Problem with MMF's module playback.

One important thing to know about modules, that they can be quite tricky to amplify on their own. Assuming I already have normalized all samples, and play some at the maximum "velocity", I will probably need most other instruments to be more silent than that. So once a song is finished, and the mixing is done, I run into this problem:

The playback of the module is too silent in MMF, compared to if I play a sample at MMF's maximum volume. Normally, there's an "amp" parameter in all module players, that allows the playback to be louder, but MMF doesn't have it. This basically means I will have to try to get the loudest instruments even louder. This can only be done in one way in a tracker as they already have the maximum possible volume: doubling them into more channels, so I can mix the other instruments louder too. This is a common solution, but known to be a bit ugly, as it requires more cpu power to play.

Perhaps there's a need for an option to amplify a module to a level louder than what MMF refers to as "100". I just know no clean way to get my module to sound 3 times louder, without making it look messy. And I've been deep into tracking since 1998.

One important thing to know about modules, that they can be quite tricky to amplify on their own. Assuming I already have normalized all samples, and play some at the maximum "velocity", I will probably need most other instruments to be more silent than that. So once a song is finished, and the mixing is done, I run into this problem:

The playback of the module is too silent in MMF, compared to if I play a sample at MMF's maximum volume. Normally, there's an "amp" parameter in all module players, that allows the playback to be louder, but MMF doesn't have it. This basically means I will have to try to get the loudest instruments even louder. This can only be done in one way in a tracker as they already have the maximum possible volume: doubling them into more channels, so I can mix the other instruments louder too. This is a common solution, but known to be a bit ugly, as it requires more cpu power to play.

Perhaps there's a need for an option to amplify a module to a level louder than what MMF refers to as "100". I just know no clean way to get my module to sound 3 times louder, without making it look messy. And I've been deep into tracking since 1998.

you've got a point.

you've got a point.

I noticed that too, we both use Impulse Tracker. I noticed the interpolation sounds wrong also.....Certain songs sound real fuzzy ya know?

I noticed that too, we both use Impulse Tracker. I noticed the interpolation sounds wrong also.....Certain songs sound real fuzzy ya know?

I have no idea what interpolation method is used in MMF2, but even cubic spline has some weird side effects, and if it's linear you will definitely hear it's artifacts. But for me, that isn't really a big deal, even linear is fine with me <img src="/center/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I have no idea what interpolation method is used in MMF2, but even cubic spline has some weird side effects, and if it's linear you will definitely hear it's artifacts. But for me, that isn't really a big deal, even linear is fine with me <img src="/center/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I'm stil surprised no mmf developer has answered this. It is quite a problem after all.

Here's an example song: check this song - as two instruments already has the maximum possible volume of an .it file (normalized, full velocity, maximum global song volume). I just can't get the volume of this tune 3 times as high, so it becomes reasonable loud in MMF too (without doubling channels, that is).

note: The song I linked to, please don't use it as game music in your productions.

Another question: A problem with MMF1, was that extensions could actually not send audio to the application's sound engine, so assuming you wanted the game itself play sound effects, and an extension playing the music - the sound device would in fact be opened twice, which cause trouble. If this is fixed in MMF2, I'll probably use the modfusion extension.

I'm stil surprised no mmf developer has answered this. It is quite a problem after all.

Here's an example song: check this song - as two instruments already has the maximum possible volume of an .it file (normalized, full velocity, maximum global song volume). I just can't get the volume of this tune 3 times as high, so it becomes reasonable loud in MMF too (without doubling channels, that is).

note: The song I linked to, please don't use it as game music in your productions.

Another question: A problem with MMF1, was that extensions could actually not send audio to the application's sound engine, so assuming you wanted the game itself play sound effects, and an extension playing the music - the sound device would in fact be opened twice, which cause trouble. If this is fixed in MMF2, I'll probably use the modfusion extension.

&gt;&gt; I'm stil surprised no mmf developer has answered this.

Sorry, had no time to check this issue yet, too busy.

Yves.

&gt;&gt; I'm stil surprised no mmf developer has answered this.

Sorry, had no time to check this issue yet, too busy.

Yves.

I am also having problems with this; my modules are just too quiet to function properly in my games. To get them to work I need to convert them into .oggs, which are 4x-10x the size.

I am also having problems with this; my modules are just too quiet to function properly in my games. To get them to work I need to convert them into .oggs, which are 4x-10x the size.

Was there ever a resolution to this problem? (Sorry to drag up such an old thread)

"Was there ever a resolution to this problem?"
> use modfusion

ModFusion is consistently crashing my game.

I've also found it pretty unstable, especially when playing music between frames with it (and trying to set the position of the MOD crashes it instantly). I think we'll either have to wait for an update, a replacement music player extension or write one myself.

Imo it's a shame that MMF2's module player doesn't follow Pattern Jump commands. I mean, there are cases when you want to create a song with an intro that only plays once, and then repeats from pattern 3 when it loops...

Also, for chip music, it would be great to have the ability to play the modules with zero order interpolation.

agreed :[

Nifflas, what'd you end up doing to get an acceptable volume for the tracker music in Knytt/Knytt Stories?

I used the .ogg format. These days I use the sequencer to compose. :)

Um, could you tell me what's really so bad about MMF2's IT playback? A program I'm developing should be playing back IT files (over frames possibly too) and I'd like to know.

It's explained in this topic.

Problems:

• Sometimes you create a song that you can't increase the volume of any further (all samples are normalized, some instruments has the maximum global volume), except making it louder by channel doubling (which consumes extra CPU). In those cases, you often need to play the song louder than MMF2's "100%".
• You can't configure what interpolation algorithm to use, and chip music (as well as most songs I compose actually) sounds best with zero-order interpolation despite that it's often considered "low quality".
• It does not follow "pattern jump" commands. You can not create a song with an intro that only plays once, and is skipped when the song loops.

Solutions:

• Make sure the song is loud enough (compressing the samples do help)
• Create music which is supposed to use high-quality interpolation
• Do not use "pattern jump" commands.

It can't do pattern jumps!? I really need that. The whole reason I want to use the IT format is for loopable music. :(

Well, loopable is possible, as long as it's the entire song that should loop.

Nope, sadly. :( For most modules I want to use, it will have an 'intro' part, and then at the end it will jump to just after the intro.

Too bad :( Well, I guess there's a chance that I could have forgot if the ordinary "play sample" (instead of "play and loop sample") will make it follow pattern jumps. I'm quite sure it doesn't though.

use ModFusion then, it allows pattern jumping! But as some people said, it doesnt work on every PC

ModFusion also seems to be rather unstable, especially when playing music over frames.

really? seems fine to me in 1.5, and I have a crappy soundmax built-in sound card :P

Why can't Clickteam include this in the next build? Surely it's not THAT big of a job...

someone should just write a simple mikmod-based module extension. i'm not even concerned about playing across frames since you can get around that with a sub-app or whatever. I'd just like to be able to play songs at a reasonable volume without crashing.

Another thing I have an issue with is that the mod files won't loop properly. Instead of wrapping the last segment of sounds from the last line in the song, to play in the beginning, it insists of playing the song to the very end and then loop it back.

That's not the only thing: CTF / MMF ignores Bxx commands which jumps to a specific pattern in the song, preventing this behavior from happening in any real tracker program such as in MilkyTracker. This lack of professionalism causes many game developers to look elsewhere for music playback.

Take the game Pinball Fantasy for instance. Each table had their own mod file with all samples for the pinball table, it also had separately looping segments or songs such as:

* Attract mode
* Waiting for shot
* Main loop
* Tilt

and so on. They just loaded that one mod file, played the samples from that file when something happened at the 4th channel that was designated as the official sound effects channel. What we need is audio events like these:

if tilt then
save current pattern in variable X
play pattern 15 in module mysong.xm

pattern 15 finished playing
play pattern stored in variable X

when character jumps
play sample 15 in module mysong.xm on channel 20 at note C#4

These are just the basics, but there can be more such as:

on frame exit
fade module mysong.xm from 100% to 0 in 5 seconds

on frame start
set volume of module mysong.xm to 200%

Sorry for doing some severe necroposting, but these bugs needs to be sorted out.