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Muse!2.txt
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1996-07-28
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Muse/2 V1.3 an Os/2 Digital Module Player
July 1996
This program is freeware, meaning it can be freely distrbuted so long as
no files are removed and none of the included files are altered in any way.
If you are going to rip portions of this document then please credit us.
Modules
~~~~~~~
A Module, in this sense, is a music file format that stores both digital
instruments and note information. Unlike MIDI files which are soly note
information and WAV files which are a single digital instrument. Modules
use a technique known as Wave Table Synthesis or Digital Mixing for play
back. A more advanced, but similar system is used in most of today's
synthesisers.
The result is a reproduction identical to what the origial author intended
and unlike a digitial recording the size does not grow very large for
long songs. A 30 minute song could easialy be a mear 300k. Almost all
of the space in a module file is used by the instruments.
Instruments in a module are fairly simple, an attack portion which is
used to simulate the striking of the instrument the sustain portion which
is used to simulate the way the instrument sounds if it is continuously
played and in some formats the decay portion which simulates the relase
sound. On a guitar each portion could sound similar to the following:
Attack - the fingers striking the strings
Sustain - The free vibration of the strings
Decay - the hand hitting the strings to stop the vibration
The note infomation is organized into channels, each channel can play
1 note at a time, so the more channels the more notes you can have at
once.
Unlike MIDI files which are played in hardware (ie with the FM chip on a
Sound Blaster) MOD files are played in software. The DAC (digital to
analog converter) on your sound board is used to play digital data which is
synthesised by the program. Some cards, like the Gravis UltraSound (GUS),
have a specialized chip onboard which does this same process, but in
hardware. Since the CPU must be used to generate the data to be played,
time is taken away from other programs in the system. OS/2's multitasking
allows you to do other things while the song is playing, but your system
will seem slightly slower. This is because data is being streamed to the
sound card at 44k/s (for 22kHz 8bit playback) and several threads are
running to manage this transfer.
Since the synthesis method basically generates the equivilant of a WAV
file, it has many characteristics of a WAV file, like Sampling Rate and
bit rate. Sampling rate and bit rate combine to determine how good the
resulting sound will be. CD's use a Sampling rate of 44KHz and a bit rate
of 16 bits, this is considered sufficiant to reproduce a wide range of
sound with good accuracy.
There are many different formats for modules, a quick list:
MOD - Original format, from the amiga which had a hardware chip to do
the synthesis. Many different formats for mods exist, ranging
from 4 to 32 channels
STM - Early predecessor to S3Ms, 4 channels, but several enhancements
on the MOD idea (Scream Tracker 2)
MTM - A refinement on mods, 32 channels and 16 bit samples are added
669 - Early multi channel module format, 8 channels and 9 commands.
S3M - A format that doesn't look very much like a mod (internally) but
works in much the same manner. Typicaly called Scream Tracker files.
16 channels
XM - Fast Tracker ][ Files, unique things such as envolopes and
an instrument/sample model are used in this format.
32 channels
ULT - UltraTracker, 32 channels, multiple effects, and better sample
definition
FAR - Farandole Composer files
32 channels
WOW - Very uncommon 8 channel MOD derivitive
IT - Impulse Tracker, this file format can have up to 256 channels,
and uses new note action (NNA) which is very much like MIDI.
Many of these songs require 64 channels to play.
IT2 - A more advanced version of the IT format.
Currently Muse/2 only supports all of the above formats
Some good FTP sites for S3M's are:
kosmic.wit.com /kosmic/songs
ftp.cdrom.com /demos/music/songs/199?/S3M
/demos/music/songs/199?/MTM
/demos/music/songs/199?/MOD
/demos/music/disks
If you don't have any, I recommend the following songs to get a good
feel of what MODs are.
Light techno style of music, excellent samples and fairly long songs:
ftp://kosmic.wit.com/kosmic/songs/95/k_macro.zip (241k)
ftp://kosmic.wit.com/kosmic/songs/95/k_2deep.zip (183k)
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/demos/music/disks/1996/t/theland.zip (900k)
The Land Series from Lord Blanka the Black
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/demos/music/songs/1995/mtm/p/potrm.zip (348k)
Techno style
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/demos/music/disks/1995/l/legacy.zip (1.4 Meg, Many songs)
Music Disk from Neophyte widely varied.
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/demos/music/disks/1995/f/f10_pck5.zip (1.7 Meg, Many songs)
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/demos/music/disks/1995/f/f10_pck6.zip (1.9 Meg, Many songs)
Music Disk from Force Ten, contains rock and jazz styles of music
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/demos/music/disks/1995/f/fm*
Music by FM (Five Musicians) Excellent Quality S3Ms
http://www.teleport.com/~smithtl/modpage/modpage.htm
The MOD page, lots of great stuff!
FTP sites people tell me about
ftp://solo.lhg.hib.no/pub/mods/composers/Skeletor
http://www.america.net/~friedmen/mod_file_links.html
http://www.watson.org/mods
Five Musicians
ftp.fm.org
New Site:
ftp://s3m.dfwmm.net (207.16.54.2)
-- Currently this site is being brought up, and as of this writing
has just suffered a hard drive crash
Muse/2
~~~~~~
Muse/2 is the first released OS/2 S3M player, it first appeared in the
Ethos Peripheral Evolution Demo, and had been in beta for at least 2
months before. This was during the summer of 1995, it played it's
first module about May 1995.
Installing
Installing Muse/2 is simple, the only thing you need to keep is
Muse2Txt.exe. Copy this file to a directory in the path and
you'll be able to easially play modules.
The REXX scripts included are not nescessary for the operation of the
program, but are handy to have around. See the section on the detaching
Muse.
You can test your sound setup by running,
c:\Muse!2\Muse2Txt -V
It will show:
Muse/2 Text Mode Interface V1.3 Ethos
Loading Components
Version Information:
Muse/2 Digital Mixer (museDACMixer) is Version 1.5
File Formats:
Composd Module (muse669Format) is Version 1.1
Farandole Module (museFARFormat) is Version 1.1
UltraTracker Module (museULTFormat) is Version 1.1
Impulse Tracker Module (museITFormat) is Version 1.0
Extended Module (museXMFormat) is Version 1.5
Scream Tracker 2.x Module (museSTMFormat) is Version 1.0
MultiTracker Module (museMTMFormat) is Version 1.1
Amiga Module (museMODFormat) is Version 1.1
WOW Module (museWOWFormat) is Version 1.0
Scream Tracker 3 Module (museS3MFormat) is Version 1.5
Output Methods:
.WAV File Ouput (museFileWAV) is Version 1.0
.AU File Ouput (museFileAU) is Version 1.0
.RAW File Ouput (museFileRAW) is Version 1.0
Gravis UltraSound (museGUSMixer) is Version 1.3 (Detected, Level=5)
DART Wave Output (museDACDART) is Version 1.5 (Detected, Level=2)
MMPM/2 Wave Output (museDACMMPM2) is Version 1.2 (Detected, Level=1)
During the generation of this list muse will detect what sound
hardware/software you have in your system. If you do not have a device
installed then it will show (Not Detected). Higher levels indicate a
better device, for inst