how does modplug tracker sound?

[Relabsoluness]

Huh? Olivier always praised ModPlug for having an internal 32bit engine! It was 32bit from the beginning...!

In original MPT help file in technical information it reads: "- 32-bit internal precision for mixing, dithered to 16-bit.". I can't give an explanation what this means, but hopefully someone else can.

[anboi]

i just had a quick go of doing the test from that simonv site someone referred to and modplug now (.48) looks much the same as it did in their test. the best out of all modplugs options was polyphase, i'll try varying settings on that to see what comes out best if i get round to it. i tested by rendering it to a wav, can't test recording output properly. i also listened to the test they used to make sure i got the right notes and octave (all the whites and start one octave up from what it says on the site in modplug, i think i'm using the default on that but might not be..!)

[dBlues]

Huh? Olivier always praised ModPlug for having an internal 32bit engine! It was 32bit from the beginning...!

In original MPT help file in technical information it reads: "- 32-bit internal precision for mixing, dithered to 16-bit.". I can't give an explanation what this means, but hopefully someone else can.

Dithering typically adds noise with amplitude of 1 (bit) to the track. This sounds counter-intuitive but actually causes the audible noise levels to decrease. That is due to evening out, flattening noise spectrum spikes that follow from bit rate conversion. It works due to property of human ear to be more sensitive to higher amplitude singular (one frequency) waves than lower amplitude wider-spectrum waves.

anboi: please put some pictures of spectrums when you get the results! And be sure to avoid clipping but still use maximum non-clipping volume before rendering to wave and analyzing.

[LevonZOLTAR]

thanks for replys all , i think the main difference between DAWs(ableton, cubase etc.) and modplug is 16bit vs. 32bit ,i have made some experiments with simple drum programming in ableton and then modplug. using the exactly same samples(tr808kit 44.1khz/16bitwaw). i put the drums to simpler with no effects and same samples to modplug . for me ableton sounded more bright, crunchy and punchy.
i know, i could get that same punch with modplug, but with one vst for one channel is not really good for that,  i love modplug but this issue is annoying me to death. maybe i can start using vst instruments since those suppose to be 32bit. so if you know good vst samplers hook me up!!!

ps. and yea, good music is not about the soundquality, but some types of shit really need that digital brightness,dynamics, etc etc. forexample minimal techno, dubstep etc. etc.

[seventhson]

You could try changing the Sound Quality settings in the setup,player section.
Setting it to Polyphase,and WFIR cutoff factor to around 78%,and Sample ramping to 0 samples sounded the best to my ears.

[Saga Musix]

Setting sample ramping to 0 is a very bad idea coz samples that have a DC offset or don't fade out properly will produce clicks...

[seventhson]

Never heard any clicks.
I changed it too 0 because when i had it higher,i would lose a part of the attack of certain sounds. (especially kicks were affected)
Besides using samples that have DC offset or have a crappy fade out is a bad idea.  :wink:

[Saga Musix]

unluckily, most old mods have bad DCs, but of course i don't know if you listen to that old stuff

[seventhson]

Good point,hadn't really thought about that.
I tend to use samples from sample cd's and vsti's so usually no problems here.  

[Relabsoluness]

WFIR cutoff factor to around 78%

Goes off-topic, but how have you chosen such value? I'm just interested since I noticed sometime ago that it seems to have major effect on the sound, and it might be useful to know a bit more about it. I have it at 97 %.

[Saga Musix]

97% is the standard. it seems to cut something off (hence the name ^^), but i'm not sure what. the lower the value, the more is cut off. so i suggest having it close to 100%. when i tried it on my track "digital loop", the strings had gone when i set it to 2%. but i have no clue what it had cut out, coz the bass and the treble was still there... so it was probably the mids?

[LPChip]

IIRC from the past when I chatted with Rewbs about this, this value is like a smoothness for the sound. The lower the sound is the more it will smoothen the sound. It was really low before because Rewbs thought that it would make the sound nicer. When I started to experiment with it, I noticed that it made the sound more clear as less anti-aliasing was added. Back at that time, I experimented and liked the value of 78. I also noticed that the higher I went the more sharp the sound came so I lost a bit of dynamics.

Its like having a photo, and then add a brightness/contrast over it. You can really clear up the image but when I went up to 100% it was like getting black/white entirelly, loosing the smaller details.

However, it also depends on what value you use when you start tracking, cus especially when you mix in MPT like I do, you can track with this value in mind and then any other value as the one you've used will sound differend and not correct.

[seventhson]

I compared modplugs output to songs i thought sounded good and then kept increasing the value untill it sounded as clear as the reference material.
To my ears it sounds like the highs (8khz and up) are increased when you increase the value.