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Best MOD player?


ivop

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Hi,

 

Years ago, I created a MOD player for the Atari 8-bit (https://demozoo.org/productions/145663/). Considering my age and overall knowledge at the time, it wasn't bad. But, now that I'm more than twice as old (and wiser ;) ) I think I can do a lot better. So, I was wondering, what is currently considered the best MOD player and at what frequency does it play the samples? What's the state-of-the-art player to beat? :)

 

Thanks!

Ivo

 

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Hmmm,

 

there is Inertia 4.5 by MadTeam which has Pokey (4Bit, mono or stereo) and Covox (8Bit mono or stereo) playback; no clue at what range/frequency. There is also ProTracker 1.5 by MadTeam with Pokey and Covox playback with approx. 10khz. And there is Neotracker which has 4Bit Pokey (mono or stereo) and 8bit Covox (mono or stereo) playback at approx. 11.0khz or 11.5khz.

 

No need to mention the older MD8 (conv. MOD) players, I guess. But if so, the mono (Pokey) player Fampy 6.1 sounded the best in my eyes.

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I repeat myself each time when this subject surfaces, but these players could sound much better if samples are converted with good anti-aliasing. All the players listed above treat 8-bit samples the same way by just cutting the least significant bits and it sux.

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MadTeam (Inertia & Protracker): http://madteam.atari8.info/index.php?prod=uzytki

Click on the screenshots to download the software.

 

Attached some Neotracker versions here, since Epi does not host it any longer it seems (he supports Enotracker instead). Afair, one version of Neotracker worked better with Lotharek`s simple stereo (or stereo final), while another version worked better with Candle`s simple stereo...

 

 

 

 

neo_16_17_18.zip

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Thanks! 11kHz is quite a feat already. Don't think there's much improvement possible there :) Even if one could get to 12 or 13 kHz, the difference would be negligible.

where's the fun in that? I don't find it negligible at all !!! to my ears that could be a world of difference...

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MOD Neo Tracker trick (that is why it is faster than Inertia)

 

Load the sample at the end of the bank (..$7FFF)

 

 

inc sample_adres
bne skp
inc sample_adres+1
bpl skp
 
lda #0
sample_start_l equ *-1
sta sample_adres
 
lda #0
sample_start_h equ *-1
sta sample_adres+1
 
skp
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Make one the makes good use of 65816, contiguous ram, etc.

 

The target should be a mod player than can correctly load and play any protracker mod that a real AMIGA with 2megs chipram is capable of playing.

Edited by MEtalGuy66
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Make one the makes good use of 65816, contiguous ram, etc.

 

The target should be a mod player than can correctly load and play any protracker mod that a real AMIGA with 2megs chipram is capable of playing.

 

yeah :)

 

Inertia, ProTracker (Profi), NeoTracker support limited number of MOD effects

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  • 2 years later...
On 4/8/2017 at 10:58 AM, pajero_pn said:

And here I was in 2019 trying to load the RSI - Hard MOD file from their famous Megademo into Neotracker resulting in sample too long, and what is one of the MOD files included in your ATR ?

YES RSI Hard by Romeo Knight , thanks a lot for this wonderfull ATR !

Now I only need to find this MOD file, as a unfortunately PC only youngster , I was so jealous of Amiga/Atari when it came to sound, took a few years before PC catched up.

 

 

Edited by Lastic
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Hmmm,

 

afaik, Neotracker allows one 22k sample and then as many 16k samples as you have XRAM banks. If one of the samples is too long however, then Neotracker refuses to play this MOD and there is not much you can do on the Atari 8Bit side. But there exists a PC program which can "convert" this MOD and/or the sample(s) into a proper sample length. Think I downloaded this from the forum of either atarionline.pl or atariarea.pl and have not used it yet... (archive is *.7z so it requires 7-Zip or similar to uncompress).

 

Short MOD

 

EDIT: Found the PC program "Short MOD" at the MadTeam homepage, so you can download it from there. Besides, you can find many many MOD files at e.g. The MOD Archive  including RSI Hard

 

 

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  • 3 months later...
8 hours ago, Lastic said:

@tebe How do you start playing a song in Protracker ? CTRL-M is playing a pattern but I haven't found the Atari (130XE U1MB) key combo yet to start playing back the whole song ?

 

Hmmm,

I thought this was the Atari Inverse key...?!? Find Protracker and (ATASCII) doc. attached here. (english text written by me, polish text written by ???)

 

Note that the program requires a minimum of 128k RAM (and supports a max. of 320k RAM, it seems). You can playback the MOD file with 4Bit Pokey or 8Bit Covox (for Covox you have to choose the Dxxx adress)...

 

Protrack.zip

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8 minutes ago, CharlieChaplin said:

 

Hmmm,

I thought this was the Atari Inverse key...?!? Find Protracker and (ATASCII) doc. attached here. (english text written by me, polish text written by ???)

 

Note that the program requires a minimum of 128k RAM (and supports a max. of 320k RAM, it seems). You can playback the MOD file with 4Bit Pokey or 8Bit Covox (for Covox you have to choose the Dxxx adress)...

 

Protrack.zip 14.04 kB · 3 downloads

Indeed The Inverse key did the job !

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  • 1 month later...

@tebe as lockdown entertainment I'm toying around on both my 1040STE and 130XE with MOD trackers.

I'm trying to understand how I can convert/downsize the samples in a MOD file so that I can play it back on my U1MB 130XE with Neotracker.
As such I downloaded MOD2ATR and SHORTMOD but my attempts haven't succeeded in any results.
For ex. the attached MOD file , how can I downgrade/downsize it to make it possible to play on Neotracker with a U1MB ?

What are the sample limits for Neotracker , Kzh , 4/8/16bit , size-wise ?

ghetto.MOD KRUNK'D.MOD

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 11/7/2019 at 3:45 PM, Lastic said:

And here I was in 2019 trying to load the RSI - Hard MOD file from their famous Megademo into Neotracker resulting in sample too long, and what is one of the MOD files included in your ATR ?

YES RSI Hard by Romeo Knight , thanks a lot for this wonderfull ATR !

Now I only need to find this MOD file, as a unfortunately PC only youngster , I was so jealous of Amiga/Atari when it came to sound, took a few years before PC catched up.

 

 


28 years later after the release of this PC cracktro , somebody commented on this youtube video 2 months ago which I discovered today
 

with the link to the original MOD file
 


MOD file can be found here http://janeway.exotica.org.uk/release.php?id=7823
And to make this rainy Sunday even better, it plays/loads  in InertiaTracker , Neotracker and ProTracker 1.5 (and Protracker/Octalyser on the STE)

My -internal 19 year old self- is smiling.
 

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