----------------------------------- -*- PT2.2A Beta version -*- ----------------------------------- 22/6 1992 ************************************************************************** Ok, here it is at last, the new version of ProTracker2.2A. On this disk is a betaversion, which all of you will test for bugs etc. and the final version will be released in some weeks(depending on the bugs?). At the time being, I have no plans to enhance this version of ProTracker. I will (maybe) start coding a Tracker of my own from scratch. On the other side,I have got some inspiration to write some demo-routines for a coming Noxious demo, but lazy as I am it'll take some time. During the last two weeks I have been coding some music and diskloading stuff for a coming Shoot'em'up game. ************************************************************************** Bugs fixed: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have fixed the chip-mem bug from PT2.1A. (it didn't work with chip-mem only) When Preset-ed screen was shown,you couldn't use the gadgets on the lower part of the main- or sample-screen. When autoexitdirtoggle was off, PT didn't change the songname when you loaded a new song/module until you exit from disk op. If you resampled a sample with big difference between the tunetone and the resampletone then the new length was incorrectly computed. If you ran out of memory when allocating crunchbuffersize then ... software failure! This should work just fine now. If you loaded a sample with a '.' in the samplename then PT set the length incorrectly in some cases (see below) Save module should work fine now.(another nasty bug is swept away!) The Sampler works fine on ks2.0 (This version tests diskactivity before sampling, PT1.3 doesn't!) *********************************************************************** * Thanks to Matrix/LSD for sending the working piece of source to me! * *********************************************************************** The timer is updated when you play a song while jumping out to Workbench. The Loopsprites are working fine with screenadjust. Stepplay works fine now. Amiga+Backspace is gone though. MIDI in functions are working now, I hope! Inputhandler debugged a little. ShowFreeDiskGadget debugged (again). Before it showed 2 sectors too much. If you pressed the deletefile gadget and then pressed a directoryname in the list then the dir was added to the path but the directory wasn't opened. This is now fixed. PrintSong now prints the patternlist with decimal values. It prints all patterns.(Older versions of PT missed to print the highest pattern) ************************************************************************** News News News News News News News News News News News News News News News ************************************************************************** I have on request from Sun/Dreamdealers implemented a chord maker. Just press chord in edit op. 3 and you will see a new window for making chords. The gadgets: ------------ * Chord will make the chord, using the current sample and the notes chosen, and the chord will be put in the current sample or a free sample,depending on your choice (see below) * Reset will reset the notes and the length * Undo will undo the last change. (apart from multiple arrow up/down) * Length will set the length to the maximum value, depending on the length of the original sample and the notes you choose.This will ofcourse set the ':' after the 4 lengthdigits (see below) Holding the right mousebutton will set the length to the minimum depending on the notes chosen. '.' will be shown after the 4 digits. Mixing with the minimum length will make the sample as long as the shortest sample of the 4 resampled notes. * Major will set a major chord, depending on the basenote. * Minor will set a minor chord, depending on the basenote. * Sus-4 will set a sus-4 chord, depending on the basenote * Length string gadget will wait for you to enter a new length (not greater than the maxlength. If you want a longer sample then add more space after the mix has been done.) The ':' after the 4 digits shows that the samplelength is set to its maximum! * Major7 will set a major7 chord, depending on the basenote. * Minor7 will set a minor7 chord, depending on the basenote. * Major6 will set a major6 chord, depending on the basenote. * Minor6 will set a minor6 chord, depending on the basenote. * 4 notegadgets The upper one is the basenote.If you press a gadget, PT will wait for you to press a note.Holding the right mousebutton will reset the note * 4 Up/Down gadgets will add/sub 1 halfnote from the current note.Holding right button will add/sub 1 octave.You can reset the note by adding past B-3. * The 4 rightmost gadgets works just like the edit op gadgets. 1,2,3 takes you to the corresponding edit option, and E exits * The statusline pressing the upper line will toggle between New or Old sample: If N, then PT will search for an free sample to put the result. If O, then PT will put the result on the current sample, overwriting the original sample Note1! ------ This version of PT resets repeat and replen. PT also puts a '!' last in the samplename to show you that this is a chord sample.The '!' is for you to see where the destination-sample has gone,it has nothing to do with the program. You can take the '!' away and rename the sample to ...-major , ...-minor etc for instance. Note2! ------ The chosen option on the statusline in edit op. 3 ,H(alve) or C(lip) will affect the chord resampling and mixing! Ok, that was the chord gadgets! *********************************************************************** Position-Editor --------------- Press 'POS' on the mainscreen to get to the Position-Editor. All the gadgets should be well known, pressing the big gadget at the top will stop the song. Keyboard input works too,Left Alt,Left Amiga,space and the cursor up/down arrows.You can use the Position,pattern and length gadgets on the main screen, or click in the list to alter the current pattern or to enter a name to each pattern if you'd like to. The Patternnames will be loaded/saved if you have the corresponding toggles ON (load names,save names). The files will have the mod. exchanged to mod! just to distuingish them from the real modules. The patternnames will be cleared if you choose clear song or clear all.Another way is to click on each name you'd like to clear and then press the right mouse button. Patternplay works a little different from in the mainscreen.The pattern shown on the edit-row(the current position) will be played instead of the pattern currently shown in the notedatawindow. HEY! The patternnames has no effect on the module, they are just to remind the musician of the contents of the patterns, eg. you can name the first three patterns to INTRO just to remind yourself that those three patterns are the intro to your tune! *********************************************************************** Other NEW things: ----------------- On request, I have made ''multitasking'' like in PT1.3. I am not sure if this works correctly, but i have tested it a lot without trouble. LeftAmiga+N, LeftAmiga+M should work fine. ProTracker has it's own screen. When the PT screen is in front of all other screens, PT will wake up. The browse function is modified to act like PT1.3. It shows the current devices and disknames. If you hold the right mousebutton while pressing the browse gadget a disklist will pop up showing all the device- and disknames from the browsegadget in the filenamewindow. Pressing a name will autoload that directory. If there are more than eight entries, just use the arrow up/down keys or the up/down gadgets. If you press LeftShift+any key 0-9 a-z while in DiskOp, PLST or PresetEd, PT will move you to the position in the list with a name beginning with the corresponding character.If not found you will end up in the end of the list. If you use MIDI I've added two new keys. A-2 and B-2 on the Synthkeyboard are used as SampleNumber Up/Down! I have also Transposed the MIDInotes input one octave down (because one of my friends had a small keyboard and couldn't access the upper octave,C#3 - B-3). On request from 'The green Lark/Aliens' I have added a SaveExecutable option. Hold the right mousebutton while pressing save module. This will remove 'mod.' from the filename and add '.exe', and save the file in the current modules-dir. This won't crunch the module though. 9 new toggles: (all of them isn't working at the moment) -------------- * Salvage * 100 Patterns * Save Icons * Load PatternNames * Save PatternNames * Load PLST when starting PT * Screen Adjust * Save IFF/Raw packed sample * System Requests You can now have modules with 100 patterns. If you save a module with more than 64 patterns then M.K. in the moduleheader will be changed to M!K! ************************************************************************** Some info to you who test this beta version: -------------------------------------------- I am not sure if the make chord function handles Out of memory correct. Test it and report about the memory handling, if you get an Out of memory message! Check out the crunching! report bugs. Please note that powerpacker.library doesn't crunch ok everytime. Test to load the packed file and check before deleting the original file! If the packed file is improperly packed then try to crunch it with powerpacker (4.0 or greater) instead and if that file doesn't work either then there may be a bug in PT. I have noticed that after answerring an errorrequest in the WBscreen, PT wont automatically pop up. I have fixed this on some requests but not on all requests. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ok thats all for now.Thanks to all of you who have written to me, giving some bugreports and some new ideas. Especially thanks to: Devistator/EOC1999 Spirou/Visual Design Sun/Dreamdealers The Green Lark/Aliens Matrix/LSD (Thanks for the source!) Deltabar Dilonardo Toni Maenpaa Markus Jentsch Alex Kunz Tritoon/AlphaFlight -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note to Sun/Dreamdealers: (about that sample problem) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have located the bug, and I have fixed it. In PT2.1A, if you loaded samples that were between $5c00 and $5dff long, then PT acted strange! the length of the sample was set between $0000 and $01ff, but if you had loops on, it played correctly. There was a little bug in the routine that searched the samplename for the extension '.pp' , and if found erased it. The bug has now been corrected. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ok, I hope you test this beta version thoroughly and report bugs. Please describe the bugs properly and state what computer,KS and memory you have. I'd prefer a step by step description. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter 'Crayon' Hanning Mushroom studios Noxious -92 My addy: Peter Hanning Vinterstigen 12 14440 Ronninge Sweden