Offline Help Manual Available!! Version .85 (final beta)

[Rakib]

More design vise input, a table of content would be nice.
The terms/or a index at the last pages, sorted alphabetically. Some might print out this piece of text and use it as a quick reference guide.

And a another help topic: How to compile the source

[uncloned]

and if you are not interested in my help here are some references that will serve you well

about well temperament from the microtonal encyclopedia

http://www.tonalsoft.com/enc/w/well.aspx

Wiki about microtonalism in general

http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/MicrotonalTheory

and if you need to ask questions about microtonal practice here would be a good place to do so

http://xenharmonic.ning.com/

[jmkz]

I can't download OHM .2 the website is down  :shock:

[Saga Musix]

WTF, who let the domain expire?! Did Studiocraft drop the domain? It doesn't say that it awaits renewal at least.

[MisterX]

My fault...  the domain lapsed, but it is back.

[Harbinger]

Harbinger - I'm happy to help with the tuning aspect.

I'm sure i will need your help in the Audio Reference section, which i will be doing last. My knowledge of the science of audio thru electronics is very basic, and understanding the mechanics of pitch is still shaky for me. I will basically be taking a self-inflicted course on audio, acoustics, and the digital representation thereof, so i can saturate my brain with too much knowledge. Then i can write confidantly about the application of effects, pitch, oscillation, and waveforms for non-beginners who want to push MPT to its limits.
I'm certain i will be asking for help later on all this science and math, so i will be asking later for help from you and Sam_Zen and some of our other audio scientists.

For now i'm still trying to figure out MPT's features!

[uncloned]

My fault...  the domain lapsed, but it is back.

Kim,

You must have the world's coolest forum icon.

[Harbinger]

Download the MPT OHM .4 beta here.

Changes to this edition:
1. Updated to MPT build 1.17.3.2. Some of the new features/fixes are not completely understood, but i did my best. The build that runs concurrent with the OHM will now be mentioned in every release.
2. Resizing Toolbar mentioned.
3. Soundfont import mentioned (written up later).
4. WAV Export reworked with new GUI.
5. Saving Audio Clips section (which never made it to release) excised, now that we have rendering directly from the Order List.
6. Tunings section altered slightly with GUI change to the Tuning Properties dialog.
7. Forgot to include the Appendices for now, i'll have those next session.
8. Various format changes for better readibility and "interestingness."

[Saga Musix]

that link is 404 (it least to the .2 version)

[Harbinger]

Thanks. Fixed.

[Saga Musix]

- What I find is a bit strange that you don't go through the options windows tab by tab (i.e. the autosave feature is not mentioned until the chapter about saving). I think a newbie would rather want to go through all tabs first and know what can be set up in which tab. It's simply more natural.

- Color tab: Saying that the small font is "less readable" is not a good thing. It sounds rather deprecating to me - Especially since I can read that font without any problems, even on a display with extremely high DPI count.

- 11. Track formats, IT format: NNAs don't really lower CPU usage (they rather increase it).

- 9. Patterns -> Note events -> Note Fade (~~):

Otherwise, it acts  the same as a Note-Off message.

Wrong. Apart from applying a fade-out, note fade commands do nothing. The big difference between Note Fade and Note Off is that Note Off also exits sustain loops.

[Harbinger]

Download the MPT OHM .6 beta here. This one brings back the Appendices (sorry about .4), plus adds a lot more....

Still more fact-checking needed, especially in the Channel FX commands. Suggestions welcome. If you see things that are not complete in this version, it's because i need more info on the subject. Feel free to tell me what you know or provide links to pages you think will help me. (I still need info on Resampling, the new Sequence Patterns, and MIDI Mapping.) I'm doing a LOT of testing with MPT, trying to understand what is happening in each feature, so alot of what you're reading is educated guesses based on what i've learned from this kind of trial-and-error research. Since i don't know what's truly happening from the program code, i'm quick to make corrections from those who understand the inner workings of ModPlug.

The next release will be the .8 beta, which will preview the Reference section, with write-ups for all the tab elements, dialog windows, menus, and contextual menus. I'm about 85% done with that.

We're getting closer to the Official 1.0 release, which will be the real manual with all corrections and updates. I would also like to include the write-ups for working with MPT and a couple of the more complicated VSTs (like Chainer, Kontakt, and others). I will also release (into the public domain) the .doc and .odt files i use to write this up, and the original images -- all of which others can use to make improvements on or translate to different languages or formats. (I'll need to put these somewhere that everyone can access, so let me know by Private Mail if anyone of you want to store it on your site.)

When we get to the 2.0 release of the OHM, i will have a FULLY linked index (no flipping thru PDF pages!), a Reference section on how digital Audio works and how MPT manipulates it, and perhaps a glossary.

Here are the changes i made in the .6 version:

> Added sections on Envelope Loops and the Release Node, complete with graphics.
> Added section on Record-Select.
> Added MPTM Parameter Control Event to FX commands.
> Table-ized the Channel FX Appendix for better readability and cursory searching. Also provided (most) links between the FX t.o.c.'s and their descriptions.
> Added a few graphics/tables/examples throughout for better comprehension.
> Made corrections mentioned by Jojo and others. (The ones he made for .4 will be in the next beta release....)

And thanks again for all you guys's support! Your encouragement motivates me....

[Saga Musix]

I've already supplied you with more information on loops, but here's one more thing:

Funny that you actually didn't mention that "invert sample" (EFx in .MOD files) does not work in OpenMPT. It will work in the next release, but it didn't until yesterday. Your description is not quite correct, but then again, the effect is pretty complicated to explain. In a nutshell:

- Every frame, a counter is increased, depending on the EFx parameter.
- If the counter reaches a certain point, it is reset and the actual effect will be executed:
- Increase another counter which will reset to zero if it matches the sample loop length
- At the current position (loop_start + counter), invert the sample data (only one byte!!!)

This effect is executed on the sample that was playing with the EFx effect until EF0 is encountered. This means that other samples that might occur between a EFx and EF0 will not be touched.

As I said, very confusing! It took me and bubsy quite some time to decrypt the ProTracker ASM code and I rewrote the code 3 times now

EDIT: There's also a small spelling mistake on page 13, "repeat notes on hold": "checbox" instead of "checkbox".

[g]

It took me and bubsy quite some time to decrypt the ProTracker ASM code and I rewrote the code 3 times now

Great job! Soon OpenMPT will be the best module player

[Rakib]

It is already

Thanks for the update, Harbinger!
I hope to contribute when you're releasing the source. I find, chm easier to read.