ModPlug Tracker

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

ModPlug Tracker

Design by	Olivier Lapicque
OS	Windows
Genre	Tracker
License	GPL
Website	http://www.modplug.com/

ModPlug Tracker is an audio module tracker for Windows developed by Olivier Lapicque. It was initially developed as a plug-in (called Modplugin) for Internet browsers to allow users to listen to music modules (for example, IT, XM, S3M, and MOD) present in some websites. ModPlug Player and ModPlug Tracker later evolved from this plug-in. It is free software, distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

ModPlug Tracker's main distinguishing feature is its point-and-click, native Windows user interface. Most trackers, even newer ones such as Renoise and Skale Tracker, have interfaces modelled after the elder DOS trackers (especially FastTracker II). Although many old-school musicians who use trackers prefer this kind of old fashioned GUI, newcomers have been attracted to ModPlug Tracker's alternative interface.

ModPlug Tracker makes use of features common to Microsoft Windows programs, such as context menus for effect selection, "tree" views for files, samples, and patterns, and drag-and-drop functionality throughout. It supports both loading and saving of IT (Impulse Tracker), XM (FastTracker Extended Module), MOD and S3M (Scream Tracker 3) files, loads many sample file formats, and has some support for DLS banks and soundfonts.

In December 1999, Olivier Lapicque sent the module-playing parts of ModPlug's source code to Kenton Varda, under the GPL, to write a plugin for XMMS based on the code. The source code was later released to the public domain, and the mod-playing code was split off into a separate library, libmodplug, maintained as part of the ModPlug XMMS Plugin project. This project lay dormant from late 2003 until early 2006, when it was picked up again. As of August 2007, the last official project release dates to November 2006. Beta versions are released from time to time (Latest version: 1.17.02.52).

Due to lack of time, Olivier Lapicque discontinued development of ModPlug Tracker itself, and in early 2004, he released the entire source code under an open license. Consequently, ModPlug Tracker (now known as OpenMPT) is now being developed actively by a group of trackers/programmers at SourceForge.

[edit] ModPlug Player

ModPlug Player

ModPlug Player is an accompanying module player developed by Olivier Lapicque in conjunction with the original ModPlug Tracker project. Features include a playlist editor, graphical equalizer, automatic gain control, bass expansion, reverb, mixing, and Dolby Surround Sound support. The player supports a variety of module music files in both native and compressed (ZIP/RAR/LHA) formats:

.669: UNIS 669, 669 Composer modules
.AMF: Asylum / DSMI modules
.AMS: Velvet Studio AMS 1.x modules
.DBM: DigiBooster Pro modules
.DSM: DSIK internal format modules
.FAR: Farandole Composer modules (beta)
.IT: Impulse Tracker modules
.MED: OctaMed modules
.MDL: DigiTracker 1.x modules
.MOD: ProTracker modules (4-32 channels, 15/31 samples)
.MOL: Module lists, compatible with MOD4WIN
.MTM: MultiTracker modules
.NST: NoiseTracker modules
.OKT: OktaLyser modules
.PTM: PolyTracker modules
.S3M: ScreamTracker III modules
.STM: ScreamTracker II modules
.ULT: UltraTracker modules
.UMX: Music files from Unreal Engine 1 games (essentially one of the above formats in an additional container)
.WOW: Grave Composer modules
.XM: FastTracker modules
.WAV: Wave Files (smaller than 16MB)