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

[Yal]

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?

Totally agreeing on this... of course, having AS makes me biased towards things with a clear structure so that could also explain it.

From my experiences, trackers lets you do more or less anything you want using envelopes and effects and stuff, they're easier to use than studio programs but also less powerful. Since they're already having the structure there for you, they're easier to learn, so people without formal music education can get into them easier. MIDI in itself is pretty useless, you need to use some soundfont-capable program to do anything meaningful with them, and a lot of those things completely drown you in buttons and controls everywhere.... so intimidating that I try to avoid them as much as possible in lieu of trackers. I don't see how anyone could use something like LMMS to compose music, you have almost no good overview of things like note timing and pitch, only streams of audio.

 

[RichHopefulComposer]

I don't see how anyone could use something like LMMS to compose music, you have almost no good overview of things like note timing and pitch, only streams of audio.

If it's like Reaper, another open-source DAW, it'll have settings to view multiple note rolls at once. 99% sure Cubase had it too, when I messed around with it. I'd be surprised if any DAW didn't. DAWs are scary looking at first, but after messing with Reaper for a week, I was like "how the hell could anyone compose in anything else?!", hahah! X'D

Like I said though, there is something fun and interesting about the simplicity of trackers. The way they build songs out of little chunks makes your song feel very tangible, like you're building it brick by brick, instead of just laying it all down at once. They're terrible for polishing and mixing in, though, which is why I'd never use one for any serious music. So much easier to make "finished" audio in a DAW.

 

[Mick]

@CedSharp : I'm curious, did you make any progress on your GM MOD player?

 

[CedSharp]

@CedSharp : I'm curious, did you make any progress on your GM MOD player?

I've successfully ( I think ) been able to load fast-tracket files, mily-tracker files, and a couple different version of .mod ( I think )
I'm having trouble with audio buffers tho. I realized that my knowledge with binary is a lot more limited than I initially thought.
right now, nothing is working lol.

But I'm slowly making progress. I'm working on many different project, so progress is divided by number of projects lol.
Don't worry, I'll keep this topic updated if I have something kinda working

 

[Mike]

Been playing..... https://twitter.com/mdf200/status/813844259614900224

 

[Mick]

Been playing..... https://twitter.com/mdf200/status/813844259614900224

That's really nice to see and hear! Are any effects like pitch bend or vibrato implemented? Is it also possible to do ping-pong looping through buffers? What are your plans for the player, will you release the source?

 

[Mike]

its all GML driven....so anything is possible. Not started the effects yet - but will do.

No idea what I'll do with it yet.....

 

[MadTinkerer]

Well this is what I want it for:

 

[Mike]

I suspect you'll have to write your own system for this....

 

[MadTinkerer]

Well of course I'll need to write my own. You don't know how my game is going to work. I don't know exactly how it's all going to work, since I'm still working on it. But having a working example of a music tracker in GML would help me figure out how I could do it.

Otherwise, I'll have to stick to sound clips exported from another program, instead of being able to manipulate them directly in GMS2.

 

[Mike]

ahh.... I thought you expected a tracker to provide this. Yeah, you could use it as the "basis" of this stuff I guess.

 

[FrostyCat]

A general sound buffer manipulation library would be nice too. That would make it easier to mix sounds, generate tones, process audio data or even bring back part of the sound effects mechanism from legacy GM versions.

 

[Mike]

This is already pretty easy to do in GML. Audio queues and buffers let you build dynamic audio on the fly, and in doing so you can mix it however you like.

 

[Mike]

First version of my MOD tracker is now on the marketplace.... I'll probably keep adding to it over time, might even do other formats if they are similar. Enjoy!

https://marketplace.yoyogames.com/assets/4951/mod-tracker

 

[nesrocks]

Awesome stuff! I'll get it right away

I don't wanna start a request party but if somehow nsf or nsfe (NES format music made in famitracker for example) could be played that'd be awesome. Some people got it working by making it possible to load winamp plugins on older game maker versions. It isn't similar to MOD though because it basically is NES emulation.

 

[Juju]

Was just chatting about this - NES / .nsf emulation is a completely different problem. However, making a Famitracker player off the back of a general mod tracker is doable.

 

[Mike]

If your running actual NES code, you need full 6502 emulation in there - just like you do when playing back SID music. If its a "tracker" format but uses NES HW for noise generation, that's a simpler problem.

That said.... If it has an standard editor, this means it has a standard pattern format, and then uses 6502 to access the NES hardware. If you have the pattern format, you could emulate the HW and then process the patterns yourself.

SID is more complicated because there is no set format, everyone had their own, so you have to emulate the machine.

 

[Mick]

First version of my MOD tracker is now on the marketplace.... I'll probably keep adding to it over time, might even do other formats if they are similar. Enjoy!

Nice! I tested a few mods, they sound good with the reservation for some missing effects. XM support would be really nice, the format should be quite similar but supporting 16-bit samples, envelopes, channel panning and more tracks.

 

[Mike]

You can have lots of tracks in MOD files too, only the original Amiga one was stuck with 4. I'll be looking to add more of the effects before doing any other formats though....

12 track MOD file....

 

[MadTinkerer]

YESSSSS!!!!

 

[Gradius]

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.

Did you miss the part where I said consoles got away with midis because they had good samples? Whereas any midi support GM would ever have would rely on the crappy default soundcard samplers that are complete ass for 98% of users without a Roland card. If it is just 'performance data' and you have no interest in how crappy the sound any playback would result in, just parse the files manually. Oh wait, we're not treating it as preformance data but as a music file.

 

[BlaXun]

Hi @Mike
Do you have any plans to add support for more music types? xm, it? Thanks in advance

 

[Mike]

I certainly could do, but only if it has a bigger uptake than it currently has. Currently with the (very) small number of users who've bought it, it's just not worth the effort. I may occasionally add some new things to it - because it's fun, but to dedicate lots of time to it, it needs more users.

 

[BlaXun]

@Mike

And theres the problem... I'd like to buy it if it supported more formats
But I completely get your point

 

[Mike]

As it stands MOD will play 8 bit samples, but lots of channels, so it's still a good way of doing small tunes. And yes, while having loads of formats and compatibility might increase the userbase, I can't justify it until it goes up at least a little...(outside of the time I spend on it for fun). For the low price that it is, many nights or weeks work just can't justify a couple of sales. Hay ho....

For game stuff, 8 bit samples sound okay, and if your doing "tiny" tunes (so have say a fast looping triangle wave), then they're fine - but that's just my (slightly biased) opinion
(If you listen to the Axel-F tune on the marketplace page, it sounds good enough for most games usage)

 

[Yal]

OpenMPT and MilkyTracker both can convert more modern tracked formats into MODs, so as long as you don't go too overboard with effects it should be possible to convert them and use that way. The main issue with MODs is that you need to manually set the song speed with an event and that you can't use instruments (every sample is its own instrument) but if you just make 'use in game versions' that are different from the 'source' versions this shouldn't be too big of a deal.

It probably would be possible to get more sales from itch.io, btw... I sell a bunch of GM resources there (preferring it to the marketplace because the GMS1 implementation was horrendous) and I get on average 0.5 sales per day. (Then again, I have like 30 different stuff up for sale so that probably influences my average being found rate...)

 

[Khenshiro]

I certainly could do, but only if it has a bigger uptake than it currently has. Currently with the (very) small number of users who've bought it, it's just not worth the effort. I may occasionally add some new things to it - because it's fun, but to dedicate lots of time to it, it needs more users.

I bought version 7 of GAME MAKER and version 8 and 8.1. I also bought the full version of Game Maker STUDIO (Master Edition with all of the modules).

With Game Maker 7 an 8, we had the possibility to load files in MIDI format, it disappeared in the version Game Maker Studio. This is a pity and absolutely insane because this format is a basic format for a lot of games.

I think it's incredible that the possibility of adding files in the tracker format (MOD, XM, IT, S3M, ...) and MIDI is still not automatic in the options of Game Maker studio 2.

I'm sorry but I've already paid enough to have this option directly. I do not understand why this option is not already included in Game Maker because this file format was already used in a large majority of 2D games in the 80s 90s and this format is clearly a must-have video games.

In short, I think seriously that YoyoGame is a serious mistake in not including this option in Game Maker Studio.

I am very happy with the new optoins of the latest version of Game Maker but personally I bought Game Maker (all versions confused) to be able to create games in 2d and the only option I miss to be really happy with Game Maker Is the addition of audio file formats in Tracker or Midi mode. I do not see any point in moving to Game Maker Studio 2 if this option is not present.

What I program is already enough for me, other options does not interest me.

Finally, I find it really serious that YoyoGame does not take this option seriously into consideration and I hope I will not be one of the only ones to be in this idea!

 

[Mike]

We have not included MOD support natively because demand for it simply isn't large enough, which is why I wrote one as a side project in GML so that it was portable if anyone wanted it.Adding support for a large system isn't about just writing a quick bit of code, it's also about maintaining it over years which is an expensive undertaking. Demand for MODs is negligible. It's a fun hobby project, but certainly not worth the company taking on the expense of doing it.

MIDI is a horrible format, with each sound card supplying it's own instrument bank. GM7 and GM8 used Windows media playback for MIDI, which meant tunes sounded different on different machines, never mind different platforms where this was little or no support for it. While it's used for instrument communications, it makes a nasty format for actual music. This is why it's slowly dying out as game music. Sure you can search and find some, but they are getting rarer and rarer. For GMS2 we're trying hard not to support old formats and modules which won't last the length of the product, and MIDI has long since had it's day. You yourself has said "in the 80s 90s".... that was 20 years ago. It's not something we're looking to support "as a company". This isn't to say someone can't do as I've done with MOD, and write a library that would play MIDI.

I know you don't agree, but this decision was made back at the start of GameMaker: Studio 1.x - and we certainly didn't try to hide it, and it's not something we're looking to reverse without serious interest and demand from developers. Currently this is just not the case.

There is nothing stopping you from doing your own player, all the tools are there.

 

[Khenshiro]

MIDI is a horrible format? Really?
In any case, even in the 80s and 90s, and even if it was 20 years ago, there was a good reason to be concerned about the place played by games and the music that is part of it.

In short, if it is all respect you have for the people who follow you and support you for a long time, the mentality of Game Maker has changed a lot. It is truly sad. Obviously, it does not matter to YoyoGame.

Good evening and good continuation in your project ...

 

[MadTinkerer]

Midi was not designed for game music. It is basically like player-piano sheet music, but with no standard for implementing a piano. Conversely, MOD files are intended to emulate specific chip music formats. Midi was adequate back when all of the other digital music formats were proprietary and computers didn't have the memory or processing power for compressed wave format (such as mp3 or ogg).

But midi was designed for 70s electronic keyboards and other pre-personal computer digital instruments. Certain midi files sound really good on certain sound cards. But there is no one sound card format that plays all midi files well. This is why DOSBox has support for a wide range of sound card emulation: because it needs to. Each game you run on DOSBox needs to be set up for specific sound cards, as if you were physically changing old hardware around.

There never will be one midi standard that just sounds great for all games. That's the sad fact of classic midi game music.

So MOD is better than midi on modern systems, because they come with the intended soundfonts as part of the file, but MOD files still have their limitations compared to composing compressed wave music formats in a modern DAW. In terms of quality: PC Speaker < midi < MOD < mp3 / ogg < wav (but uncompressed wav files are ridiculously big).

So why was I so excited about some kind of MOD support? I have esoteric needs. In terms of absolute quality, I should just compose in Music Creator 7 or Rytmik Ultimate and export as mp3 or ogg. However, I want to have more precise, dynamic control over the music in realtime, which means MOD is better for that purpose. But for all the 99% of GM users that don't want to program generative music: mp3 and ogg support is plenty, and midi is not good enough to justify support.

 

[Juju]

MIDI is a horrible format? Really?

Yes, really. The only reason MIDI is still used at all in music circles is because it's a convenient interchange format for synthesizer control. It is not a good playback format because it's totally unassuming about what soundfonts are actually being used. The quality of what the player hears is mostly out of the hands of the composer, which sucks. MIDI's only advantage over other playback formats is its generally small filesize.

the mentality of Game Maker has changed a lot.

MIDI was included with the early versions of GameMaker because 1) filesizes above 10mb were unacceptibly slow to download for casual games, precluding prerendered audio for hobbyist devs; 2) .ogg was not yet popular, and MP3 has all kinds of problems; 3) early DAWs were expensive, arcane, and/or sounded a bit rubbish; 4) indie dev as we know it wasn't even a thing yet, and people were used to a far lower quality of product.

MIDI is pants. We can move on as a community, and leave the retro aesthetic to enthusiasts who will spend their time rebuilding support for these old creaking formats.

 

[Yal]

You can do so much more with rendered audio, and filesizes doesn't seem to be an issue anymore now when Unity is the dominant game engine and the average game is measured in a two-digit amount gigabytes. All programs I use to make music has code to render music* to at least WAV and often OGG as well, and doing this gives you the exact same sound you've made. You KNOW everyone will hear the same thing.

*these:

 

[Mick]

I certainly could do, but only if it has a bigger uptake than it currently has. Currently with the (very) small number of users who've bought it, it's just not worth the effort. I may occasionally add some new things to it - because it's fun, but to dedicate lots of time to it, it needs more users.

If you do, please add vibrato and tone portamennto, those effects are essential.

I think that chiptune formats actually are really good for games and deserve more attention. They are more dynamic, you can easily mute channels etc. A lot of games have chipmusic style music in them, but made in DAWs instead of proper trackers. The file size is still relevant for mobile games and using mod, xm, sid, nsf etc. greatly reduce the size of the game. More people should know about these formats!

For Thy Sword we are making proper SID music, currently 24 tracks. If I could use that format in the game, the game could almost fit on one floppy disk (not a viable way of distributing games now probably though)

 

[Mike]

MOD can be used as a "chip tune" format. I've seen a few 20k MOD files that have very small looping samples. Like a triangle wave shape, or puse wave. These are then played back and looped very quickly. MODs can also have more than the 4 tracks normally associated with MOD files, making them ideal for smaller bits of music.

Being so small means you can also load lots of them into memory, and then cross fade between them which is cool - or just start/stop them more easily.

As to MIDI, anything you can do with MIDI you can do with a MOD, on top of which samples are included in the MOD file making them much more robust across different machines and formats.

 

[Yal]

If I could use that format in the game, the game could almost fit on one floppy disk (not a viable way of distributing games now probably though)

Seconding this, but for a different reason than "nobody uses them anymore"... floppy disks get their data erased really easily by cellphones, from what I've found out myself (I kept using them like 5 years longer than mainstream people), just going to a pubic place with floppy disks causes them to get the data damaged. At least I'm assuming it's cellphones, it's the only ubiquitous-enough, close-enough source of electromagnetic waves I could locate when doing the experiments.

 

[Mike]

"... floppy disks get their data erased really easily by cellphones.....

Did you know if you keep several disks together in a box or something, the magnetic field they generate together helps keep them alive longer!
(pointless facts brought to you by an old fart who should really let go of the past.....)

 

[Mick]

Did you know if you keep several disks together in a box or something, the magnetic field they generate together helps keep them alive longer!
(pointless facts brought to you by an old fart who should really let go of the past.....)

Good to know, my 25 year old Amiga floppies have been stored together for 25 years and they are still working perfectly fine.

 

[bml]

Did you know if you keep several disks together in a box or something, the magnetic field they generate together helps keep them alive longer!
(pointless facts brought to you by an old fart who should really let go of the past.....)

Then the problem is finding a way to actually read the disks.

 

[Mike]

eBay

 

[nesrocks]

I'm sad to hear that not many people got it, considering it is for GMS1.4 and GMS2.
I did buy the plugin on day one, but I don't know yet if it will be useful as what I really want is authentic nsf music. I'll probably end up composing on famitracker and exporting to ogg.

 

[Mike]

You should create the sounds on the famitracker - play a simple middle C or something. Sample it, then use in a MOD file

 

[poliver]

why in the hell people would want any of these formats to be natively supported baffles me! ha
filesize is not the issue nowadays. you can go on create your ''authentic'' tunes in any other specialized piece of software, create a .wav files an woila! you don't lose any of the physical/acoustical information. (it sound the same!)
its like complaining that gamemaker doesnt have a 6502 compiler.

also midi, dont think i've heard midi used in games since ps1 or early/mid-2000s mobile games(where the issue i guess was filesize).

yes, midi is heavily used in music sequencing/creation, where it's used to trigger sounds of synthesisers, effects units, expensive multi-velocity sample banks etc. it is a standard for storing this kind of data, but at the end of the day it is all bounced down to a normal human friendly formats. nobody listens to midi.

using midi as a music format, means you would need a samplebank. and all the default ones in machines/soundcards are poop. all your songs would sound the same. why would you intentionally want that, ha.

 

[BlaXun]

I dont need it natively. Its perfect to get this as a plugin...which I will buy now, have fun with my moneyz @Mike

 

[BlaXun]

Hey @Mike , I am no expert when it comes to the file format...all I know is that I love chipmusic.
I bought your plugin and it works in GMS2 ...however, the file I used (https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=36409) sounds different with your extension then it does when played in another player... do you have any idea what could cause this? It sounds as if the extension needs some...dunno... fine-tuning or something.

Thanks in advance

 

[Mike]

It may well be using effects that aren't implemented?

 

[nesrocks]

File size is an issue for me. If the game can be 10 mb why would I want it to be 200 mb? It feels lazy and unoptimized if both versions play identically. Not to mention disk storage and download speed. I own many games on steam but I can't play them at any time I want because they are unninstalled. Except those games that don't take a lot of disk space. Not to mention that a HUGE part of the world population has slow internet, so having unnecessarily large downloads is kind of bad customer support.

Performance wise, I haven't tested if using wave music allows me to play an "Intro" to the song and then a looping part of it that play seamlessly between each other. If it works fine then it will only be the file size issue, not the intro + loop issue.

 

[bml]

I would love to be able to use MOD files natively. I hate composing music then having to make it mono and drop the quality to get it to a reasonable size. The MOD file I just checked out is a 28KB .xm file and after rendering it to a wav file it's now 17MB. For mobile, size still matters and it's even more important internationally. Plus using trackers is a fun way to make music.

I wonder what would happen if some simple music creation features made it into GSM? Would we see more and better music in GSM games in the future because it's suddenly more accessible? Would we see music used in more creative ways? When I first saw GMS I thought "Pixel editor and tilemap editor build in? They look rather basic, I'll stick to my existing tools." This turned out to not be the case. But what impressed me was my eight year daughter is now making pixel art, animating it and building out levels because those tools are built into the GMS and are easy to use. The workflow is fantastic for new users but it's also fun. I know it's a relatively expensive feature and complex enough to warrant it's only application. Plus music isn't an interactive nor iterative part of development and follows a totally different process.

@BlaXun modarchive has some great tracks. Thanks for posting.

 

[Khenshiro]

I wonder how long the Team Yoyo Game will finally understand that allowing to use music in Midi format or tracker is more than useful! It is amazing that these formats are still not in the audio formats usable by default in Game Maker ....

 

[Carnivius]

I wonder how long the Team Yoyo Game will finally understand that allowing to use music in Midi format or tracker is more than useful! It is amazing that these formats are still not in the audio formats usable by default in Game Maker ....

There are now several different extensions in the Marketplace that play Mod tracker formats (and many other forms of retro music tunes)