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Discussion GMS2 & Tracker music files (MOD, MID, IT, XM, S3M,...)

Hyomoto

Member
I don't believe so? But if it does, I'm going to look awful goofy for converting them to .wav files. However, there is nothing stopping you from doing what I did and export those files as .wav, then use GML to write yourself an audio engine that supports things like looping.

Just checked. .wav, .ogg. .mp3 and .wma
 

Khenshiro

Member
I don't believe so? But if it does, I'm going to look awful goofy for converting them to .wav files. However, there is nothing stopping you from doing what I did and export those files as .wav, then use GML to write yourself an audio engine that supports things like looping.

Just checked. .wav, .ogg. .mp3 and .wma
I already know all this but MP3 or OGG or WAV, WMA are too large files. When a tracker-music file need 140 ko, the same in mp3 files take 5 Mb and in Wav files , It's worse : 50Mb
It's just ridiculous to not be able to place tracker-files in a game instead of Wav, Ogg, MP3,... files


I'd love to have these.... but currently can't. You could actually write one of these in GML, it'd be a great extension! :)
...If I knew how to write that kind of extension, I would not have come to ask that question...
 

Juju

Member
It's just ridiculous to not be able to place tracker-files in a game
It's really not, and certainly not for a vanilla out-of-the-box engine; GM has never supported tracker files natively. There were a handful of DLLs available for previous versions of GM - search on the old forums and I'm sure something will turn up. You will need to do a modicum of porting I would imagine.
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
I always export them as OGGs (why support a proprietary non-open format, anyway?) but I agree that the lower filesize would be nice (especially on mobile platforms where it's actually an issue). It's possible to get around the looping issues with audio buffers, though... add the intro and two full loops to a buffer, then check the position each step... once it moves into the second loop, move it back [size of one loop]. If your songs are long enough, you'll never manage to finish the second loop no matter how long the delay between two steps are, letting you loop seamlessly.
 

Mick

Member
I have been experimenting a little with playback of tracker files through dlls. I have managed to get the lovely AHX (Abyss Highest eXperience for Amiga) format to work, also HivelyTracker and XM mods, maybe also some other ones, can't remember.

I used the assembly source code of the AHX player from about 1997 for the ahx dll, in the readme it said to ask for permission if used in commercial games, should try to track down the creators and ask if it can be freely used now almost 20 years later. :)
 
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CedSharp

Guest
@icuurd12b42 Made an FMOD wrapper for GameMaker Studio 1.4 and GameMaker 8.1.
Link to the post on the GMC forums

It supports any music filetype that isn't DRM copyrighted.
It does usual .wav .ogg etc, but also MOD files .mod, .it, .xm, and even midi files!
Hopefully this is still relevant, I didn't test it in GMS2.
 
T

thaaks

Guest
I would guess Mike meant that you could write a complete tracker player in GML.
Basically you have binary file operations that allow you to read the tracker file. You can use buffers to store the samples, instruments and pattern data. Use that and the audio functions that allow you to play sound from buffers.
Not sure if the audio functions allow you to reproduce all those effects and so on.
But it would be a start. All in GML, cross platform (in theory ;)).
 

Khenshiro

Member
@icuurd12b42 Made an FMOD wrapper for GameMaker Studio 1.4 and GameMaker 8.1.
Link to the post on the GMC forums

It supports any music filetype that isn't DRM copyrighted.
It does usual .wav .ogg etc, but also MOD files .mod, .it, .xm, and even midi files!
Hopefully this is still relevant, I didn't test it in GMS2.
Thanks. but the use of DLL does not means it work only with Windows platrofm?

I would guess Mike meant that you could write a complete tracker player in GML.
Basically you have binary file operations that allow you to read the tracker file. You can use buffers to store the samples, instruments and pattern data. Use that and the audio functions that allow you to play sound from buffers.
Not sure if the audio functions allow you to reproduce all those effects and so on.
But it would be a start. All in GML, cross platform (in theory ;)).
Yes, that's what I understood ... I'm far from good enough to program this ...

(Deep sadness...)
 
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CedSharp

Guest
Wow, I feel stupid.
Ofc it's a DLL so it means only windows.

My bad, guess I was tired that night haha.
 

MilesThatch

Member
I don't understand why there is still demand for midi type file format for simple audio playback purposes in game dev. MIDI and files alike are hardware dependent and thus the type of an audio card will determine the type of sound the audio card will playback as some are outfitted with different GM chips like SAM2195 or Yamaha YMF262 that were outfitted on the soundblaster soundcards (Although would be much easier to emulate in this day and age). If you want to get that old midi score sound for a style purpose, there's plenty of GM (General Midi) vst sound libraries out there that you can use. MIDI is a data type format, it's purpose is first and foremost to communicate with hardware than general palyback

And ogg files can be as low as 400kb-600kb for a decent 5 min soundtrack if you setup your sample rate and resolution right on export.
 
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CedSharp

Guest
I don't understand why there is still demand for midi type file format for simple audio playback purposes in game dev. MIDI and files alike are hardware dependent and thus the type of an audio card will determine the type of sound the audio card will playback as some are outfitted with different GM chips like SAM2195 or Yamaha YMF262 that were outfitted on the soundblaster soundcards (Although would be much easier to emulate in this day and age). If you want to get that old midi score sound for a style purpose, there's plenty of GM (General Midi) vst sound libraries out there that you can use. MIDI is a data type format, it's purpose is first and foremost to communicate with hardware than general palyback

And ogg files can be as low as 400kb-600kb for a decent 5 min soundtrack if you setup your sample rate and resolution right on export.
He isn't asking for Midi files, he's asking for module files.

A module file has samples ( generally in wav format ) and a track with information on how to loop those samples, when to play them, how long, adding effects, etc.
Every single computer in the world should play a module file the same way, the only difference would be how they apply effects like reverb, echo, phasing, etc.
 
I don't understand why there is still demand for midi type file format for simple audio playback purposes in game dev. MIDI and files alike are hardware dependent and thus the type of an audio card will determine the type of sound the audio card will playback as some are outfitted with different GM chips like SAM2195 or Yamaha YMF262 that were outfitted on the soundblaster soundcards (Although would be much easier to emulate in this day and age). If you want to get that old midi score sound for a style purpose, there's plenty of GM (General Midi) vst sound libraries out there that you can use. MIDI is a data type format, it's purpose is first and foremost to communicate with hardware than general palyback

And ogg files can be as low as 400kb-600kb for a decent 5 min soundtrack if you setup your sample rate and resolution right on export.
Midi just holds the performance data. We want to include our own instruments, obviously. You can fit 10 hours of music in 3mb with midi work.
 

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
It's just ridiculous to not be able to place tracker-files in a game instead of Wav, Ogg, MP3,... files
Rubbish. These are old, dated formats and while I (being the pathetic retro boy that I am) love them, they are far from a requirement for any modern engine. Ogg and Wav will be the normal formats used.

Midi is horrible, I wouldn't go near it.

MOD (tracker..whatever) is okay, and I would love to see one, but its miles down our list. You can write one in GML, using audio buffers to build samples dynamically on the fly. While a lot of work, it's not a massive amount I don't think. It would also work completely cross platform, including HTML5.
 

csanyk

Member
I haven't done much with audio as far as playing music goes in my GMS projects, but I have always wanted to be able to do more with programmatic audio. Being able to play music that is defined at runtime would be such a great capability to have. For example, a game like Electroplankton or Korg DS-10 would be really hard to make in GMS, at least based on what I understand about the audio capabilities of the audio engine.
 

Khenshiro

Member
@ Mike: The MIDI format really makes a good quality! Even it is true that, depending on the machine, the sounds are diferent,
The first games used the Adlib format and machine sound banck, which is the old MID format
And the sound was really nice! Watch the nintendo Nes or SEGA Master system ... with very little resources and volume, the music was awesome!

But to return to the generaly tracker format:
I hope that the Yoyo GMS team will integrate this option for music tracker format because it would be extremely useful!
 
Rubbish. These are old, dated formats and while I (being the pathetic retro boy that I am) love them, they are far from a requirement for any modern engine. Ogg and Wav will be the normal formats used.

Midi is horrible, I wouldn't go near it.

MOD (tracker..whatever) is okay, and I would love to see one, but its miles down our list. You can write one in GML, using audio buffers to build samples dynamically on the fly. While a lot of work, it's not a massive amount I don't think. It would also work completely cross platform, including HTML5.
Yeah, midi is such outdated trash. What kind of 💩💩💩💩ty company/games would still make use of midi music? It's not like every digital instrument/DAW on the planet has been using midi for the last thirty years... Oh, wait. :p

Of course, we'd need instrument support, too, lol. I'm probably being pedantic, here, haha.

Anyway, it'd be nice to be able to control music dynamically, yeah. I can mostly get by fine with just oggs too though, probably.

Edit: Also, god damn, the Galaxy games are gorgeous. Still incredible to me Nintendo pulled this kind of thing off on the Wii. Beautiful games!
 
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Gradius

Member
@Rich: Console games have traditionally had support for custom samples that a PC midi file doesn't. They'll almost always sound miles better. Also no non-handheld past the Wii uses them in lieu of pre-recorded music, and even the game you showed actually had a full orchestra (both Galaxy games - so I assume the music was either a rough draft or from some DS version).
 

nesrocks

Member
I was using the fmod extension on the 1.4 project. When I imported the project to GM 2.0 it threw a bunch of errors. At one point it did play the music, but the extension was so buggy under GM 2.0 that I reluctantly removed it from the project altogether.
MOD files have advantages and disadvantages compared to wav or ogg. Being able to choose to use them would be welcome. But extensions are currently not supported in GM 2.0, right? So there's no way, even if we wanted to?
 
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CedSharp

Guest
I was using the fmod extension on the 1.4 project. When I imported the project to GM 2.0 it threw a bunch of errors. At one point it did play the music, but the extension was so buggy under GM 2.0 that I reluctantly removed it from the project altogether.
MOD files have advantages and disadvantages compared to wav or ogg. Being able to choose to use them would be welcome. But extensions are currently not supported in GM 2.0, right? So there's no way, even if we wanted to?
In the beta, it doesn't seem to be available... yet :p
 
@Rich: Console games have traditionally had support for custom samples that a PC midi file doesn't. They'll almost always sound miles better. Also no non-handheld past the Wii uses them in lieu of pre-recorded music, and even the game you showed actually had a full orchestra (both Galaxy games - so I assume the music was either a rough draft or from some DS version).
I don't think you understand what midi is. Midi is just the data for the performance. The sound you get out of it depends on the samples you dump into it. It has nothing to do with PC or console. Yes, Galaxy ended up using a full orchestra for its music, but they still found midi fine for their promotional materials. And I don't have access to a full orchestra, do you?

Behold, more midi music:

Since all I'm doing for my game is recording midi music through my DAW anyway, it'd definitely be cool to see midi support in GM, so we could do little tricks with our music. Anyone who says "lol midi is OLD" doesn't know what midi is. It's still the industry standard for instrument communication and performance data. 90% of the top tracks on the radio today are probably using midi somewhere in their production chain.

Also:
@Rich: Also no non-handheld past the Wii uses them in lieu of pre-recorded music

lol. First game I thought to try. I'm sure I could find a bunch more with a little effort, since most games that aren't paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to stable an orchestra will be using midi. Sure, this is probably an mp3 of a midi song, since they have no reason not to record it if they're not doing anything dynamically with the music, but still, calling midi outdated is crazy, hahah!
 
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gnysek

Member
I know games, that were using MIDI files, but were rendering sound using better samples than default MIDI ones (lot of PS One games). So they really used MIDI for music notes reading, and game was performing sound like orchestra ;)
 
I know games, that were using MIDI files, but were rendering sound using better samples than default MIDI ones (lot of PS One games). So they really used MIDI for music notes reading, and game was performing sound like orchestra ;)
That's what I keep saying. Midi is only used for note reading. Midi holds no sound data. Midi is only used to tell your instruments how to play. Midi can sound however you want it to.

Also, there is no "default" midi sound, because MIDI HOLDS NO SOUND DATA, AND NEVER DID OR WILL.
 
J

jessieweidig

Guest
While we are talking about MOD and MIDI support... I'd love to see some support for CMF and ROL, too. :D Man I miss that AdLib sound.
 

hippyman

Member
That's what I keep saying. Midi is only used for note reading. Midi holds no sound data. Midi is only used to tell your instruments how to play. Midi can sound however you want it to.

Also, there is no "default" midi sound, because MIDI HOLDS NO SOUND DATA, AND NEVER DID OR WILL.
 
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CedSharp

Guest
I sudently get a feel of DS applications like Rytmilk and Korg-M10.
You got a library of custom sounds, and a track where you can place notes.
Tiny, epic music has been made from them, etc.

I'll take a shot at making a mod player this weekend.
Can't say I'll have something decent, but my curiosity is now so high :D

NOTE
I definitly wish that GameMaker would integrate sound loop editor.
Just a simple drag n drop of a "start" and "end" position handles, and
option to switch between forward loop and ping-pong loop ( or no loop at all ).
 

hippyman

Member
I can only repeat myself so many times before the bold text comes out, hippy. :p
No worries haha! I probably would have gotten frustrated also.


I sudently get a feel of DS applications like Rytmilk and Korg-M10.
You got a library of custom sounds, and a track where you can place notes.
Tiny, epic music has been made from them, etc.

I'll take a shot at making a mod player this weekend.
Can't say I'll have something decent, but my curiosity is now so high :D


NOTE
I definitly wish that GameMaker would integrate sound loop editor.
Just a simple drag n drop of a "start" and "end" position handles, and
option to switch between forward loop and ping-pong loop ( or no loop at all ).
That would definitely be neat and probably fairly simple for a basic tracker.

...............BUT...................

The reason YYG will never add something simple like what you suggested is because their philosophy is, "if it's easy to make with GML, we won't add it".
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
I sudently get a feel of DS applications like Rytmilk and Korg-M10.
You got a library of custom sounds, and a track where you can place notes.
Tiny, epic music has been made from them, etc.

I'll take a shot at making a mod player this weekend.
Can't say I'll have something decent, but my curiosity is now so high :D

NOTE
I definitly wish that GameMaker would integrate sound loop editor.
Just a simple drag n drop of a "start" and "end" position handles, and
option to switch between forward loop and ping-pong loop ( or no loop at all ).
Sounds like an interesting project, I'll stay tuned for that :3

I did some googling, and I found a MOD format specification that might be interesting... this appears to be the latest revision, no.4.
https://www.aes.id.au/modformat.html
 
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CedSharp

Guest
Very honestly, for me, it is not simple at all...
Simple in the sense that it is "feasible" and that it doesn't require "hacking" game maker in order to make it work.
It's simple because you "just" need GML to add it to your game :p
 
Simple in the sense that it is "feasible" and that it doesn't require "hacking" game maker in order to make it work.
It's simple because you "just" need GML to add it to your game :p
I'm pretty sure we need more than GML to be able to correctly read and work with midi files, though. Hope Yoyo gets on it sometime, but seems doubtful.
 

hippyman

Member
I'm pretty sure we need more than GML to be able to correctly read and work with midi files, though. Hope Yoyo gets on it sometime, but seems doubtful.
Actually you really don't. Yesterday I made an external WAV file importer. I've also created a synthesizer generator before with GML. GM:S has just about everything you would need. It's just not a one function thing. Learn the midi format, open the midi file as a binary file and parse it to generate the in game midi data. Now sure, you might run into speed issues with the heavier processes, but you can also compile it with YYC, there's a good chance it will speed it up a bit.

Proof for the naysayers :)
Synth Framework - Super basic, but can generate sequences, chords, and different wave types (sine, square, triangle, etc)
WAV Import - Imports external WAV files into your game. Again super basic, but shows functionality.

You can do pretty much anything with GML alone. Somebody else on the marketplace made a full-fledged native GML video player. I have plans on speeding up my WAV import process and adding support for OGG files. That one will definitely be tough since there doesn't seem to be as much documentation on it as there was for WAV files.
 
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Actually you really don't. Yesterday I made an external WAV file importer. I've also created a synthesizer generator before with GML. GM:S has just about everything you would need. It's just not a one function thing. Learn the midi format, open the midi file as a binary file and parse it to generate the in game midi data. Now sure, you might run into speed issues with the heavier processes, but you can also compile it with YYC, there's a good chance it will speed it up a bit.
I'd love to see an example from you, or anyone else, then. In another thread, people were complaining that it wasn't even possible to get songs to branch and loop perfectly (or something similar), and the staff agreed that GM needed some changes to its audio engine. I find it hard to believe that GML could adequately tackle the complicated MIDI standard when people are complaining about much more basic things GML lacks for sound. Everyone around here says things like "well, you COULD make Assassin's Creed VII in GM if you were good enough!" or "you could handle complex audio formats with GML!" constantly, but nobody ever does. Instead, we always get "here's a super basic example of one facet of the task you want to do kind of working! See??" We don't even have access to simple sound panning anymore, do we? What am I supposed to do, have a bunch of emitters flying around my room to get a decent sound-scape going? I'm sure any MIDI player made in GML would be hacky, half-assed garbage, if anyone could even get one working.

So sure. Maybe it's possible to kinda sorta get these sorts of things working in GML, if I spend the next year and a half researching and doing it. And then maybe I'll be happy with my implementation, if GM doesn't get in my way. Spending over a year to get boilerplate functionality half-working isn't why I use a third party game engine, though. Which is why I'm petitioning for MIDI support in this thread, hahah! =)
 

hippyman

Member
people were complaining that it wasn't even possible to get songs to branch and loop perfectly (or something similar), and the staff agreed that GM needed some changes to its audio engine.
There's literally a set of functions for synchronizing music on a per sample level. I am interested in seeing this thread so I can see what the staff said. I'm always interested in learning more about the audio engine.


I find it hard to believe that GML could adequately tackle the complicated MIDI standard when people are complaining about much more basic things GML lacks for sound.
There's a good amount of documentation and I am pretty bored so I think I could accept that challenge.
And weren't you the one going crazy about the fact that MIDI has nothing to do with sound?? :confused:

We don't even have access to simple sound panning anymore, do we? What am I supposed to do, have a bunch of emitters flying around my room to get a decent sound-scape going?
You act like this is a DAW and not a Game Engine. Emitters allow panning just fine. But they allow for much more advanced panning based on spatial data vs just a knob. If you wanted simple LR panning you can just pop a listener in the center of the room and keep all the z values at 0. Then you move to the left, it pans to the left and vice versa. Really simple stuff.


I'm sure any MIDI player made in GML would be hacky, half-assed garbage, if anyone could even get one working.
Well that's not very nice. :(



In all seriousness, I'll take a stab at this just because it sounds like a blast. But when you have Mike Dailly personally saying...
Midi is horrible, I wouldn't go near it.
I wouldn't get my hopes up for in-house support.
 
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YellowAfterlife

ᴏɴʟɪɴᴇ ᴍᴜʟᴛɪᴘʟᴀʏᴇʀ
Forum Staff
Moderator
Instead, we always get "here's a super basic example of one facet of the task you want to do kind of working! See??"
Because complete implementations for complex formats take a lot of time and most often people asking for such things aren't usually willing to pay someone to get them "here and right now".

In general, GameMaker's sound buffers are very much equivalent to "sound sampling" API in Flash/AS3, meaning that you could port quite a number of things from that, provided that you are determined enough and understand syntax.
 

Mick

Member
There's a good amount of documentation and I am pretty bored so I think I could accept that challenge.
And weren't you the one going crazy about the fact that MIDI has nothing to do with sound?? :confused:
MIDI has nothing to do with sound like RichHopelessComposer says but please hippyman put your energy into experimenting with MOD or XM files, this would be much more useful. :)

The title of this post says tracker files, midi is not a tracker format, all the other ones are.
 
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MIDI has nothing to do with sound like RichHopelessComposer says but please hippyman put your energy into experimenting with MOD or XM files, this would be much more useful. :)

The title of this post says tracker files, midi is not a tracker format, all the other ones are.
Thanks for backing me up there, but why do you think mod would be more useful than midi? Every digital instrument and professional composition software/DAW out there still use MIDI, while only weird little demoscene programs still use mod, as far as I know...

Not that I don't like trackers - I do! I'd just never compose in one over Cubase or Pro Logic or Reaper or Finale or whatever...
Because complete implementations for complex formats take a lot of time and most often people asking for such things aren't usually willing to pay someone to get them "here and right now".
Of course. That doesn't explain why all the 3D enthusiasts here who swear GM is capable of Unreal level stuff have never put anything out that looks better than a ps2 game, though. There's a difference between "possible" and "feasible," which a lot of people here don't understand when they talk about what's possible in GM. Like I said, I'd love to have MIDI support for my game, but the few cool tricks I'd pull off with it aren't worth doubling my dev time on my project, hahah. :'D

There's literally a set of functions for synchronizing music on a per sample level. I am interested in seeing this thread so I can see what the staff said. I'm always interested in learning more about the audio engine.
Maybe I'll try to dig for it later. It was from like a month and a half ago, though, so don't hold your breath. ):
There's a good amount of documentation and I am pretty bored so I think I could accept that challenge.
And weren't you the one going crazy about the fact that MIDI has nothing to do with sound?? :confused:
Don't make me take out the bold text again. Obviously midi controls panning, attack, volume, and all those other effects. :p
You act like this is a DAW and not a Game Engine. Emitters allow panning just fine. But they allow for much more advanced panning based on spatial data vs just a knob. If you wanted simple LR panning you can just pop a listener in the center of the room and keep all the z values at 0. Then you move to the left, it pans to the left and vice versa. Really simple stuff.
Sure, and when we have ten instruments, we can set up and take down ten emitters and assign them all to instruments whenever a new song plays. You're right that it's not impossible or anything, but it'd be a pain to set up. You'd be converting midi signals to screen-space positions for something as simple as panning. And this is the simplest example I could think of. I promise it'd get real hacky, real fast.
Well that's not very nice. :(
I believe in our programmers here. I don't believe GM is capable of handling MIDI/VSTi out of the box.
In all seriousness, I'll take a stab at this just because it sounds like a blast. But when you have Mike Dailly personally saying...
Like I said, I'd love to be proven wrong. I don't think Mike even knows what MIDI is if he's calling it "terrible" while singing the praises of .mod files.
 
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hippyman

Member
MIDI has nothing to do with sound like RichHopelessComposer says but please hippyman put your energy into experimenting with MOD or XM files, this would be much more useful. :)

The title of this post says tracker files, midi is not a tracker format, all the other ones are.
Well I mean I can look into it, but personally, I've always hated trackers. They're so counter-intuitive. I don't see how people are patient enough to use them. haha That's just me though. I know that there really is a pretty wide love for these things.

Thanks for backing me up there, but why do you think mod would be more useful than midi? Every digital instrument and professional composition software/DAW out there still use MIDI, while only weird little demoscene programs still use mod, as far as I know...

Not that I don't like trackers - I do! I'd just never compose in one over Cubase or Pro Logic or Reaper or Finale or whatever...
I'm with RichHopelessComposer on this one. I use MIDI for every song I make. Now something I would REALLY love to do is make an extension that brings VST support to GM:S. Could you imagine the possibilities?!

I'm kind of going off topic here....
 
Well I mean I can look into it, but personally, I've always hated trackers. They're so counter-intuitive. I don't see how people are patient enough to use them. haha That's just me though. I know that there really is a pretty wide love for these things.



I'm with RichHopelessComposer on this one. I use MIDI for every song I make. Now something I would REALLY love to do is make an extension that brings VST support to GM:S. Could you imagine the possibilities?!

I'm kind of going off topic here....
Yes, we'd need instrument support too if we got MIDI support, otherwise there wouldn't be much point, hahah. X'D
No, I don't think we'll ever get support for either, considering it took over three years for YoYo to fix GMS' broken room editor, and there are still many more things GM needs fixed that will be appreciated more by YoYo's main audience.
Editing last post to answer yours. =)
Edit: Edited my last post, lol.
 
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Mick

Member
Thanks for backing me up there, but why do you think mod would be more useful than midi? Every digital instrument and professional composition software/DAW out there still use MIDI, while only weird little demoscene programs still use mod, as far as I know...
Maybe you are right, it was just a gut feel that more people could use tracker files. Having midi support would require another system to assign samples to instruments etc. while tracker files are all-in-one packages.
 
Maybe you are right, it was just a gut feel that more people could use tracker files. Having midi support would require another system to assign samples to instruments etc. while tracker files are all-in-one packages.
Yeah, which is what I'd like....MIDI/VSTi support. Like I said though, it'll never happen, hahah. .mod support is probably a lot easier to implement...
 

Mick

Member
Well I mean I can look into it, but personally, I've always hated trackers. They're so counter-intuitive. I don't see how people are patient enough to use them. haha That's just me though. I know that there really is a pretty wide love for these things.
I would find use for both midi and tracker file support, experiment with what you feel like, I would love to see what can be done in GMS with midi or tracker music. :)

The thing I like about using trackers is the limitations, I feel more creative when being forced to make the best of limitations.
 

hippyman

Member
Yeah, which is what I'd like....MIDI/VSTi support. Like I said though, it'll never happen, hahah. .mod support is probably a lot easier to implement...
Midi could be handled natively but VST support is guaranteed to be a DLL. It would also kind of suck since GM games are stuck being 32-bit and if you know anything about VSTs, you know that the more RAM the better! haha

It would still be super neat.

Also as for the tracker support, I'm pretty sure they're just using midi and have built-in sounds. But that's just an assumption. I really know nothing about trackers.
 
I would find use for both midi and tracker file support, experiment with what you feel like, I would love to see what can be done in GMS with midi or tracker music. :)

The thing I like about using trackers is the limitations, I feel more creative when being forced to make the best of limitations.
I used trackers a few times. I actually found them really helpful for composing. Working inside repeating loops and branching off to other ones made me think in a very...."structured" way, I guess?
In all seriousness, I'll take a stab at this just because it sounds like a blast. But when you have Mike Dailly personally saying...
I'm actually using a physical rack module for my game, lol. I'd have to turn the samples into a VSTi to use it in GM if it ever supported it. I think the rompler only has like 4Mb of internal storage though, so it'd be a small VSTi. I'm making an SNES RPG, so I'm using the old hardware to match, hahah! :'D
 

Mick

Member
Also as for the tracker support, I'm pretty sure they're just using midi and have built-in sounds. But that's just an assumption. I really know nothing about trackers.
Midi data is more complex, mods etc store note data differently. Like richhopelesscomposer said, mod file support is easier to do, xm files are more complex than mod files (more channel effects, instrument support with envelopes etc.)
 
C

CedSharp

Guest
I'm doing it slowly. I'm going to support basic stuff first, so no effects ( they will just be ignored ).

Currently what it supports is loading samples, loading loops for them, creating buffers and applying finetune to them, and load the song's pattern.
It does it without creating any errors.

No I need to code it so that it can play, pause and seek the song, which should be a piece of cake since everything is pattern-based.
A .mod file is so simple to read :D

( I just hope I didn't 💩💩💩💩-up my big-endian and words calculation haha )

Tomorrow I might have a result, we'll see :D
 
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