Tracker module
As tracker modules , module files (English. Module File) modules or Mod files are called since the mid- 1980s to the present day music files with various software sequencers , so-called trackers ( SoundTracker , ProTracker , ModPlug Tracker , etc.) are created. These were particularly widespread with the Amiga and Atari ST home computers , later in the demo scene . Trackers for creating such module files as well as software for playing such module files are now available for practically all platforms , including mobile devices .
construction
A characteristic of tracker module formats ( Mod File Formats ) is that the music file contains a selection of digital samples , in contrast to, for example, MIDI files . These samples serve as the instruments of the piece of music. Playing the sample faster or slower will make it sound higher or lower; different notes can be played, the functional unit for this is called a sampler . The tracker module also contains a “playlist” (also: sequence list or track list, hence the name Track ermodule), which indicates which notes are to be played on which instruments and when . In addition, effects such as vibrato or “Volume Slide” can be defined, so the volume per track can be adjusted.
properties
The use of a single basic sample per instrument, the definition of all pitch and effect variations via instructions and the temporal definition via a sequence list can be viewed as a very effective coding in terms of information technology while avoiding almost all redundancies in a piece of music. Another important advantage is the ability to edit these music formats, which is no longer possible with linearized formats such as WAV, MP3 etc. The open accessibility of the original materials and the sequence programming in the tracker formats corresponds roughly to the open source concept for program code in terms of copyright .
The resulting small size with good quality of the piece of music is an advantage that was decisive in the development of these formats. At the time of home computers in the 1980s and 1990s, games were shipped on floppy disks that only offered between 700 KB and 1.4 MB of storage space. A complete game including several pieces of music in mod format, such as Pinball Dreams or Unreal, usually fit on such a disk . Even if space restrictions are playing less and less of a role these days, thanks to the steady growth in the size of data carriers and the spread of fast broadband network access, tracker formats for mobile devices with limited hardware equipment can still be the format of choice.
Mod player
The playback of tracker modules is done either directly with the tracker itself or, in the DOS and home computer era, also with specialized players that offer additional capabilities such as audio visualization, background playback capability (as a TSR program ) or playlist management ( Mod4Win ). Well-known DOS players were the InertiaPlayer and CubicPlayer, which were forerunners of the later all-purpose audio players like Winamp . The Winamp Player, which was genre-defining in the end of the 1990s, can play practically all known audio formats via a plug-in system, in addition to tracker formats and audio CDs, as well as the MP3 format that was just emerging at the time. In the 2000s, as computing power increased , videos were added to the range of capabilities, media players emerged, and pure audio players for tracker files have become rather uncommon. However, on inferior mobile devices or other exotic platforms, specialized tracker players have found a new refuge, for example the Game Boy Color .
Formats
Common formats are:
- MOD - the original module format of the protracker
- S3M - format of the scream tracker 3
- XM (Extended Module) - format of the Fasttracker II or the current Milky Tracker
- IT - format of the impulse tracker or the current schism tracker
- XRNS - modern, XML based format of the Renoise tracker
tracker
A technical overview of trackers for editing and creating new tracker modules can be found under List of trackers .
Web links
- Mod libraries
- Mod archive MOD archive with over 100,000 mods.
- amp.dascene.net - Downloads of Amiga mods (in English).
- Playback programs for various platforms
- XMMS , a Linux based media player (with plugin also mod)
- VLC Media Player , a well-known open source media player, also for other formats
- 8BitBoy , a flash mod player
- JavaMod , platform independent Java Mod player
- Mod4Win v2.4b , first Windows 3.1 mod player, for the first time a playlist
- ModPlug Player v1.46 , Windows Mod player with MOD-to-Wav converter (in English).
- stian.cubic.org , OpenCubic Player, a GPL licensed cross-platform mod player, DOS origins
- Inertia Player 1.22 , MS-DOS mod player written in assembler , popular in the demo scene, could be operated as a TSR program, complex audio visualization
Individual evidence
- ↑ Peter Kirn: MilkyTracker Pan-Platform Tracker Now Open Source, with New Features ( English ) In: Create Digital Music . March 14, 2008. Retrieved May 17, 2010.
- ↑ a b IGN Staff: Nanoloop - Game Boy Color Review . In: IGN . March 8, 2001. Archived from the original on April 28, 2009. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 14, 2010.
- ↑ Peter Kirn: Chibitracker on DS; Favorite Trackers on the Road? . In: Create Digital Music . April 11, 2008. Retrieved May 17, 2010.
- ↑ Andrew Leonard: Mod love ( English ) In: Salon.com . Salon Media Group. April 29, 1999. Retrieved May 17, 2010: " [Tracker musicians] ... see an affinity between the" seeing the music "aspect of tracking and the code accessibility of open-source software. […] Free music, free software, free advice. I think it's [the tracking scene] a close cousin of the Linux scene. The parallels are striking. "
- ↑ Information about IT files and unreal games - Alexander Brandon, epicgames.com (1999, English)
- ^ Andy Jones: From a Distance: The Virtual Collaboration that Helped Score The Sims 2 DS / GBA . In: Gamasutra . January 10, 2006. Retrieved May 16, 2010.
- ^ Claudio Matsuoka: Tracker History Graphing Project . helllabs.org. November 4, 2007. Retrieved January 29, 2011: " Tracker History Graph "
- ↑ Martin Walker: PC Music Freeware Roundup ( English ) In: Sound on Sound . July 2004. Retrieved on May 29, 2010: " When PCs first came of age for music making in the mid '90s, ScreamTracker was one of the first music software packages to appear with sample support, ... "
- ↑ Milky Tracker
- ↑ Schism Tracker ( Memento of the original from February 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
