COMPO RULES, DEADLINES, ETC: https://forum.openmpt.org/index.php?topic=5981.msg45224#msg45224 (https://forum.openmpt.org/index.php?topic=5981.msg45224#msg45224)
Those of you who are following OpenMPT development may already know it: OpenMPT 1.28 will finally gain support for OPL2/3 instruments in S3M files, a rarely used (and rarely supported) feature. OPL2 and OPL3 are sound chips by Yamaha that are based on phase modulation (typically known as Frequency Modulation - FM). This is the same technique as used by the famous Yamaha DX7, except that these chips are cut down in cost and features (e.g. they have less operators).
Most OPL-based music you have heard is probably based exclusively on this chip, as it was popularized by the AdLib soundcards on which it was the only means of sound generation. However, on the Creative SoundBlaster cards, it was possible to use both this chip and play some samples at the same time. The combination of these two techniques represents a pinnacle of game and demo music in the early 90s for me personally.
To cut a long story short: I think OpenMPT deserves some example songs to show off the beautiful combination of small PCM samples combined with great OPL instruments. Currently this is only possible by using the S3M format. There is no specific rule set at the time of writing, and no compo deadline either because it isn't even clear yet when OpenMPT 1.28 is going to be released. Since there is no possibility to share samples between S3M files, it probably does not make much sense to demand the compo entries to use a specific sample set, but of course I can provide some nice samples to get your inspiration going. There are plenty of OPL2 instruments floating around (e.g. JuceOPLVSTi (https://bsutherland.github.io/JuceOPLVSTi/) comes with hundreds of them), but many of them have been heard over and over again (also because editing FM patches is a very cumbersome task in many AdLib trackers), so I suggest you go wild and work on some custom instruments as well.
I'm open to any further ideas concerning compo rules.
Am i assuming correctly that those would need to be made with other tools, not the MPT itself, since the current version isn't capable of handling FM?
No, all you need is an OpenMPT 1.28 test build (https://builds.openmpt.org/builds/).
Note that you cannot currently create new OPL instruments from the sample editor; you need to either copy/duplicate an existing OPL instrument slot or load an OPL instrument (SBI or S3I instruments) from disk. This will of course change in the future.
Oh
Thanks!
A couple of thoughts - for this do you want a file with only these instruments in it, I made something but I grabbed a sample bass drum and snare, which I hope is ok, if not I will have to hunt some more, and second thought, will there be some way to apply changes on the fly to the values of these instruments? EG, change the release rate and other effects on the fly in the patterns because I went for a retrigger and it didnt work, so there are obviously plenty effects that will not apply to these instruments, maybe we can take the ones that do nothing and give them a secondary function for these new instruments.
There is no way to modify OPL instruments in S3M beyond what is possible with regular samples (volume, pitch, etc.). Retrigger does not work the way you expect as there is no explicit "note-on" event on the OPL chip - simply put, a voice is either running or not.
QuoteI made something but I grabbed a sample bass drum and snare, which I hope is ok
Since drums are pretty much a weak point of FM synthesis, that's absolutely okay and actually encouraged.
Gave it a shot, this is really cool.
Already got myself a few new instruments, so I'll definitely have one (or more if allowed) example tunes. :)
Would it be possible to somehow make the volume louder though? I have some really good drum sounds but they are pretty weak in volume. If I double up the notes in the pattern area, it works great, but then I reach my 9 channel limit rather quickly.
This is an outstanding issue, but the S3M format has no ways of specifying the general OPL volume. Often the OPL instruments will still be able to overpower all samples though.
By the way, feel free to report here (or even better, in the issue tracker) any problems you might be having with OPL instruments, like if they do not initialize properly, bugs when editing in the instrument editor, etc... I'm sure it's far from bug-free at this point.
Here's something I made with some instruments from JuceOPLVSTi and a few samples.
I love these new instruments, and am holding thumbs that they will find their way into mptm eventually :)
also, are all these instruments made from the same waveforms with variations on those sliders? because if so then would it be possible to have an easy way to make one of these instruments, without dragging one from outside modplug, on the drop down for new instrument, it could have the option; New OPL Instrument?
As I have already said, this feature is far from being finished and being able to initialize OPL instruments directly from within OpenMPT is of course on the to-do list.
Quote from: Saga Musix on July 04, 2018, 15:19:21
As I have already said, this feature is far from being finished and being able to initialize OPL instruments directly from within OpenMPT is of course on the to-do list.
Ok, epic :) please excuse my over enthusiasm
Wow, this new feature is amazing! I'm having a lot of fun messing around with it so far, i'll definitely be entering a module into this.
Cool. ;)
Very interesting feature. It works so far with some S3M files using OPL instruments from my module collection.
Will experiment with it abit, maybe even do a module.
Quote from: Saga Musix on July 01, 2018, 20:52:50OpenMPT 1.28 will finally gain support for OPL2/3 instruments in S3M files, a rarely used (and rarely supported) feature.
Coincidentally I just started looking into what tracker programs support FM synthesis, and wondered if my favourite one, OpenMPT, already supported it via S3M files. And stumbled across the news.
I read some other threads where you guys were adamant you weren't going to spend time on such a rarely used feature. I'd really like to know - what changed your mind? :)
The problem was not (only) really time or rarity - the main issue was that until May 2018, there was no OPL emulator with a usable license (all of them were LGPL or GPL, which doesn't play well with libopenmpt's BSD license), and that I expected the integration to be a lot more troublesome than it eventually ended up being. Sometimes you just need to look at an issue with a fresh mind after a while to re-evaluate it. And sometimes you just need someone to come along and release a public domain OPL emulator (https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=75963).
That is awesome man, I'm looking forward to this. It's a great time for retro gaming, music, art, etc. and it's because of amazing developers like you 8)
As we have decided to move a few planned things to later OpenMPT/libopenmpt releases to not delay the next release unnecessarily, I have now come up with a preliminary deadline: Entries are due on 16th of November 2018, 23:59 UTC - earlier submissions are of course welcome.
Submissions have to be in S3M or MPTM format (obviously) and must make use of OPL instruments. Usage of samples is optional but highly encouraged, and the resulting files shouldn't be larger than around 200KB (smaller is better). Feel free to use the external samples provided with previous example songs when using the MPTM format.
Support for OPL instruments is available in the latest OpenMPT 1.28 test versions available at https://builds.openmpt.org/builds/
There are still a few notable to-dos (in particular, relation between sample and OPL volume may still change slightly), but apart from that the feature should be pretty usable. Let me know if you encounter any issues.
You can upload your submissions here: https://s3m.it/join/887
In case you need to update your entry, re-upload it with the same filename and artist name (I will see if files are updated).
Cool, might make a module for this.
Question, will the OpenMPT format have FM support or only s3m?
At some point probably yes, in particular to support the additional OPL3 operators (4 instead of 2). Don't put your hopes high that this will make it in to v1.28 though.
Directly adding OPL instruments (through the Add Silence / Resize dialog, the dropdown menu of the New Sample button or a keyboard shortcut of your choice) is possible starting from r10694 / OpenMPT 1.28.00.29. It will be available on https://builds.openmpt.org/builds/ in a few hours.
Awesome! ;D
Good news - starting from OpenMPT 1.28.00.30 (once again available from https://builds.openmpt.org/builds/ in a few hours), OPL emulation is also available in the MPTM format! The extra OPL3 operators are still not available, but the following advantages apply:
- You can use 18 instead of 9 OPL voices at the same time.
- You can mix samples and OPL voices on the same channel (is that really an advantage though? :P)
- You can use instruments.
- You can change the modulator intensity during playback using Zxx (the filter cutoff macro doubles as modulator intensity, so Z00-Z7F in the default configuration does this) or filter envelopes.
Of course it is absolutely encouraged to use the MPTM format for your compo submissions, and you can also use the external samples provided for the previous example songs - they will stay in the archive.
Oh, that is very interesting. Will convert my song from s3m to mptm and continue it as such. Does allow many things I currently miss, such as using effects in the volume collumn, something s3m does not support but mptm does. :)
Though I am using the extra opl3 operators. So I guess I have to wait until mptm supports it too before I can switch.
Uhm... you can't be using the extra operators because there is no way to use them in S3M either. You are probably referring to the extra waveforms which are of course also supported in MPTM, which is a strict superset of S3M with regards to FM support.
Im confused. Do we choose between using S3M and MPTM for the OPL3 compo, or is it limited to S3M?
Quote from: Saga Musix on August 20, 2018, 12:46:56
Submissions have to be in S3M or MPTM format (obviously)
Thanks.
Quote from: Saga Musix on August 24, 2018, 19:46:57
Uhm... you can't be using the extra operators because there is no way to use them in S3M either. You are probably referring to the extra waveforms which are of course also supported in MPTM, which is a strict superset of S3M with regards to FM support.
Oh... OH!!!!
Good to have that cleared up. Yeah, Mptm will be the choice then. Although, on second thought... I will probably stick to the s3m format for the reason that it will stick out with its extension when shipped with OpenMPT, so people will see the clear difference between my mptm song and the s3m version and understand it has these OPL instruments.
Maybe we should ask people (or Saga, you do that when you receive the entries) to rename entries that are .mptm and have opl instruments in them, to use the extension .opl.mptm, that way, people will see that it is an opl featured song.
Also... wasn't it STM that had OPL and S3M that didn't? As in Scream Tracker 2 modules had it, and was dropped with Scream Tracker 3?
Quote from: LPChip on August 25, 2018, 10:40:30
Maybe we should ask people (or Saga, you do that when you receive the entries) to rename entries that are .mptm and have opl instruments in them, to use the extension .opl.mptm, that way, people will see that it is an opl featured song.
I didn't plan on doing that but we can do that (or append " (OPL)" rather than fake extension), I guess.
Quote
Also... wasn't it STM that had OPL and S3M that didn't? As in Scream Tracker 2 modules had it, and was dropped with Scream Tracker 3?
If it was STM that supported OPL and not S3M, I would clearly have implemented it in the STM format and not S3M, wouldn't I?
No, ST2 is a primitive 4-channel sample player. S3M is the only widespread sample-based format with OPL support.
I know that Scream Tracker 3 was the one that had OPL support in it, but my memory from the old day tells me it would only load STM modules with that function. But maybe Scream Tracker 3 allowed both S3M and STM songs to have it, though somewhere in the back of my memory I recall that I could only add OPL sounds when using STM. But it was so long ago... I probably am wrong about that.
ScreamTracker 3 cannot even save STM files...
Ok, then I really must be keeping things confused. Sorry I brought this up.
Only a few more weeks before the deadline ends...
Is there any plan to implement the various modulator/carrier 4op routing algorithms for full OPL3 compatibility? It would be great to be able to use OMPT as an alternative to AdlibTracker and its UI, which is a *very* acquired taste. As a side note, JuceOPL doesn't support the algorithms either, only the additional wave forms. And its .SBI export function produces corrupted files. It would be doing the OPL enthusiast community a massive favor if the OMPT dev team made the OPL3 emulation and editing function feature complete, along with allowing saving of .SBI files (unless it exists already, I haven't tried that feature yet).
Proper OPL3 instrument support is a bit more work than anticipated, so it is almost guaranteed that it will not make it into OpenMPT 1.28. It's always possible that it will make it into a later release, though.
The competition deadline is getting closer, but it's unlikely that OpenMPT 1.28 will be released shortly after (i.e. within the first 1-2 weeks of October). Consider this to be a soft deadline, if you have an unfinished submission then let us know here and feel free to upload a work in progress version.
By the way, I'd really prefer people to use the MPTM format rather than S3M due to the general quirkiness of S3M. MPTM will always just "sound right" because OpenMPT can decide what's right and what's wrong. Don't assume that an S3M file will "stick out" just because of its extension - many people will never see it, and they will certainly not think a lot about it either.
PS (observation from early compo submissions): There is no need to set the resonance in addition to the filter cutoff - there is no such thing as resonance on OPL instruments, as the cutoff only changes the modulator volume.
Well you guys have done wonderful job so far. I would greatly encourage you to keep working on it and make the OPL3 support feature complete. At this point in time, the only options for track creation with full OPL3 support is AT2, or old DOS tools and low-level programming lanugages. Alternatives would be most welcome. It would also be competition to AT2, pushing the devs to make their own application better.
I have my entry nearly complete, so I will definitely submit it, but a few extra weeks will also help me polish it up. Do you want me to submit something before sunday if I already know I need a few more weeks to make it even better? Or is a message like this enough?
Also, I kept the s3m format and unless you want me to switch to mptm, I will stick with the s3m format, because I will also mix and master the song and will do that in the mptm format, with additional plugins and stuff, and I want to keep the example song separated from that version.
Yes, I would like to have a rough impression of the amount and quality of submissions, so please also submit unfinished entries until then.
QuoteI will stick with the s3m format, because I will also mix and master the song and will do that in the mptm format, with additional plugins and stuff, and I want to keep the example song separated from that version.
Silly reason but it's up to you.
Submitted my entry. :D
There are some nice submissions in the compo yet, thanks to everyone who contributed! Keep 'em coming - if you have any work-in-progress tune, please feel free to submit it as well. The release will definitely not happen before mid-October, so you have at least one more week or so to work on your tunes if required.
Managed to submitt my entry on time.
Compo deadline has been updated to encourage some more submissions.
Is that the final date, or is that without the possible 2 week delay?
If you look closely at the calendar, that is the two week "delay".
I've messed around and came up with a small tune that I'll submit to the compo. May not be awesome, since I just rushed it together as it would've been taking nearly a month to come up with anything good :P.
Otherwise, this was a feature that I never thought MPT was going to support. I dreamed about built-in FM instruments with the same capabilities as the samples Portamento, Volume, Vibrato and the other sound-manipulating effects. This kind of made the dream come true, cuz I had hopes for 4-op FM.
But I understand why just OPL2/3 are implemented, since it's a feature of scream-tracker 3, so I'm not disappointed :). MPT 1.28 has a whole new sector of features ready to be explored! :D
A little question, since I haven't used ST3.... Is the volume-curve for the FM supposed to be exponetial compared to the samples volume-curve being linear?
I have it really tricky to equalize the volumes, especially when using volume slides.
Yes, ST3 sends volume to the chip as-is.
Ok then it's only to start practicing those techniques ::)
I have contemplated at least adding an optional linear mode in MPTM, but the problem is that the sample volume range is identical to the OPL volume range (well, almost - OPL only goes from 0 to 63 rather than 64), meaning that there would be some inevitable loss of precision. Maybe in the next version.
I can live with the exponential volume behavior :D, it's just important that the FM sounds isn't hard-volslided like the samples, or they will barely be heard. I'm still happy with this new feature (I love tracking game-inspired music with FM-flavour, which is now possible with OpenMPT). Cool!
Hi all, where can I listen to compo songs?
You will be able to listen to the songs that made it past the pre-selection once OpenMPT 1.28 is released. This may still take a few weeks, so anyone who wasn't able to submit their tune in time can of course still upload it and contribute to the release package.
I dont know if it is just my version of 1.28.00.31 but sometimes (and it seems in a predictable way) I get sporadic sound interpretation on these instruments, is it a glitch or is it how the instruments are supposed to behave?
You can replicate what I mean by starting a new mptm, making the first instrument an OPL, taking the modulator attack rate to 12, and playing a few chords... at first it will slide in, and if you keep playing chords it will hit at 100% sometimes then eventually all the time... the other part of the behavior, which I admit I used on one of the songs I sent means that when you track with an instrument like this and save it, the slide in will happen on the first play through in a once off way.
If that is the way it is going to behave at all times, thats fine, the song I sent will behave fine, but if not that is also fine because it would be nice to have the instrument behave more predictably. I did it earlier and hit chords over and over again and somehow it played the muffled like at the beginning of the climb and then sometimes at 100%... so yeah its a bit unpredictable in its current form.
(example attached to this reply)
I admit I wasnt able to get the sporadic showing up in the tracked example and it might just be the way this laptop keyboard works or something else about how I am playing it... I put some c+f chords after those chords I played in the example in what seems like the way I play them by hand and they work fine at 100% with note cut and note off
Yes, this is how the OPL chip is supposed to work.
Quote from: Saga Musix on October 18, 2018, 07:01:50
Yes, this is how the OPL chip is supposed to work.
ok cool, got it
As there are still some improvements to be tackled before the OpenMPT 1.28 release, the deadline has been extended to the 16th November. Expect this to be a final deadline, and feel free to update your previous submissions.
Hi all, here my submission for the compo, my first track with OpenMPT and my first track with S3M!
Have fun
Ballacr75 (Emanuele)
Quote from: ballacr75 on October 23, 2018, 10:16:43
Hi all, here my submission for the compo, my first track with OpenMPT and my first track with S3M!
Have fun
Ballacr75 (Emanuele)
Upload it to https://s3m.it/join/887 (https://s3m.it/join/887)
Done!
With all these extensions, can I just resubmit a completely new song? Been very unsatisfied with my current submission which was made only 4 days before the original deadline.
Sure, that's possible. Sorry about all the unclear deadlines but that's just how open-source development works when there is no time pressure. ;)
Hi there! I uploaded a song called Sorpladra, made by me, under my shorter user name (on the file) of 1-REDD-1.
I hope to see and other songs made with OPL instruments, because I like to hear songs made with trackers, because many of them are awesome. :)
I have a question, regarding the uploading of compos. I have another track made by me for FM+PCM example song compo, and I would like to contribute more for the release package of the upcoming version of OpenMPT.
I am allowed to upload more different tracks for the FM+PCM example song compo?
You can submit any number of entries.
Thanks! :D
IMPORTANT UPDATE!
To put some finishing touches on the OPL implementation, I did some volume measurements with real SoundBlaster cards and found that for better S3M compatibility, OPL voices should be a bit more quiet. I have changed this now, and as a new simple rule, you can now expect a single-oscillator OPL voice to be as loud as a single sample when the VSTi and sample preamp sliders are at the same levels.
This means that you have to fix your competition submissions!
First, grab OpenMPT 1.28.00.40 or later from https://builds.openmpt.org/builds/ (this is currently being built, it will be available in a few hours).
For S3M files, you will notice that the "VSTi" (i.e. OPL) volume is now at 36 rather than 48. If you could save the value of the VSTi slider in S3M files, the old settings would now be a 64. But since it will always revert back to 36, you need to change the sample pre-amp instead: Multiply the sample volume by 36 and then divide by 64. So if your sample pre-amp was previously set set to 48, it would now be set to 27.
For MPTM files, you can either do the same as for S3M files, or do it the other way around: Multiply the VSTi volume by 64 and then divide by 36.
After you're done, simply submit the file under the same name again.
If I notice that you haven't made those changes until the end of the compo, I might do them myself, but I would appreciate if you could save me from going through each file and editing it.
Sorry for the inconvenience, but that's how pre-release features tend to work... ;)
Reuploaded with both the volume fix and some more elements to the music ;D. Does it hurt by the fact that the file size increased by 40kb? it's around 242kb
You can probably save some KB here and there by converting all samples to 8-bit. after all, 16-bit samples are not even supported by ScreamTracker 3 itself even if they are part of the format specification. So if you are going for S3M format, I would suggest to keep the ST3 limitations in mind - otherwise, you could just as well use MPTM and make use of its sample compression.
Quote from: Saga Musix on November 12, 2018, 21:26:35
For S3M files, you will notice that the "VSTi" (i.e. OPL) volume is now at 36 rather than 48. If you could save the value of the VSTi slider in S3M files, the old settings would now be a 64. But since it will always revert back to 36, you need to change the sample pre-amp instead: Multiply the sample volume by 36 and then divide by 64. So if your sample pre-amp was previously set set to 48, it would now be set to 27.
For MPTM files, you can either do the same as for S3M files, or do it the other way around: Multiply the VSTi volume by 64 and then divide by 36.
Did you mean divide/multiply by 48? I looked at the code and the change was 6169 instead of 8192, which was 0.753x change and 36/64 is 0.563 :P
Anyways, I'll reupload my old entry with fixed volumes and I might also submit a second entry if I can finish it in time...
There are two things happening here:
The hardcoded OPL amplification changed from 8192 to 6169 to make one FM operator as loud as one sample voice. This is mostly relevant for MPTM - this is not the difference in volume to make up for S3M levels, it is just to make the whole thing more logical to the user!
So to "undo" this change in S3M and have levels as loud as before (assuming VSTi slider set to 48), we multiply the sample volume by 6169 and divide by 8192, which gives a sample volume of 36.
However, this would assume that the user-definable OPL volume amplification didn't change. But it changed from 48 to 36, so we need to decrease the sample volume even more, we need to multiply by 36 and divide by 48.
Both of these combined are roughly equivalent to multiplying by 36 and then dividing by 64.
Updated, 182kb now :)
No news about 1.28 + demo songs?
Several release-blocking bugs have been identified, which will delay the release by several weeks (I won't mention a number to not raise any expectations).
Made my last polishing to my entry, luckily it stays under 200kb at 184kb :)
OpenMPT 1.28 is out (https://openmpt.org/openmpt-1-28-01-00-released), including some of the best entries from this compo! Many thanks to everyone who entered, even if not all songs could find their way into the release package in the end.
If you didn't manage to submit a tune in time, you can of course still submit new proposals for example tunes for the next versions.
I have a proposal for an example song in the next version:
Here's a remix of the boss theme from Final Fantasy Legend 2 for the Game Boy, just for you, SaGa! (https://modarchive.org/module.php?184251)
It uses only 1 OPL instrument, and that's the only instrument in the entire song, but the song is a very small 3 channel 3.06 kb S3M, so less is more indeed. The OPL instrument used is nothing more than a basic square, but hey, it'll showcase that you can do that with FM synthesis, so why not?
I dont think you can add remixes legally without consent.