Beatfox wrote:

> I'm sure this has been brought up before, but I felt I needed to give

> my own input & hear what other people have to say about it.  It seems

> like the modscene is stagnating, and this is the primary cause: no new

> mod format has come into widespread use since the advent of XM & IT.



OMG. What are WE gonna' DO?!



No such tragedy I think. The scene has been dying for years and every

month there was another reason. 



It's just the people in the scene that are changing, that's all.



> I certainly don't mean to put these formats down.  They're very good

> formats and allow for excellent quality music.  But the fact is that

> they're over half a decade old, and they're showing their age.



The only thing that's really showing is that the programers that work on

them don't want to make the formats incompatible with the originals. Did

you see how the IT format devolopment progressed? What it is right now

in Modplug is surely NOT half a decade old.



> Throughout the history of tracking, a new mod format has always taken

> the place of the previous one every few years.  A widespread format

> has always given way to a new one that has improvements many people

> want.  Why, then, are we still waiting for this to happen with XM and

> IT?  Surely these are not the pinnacle of music-making technology in

> the tracker spirit?



IT and XM are simply the first formats that started to change internaly

while staying backwards compatible (ModPlug). Anyone who didn't like

that perspective simply wen't to make his own format (MT2). 



> I'd be interested in hearing your ideas regarding that question.  One

> possible contributing factor I can think of is lack of a killer app

> (well-made tracker with well-made sample songs to show off its

> capabilities).  Another factor may be the increased trading of MP3s

> instead of actual mods, which brings up another question: is trading

> actual mods (new ones, not old classics) even a worthwhile goal

> anymore?  If it is more practical to simply trade MP3 renderings of

> mods, then is there any point in keeping mods portable?  Would this

> loss of portability still maintain the "spirit of tracking"?



No trick here. Some people preffer MP3s because they are sharable to

normal ppl as well, while others like tracked music more, because

diffirent people are used to the way their player plays the songs they

DL. I like better to distribute my modules than MP3s, because they're

never over 1 meg anyway, and MP3s would nearly surely be around 1.5

megs; if anybody of the normal people wants my music I usualy compile a

tape or audio CD for him/her personaly.



And don't worry about a killer app. People want their FT2 or ModPlug

with more killer features, not a whole new program to get used to.



> Onto the other idea I mentioned in the subject.  I believe the formats

> of generative programs like Buzz and Psycle are on a track (no pun

> intended) that could lead to the future of tracking.  They make

> incredible improvements in sound capability by using complex

> algorithms to create & process sound, and they can massively reduce

> filesize by making sample use optional (a result of the use of

> generative sound -- two birds with one stone).  The main problem with

> these formats is that they're not portable.  They rely on whatever

> machines or plugins are installed on the individual's system.  If

> someone doesn't have a required machine or plugin, the song won't

> work.



Well you've got one thing right: They're complex. Too complex in fact. I

don't know how you people expect anyone to do a song that actualy sounds

good out of a bunch of spaghetti-like machines and wires. NOT ME.

Old-style trackers in the spirit of FT2, IT or ModPlug are a good

compromisse between music and technology already, no need to go any

further in either direction.



> This scenario parallels the early days of Amiga mods, when mods didn't

> include samples and the user had to obtain separate sample sets.  The

> solution that they came up with back then is the same solution we can

> use for generative tracked music: include the sound generating and

> processing algorithms in the song file itself!



I agree that sounds neat, but not by what I saw in Buzz or any of those.

At max, I would go for something like the mathematical line input in

GoldWave, to generate the original sinewave or whatever and then the

NORMAL tracking methods to derive anything further from that real-time

generated sample.



> If someone is dedicated enough to work this concept into a well-made

> tracker and accompanying mod format, include well-made sample tunes

> with the tracker, and encourage player developers to add support for

> the format (never underestimate the power of advertising), I really

> think it would give the tracking scene the boost it's been needing for

> several years.

> 

> Comments, anyone?



Having just finnished an EDIT with an extraodinary amount of H, G, D and

E (and O, S and Q in smaller quantities) effects and then Volume,

Panning and Pitch/Filter envelopes for each instrument, which really

makes the whole thing sound like hell at times, I do not know what else

would you want in a tracker format. I guess that it's only the fresh

sceeners that have to learn how to use what we have at the moment. In

the end, it's the music that matters, not the way it was derived.



...and S3M just rocks!



			Observer aka DustWolf aka CyberLegend aka Jure Sah



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