[rev.18]

The AHX plugin has been updated to rev.18 following the changes in HivelyTracker 1.8 player. Thanks Xeron.

Also dependencies on MSVC runtime DLLs have been removed.

(Note this is still not the Win98-friendly build. This is taking more effort than I expected...)

When opening archives with multiple files inside from an URL, then only one (first?) file is added to the playlist.

How could this skinning be made future-proof?

It cannot, that's why it's not skinned. Obviously I cannot speak for Ian, but I believe that skinning options windows same way as main XMPlay window is skinned would require major changes in XMPlay and a lot of work from Ripguy to draw all this stuff. Not to mention the pain to update the bitmaps every time a new option is added or changed. As tails_ noticed PsxGamer is just messing with resources again, so don't get your hopes.

It's not possible.

It's Farbrausch V2 synthesizer file.
http://www.1337haxorz.de/products.html

Thanks, I was not aware of this software. Can you try this, quanta?

In the meantime I'll try to recompile using mingw anyway. There's no reason to limit the plugin to WinXP or newer since there's hardly any Windows API in use there. Especially if XMPlay itself runs fine.

Though, good job on resource-hacking the Resource Hacker.

Ah, apparently MSVC 10.0 does not produce binaries compatible with Windows98 anymore.

I don't think just changing the minimum OS version number in the PE header will do the trick, so I'll probably need to rebuild this with mingw...

Please check if you are using the rev.17 update from 13 February (DLL version 0.0.17.1). The release from 11 February had a startup bug.

Just use MSVC 2010. It will get you started without installing additional stuff.

Just the C command has no processing and its parameter is written directly to the AUDxVOL registers.

This applies to all Soundtracker versions up to version 2.4 (2.5 had NoiseTracker 1.0 effects with this issue fixed). Since Soundtracker moved to "M.K." 31-sample format in 2.3 it's safe to say that all 15-sample MODs with C command are to be played like this.

It seems Blood Money is the only broken file left... Not only because of the bloody D00 command. The composer is using Cxx effect with parameters above $40. It sounds like XMPlay is clipping the volume to $40. This is not correct as Soundtrackers write this value directly to the volume register. The Amiga sound hardware ignores the most significant bit of the volume byte and just then the volume is clipped to $40 if still above.

Here's pattern 4, beginning of channel 4 (with the squeaky sound):

D-5.13...CDD
E-5.13...CCC
F-5.13...CCC
G-5.13...CCC
A-5.13...CBB
B-5.13...CBB
C-6.13...CBB
D-6.13...CAA
E-6.13...CAA
F-6.13...CAA
G-6.13...C99
A-6.13...C99
B-6.13...C99

Should actually be played like this (the squeaky sound is a little bit nicer now):

D-5.13...C40
E-5.13...C40
F-5.13...C40
G-5.13...C40
A-5.13...C3B
B-5.13...C3B
C-6.13...C3B
D-6.13...C2A
E-6.13...C2A
F-6.13...C2A
G-6.13...C19
A-6.13...C19
B-6.13...C19

This applies to Soundtracker MODs only. ProTracker clips the value to $40 before writing to the register.

http://amigadev.elowar.com/read/ADCD_2.1/Hardware_Manual_guide/node0017.html

[48,45 Hz]

After doing a bunch of comparisons, it appears that different Soundtracker versions have slightly different default tempos: those with a speed control (eg. Ultimate Soundtracker 1.8-2.0 & SoundTracker IX) are around 121 BPM while those without are 125 BPM, but the file header contains 120 in both cases. I'm not sure there is any way to be sure what the intended rate is when it's set to 120, but it probably won't be too disastrous if a file that was intended for 121 BPM gets played at 125 BPM. Here's an update that will at least use the lower tempo when it isn't set to 120...

You are correct! I've checked the playback code for some Soundtrackers and Ultimate Soundtracker 1.8 uses CIA timer for tempo and considers the tempo byte, but all others including Ultimate Soundtracker 1.21 (but excluding Soundtracker IX, since it was based on UST 1.8 ) use vertical blanking interrupt which is obviously not controllable.

For the record: since UST 1.8 and ST IX use the formula (240-tempo)*122 to feed the CIA timer register, for tempo byte of 120 it gives 14640, the equivalent of 709378,92Hz/14640 = ~ 48,45 Hz frames or ProTracker tempo ((709378,92Hz/50Hz)*125)/14640 = ~ 121,14. And all others have fixed tempo of 50Hz (ProTracker tempo 125).

Now I understand where do the insanely high BPM values shown by XMPlay come from.  

Yep, I'd hate that too ... I think Blood Money is unfortunately a lost cause. If someone wants to hear it played properly, they could load it into a tracker and remove the rogue "D00".

Do you happen to know a modern tracker able to save 15-sample Soundtracker MODs?  

Playing around with the famous echoing by banana, I noticed the hanging sample (sinecz) at the end. I wonder if there is a way to fix that, or if it's intended? There is also a 31-sample conversion of that tune floating around, and that one doesn't loop that sample at all.

I remember it sounding the same in some cracktro, so it was probably made this way. Too bad.

A possible heuristic would be: If there is an Dxx command and all following rows are empty, assume it's a pattern break, not a volume slide. What do you think about this?

Sounds reasonable.

jackdance.mod by Karsten Obarski has 0xy arpeggios, which is quite strange since you'd expect him to use his own tracker. Maybe this is just a bad conversion? Anyway, I'm going to interpret 0xy commands with xy > 0x03 as arpeggios as well for tunes like this one...

Especially if his tracker was hacked and cracked to make the other ST versions.  But that's definitely not a UST song.

Moreover module mod.dragonx from Bad_Dudes.lha plays at speed 267!

But does it sound OK?

The Soundtracker BPM/speed value is translated to a ProTracker equivalent BPM. At least, that's the intention.

Yes, surprisingly it does!

But this one seems to fast (BPM 384):
http://files.exotica.org.uk/?file=exotica/media%2Faudio%2FUnExoticA%2FGame%2FKelly_Dave%2FDragon_Spirit.lha
(mod.drag 10)
compare:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zt62OLHBwQ

But it may be a PAL/NTSC thing...? Are your calculations based on NTSC clocks?

Also the sample 10 (asia) is looped incorrectly (you can hear it playing at positions 16..18). Sounds like the loop start value is loaded as a number of words. As far as I know it's always byte-based in 15 sample mods, so no fancy checks are needed for this. OpenMPT has the same issue.

Also it would be cool if the General tab mentioned that a Soundtracker or Ultimate Soundtracker module is being played.

I guess all 15 sample MODs would have been created with some version of Soundtracker, or were there other trackers that used that format too?

No. I was just wondering if they still qualify as "Generic MODs".

This update also has another little tweak to the special Dxx/Exx processing: it will look for a series of Dxx/Exx before enabling that. The reasoning is that a lone Dxx is more likely to be a pattern break while a series of them is more likely to be a volume slide. Let me know if it trips up over anything.

That sounds logical, but Blood Money is broken again. I would hate to do it myself, but I think you'll have to hardcode an exception for this song...


Anyways, thanks for looking into this Soundtracker stuff. It's going well.

That D00 command is a probably a tracking mistake as blood money is a Soundtracker 2.0-2.2 Master Soundtracker song.

Since, in any Soundtracker, you cannot jump to a particular row with Dxx, notes after a Dxx command are never reachable, so there's no point to have them there. So, if there are notes after Dxx you can make a lucky guess that that command was not a pattern break after all.
 
How did you do it, Ian?

Edit: Since Dxx is neither volume slide nor pattern break this must be Master Soundtracker of course.

Thanks. This auto-slide stuff seems to be pretty hard to integrate into a ProTracker-like player. Damn!

Well, it is similar to 5xx and 6xx in ProTracker. Just opposite way.

Edit: So the E0F effects in sll17.3 are all useless, right?

Why? They seem legit. (I've updated the post, Exy also slides by itself.)

Edit: And automatically detecting the correct interpretation for the D00 effects in Blood Money might also involve black magic...

Behold black magic!

It doesn't include support for the Exx "auto-slide" effect (they will be ignored), but I don't think I've seen any files use that yet anyway.

sll17.3

The files below refuse to play or sound like garbage:
http://files.exotica.org.uk/?file=exotica/media%2Faudio%2FUnExoticA%2FGame%2FBaudlot_Jean%2FBad_Dudes.lha
http://files.exotica.org.uk/?file=exotica/media%2Faudio%2FUnExoticA%2FGame%2FBaudlot_Jean%2FBad_Dudes_Dragonninja.lha
http://files.exotica.org.uk/?file=exotica/media%2Faudio%2FUnExoticA%2FGame%2FBaudlot_Jean%2FOperation_Wolf.lha
This is because of non-existing pattern numbers present in the order table. I've double checked that these rips are correct. I don't know if this is specific to Soundtracker or to these games only. Can we have a mechanism that will scan patterns from the whole order table (as it is now) and only up to song length and then pick up the pattern count that matches?

Moreover module mod.dragonx from Bad_Dudes.lha plays at speed 267!

Also it would be cool if the General tab mentioned that a Soundtracker or Ultimate Soundtracker module is being played.

Set Speed F0x ingores high nibble (i.e. only speed 1..F are possible).

So the effect parameter should be ANDed with 0x0F?

Correct.

e: Volume Auto-Slide (Exy)

What's the difference between slides and "auto slides"?

Exy slides as Dxy and continues to slide with any other effect together until a command with parameter 00 is entered. E.g.

D-3 1 E01  // D01, autoslide set to D01: slide down
--- - 001  // 001 + D01: arpeggio + slide down
--- - 001  // 001 + D01: arpeggio + slide down
--- - 000  // no effect, autoslide cancelled
--- - 001  // 001: arpeggio only
--- - C20
--- - E10  // D10, autoslide set to D10: slide up
--- - 101  // 101 + D10: porta up + slide up
--- - 101  // 101 + D10: porta up + slide up
--- - F04  // F04 + D10: set speed to 4 + slide up
--- - 100  // no effect, autoslide cancelled

Autoslide appears to have no effect on Cxx. C00 cancels it though.

Another thing... MikMod mentions something like that calling e.g. 100 directly after a non-zero 1xx effect (same with 2xx/200) would enable portamento memory. Now we all know that ProTracker doesn't have portamento up/down memory. Is this simply an error in MikMod or is there indeed some kind of "previous row effect memory" for portamento in Soundtracker?

That doesn't seem to be true (just checked a few Soundtrackers ).

(Edited: autoslide actually works with any command not just arpeggio and portamento.)

http://amp.dascene.net/downmod.php?index=60836
Duration:
0:02 (XMPlay)
2:27 (DeliPlayer)

Seems like the D0F events in this file should be interpreted as A0F instead. I've also seen files with lots of E0F effects, maybe those are supposed to volume slides as well? I'd love to check this in WinUAE, but I can't get Soundtracker to run...

Yup, this is a Soundtracker III-VIII file with Dxx effect meaning volume slide not pattern break. Like these two:
http://files.exotica.org.uk/?file=exotica/media%2Faudio%2FUnExoticA%2FGame%2FNorrish_Ray%2FBlood_Money.lha
http://files.exotica.org.uk/?file=exotica/media%2Faudio%2FUnExoticA%2FGame%2FMindach_Olaf%2FTech.lha

Also, to run Soundtracker under WinUAE you'll need Kickstart 1.2.

[Ultimate Soundtracker 1.0-1.21 (K. Obarski)]

I see you have figured out most of the stuff!


Here are the 15-sample SoundTrackers revisions with their features listed (underlined changes) and below my old notes.
[there were also 31-sample SoundTrackers, but that's another story...]

Ultimate Soundtracker 1.0-1.21 (K. Obarski)
-----------------------------------------------
Tempo: constant 120
Samples size: up to 9998 bytes
Sample names: no disk name (i.e. no colon in sample name possible)
Effects:
1: Arpeggio (1xy)
2: Portamento (2xy)

Ultimate Soundtracker 1.8-2.0 (K. Obarski)
-----------------------------------------------
Tempo: variable
Sample size: up to 9998 bytes
Sample name: disk name st-xx: always present
Effects:
1: Arpeggio (1xy)
2: Portamento (2xy)

SoundTracker 2.0 (The Exterminator)
D.O.C. Sountracker II (Unknown/D.O.C.)
-----------------------------------------------
Tempo: constant 120
Sample size: up to 9998 bytes
Effects:
0: Arpeggio (1xy)
1: Portamento Down (1xx)
2: Portamento Up (2xx)
c: Set Volume (Cxx)
d: Volume Slide (Dxy)
e: Volume Auto-Slide (Exy)

Defjam Soundtracker III (Il Scuro/Defjam)
Alpha Flight SoundTracker IV (Alpha Flight)
D.O.C. SoundTracker IV (Unknown/D.O.C.)
D.O.C. SoundTracker VI (Unknown/D.O.C.)
-----------------------------------------------
Tempo: constant 120
Sample size: up to 9998 bytes
Effects:
0: Arpeggio (1xy)
1: Portamento Down (1xx)
2: Portamento Up (2xx)
c: Set Volume (Cxx)
d: Volume Slide (Dxy)
e: Volume Auto-Slide (Exy)
f: Set Speed (F0x)

D.O.C. SoundTracker IX (Unknown/D.O.C.)
-----------------------------------------------
Tempo: variable
Sample size: up to 9998 bytes
Sample name: disk name st-xx always present
Effects:
0: Arpeggio (1xy)
1: Portamento Down (1xx)
2: Portamento Up (2xx)
c: Set Volume (Cxx)
e: Set Filter (E00/E01)
f: Set Speed (F0x)

Master Soundtracker 1.0 (Tip/The New Masters)
-----------------------------------------------
Sample size: up to 32 KB
Tempo: always 120
Effects:
0: Arpeggio (1xy)
1: Portamento Down (1xx)
2: Portamento Up (2xx)
c: Set Volume (Cxx)
e: Set Filter (E00/E01)
f: Set Speed (F0x)

SoundTracker 2.0, 2.1, 2.2 (Unknown/D.O.C.)
-----------------------------------------------
Sample size: up to 32 KB
Tempo: always 120
Effects:
0: Arpeggio (1xy)
1: Portamento Down (1xx)
2: Portamento Up (2xx)
b: Position Jump (Bxx)
c: Set Volume (Cxx)
d: Pattern Break (D00)
e: Set Filter (E00/E01)
f: Set Speed (F0x)


Based on effects these can be sorted into 3 groups:
1. Ultimate Soundtracker 1.0-1.21 and Ultimate Soundtracker 1.8-2.0 have compatible effects.
- Arpeggio is 1xy (not 0xy)
- Portamento is 2xy (not 1xx and 2yy), works as 10y and 20x in Protracker.

2. Soundtracker 2.0, II, III, IV, IV, V, VI have compatible effects.
- Arpeggio and Portamento as in ProTracker
- Set Speed F0x ingores high nibble (i.e. only speed 1..F are possible).
- Volume Slide Dxy works as Axy in Protracker.
- Auto-Slide sets volume slide that will be executed together with following Arpeggios and Portamentos until x00 command is seen.

3. Soundtracker IX, Master Soundtracker and later Soundtracker 2.0-2.2 have compatible effects.
- Set Speed F0x ingores high nibble (i.e. only speed 1..F are possible).
- Volume Slide Dxx and Auto-Slide Exx removed, Position Jump Bxx and Pattern Break D00 introduced.
- Pattern break D00 ignores parameter (i.e. always jumps to begining of next pattern).

Common for all:
- Byte at 0x1D7 is always initial tempo (most commonly 120, not 125 as in Protracker)
- Only looped part of a sample is played.
- Loop start is stored in bytes not in words.
- Finetune byte is always 0.

By taking into account effects, their parameters, sample sizes, sample names, tempo byte at least lowest common denominator can be found (if not the correct format).

Edit: Obviously start of the loop is in bytes, not loop length.

Wow. This is cool! Thanks for the efforts to bring Soundtracker to XMPlay.

Saga, I'm afraid there's more to the game. I had this stuff figured out once. I'll go check...