Ah Trackers... I've personally used ScreamTracker, ImpulseTracker and OctaMED.

I love how accessible it is. You don't need to be able to play an instrument to create awesome tracker beats. I lack the dexterity to play a piano or guitar, but I've knocked up a handful of decent sounding MODs over the years. They're all gone now though, I was always too embarrassed to share them so over the years they just disappeared into time and space. 🙁

SquallStrife wrote:

Ah Trackers... I've personally used ScreamTracker, ImpulseTracker and OctaMED.

I love how accessible it is. You don't need to be able to play an instrument to create awesome tracker beats. I lack the dexterity to play a piano or guitar, but I've knocked up a handful of decent sounding MODs over the years. They're all gone now though, I was always too embarrassed to share them so over the years they just disappeared into time and space. :-(

Megazeux familiarized me with the idea of module music, though it wasn't until I was roughly 16ish that I finally obtained Scream Tracker and tried using it.

The very first tune I ever tracked was a remix of jingle bells that sounded... umm... "interpretive"... XD

Dunno if I still have it or not. My initial tracking skills were pretty lame, though switching up to Impulse Tracker really helped as it was so much easier to use, less prone to crashing, had more features, etc. etc. Roughly every two years or so I would discover a new trick, either with Impulse Tracker itself or just in terms of music composition in general, that would really help advance my skills.

Suffice to say, I've come a long way over the past 13 years. :)

I kinda want to learn more about composing orchestral music, but the software to produce such compositions without a real orchestra is VERY expensive, and that's just for the software itself, nevermind the instrument sets that need to go with it! x_x;

Looking forward to the music in Vectorzone.

That is some pretty nice music!
I would love to have your music in FLAC.

Qbix wrote:

Looking forward to the music in Vectorzone.

Same here.

@Gemini - you wrote:

I am planning on getting a music section up here on my website eventually. The tricky part is converting all the songs into MP3 format for easy listening as the IT format they're all created in isn't typically readable without special software, and worse still, the Impulse Tracker format has been butchered by ModPlug, so files composed in the original Impulse Tracker don't necessarily sound correct in software that uses ModPlug to render IT files, which is quite a few of them. x_x;

There's always Impulse Tracker's own .wav output driver - then again it's the only part of IT that has ever cost money (and its pirating eventually led to IT's demise). You might want to look into Schism Tracker, which is free; it's based on modplug, but the engine is heavily tweaked with the specific purpose of improving .IT compatibility - and it can write .wav, too. I find it good enough, for what it's worth.

to anyone interested in a modern tracker with an IT-like interface: do take a look at reViSiT. First developed as a VST plugin (for DAW usage), but v1.7 adds the capability of running stand-alone.

Or Winamp. Plays IT files natively, and includes a WAV writer output plugin.

yeah, Winamp's library is based on MikMod. I've used it for .wav output and it has been good enough for me - then again, I doubt it's been updated in ages and I haven't really tested how it handles all of the .IT format's peculiarities.

Most of my IT files are dumped from UT99, and they all sound flawless.

Including the famous Razorback by Skaven.

Though perhaps done in an older version of ImpulseTracker (from the comments):

(C) Skaven 1999

Composed for the Unreal Tournament
from Epic Megagames(R)

skaven@remedy.fi
http://isis.yok.utu.fi/~skaven

Made with Impulse Tracker 2.14. Probably

UT99 you say? Might find some similarities with this -- the only track I've ever landed on a game soundtrack thus far. 😁
It's at least 8 years old by now, and I'm not sure whether or not I'm particularly proud of this tune.... but Star Control II is still the best game ever.

Perhaps I should post my Wolf3D remixes somewhere, too? :hides:

I've tried a couple modern Impulse Tracker variants, but I don't like either of them for various reasons. Plus, I code my games using the Allegro Game Programming Libraries. Allegro5, which is the hardware accelerated version, uses the D.U.M.B. music system, which only properly supports IT files made in the original Impulse Tracker, so that's a big part of the reason why I've stuck with Impulse Tracker for so long.

As for getting the music saved into WAV format, that's no problem, especially with DOSBox's help. It's getting it into MP3 afterwards that's tricky. Yes, there's lots of software out there that can do it, but I've constantly run into problems with the free software that supposedly can and the rest costs money. Beyond that, I also run into problems with trying to properly set up the MP3's info tags.

🤣 I just use those "PC" 8-12 channel MOD files. MOD, because I can't compose worth shit, and I find the technical challenge of reproducing music in a limited format more interesting, learning new tricks as I try my best (kinda like modeling the Darkstalkers from a 2d form to a 3d model). So sadly, most of 'my' tunes are technically ports or covers by ear, with varying quality.

I used to start from transcribing FF4 music to mod files too, trying to give myself limits to not exceed 100kb. I only exceeded that size twice with two songs, but barely, and my module 'work' folder compresses well enough to fit on a floppy 😀

Winamp to the rescue again?

http://sourceforge.net/projects/out-lame/file … out-lame/1.6.4/

Just like the WAV writer plugin, but goes thru lame_enc.dll and gives you whatever quality MP3 files you choose. Highly configurable.

Getting the ID3 tags right is always going to be tricky for non-CD sources. You could always just stick the MP3s into Winamp and edit the tags manually.

Edit: Looks like the plugin includes a LAME DLL now. Even easier!

I wouldn't trust the WinAMP module playback support for one bit. I'd rather use foobar2000 + foo_dumb (and from there you'll be able to output to WAV as well)

leileilol wrote:

I wouldn't trust the WinAMP module playback support for one bit.

Explain.

Gemini000 wrote:

It's getting it into MP3 afterwards that's tricky. Yes, there's lots of software out there that can do it, but I've constantly run into problems with the free software that supposedly can and the rest costs money. Beyond that, I also run into problems with trying to properly set up the MP3's info tags.

LAME doesn't work for you? It's a pretty solid MP3 library and very widely used. It's LGPL licensed, so it's free. For editing tags, I use id3v2 which probably doesn't help you, but I'd be absolutely shocked if there isn't a simple windows tool to do it.

Actually, I think foobar2000 has a built in basic tag editor (foobar2000 is basically my favourite media player when I'm using windows)

The Gecko wrote:

I'd be absolutely shocked if there isn't a simple windows tool to do it.

There really is, I think Gemini isn't looking hard enough! 😉

SquallStrife wrote:

leileilol wrote:

I wouldn't trust the WinAMP module playback support for one bit.

Explain.

Screws up the panning of many songs, and adds lots of clicks to samples as well. Especially this one.

leileilol wrote:

SquallStrife wrote:

leileilol wrote:

I wouldn't trust the WinAMP module playback support for one bit.

Explain.

Screws up the panning of many songs, and adds lots of clicks to samples as well. Especially this one.

I've been listening to MODs in Winamp for years and literally never experienced that until that file you linked there.

It would be interesting to know the actual cause of the clicking. Because if it affects Winamp, it probably affects anything that uses MikMod for decoding.

Edit: Using the modplug plugin for Winamp, that module sounds correct.

No need for modplug... you can enable "micro volume-ramping" to avoid clicks (in the preferences for Winamp's in_mod.dll).

The Gecko wrote:

LAME doesn't work for you?

It works perfectly fine... so long as I'm making any other kind of file EXCEPT MP3s. >_>;;;

Or to be more specific, every program I have that can access LAME either won't for stupid reasons, or lacks MP3 export support.

Plus, I still have to worry about the tags.

I haven't used Winamp in awhile since I noticed discrepancies in its module playback, but that was ages ago, plus, playing back WAV files through it should sound perfectly fine...

...so... I have an idea:

1. Get Winamp.
2. Record my music as WAV the way I currently do.
3. Convert to MP3 using Winamp.

*shrugs* Worth a shot.