BCI NET 2/BCI NET 2.iso/archives/programming/source/tracker-4.13.lha/tracker/Docs/tracker.doc

Text File | 1995-02-09 | 8.3 KB | 217 lines

History:
-------
soundtracker was originally written by Karsten Obarsky for the amiga, a
loong time ago. There have been numerous variants built upon it, the
latest being protracker.

Liam Corner had the original idea of a player for the sunstation, and
proved that it was possible.
I wouldn't have thought of writing it myself, but armed with his original code,
I used my knowledge of the amiga tracker format to `add some improvements'.
Of course, I ended up rewriting the whole code. At that point, it ran on
silicon graphics indigos and suns.

Steve Haehnichen wrote a soundblaster variant of that program which I have
finally added to the other versions. I did not have any news from him for
sometime now, so I've decided to distribute it all. If it doesn't work as it is,
it shouldn't be difficult to fix.

Hannu Savolainen sent me the linux version and helped me put it up to date.
This one should work.

Bjoern Stabell and Markus Gyger sent me some support for hpux, Andrew Leahy
for decs.
Thomas R. Lawrence is still updating his port for the macintosh.

Dave Tiller sent me the fix for solaris 2.2

I finally got to port it BACK to the amiga. Full circle !
Cyrille Micheneau and Pascal Rullier have volunteered to help me with that.
Reinhard Katzmann succesfully compiled the preliminary release of tracker for
the amiga.

Some other people have helped me recently.
Mike Battersby sent me some interim bug-fixes for linux and a much better
design for the makefile.
Andrew A. Chernov is the guy behind the FreeBSD port.

Rolf Grossman ([e-mail]) did the NeXTstep port.

Many thanks also to Matthew Donaldson, Joerg-Cyril Hoehle and Lukas Wunner
for sending me very useful bug reports and giving us an ever better
sounding player !

Also, thanks to Loic Grenie, whose unix expertise I used extensively to
get bg/fg routines to `work' (remaining bugs are mine, of course).

There are obviously some people I may have forgotten or incorrectly cited in
this text. I hope this is not too dire a problem.

If you want to modify tracker or make it run on another machine, or correct
problems, please do so.
HOWEVER, IF YOU INTEND TO PORT IT TO ANOTHER MACHINE, I WOULD VERY MUCH
APPRECIATE THAT YOU CHECK UP WITH ME FIRST.
There just might already be a port in progress, or I might have a newer
version. Even so, I'd like to be able to maintain one source instead of
a bazillion of version. My e-mail is [e-mail], not liable to change
for some time.

PRELIMINARY
-----------
As I am a lazy person, this file tends to change more slowly than the tracker
program itself.  Some options may no longer exist, some may have been added.
Many things may be different.  I mainly try to get out a working, efficient
reasonably bug-free program.  If I manage to write corresponding docs, fine !
If I don't, tough luck ! Anyhow, looking at the source file should provide
you with enough insight for everything.
--

To build tracker, you should have a good look at the Makefile.
Usually, just changing the install dir, and machine, then
make install should be enough.  You may want to install tracker by hand,
as it is trivial.

tracker is a giftware program, it is not guaranteed to do anything
at all, either useful or useless. You've been warned, use it at your own risk.
This said, there doesn't seem to be any relevant bugs left in the current
revision of code, and it is getting more and more stable.

``Soundtracker'' is a family of music composition programs
that exists on the amiga. The resulting data files (modules)
have been appearing on ftp sites for some time now.

For a machine with sufficient horsepower and some audio capability,
it is possible to emulate the amiga audio hardware in real time,
and play those modules.
After that, you're only limited by the machine's capabilities. The
sparc is a bit poor (8Khz sampling), in contrast with the indigo,
which gives an almost perfect rendition of most modules.

This release of tracker supports most amiga soundtracker file formats,
and plays most of the existing effects, so that about 99% of the modules
are output correctly.

Here is some supplementary information.

Compression:
various compression methods are supported through pipes. There is a
simple-minded compression_methods file (check Makefile to see where you want
to install it). Its format is:
extension    command line in printf format.

For instance,
.gz    gzip -dc %s
(simple, isn't it ?)

Environment variables:
OVERSAMPLE can be used to control the accuracy of the reproduction.
(The number of samples used to output one audio word).
The higher, the better, but the more CPU it will use. The default
value (1) is quite good at high frequencies, but not so for, for instance
a poor sparc station's 8000 Hz. You can try, say, 2 or 3. After that,
there won't be any noticeable improvement, and anyway, the program won't
be fast enough to keep up with the output rate. Note that the program is
special-cased for the default value (1), which should be significantly faster
on some architectures.

FREQUENCY can be used to set the audio output at a specific frequency
(if the hardware supports it). The hardware will decide which frequency
to actually use, according to other external parameters.

MONO can be used to force mono output, which uses less
cpu power.

TRANSPOSE is the number of halftones to transpose each note (>0 is higher).
Useful for low frequency sparcs which can't play some tunes accurately, or
when you get bored...

MODPATH can be set to be a path where you wish to look for mod files. This
is a sh-styled path: setenv MODPATH dir1:dir2:...

Command line switches:
-stereo/-mono:
    switch between stereo/mono output
-mix <percent>:
    for stereo output, decide how to mix left/right channels.
    0 is spatial stereo, 100 is mono. The change tends to
    be exponential, so you may want to experiment with values
    around 90+.
-frequency <freq>:
    ask for a given output frequency (in kHz). The normal output frequency
    is a `normal' frequency for your machine. <freq> will be rounded
    to a near available value.
-oversample <n>:
    where n is usually 1, 2 or 3. Try to use 1,2 or 3 sample values
    to accurately render a given sample. Changing the frequency
    usually works better, but there might be cases where 2 or 3 gives
    you a better rendering for a given module. Big cpu-eater.
    0 is a special mode, called linear resampling. As a rule, if you have
    a sufficient output frequency, resampling is not really necessary.
-new/old/both:
    select a soundtracker format, between new (31 instr), old (15 instr)
    and both (auto-detect what's going on). You should only use it if
    tracker gets very confused on a module.
-picky:
    do not allow for any problems in a module.
-tolerant:
    allow for many problems that would normally stop a module
-repeats / -repeats <n>:
    repeat each module n times. With no value (or a 0), repeat the
    module forever.
-looping
    make the whole module list loop.
-verbose:
    show a sample listing for the module.
-scroll:
    scroll-display the module being played.
-color:
    use with terminals with color-ansi capability (e.g., kterm)
    to get a colorful scroll.
-sync:
    try to synchronize that scroll display with what you hear.
    Needs much cpu power to work correctly. Not implemented for many
    architectures.
-speed <n>:
    change the base tempo to n. The normal value is 50 (PAL video
    frequency). Some modules have been written on a buggy NTSC composer,
    so you may wish to use -speed 60. Weird values like -speed 10 or
    -speed 2000 are allowable.
    Note that the samples may sound a bit strange since you only change
    the tempo there.
-speedmode (normal|old|finefirst|normalfirst):
    compatibily hack for old soundtracker tunes and various variants.
-transpose <k>:
    transpose the song up k half-notes. Doesn't work all the time.
    Doesn't work right most of the time. For fun only. If k is
    negative, it obviously transposes the song down.
-start n:
    start the module at pattern number n instead of number 0

        Sample control:
        --------------
-cut 012...abcd:
    suppress samples from the audio output.
-add 012..abcd
    add samples to the audio output (exclusive with cut).


Runtime control:
    n: go to next song
    p: restart current song/go to previous song
    >: fast forward
    <: rewind
    S: NTSC tempo (60)
    s: PAL tempo (50)
    q
    x
    e: quit right away

Send bug reports to [e-mail],

encouragements and nice things to [e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail]
--

    Marc Espie, Paris, february 1995