17 Bit Software 2: Collection B

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Text File | 1991-02-17 | 17.3 KB | 397 lines

------------------------------------------------------------------------- Protracker V2.0 Release A - (C) 1991 Amiga Freelancers Feb. '91 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This disk should contain the following files: PT2.0 - The main program (not packed, do it yourself). PT2.0.info - The Icon for Protracker, by Quantarc. PROP - Protracker module player. TempoCalc.txt - How to calculate tempo etc. PT-Play.s - Playroutine for the Seka or DevPac assemblers. PT-CIAPlay.s - Playroutine for CIA timing. PTFileFormat.txt - Description of the file format. PTEffects.txt - Quick help on all effect commands. PT.help - Online helpfile (press the Help key). PT.help.txt - Read-/Printable version of the help file. PT.help.txt.info - Icon for the PT.help.txt file, by Quantarc. PT.config-00 - Default configuration file. PT.ReadMe! - ****--> This file <--**** PT.ReadMe!.info - Icon for the ReadMe! file, by Quantarc. If you pack Protracker, please use a packer with real hunk-handling. Powerpacker or Imploder will do just fine. No absolute-address crap!!! Some info.. ----------- This disk contains all the necessary files to run Shell, CLI, and all the most used CLI-Commands. It is possible to print songs, but we'we only included the Generic printerdriver, so you'll have to install your own. Remember to set the new printerdriver with Preferences. If you make your own workdisk, remember to copy the commands "Run" and "EndCLI". If you are going to make make a compact-disk containing Protracker, please include PT.help!!! THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!!! DO NOT ATTEMPT TO EDIT THE HELP-FILE!!! The first 1024 bytes are a text-offset index for Protracker, so keep off. For more info, press the HELP key when you have started Protracker. --- Protracker history --- First Version 1.0 (A) - Full of bugs... Bugs corrected in V1.0 Release B: --------------------------------- - PatternLoop (It always jumped to the start of the pattern, not the loop) - Zap had put FineTune AND Glissando-Control in the same command! (E3) - Fade Up / Down caused shit and even a few gurus! - Delete Pos inserted pattern 77 (!) at position 127 in the song, causing it to be longer than 80k! - Filter All Samples was slow as hell because it tried to filter non- existant samples. - If you selected sample 0 from the keypad, it always played the last sample played as sample 0! - A590 harddisk owners couldn't use the keyboard because of the way Mahoney & Kaktus set up the keyboard interrupt (we used their NT1.1 routine). - Entering the help screen when in the midi screen fucked up the display. - Escaping from Mix exited from the whole edit op.! - CutBeg no longer fucks up the Sample length and Pos. - The help file was FULL of bugs / misspellings. Bugs corrected in V1.0 Release C: --------------------------------- - Error in Finetune-table2 (note B-2) - Abort Load sometimes caused a guru! - Toneportamento (cmd 3) didn't work correctly with finetune. - PLST screen was one pixel off. MIDI screen was removed. Changes and improvements from Protracker V1.0C to V1.1A: -------------------------------------------------------- General: - Protracker will now run if you have Kickstart 2.0 installed! (A500, A1000, A2000, A3000 etc...) - Protracker will also "Auto runback" when you start from CLI! There's no need to use the 'run' command. - Keyboard and mouse input is provided by an InputHandler with prior- ity 52. The handler will grab all RAWKEY and RAWMOUSE events from the input.device before they reach intuition. PT will no longer interfere with windows and gadgets on the intuition screen behind. - Keyboard buffer. Wow!!! Now you can play really fast, and PT won't miss a single key (...well, not as many as it used to before...). - The vertical blank interrupt no longer patches the vector itself, but uses the AddIntServer function. - The playroutine creates it's own CIA or VBLANK interrupt, and it will not be removed if a song is playing when you go to CLI/Workbench. - Text input routine changed a little. Use mouse to set pos and to exit. - Improved "Out of memory" handling (hopefully no more gurus...). - Only the first 2 bytes of a sample will be zeroed (were the first 4). - Lots of new keyboard commands/shortcuts using the Alt key. - Vibrato depth changed to be compatible with NT2.0. Double all your depth numbers if you load old protracker songs. - Funk Repeat changed to Invert Loop (may trash your samples though). - Play samples from the keypad (dot mode) when pressing backslash. Main Screen: - MIDI screen has been removed. Changed to sampler instead. MIDI input is still there, but there's no MIDI output. Sorry... - Quadrascope. Four channel oscilloscope that displays the samples in real-time, even when playing from keyboard. The good old spectrum analyzer is still there, just click on the scope to toggle. - Tempo gadget. Default is 125 BPM (normal vblank speed), but that can be changed if you select CIA timing on Setup2. Range is 32-255 BPM, and can also be changed with the 'F' effect command (speed/tempo). - Repeat and replen will be updated in the samples when you change them. You no longer have to press a key to hear the new loop. - Protracker should now be able to show up to 10/16 megs of freemem. - Error messages when PLST or Config not found. - Click to enter position, pattern and length with the keyboard. Disk Op.: - Choose RAW or IFF when saving samples. - Samples can be saved with IFF-loops. - Change path without reading directory. - All 30 characters in filename/directory stored (was 24). - Shows directories, just click to add directory to path. - Parent directory gadget. - One preset and several default paths for modules/songs/samples. - PT will now read an "unlimited" number of directory entries (was 200). Setup: - The only thing that's happened here is a small gadget labeled "2". Pressing it will put you in... Setup2: - 8 new on/off toggles. Override: Load/save sample from samplepath even if there's a path in the samplename. ST-37:bigbadbass with override will be loaded from DF0: (or whatever) instead of ST-37:. You may want to put all your samples in one big directory on your harddisk... NoSamples: Will load a song without asking for the samples. BlankZero: This will show the samplenumbers in the pattern in the same way as Noisetracker 1.2 (Zeros are blanked out). Show Dirs: If on, directories will be shown in Disk Op. Show Publ: If on, PT will show all free Public memory, otherwise just free Chip memory. CutToBuff: If on, the part of the sample cut away in the sample editor will be saved in the copybuffer. Load Loop: Will load loops from an IFF file when loading a sample, or adding a path in the sampleeditor. Slow Mode: Use this toggle if you have a 25 Mhz A3000 where every- thing is faster. Turning it on might help. - Set Default paths. - You can set the maximum number of presets (used to be 2500). - DMA wait. Use this on 25MHz Amigas (normally 300, use 900 on A3000). - Set tuning tone (note and volume). - Select CIA or VBlank timing. - Set default CIA tempo. - Spectrum Analyzer/VU-meter copper color editor! Preset Editor: - Use Preset removed, inserted Delete Disk instead. - You can now save Finetune instead of Volume in the PLST. - ST-disk number changed to hex (ST-00 --> ST-FF)! - Adding samples with IFF-loops to the presetlist is possible. - Proper PLST allocation. Protracker will no longer allocate any memory if there's no PLST. PLST: - ST-disk number changed to HEX. This means you can have up to $FF, or 255 ST-disks (used to be 99). Sampler/Sample Editor: - Sample Graphing like Audiomaster. With Show Range, Show All, Zoom Out, Range All, etc... - Play either Waveform, Display or Range. - Repeat points are shown, and can be dragged around. - Loop on/off toggle. - A line shows current position when playing back a sample. - A sampler just like on NT2.0. - Resample function w/tuning tone. - Cut, Copy and Paste functions. - Cursor to beginning/end. - Swap current sample with copybuffer. Edit Op.: 1 - Transpose All bug removed. 2 - Move changed to Copy (use this to copy samples too). 3 - Upsample changed a tiny bit (allocation). 3 - Most functions will now work with marked ranges. Bugfixes and changes from PT1.1A to PT2.0 ----------------------------------------- - Load gadget no longer hangs the program when trying to load a file that doesn't exist. - Better filehandling with error messages. - Repeat and replen check installed (Rel. A hanged when replen accidentally got the value zero). - Repeat and replen were swapped when loading an IFF sample. - Only RepLen values in IFF samples were added in the preset-editor. - Tune memory wasn't always updated when editing samples. - Swap Buffer debugged. - The arpeggio sounded weird because the pitch wasn't set back at the right time. - Shift speeds up the scrolling in the PLST and preset-editor. - Improved requester checking. - No more clicks when a sample has volume $40 and you set a low volume with the C command. - Volume will not be changed when resampling. Known bugs, errors, stupid things and other crap: ------------------------------------------------- - If you load a song or module that's not a proper ST-module, Protracker may trash the upper left of the screen and/or crash. This screen-trashing may also happen other times. Don't ask us why or when. There is really no proper way to check if a file is a module or song. We check for "M.K." at offset 1080, and if isn't found, Protracker asks if you want to load it with 31 samples, since it may be a Startrekker module, or a module where the 'M.K.' text has been changed. If you answer no, PT assumes it's an old 15 samples song/module. - There's something wrong with the spectrum analyzer. Sometimes the analyzer is cleared without the volume being set to zero. This creates "holes" which are pretty annoying to look at, but they disappear if you let the analyzer fall down to zero (stop the song). - If you format a disk with Protracker, it's possible to save files to the disk, but if you try to load the files you just saved, nothing comes up in the disk op. screen. If could be that the Amiga has some problems validating the disk, but there are no such messages. We'll have a look at the Format routine. - We're not sure that the MIDI input routines work at all... - You cannot have two presets with the same name on different ST-disks. If you send us bug reports, please describe the bugs properly, so that we can figure them out without too much trouble. State how, when and where the bug appeared, if it's there all the time, or just happened once. If you can tell us how to duplicate what you did to get the bug, it would be great. THEN we can try to eliminate it, ok? And now we will try to explain some common misunderstandings: -------------------------------------------------------------- > Look at this man! This new tracker's got a really mind-blowing equalizer! No, it doesn't. In fact we have never seen a single Amiga program with an equalizer. But VU-meters (Volume Unit that is) and Spectrum Analyzers are featured on most demos and soundtrackers. An equalizer is just like an tone control with cut/boost controls for each frequency range. Just take a look at your stereo, and maybe you'll find some sliders marked 125, 250, 500, 1k, 2k, 4k etc. That is an Graphic Equalizer. There are also Parametric Equalizers where you can change the center frequency and Q- factor (bandwidth) of each band, but they are usually found on mixer consoles and other equipment. Spectrum Analyzers shows the relative volume of each frequency band, but of course the Amiga cannot analyze the spectrum of the samples in real time, so it will will just show which notes you play. VU-meters are even simpler, they show the volume of the sound. But again, the Amiga cannot (it could, but it would take up a lot of time) show the real volume of the samples, so the VU-meter just pops up to the volume you have set for a sample, and falls back to zero. Not even the scopes will show the sample just as it is. They show 40 (or was it 48?) bytes of the sound, and will just "scroll" through the sample as it plays back. Besides, if you're so keen on calling them Equalizers, can't you at least spell it right....Equilisers.....ARRGGHH! > I have got all the ST sample disks. From ST-01 to ST-99. No you haven't. There are no standard set of 99 sample disks. You just name a disk ST-something, and copy all your samples to it. Wonga! You've got a new sample disk! If you really have 99 disks, we don't think it would hurt to throw away some of your least used samples. Who needs disks with aliased, untuned samples with 2k dead air in the beginning of each of them? No need to fill your harddisk with them either. Please tune your samples to C-2 or C-3 (use the resampling function), and cut away that ugly silence in the beginning... (BTW: Aliasing is something you get when recording a sample, NOT when you play it back.) > I really liked your PlayList editor! No you didn't. PLST is an abbreviation for PresetList!!! Things you want, that we don't want: ------------------------------------ > 8 Channels, like Startrekker and Oktalyzer. Nope! The Amiga has only got four real audiochannels, so in order to play eight channel music the CPU has to read the samples itself, and feed them to the four channels byte by byte. This will use most the available time, and you'll not be able to do anything else at the same time. Normally sample playback is done by DMA (Direct Memory Access), were the sampledata if fetched automatically from memory without the processor intervening. Things we want, but don't know how to do: ----------------------------------------- - Reverb... Hmmm... I know what it is, and I even have an Alesis Midiverb II Digital Effects Processor with reverb and other nice effects. But how do you create reverb on an Amiga? Well, first there is Direct Sound; that's just the original sample. Then there's Early Reflections, which is the first part of the reflected sound. It's just a few short delays with perhaps some lowpass filtering, and I have already solved that part of the problem. With long delays it sounds like echos, but shorter delays makes it sound more muddy, and in stereo, it spreads the sound image. But then there's reverb, which is sound that has reflected more than once. It could probably be implemented as a series of delays with feedback, plus some damping filters here and there, but the results so far has been dis- appointing. It sounds like resonant echos, or it overloads and clips the sample. Grrrr!!! So if you have a reverb algorithm or a book that explains how to do such things, please let me know. We will include it in the next version of PT. Some info on digital filters (how to calculate those damned coefficients) would be nice too (FIR & IIR filters). Things to come in newer versions: --------------------------------- - Synthetic sounds Yes, yes, yes!!! But how do you want it implemented? It would be nice if you could draw some examples and send them to us. Please don't send us a letter that just says: "I want it to be just like on <name of musicprogram>". Programs using synthetic sounds has usually envelopes, modulation, wavetables and other stuff for each instrument, while the tracker way to it is to set all that using effect commands. How should we combine the good old samples with the new synthetic sounds? We still haven't got all music programs for the Amiga, so if you have seen something great on any program that you want to have in PT, please send a disk with the program. We have most of the trackers, but not all the synthetic sound programs. - MIDI Look, boys (and girls). Protracker is not supposed to be a MIDI sequencer. It's a music program that you use to create music for demos, games, music disks or just to listen to on your Amiga. MIDI sequencers has got a much higher timing resolution and lots of tracks, while Protracker has 16ths and only four tracks. Some of you want to hear your music played on your synthesizers too, but the tracker was not really designed to do that. The MIDI screen on PT1.0A&B looked so promising, but we didn't have time to finish it. The MIDI functions will have to be coded some day, but we just don't know when that will be... In the mean time you can use the terrible NoiseTracker 2.0 (Oh no!). Amiga Freelancers are: Lars Hamre ==> ZAP Anders Hamre ==> The Mad Martian Rune Johnsrud ==> Quantarc Sven Vahsen ==> The Moose If you want to contact us for any reason (please do) write to: Lars & Anders Hamre / Amiga Freelancers Bekkeliveien 10 N-2010 STRØMMEN Norway Phone: (06) 817466 Or to: Rune Johnsrud / Amiga Freelancers Skogveien 16 N-2010 STRØMMEN Norway Phone: (06) 813850 You can also contact us at the Crusaders BBS, by writing a message to: ANDERS HAMRE, LARS HAMRE, RUNE JOHNSRUD or THE MOOSE. Phone Norway: +47-2-523819 or +47-2-524033 /* End of File */