Amiga - native Paula sound
category: general [glöplog]
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Another example: 32 samples limit. Look at Travoltas "Condom Corruption" mod - sample #6, #7, #10 (just an example, there are many more and better ones) and think like a coder "ah, yes - I see you need more instruments in your tune - we will definitely provide you better music system next time!".
I've hit this limitation with almost every ProTracker compo tune I've written in the last few years. It's bloody annoying, a waste of memory, takes forward planning and reduces the control over the samples. But I suppose therein lies the challenge.
I've even thought about hacking an old version of ProTracker to increase the samples, but then you end up with a tracker format nothing else can play.
I've said it as well in one of my blogs... In the C64-age it was quite common for musicians to develop their own replay routines and editors. Guys like Rob Hubbard did more than just compose legendary music. They also developed the technology behind it.
In the Amiga days, trackers became standardized and most musicians just made music.
It's nice to see some 'alternative' trackers and replay routines for Amiga in this thread, as they are very rare. I did not know about Paul van der Valk's work for example. So, keep them coming :)
In the Amiga days, trackers became standardized and most musicians just made music.
It's nice to see some 'alternative' trackers and replay routines for Amiga in this thread, as they are very rare. I did not know about Paul van der Valk's work for example. So, keep them coming :)
32 sample limitation, whats the workaround? is it possible to cram 2 samples into one, then instruct the player with start-end points?
Last time I loaded Protracker the limit was 31 samples.
Hey, 32 would be awesome! :D
Hey, 32 would be awesome! :D
oswald, yes. done that many times.
also once there was competition to make a tune with one sample only, so you had to jump in the sample or use some other method. I remember Yolk attended that competition at least..
also once there was competition to make a tune with one sample only, so you had to jump in the sample or use some other method. I remember Yolk attended that competition at least..
indeed. there's nothing particularly challenging to it, it's just a pain in the ass :)
I wonder why the didn't do anything to the mod format in ProTracker. Like for example, even in advanced ProTracker versions, note numbers in pattern data are stored as 12 bit period values, which have to be looked up from the finetune 0 period table. Had they changed this to even 8 bit index values, it would have freed 4 bits per note for something actually useful. Or... why not store a transposing vs. non-transposing attribute for each instrument, and then you could have reused the same note data and transpose patterns. Or... why not store actual per-instrument patterns? Or... you get the idea. It's trivial to think of any number of improvements to the whole system that could have been made.
My answer to all these things is, ProTracker with all its limitations was good enough, and for people who were used to the sound and limitations of 1980s 8-bit home computer music, it was completely mind-blowing. A huge number of musicians were creating legendary quality songs. The expressiveness was good enough, and it would have been rediculous to claim that "this system is not good enough, it's not possible to create excellent music with it."
My answer to all these things is, ProTracker with all its limitations was good enough, and for people who were used to the sound and limitations of 1980s 8-bit home computer music, it was completely mind-blowing. A huge number of musicians were creating legendary quality songs. The expressiveness was good enough, and it would have been rediculous to claim that "this system is not good enough, it's not possible to create excellent music with it."
Take Jester's Cyberride, for example. It's amazingly good, not just as an Amiga module, but as music, and it would be total bullshit to claim that it would have been significantly better, if ProTracker had had more sample slots.
For many musicians, ProTracker's limitations were also actually good and productive, because they forced you to keep it simple and focus on getting the most important elements right. Some musicians who moved to PC and FastTracker II with lots of samples and channels and everything, just couldn't produce such good music anymore. The arrangements were messy, sounds and notes all over the place, filling time and space, destroying clarity, and the files just ended up unnecessarily big. Less limitations just meant being able to be lazy, and/or lose focus.
For many musicians, ProTracker's limitations were also actually good and productive, because they forced you to keep it simple and focus on getting the most important elements right. Some musicians who moved to PC and FastTracker II with lots of samples and channels and everything, just couldn't produce such good music anymore. The arrangements were messy, sounds and notes all over the place, filling time and space, destroying clarity, and the files just ended up unnecessarily big. Less limitations just meant being able to be lazy, and/or lose focus.
yzi: I agree wholeheartedly.
ProTracker's limitations aren't too much restrictive. Before, there was a plethora of trackers providing less commands and a maximum of 15 samples, among other limitations.
Still, a lot of great music was created even with those pre-ProTracker programs.
Later, when trackers like OctaMED appeared, some people started to compose 8-channels tunes with 128Kb long samples and other fancy things but the music didn't improved the quality more than just a little bit.
I think that we should see this in perspective. In the 80's, and even in early 90's, the Amiga sound capabilities were simply awesome for the era. It was like one of those mighty synthesizers but for just a fraction of the price.
Long live Paula!
ProTracker's limitations aren't too much restrictive. Before, there was a plethora of trackers providing less commands and a maximum of 15 samples, among other limitations.
Still, a lot of great music was created even with those pre-ProTracker programs.
Later, when trackers like OctaMED appeared, some people started to compose 8-channels tunes with 128Kb long samples and other fancy things but the music didn't improved the quality more than just a little bit.
I think that we should see this in perspective. In the 80's, and even in early 90's, the Amiga sound capabilities were simply awesome for the era. It was like one of those mighty synthesizers but for just a fraction of the price.
Long live Paula!
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it would be total bullshit to claim that it would have been significantly better
Yes, that would be a beautiful bullshit and that's why nobody makes such a ridiculous claim. If you never felt any limitations of Protracker - good for you. But it doesn't prove that nobody did.
I'm trying hard to think of a way I could have been clearer. Let's try to put it in PowerPoint style. Short sentences.
- ProTracker had lots of limitations.
- Many of the limitations had nothing to do with the Amiga hardware.
- For example, there could easily have been much more sample slots.
- The Amiga hardware was capable of even much wider scope of expression.
- The capabilities were not explored by mainstream musicians, even if there were some little-known tools.
- Mainstream tool makers did not have enough incentive for expanding ProTracker's feature set (otherwise they would have expanded it considerably)
- Musicians didn't demand better tools, because they a) they weren't really desperate for them, and/or b) they were just musicians, and/or c) they had more than enough to satisfy their creativity
- The limitations were apparently not very severe, because compared to the previous generation of home computer music, ProTracker music was astoundingly good.
I also think that if you say that ProTracker's limitations prevented you from making music that was good enough for some purpose in the beginning of the 1990s, then... ... I would really like to hear what that purpose was.
- ProTracker had lots of limitations.
- Many of the limitations had nothing to do with the Amiga hardware.
- For example, there could easily have been much more sample slots.
- The Amiga hardware was capable of even much wider scope of expression.
- The capabilities were not explored by mainstream musicians, even if there were some little-known tools.
- Mainstream tool makers did not have enough incentive for expanding ProTracker's feature set (otherwise they would have expanded it considerably)
- Musicians didn't demand better tools, because they a) they weren't really desperate for them, and/or b) they were just musicians, and/or c) they had more than enough to satisfy their creativity
- The limitations were apparently not very severe, because compared to the previous generation of home computer music, ProTracker music was astoundingly good.
I also think that if you say that ProTracker's limitations prevented you from making music that was good enough for some purpose in the beginning of the 1990s, then... ... I would really like to hear what that purpose was.
That fact that condom corruption has to use the 9 command to cram in more samples (and that mod is under 250k) proves that the sample limit was a problem although I see your point, it doesn't really stifle creativity, but when stuff like that gets in the way it's really annoying.
As for the file format, I find it totally retarded that when making the first ProTracker they decided not to make it better. Having period values as note data is ridiculous and that additional 4 bit's right the other side of the pattern data to denote the additional 16 samples!! From face value as a musician, it's a great tracker! but as a coder under the bonnet it's total jokes.
As for the file format, I find it totally retarded that when making the first ProTracker they decided not to make it better. Having period values as note data is ridiculous and that additional 4 bit's right the other side of the pattern data to denote the additional 16 samples!! From face value as a musician, it's a great tracker! but as a coder under the bonnet it's total jokes.
yzi: I'm not going to convince you to anything, because I don't really care... I care even less if I'm pushed to explaining what wasn't said. I never said Protracker was bad. I said it freezed at some point. 20 goto 10. And please, don't ask wheter square wave modulation to 4xx command would make ST-00 samples sing better, because we both do know a sine is everything they ever needed.
Well... making the musician's job easier and more comfortable doesn't necessarily mean better music. ;) Maybe ProTracker just found some kind of a sweet spot, with just enough but not too much limitations?
Completely agree on the file format issues. But then again, they didn't have big architectural improvements on their mind anyway, so not fixing the idiotic things in the file format fits in the picture. If they had fixed the file format, they would certainly have made a lot more other changes as well, when they were at it. But they didn't.
Complaining about the limitations too much, 20 years after the fact, feels a bit weird. If it was such a huge problem, why didn't anybody do anything about it back then. It's not like there weren't any coders around, and musicians were left on their own.
Completely agree on the file format issues. But then again, they didn't have big architectural improvements on their mind anyway, so not fixing the idiotic things in the file format fits in the picture. If they had fixed the file format, they would certainly have made a lot more other changes as well, when they were at it. But they didn't.
Complaining about the limitations too much, 20 years after the fact, feels a bit weird. If it was such a huge problem, why didn't anybody do anything about it back then. It's not like there weren't any coders around, and musicians were left on their own.
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- The capabilities were not explored by mainstream musicians, even if there were some little-known tools.
- Mainstream tool makers did not have enough incentive for expanding ProTracker's feature set (otherwise they would have expanded it considerably)
Maybe that's the problem - if someone extended ProTracker with a hacked, better format, would that version have superseded the old ones or would have been just as little-known as all the other "better" tools?
They were too busy packing the format into minimum rasterline players.
I have to say that most probably my lack of sympathy for these problems with low sample slot count is that I personally didn't have big issues with it, and I like tinkering with limitations, and I actually _like_ using the 9 command. ;) Actually I have some recent personal perspective on this, because I tried making a ProTracker MOD for the Outline 2013 oldschool music compo, just to try out what it would feel like, for old times' sake. I made it with MilkyTracker, but tested that it really does load and play correctly on an actual plain vanilla OCS Amiga 500 and ProTracker 2.3d (oh boy, I didn't remember how slowly these things load from a floppy into ProTracker).
http://www.kameli.net/~yzi/outline2013-65.mod
Apparently I even had spare sample slots. The hardest limit wasn't so much sample count, but size. I tried to do it too "hi-fi", avoid the machine-gun effect and alternate between different versions of hi-hats etc. The 9 command is used all the time, all over, but I didn't feel it was any kind of problem. That's the way you do it in ProTracker. What's the problem?
http://www.kameli.net/~yzi/outline2013-65.mod
Apparently I even had spare sample slots. The hardest limit wasn't so much sample count, but size. I tried to do it too "hi-fi", avoid the machine-gun effect and alternate between different versions of hi-hats etc. The 9 command is used all the time, all over, but I didn't feel it was any kind of problem. That's the way you do it in ProTracker. What's the problem?
In case someone wants to try the same thing, it could be handy to use the custom-stabbed version of MilkyTracker I made for making this tune. It marks any notes exceeding the Amiga period limits in bright red color, so you can easily see what notes wouldn't play on an actual Amiga. A bit more explanation and download link for a Windows binary here:
http://forums.modarchive.org/index.php?topic=3400.0
http://forums.modarchive.org/index.php?topic=3400.0
MOD format and playing routines were made for demos and games and not for the musician's comfort.
To do a faster routine, that was the point, and not trying to do the better format and neither the most comfortable tool for music edition. It's like demomaking, if it works it works.
Musicians were used to old trackers like Soundtracker and Noisetracker and coders just made ProTracker starting from that crappy, but enough good for the job, routines and tools.
And the result wasn't that bad. Was it? The success of MOD format was tremendous in our scene. So big that it was used by musicians that didn't knew nothing about the demoscene.
Think about that, those musicians didn't knew that the lack for more samples or more sophisticated commands was just the necessity of a fast playing routine and do not spare too much chip ram just with samples when graphics were still important for a demo.
Later, some of them welcomed OctaMED but, as yzi pointed before, to have better tools demands better control.
The good music is always created by good musicians not by good tools.
To do a faster routine, that was the point, and not trying to do the better format and neither the most comfortable tool for music edition. It's like demomaking, if it works it works.
Musicians were used to old trackers like Soundtracker and Noisetracker and coders just made ProTracker starting from that crappy, but enough good for the job, routines and tools.
And the result wasn't that bad. Was it? The success of MOD format was tremendous in our scene. So big that it was used by musicians that didn't knew nothing about the demoscene.
Think about that, those musicians didn't knew that the lack for more samples or more sophisticated commands was just the necessity of a fast playing routine and do not spare too much chip ram just with samples when graphics were still important for a demo.
Later, some of them welcomed OctaMED but, as yzi pointed before, to have better tools demands better control.
The good music is always created by good musicians not by good tools.
Well... the number of sample _slots_ would not have consumed any more chip ram. ;) Or been any slower. Actually they left STUPID things in there, things that, if fixed, would have made for an even simpler playback routine etc. ... and at the same time perhaps also made some musicians' jobs easier.
Are you sure?
I often think that they were reluctant to extend the limit of each sample length (64Kb) or the number of slots (15 in old Soundtracker, 31 in ProTracker) just because coders were afraid of musicians delivering memory-eating modules.
:D
I often think that they were reluctant to extend the limit of each sample length (64Kb) or the number of slots (15 in old Soundtracker, 31 in ProTracker) just because coders were afraid of musicians delivering memory-eating modules.
:D
Or to make it clear, the format, the whole system, from an architectural point of view, was not really totally optimized. Not for demo performance, not for code size, not for code simplicity, not for the musician. Some changes could have made that would have benefited _everyone_, including the musician. To me it seems like, someone just coded it, and then nobody ever really questioned the status quo. Everything was just good enough. Ok, all it would have taken is someone to make a better format, a better tracker, and then some kick-ass examples to rule them all. Didn't happen.
Yes, I'm sure. There are only 3 octaves of notes, and using 12 bits to specify a note number is STUPID. It may have made a little bit of sense before the invention of fine-tunings, but after that... just stupid, plain and simple.
You're right. The whole thing was just good enough so they didn't try to fix a thing that worked very well.
Surely there are lots of silly things in the format and a lot of room for improvement. But, hey, 31 samples instead of 15! Why would somebody complain back then? ;)
Surely there are lots of silly things in the format and a lot of room for improvement. But, hey, 31 samples instead of 15! Why would somebody complain back then? ;)