Back to the roots -- this is the Real SoundTracker -------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.soundtracker.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------- v0.6.4 Written and (C) 1998-2001 by Michael Krause [ raw style ^ farbrausch & lego ] rawstyle@soundtracker.org, http://www.soundtracker.org/raw/ WHAT IS IT? ============ short answer: ------------- SoundTracker is a pattern-oriented music editor (similar to the DOS program 'FastTracker'). Samples are lined up on tracks and patterns which are then arranged to a song. Supported module formats are XM and MOD; the player code is the one from OpenCP. A basic sample recorder and editor is also included. long answer: ------------ If you've heard of ProTracker or FastTracker before, you will be familiar with the concept of 'SoundTracker'. The name of my program has been taken from the very first program of this type, which was written by Karsten Obarski for the Amiga in 1987. The basic concept is simple: you have a number of "sound samples", and you can arrange them on so-called "tracks". A track (or channel) can not play more than one sample at the same time. While the original Amiga trackers only provided four tracks (this was the hardware limit), trackers for PC's can mix a theoretically unlimited number of channels (typically up to 32) into one sound stream. A set of tracks which are played at the same time is called a "pattern". A pattern typically has 64 entries per track; these entries are cycled through at equidistant time intervals. A basic drum set could thus be arranged by putting a bass drum at entries 0, 4, 8, 12 etc. of one track and putting some hihat at entries 2, 6, 10, 14 etc. of a second track. Of course you can also interleave bass and hats on the same track, if the samples are short enough -- they can't overlap, otherwise the previous sample is stopped when the next one sets in. And to make this introduction complete: A "module" is a compact file containing various patterns and samples, including a "position list" which specifies playback order of the patterns, forming a "song". A word about file names: Original ProTracker modules are /prefixed/ with "mod." when they come from an Amiga -- ignorant PC users, however, shamelessly save PT-compatible modules with a ".MOD" /suffix/. FastTracker modules have the ".XM" suffix. These both are the most important module types out there and SoundTracker loads them both. USING ====== Note that some functions are only accessible using the keyboard. These are all important key combinations, mostly inspired by the great Amiga ProTracker (most alphanumeric keys are mapped to a piano keyboard): TRACK EDITOR ------------ Right Ctrl Play Song Right Alt Play Pattern Right WinMenu Key Just play current pattern row Space Stop Playing; edit mode on/off Escape Edit mode on/off without stopping playing Shift - Space Toggle "jazz edit" mode F1 ... F7 Change editing octave Left Ctrl-1 ... -8 Change jump value CrsrUp / Down Walk around in current pattern PgUp / Down Walk around in current pattern, quickly F9 Jump to position 0 F10 Jump to position L / 4 F11 Jump to position L / 2 F12 Jump to position 3 * L / 4 Ctrl + 1 ... 8 Change "jump" value CrsrLeft / Right Change pattern column and/or channel Tab Skip to same column in next channel Left Ctrl - CrsrLeft Previous Instrument (faster with Left Shift) Left Ctrl - CrsrRight Next Instrument (faster with Left Shift) Left Ctrl - CrsrDown Previous Sample (faster with Left Shift) Left Ctrl - CrsrUp Next Sample (faster with Left Shift) Left Alt - CrsrLeft Previous Pattern (faster with Left Shift) Left Alt - CrsrRight Next Pattern (faster with Left Shift) Left Ctrl - B Start marking a block (one track horizontally) Left Ctrl - C Copy block Left Ctrl - X Cut block Left Ctrl - V Paste block and advance to end Left Shift - F3 Cut track Left Shift - F4 Copy track Left Shift - F5 Paste track Left Alt - F3 Cut pattern Left Alt - F4 Copy pattern Left Alt - F5 Paste pattern Delete Clear part of the channel the cursor is over Shift - Delete Clear all of current track row Backspace Delete current position and pull rest of track upwards Insert Shift rest of track downwards and insert a row Any other keys Play notes on the keyboard. If SoundTracker is unable to configure the notes on your keyboard on its own, you must use the "Keyboard Configuration" dialog to set up your keyboard. In any case, there you will also have to configure the key that inserts the "key off" note into a pattrern. Some of the other short cuts can be changed in the usual GTK+ way - go to the relevant menu entry, put the mouse over it, and just before releasing the mouse button, hit the desired key combination! effects interpolation --------------------- Suppose you want to do a volume slide from C00 to C40 within 16 steps. What you do is, you enter the C00 effect at row 0, the C40 effect at row 15, mark the track from row 0 to 15, put the cursor into the effects column, and hit Ctrl-I. This key combo interpolates every supported effect between block start and block end. Supported at the moment are volume column and effect column volume slides, and volume column panning slides. A similar job is done by the "increment / decrement cmd value" functions found in the Edit / Track menu. Enter C40, go one row down (stay in the effects column) and hit Ctrl-minus ("decrement cmd value") to automatically insert a 3f there. INSTRUMENT EDITOR ----------------- In the Envelope editor, use Ctrl + middle mouse button in order to zoom in and out of the envelope. Use middle mouse button alone to pan the display. Use left mouse button to move and add points. SAMPLE EDITOR ------------- Hold Shift and use left / right mouse buttons to set the loop points in the sample display. REPORTING BUGS =============== If you want to report a bug, please check first if you are running the latest version of SoundTracker. If the bug is still present there, send a bug report to the soundtracker-discuss mailing list (see below) if you want feedback from other users, or send it to me directly (m.krause@tu-harburg.de). MORE DOCUMENTATION =================== I know that there's no documentation available as of yet. If you just want to know more about tracking in general, http://www.united-trackers.org/ has a lot of resources. SoundTracker still needs a detailed documentation. If you want to help out with this, you should become familiar with DocBook or similar SGML tools first. I'd like to have the documentation in a format that makes it easy to generate both printed output (read: "TeX") and online documentation. You may of course ask for help in the mailing list (see below)! MAILING LISTS ============= There are currently two mailing lists: * soundtracker-announce: -> http://mail1.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/soundtracker-announce This is a read-only, low-volume mailing-list in which I post announcements of new versions. * soundtracker-discuss: -> http://mail1.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/soundtracker-discuss A non-moderated list open for ST-related discussions of any kind, for both users and developers. Note that if you have joined `soundtracker-discuss', there's no need to join `soundtracker-announce', as I crosspost all the announcements to both lists. Once you have joined `soundtracker-discuss', you can send mails to the list by writing to `soundtracker-discuss@soundtracker.org'. CVS REPOSITORY ============== If you always want the latest and greatest, check out the current development status through CVS. So, if you want to give it a try (from SourceForge CVS howto): cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.soundtracker.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/soundtracker login After anonymously logging in: cvs -z8 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.soundtracker.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/soundtracker co soundtracker After the initial checkout, you can change into this directory and execute cvs commands without the -d option. For example: cvs update Watch the ChangeLog for detailed information about what has changed.