Note that IT can intercept this playing interrupt again the next time
you start IT.

QUIT - Unloads everything.

Menu: Prefs -

The following menu-items are all options. Checkmarks indicate ON.


VOLUME CONTROL  - \
EQUALIZER       -  X Check it out!
CONTROL PANEL   - /

NONE - Turns off the three above.

FILTER - Turns the amiga hardware low-pass filter (and the LED) on or off.
This does not works on Amiga 1000. The default is off.

A soundtracker song has the option to turn the filter on or off by itself.
This will by default override the IntuiTracker setting.
Some ST-musicians tend to mis-use the filter
by flashing the LED, with their soundtracks.

By selecting the FILTER OVERRIDE switch on
IntuiTracker, the filter settings in each song
will be ignored, and the IT setting is final.

DEPTH GADGET - Gives the IntuiTracker-window depth gadgets.
Because of lack of space and cosmetic reasons, this defaults to off.

When depth gadgets are off, the window is pushed
to the front when you active it.

MOD.files ONLY - IntuiTracker, as default, expects all module
files to begin with the letters "MOD.".
If they don't, they wont appear on the menu.
Turning "MOD.files ONLY" off will make IT
accept all filenames as valid module-files.

The Noisetracker versions and the earlier
Soundtracker versions all defaults to writing
the "MOD." prefix on all modules they save.
Soundtracker V2.4 and V2.5 has regretably dropped this.
I say regretably because a soundtrack-module
as a result of it's crowded format, is hard to
distinguish from other files.

Note that, although IntuiTracker checks the
files being loaded, you should avoid trying
to load any NON ST/NT-module files, as
the checking routines aren't fail-safe.


MUSIQUE NON-STOP - When IT loads a new song, by user command, or
as a part of a program sequence, it will, if
chip-memory allows it, load the new song without
cutting off of the song being played.
This gives you as much uninterrupted listening
pleasure as possible.
(In a program-sequence, this is done by
pre-loading the following song, before the current has finished.)

With this method, however, IT needs to have both
songs in memory at one time. This is very
memory-intensive, and it may also fragment
your memory if you use other memory-intensive programs at the same time.

Therefore; If memory is a concern, you use this
option to turn off the non-stop loading technique. (The default is on.)


4. CONTROL PANEL:
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The control panel has the following set of gadgets:

+---+---+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-------+-------+
| + | - |   |<   |   <<   |   |>   |   >>   |   >|   |   .   |   ^   |
+---+---+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-------+-------+

|> - PLAY/PAUSE (*)

. - STOP (*)

^ - EJECT (*)

>> / << - Forward / Rewind. Moves through positions in song.

>| - PLAY NEXT (*)

|< - PLAY PREVIOUS (*)

+ / - - Changes the speed of play-back.
A soundtracker-song may change it's speed
during play. Since you may start a song from
any position, the speed may not be set correctly.
These gadgets are useful for correcting this.

Pressing PAUSE or STOP cancels your changes.

5. GENERAL NOTES ON FORMAT:
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As mentioned earlier, IntuiTracker assumes all module files begin
with the letters "MOD.". Although the "MOD.files ONLY" option will
allow you to load ANY kind of file, I strongly suggest that when you
make a collection directory of your modules that you rename your
files appropriately.

If you have the ARP rename command installed in your system this can
be done quite easily by entering your directory and typing:

rename * to mod.*

As a rule for future expansion, IT will also accept the following
extension formats:    ".Snn"  and  ".Nnn"

These extensions indicate the soundtracker or noisetracker version
used to create the module. The versions in the example are
Soundtracker V2.5 and NoiseTracker V1.1 respectively.

PLEASE NOTE that these extensions have NO bearing on IT's treatment
of the modules. The ".Snn" and ".Nnn" extensions are for future
compatibility, or for your own reference only.
This version of IntuiTracker handles all formats without distinction.

7. WARNING!
   ~~~~~~~~
1. Intuitracker has been carefully tested for bugs, and should under
normal circumstances not crash your machine.
(This is no guarrantee though. If this DOES happen, let me know!).
Please note however that due to the memory-intensive nature of
IT's operation, running a large music-piece on IT simultaniously
with other programs, may cause OTHER programs to crash!
Many Amiga programs (including the workbench!) may crash when
it runs out of chip-memory.

You should therefore always keep an eye on your chip-memory,
when using IntuiTracker.
Ejecting a song after you are done with it frees up chip-memory,
so does turning off the equalizer window, etc.

2. FOR HARDDISK USERS, a system crash can be fatal if the system
crashes while you are saving to your harddisk.
IntuiTracker works absolutely fine with my harddisk and my system-
configuration. All I am saying is, that until you get aquainted
with IntuiTracker, take it easy. Make sure it works with your
system. I hope you understand I can take no responsibility for
any mis-haps. This product is delivered "as is".

Have this in mind when you use IntuiTracker.