............................................ Slixter proudly presents ..... d e M O D i f i e r v 1.0 ............................................................................ because nostalgia is a terrible thing to waste What is this? ------------ deMODifier converts SoundSmith music files into ScreamTracker 3 modules. Why? --- SoundSmith was arguably the most popular music authoring tool for the Apple IIgs. Introduced in the IIgs's heyday (which was, accurately enough, just about one day), this software inspired the creation of countless numbers of IIgs-specific tunes, several of which were actually worth listening to. Alas, as years passed and the Apple was overshadowed by newer computers, people started to forget the meaning of the 's' in IIgs. (The 'g' now stood for "Gee, I wonder if I put my IIgs in the closet or the garage?") The music which enraptured a generation of computer users was locked away on dusty hard drives, hard drives which were never to see +5 volts again. However, in the PC world, digital music lived on. The MOD format, once derided for its pitiful four-channel restriction, grew and expanded and blossomed and flourished to the point where it eventually became powerful enough to describe music of IIgs-caliber. The most popular MOD variant was (and is) .S3M, the ScreamTracker 3 format, which was developed by Future Crew, who were sort of the PC equivalent of the FTA, more or less. ScreamTracker 3 modules can be played with any modern MOD player worth its bits (including Winamp with the excellent Nullsoft Module Decoder Plugin), and can be edited with a number of trackers (including Impulse Tracker and (duh) ScreamTracker 3). So, if you, say, hypothetically speaking, had some sort of way of converting your old SoundSmith music into ScreamTracker modules, you could then play and even edit them on your current computer. Wouldn't that be nifty? Installation for Windows Users ------------------------------ deMODifier is a command-line utility. That means that in order to use it, you have to type in the name of the program at a command prompt. That means that the program should be in your PATH. If you don't know what that means, just copy "demodifier.exe" into your C:\WINDOWS folder and everything will work out nicely. Installation for UNIX Users --------------------------- I have compiled and run deMODifier under Linux, Digital UNIX, and SunOS, and it'll probably work under most other UNIX-ish operating systems. 1. Make a new directory and untar the archive into it. The directory should now contain a bunch of .c and .h files, as well as this readme.txt. 2. Type "gcc -O2 -o demodifier *.c" without the quotes. You can even throw in -Wall if you are the paranoid sort. 3. Move the "demodifier" executable to wherever you want it, and delete the directory you created. How to Use ---------- Type "demodifier" without any arguments to get the formal usage info: usage: demodifier [options] soundsmithfile [...] optional command line switches: -n SONGNAME title the next song SONGNAME -o FILENAME.S3M write the next song to FILENAME.S3M -v verbose; talk while processing files -V very verbose; talk a lot You can list multiple SoundSmith files to be converted at once. Wildcards are supported, even under Windows. Make sure the necessary instrument file(s) are in the same directory as the SoundSmith file. Basically, type "demodifier" followed by the pathname(s) of some SoundSmith song(s), and it'll convert them to .S3M files. As it says, make sure you have the necessary instrument files. This could either be a single DOCRAM wavebank (usually the same name as the SoundSmith file, with a ".D" or ".W" suffix), or individual ASIF instrument files. Interestingly, the resulting .S3M files are almost always smaller than the sum of their parts, so unless your SoundSmith songs share a lot of instruments, you can even save some disk space by converting them. The -V option will list any patterns in the file that are not actually used in the song, so you can later load it into your favorite tracker and hear the music that you were NEVER MEANT TO HEAR. If you are into that sort of thing. Usage Examples -------------- demodifier BunnyTune produces the file "BunnyTune.s3m". demodifier -v *.mtp converts all SoundSmith files with a .mtp suffix, and lists each one. demodifier -o lambda1.s3m song1 -o lambda2.s3m song2 -o lambda3.s3m song3 converts SoundSmith files "song1", "song2", and "song3" into "lambda1.s3m", "lambda2.s3m", and "lambda3.s3m" respectively. demodifier -n "FTA - Modulae" modulae -n "FTA XMAS Demo - Gifts" gifts.mtp produces "modulae.s3m" and "gifts.s3m", which will display the proper song titles when played with a MOD player. demodifier * exceptionally lazy way to convert all songs in a directory. Non-SoundSmith files will be detected as such and skipped over with a harmless error message. Accuracy -------- SoundSmith effects other than volume and tempo are not implemented. (This includes pitchslide, arpeggiato, portamento, and other strange-sounding words.) However, most SoundSmith players did not implement these effects, and extremely few SoundSmith songs make use of them. SoundSmith allowed blank instrument entries -- if the instrument number for a note was set to zero, it would use whatever instrument was previously played on that channel. Most MOD players do not support this, so deMODifier fills in blank instrument entries with what it thinks are the correct instruments. Unless your SoundSmith song is doing some really weird stuff (REALLY weird stuff), this should almost always work correctly. You can disable blank instrument filling with the secret "-b" option, but most MOD players will not play the resulting file correctly. Everything else should work pretty well. Every song I've tried converting has sounded perfect, but then again I don't have an especially large collection of SoundSmith songs lying around. If your .S3M file sounds bad, it could be your player. I recommend Winamp. Alternatives ------------ Ian Schmidt (http://home.cfl.rr.com/ischmidt) provides "MegaTracker Player", which is a standalone SoundSmith player as well as Winamp plugin. On my computer, the player suffers from poor sound quality and the plugin causes lockups, but you may wish to try it out for yourself. Incidentally, back in the day, Ian created a IIgs program called "MODifier" which translated MOD files into SoundSmith songs. "deMODifier" essentially does the reverse... hence the name. Guilt Trip ---------- deMODifier is freeware. You may use and distribute it as you see fit. You may also steal parts of my source code for use in your own nefarious schemes. (Proper credit is requested, notification would be nice as well.) However, donations are welcomed, since it would be nice to eat once in a while. You can mail money (or anything else you would like to donate) to: Bret Victor 1406 Navellier St. El Cerrito, CA 94530 Or, you can send a PayPal payment to bret@ugcs.caltech.edu and you don't even have to get up from your computer. About the Author ---------------- Bret Victor is 24 years old, which should have been plenty of time for him to figure out what to do with his life. The fact that he hasn't worries his parents. He has graduated from electrical engineering departments at UC Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology, so he supposedly knows a thing or two about something or another. He has a website: http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~bret which attempts to bestow some significance on his mundane accomplishments. Back in the day, he wrote thirty or so programs for the Apple IIgs, all of which are available for download from his website. His email address is: bret@ugcs.caltech.edu He knows you aren't going to send him any e-mail, but man, he sure would like it if you did. ............................................................................ copyright (c) 2001 Bret Victor, and the picture he would paint...