The composer can define initial tempos and speeds provide envelopes to samples by assigning them to instruments set sample looping and apply automatic sample vibrato oscillation. It uses MOD effect command letters, plus a few of its own for more sound control. XM uses instrument-based panning – instrument numbers in patterns always reset the channel’s panning to the current sample's initial panning. It also added the ability to map several samples to the same instrument for multi-sampled instruments or drum sets. Open Cubic on DOSBox, playing a FastTracker 2 module called Dead Lock, composed by tracker musician Elwood in 1995 The FastTracker 2 format (.XM) With the XM format, FastTracker 2 introduced the concept of "instruments", which applied volume and panning envelopes to samples. It is also one of the few widespread formats that support both sample playback and realtime synthesis (through the OPL2 chip) at the same time. The ScreamTracker 3 format (.S3M) The Scream Tracker 3 S3M format added sample tuning (defining the exact frequency of the middle C for samples), increased the number of playback channels, made use of an extra column specifically for volume control (which was extended by other trackers to handle panning commands as well), and compressed pattern data for smaller file sizes. The AHX tracker requires Kickstart 2.0 and 2 Mb RAM memory. AHX is designed for music with chiptune sound. This results in very small audio files (AHX modules are typically 1k–4k in size), and a very characteristic sound. There are no samples in the module file, rather descriptions of how to synthesize the required sound. The AHX format (.AHX) This format is a synth-tracker. OctaMED was an eight-channel version of MED, which eventually evolved into OctaMED Soundstudio (which offers 128-channel sound, optional synth sounds, MIDI support and many other high-end features). MED was not a direct clone of SoundTracker, and had different features and file formats. The MED/OctaMED format (.MED) This format is very similar to sound/pro/noisetracker, but the way the data is stored is different. Songs that took full advantage of the 32 simultaneous channels were extremely taxing to typical computers of the era. The MultiTracker format (.MTM) Produced by American Demoscene group Renaissance, MultiTracker brought up to 32-channel sound to the PC tracker community. Later replayers have improved on the sound quality attainable from these modules by more demanding mixing technologies. The Oktalyzer format (.OKT) This was an early effort to bring eight-channel sound to the Amiga. Arguably one of the most widespread tracker formats (also due to its use in many computer games and demos), it is also one of the simplest to use, but also only provides few pattern commands to use. Later, variants of the MOD format that appeared on the Personal Computer extended the number of channels, added panning commands (the Amiga’s four hardware channels had a pre-defined stereo setup) and expanded the Amiga’s frequency limit, allowing for more octaves of notes to be supported. Ultimate SoundTracker was soon superseded by NoiseTracker and ProTracker, which allowed for more tracker commands (effects) and instruments. It was designed to use 4 channels and fifteen samples. A very basic version of this format (with only very few pattern commands and short samples supported) was introduced by Karsten Obarski’s Ultimate Soundtracker in 1987 for the Commodore Amiga. The MOD format (.MOD) The MOD format was the first file format for tracked music. Popular formats Įach module file format builds on concepts introduced in its predecessors. However, tracker music has the advantage of requiring very little CPU overhead for playback, and is executed in real-time. This is mostly due to effects that can be applied to the samples in the module file and how the authors of different players choose to implement them. And the song is built of a pattern list, that tells in what order these patterns shall be played in the song.Ī disadvantage of module files is that there is no real standard specification in how the modules should be played back properly, which may result in modules sounding slightly different in different players. The number of notes that can be played simultaneously depends on how many "tracks" there are per pattern. These patterns contain note numbers, instrument numbers, and controller messages. Module files store digitally recorded samples and several "patterns" or "pages" of music data in a form similar to that of a spreadsheet. 5 Software module file players and converters.
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