                  soniqTracker v0.52
                                                                     Written by Tim Meekins
                                                           Copyright  1992 by Tim Meekins

soniqTracker is the premiere music module player available for the Apple IIgs. soniqTracker supports more special effects and features than any other player and can play at full speed on a 2.8 MHz system with no slow-downs -- even when running under an environment such as GNO/ME!

This version of soniqTracker is ftreeware! All donations are accepted, but I will not promise to send free updates to anyone who sends me renumeration, nor can I give anyone credit if soniqTracker becomes a commercial product.

User beware! soniqTracker is a fully copyirghted work! If any code from soniqTracker is used without my written permission or any portion of soniqTracker is sold for profit without my written consent, I will prosecute. Dont abuse free software! Lets push the GS to the 21st century!

To run soniqTracker, just launch it from your favorite program launcher such as the Finder. Youll see a splash screen with the soniqTracker logo after it starts. Press any key or click the mouse button to continue. If you have a weak audio card that cant handle the Ensoniq 5503 being pushed to its limits, then lower the volume setting in the Preferences... menu (discussed below).

soniqTracker was written by Tim Meekins, but I couldnt have done it without the great support of the II community. Kudos to everyone! Also, big applause to Dave Seah for providing some wonderful artwork and the numerous suggestions and attention to detail. Apologies to those not listed, more credits are provided in soniqTrackers about screen.

First, a description of the menu options:

Apple

About soniqTracker...

Displays a nice picture and cycles through the soniqTracker credits. Let all these people know that you appreciate their help.

File

Open...

Open is used for loading music modules. After selecting this menu, a standard file dialog will be presented. Simply select the song to load, or press the cancel button. Very rarely, soniqTracker will come across a mod file it cannot load and it may get confused. In fact, if you do encounter such a file, please let me know! Songs that are not music modules are also hard to recognize, since the basic NoiseTracker-style module contains no special identification bytes in the file. soniqTracker will do bounds checking and will abort if the file does not appear to be a music module.

Quit

This is probably the most rarely used option, but it was provided as a convenience for some users. This option will quit soniqTracker and return to the launching application.

Edit

These menu items are not used by soniqTracker and are provided as a convenience for New Desk Accessories.

Sound

Play Music

To begin playing the module, select the Play Music menu option or simply press OA-P.  Youll be shown the special player screen and music will begin playing.  In the center of the player screen are the VU meters, representing the approximate volumes of each track during a note trigger. below the VU meter is the song name box. To the right is a numeric display showing the song position number, pattern number, and line number. If a song should have a problem, write down this number approximately where the problem occurred and send it to me -- that way, find and reproducing the problem is much simpler. To the left of the VU meters is a special message box. When you change the player parameters, youll see messages here. Also, if the player encounters an effect in a song it does not handle, it will also display a message here. I support every effect that I have a module to test with, so if you get an unknown effect message, please send me the song so I can support the effect. Above the control panel are the dancing lights and they can be turned off in the preferences dialog box.

When a song is being played, the following key commands are available:

	option, open-apple, escape, q	stop the song and quit the player
	1-4			toggle tracks 1 through 4 on or off
	space			pause the song, press any key to resume, but it will be intrepreted
                   				so pressing q will stop. I recommend pressing return
	<,>			decrease or increase the volume
	s			tab through each of the stereo modes (see preferences section)
	n			skip to next song (see Jukebox Player below)

JukeBox Player...

This feature combines the Open... and Play Music menu options into a special Jukebox player. After selecting this option, the user is presented with a dialog box. The user can select a single file or multiple files. Selecting more than one file is very simple. Clicking an item selects it. Open-Apple Clicking an item selects adds it to the list of selected items. Open-Apple dragging will select a range of files, and shift-clicking can also select a range. soniqTracker currently limits you to 300 songs (and will take about a day to play through).

Once a list of songs is selected, the JukeBox player will play them one at a time. When the last song is played, it wraps around and begins playing the first song again. 

During the JukeBox player, each of the command keys from the player are available, plus, the n key will skip to the next song on the song list.

Preferences...

This option presents a dialog containing various user preferences that control how soniqTracker works. Below is a description of each option and how or why it should be used or changed.

Default Speed

This option lets you select between a default 50 Hz or 60 Hz clock rate. Every mod that I know of uses 50 Hz, but due to the nature of the Amiga, it is possible that some modules may have been written at 60 Hz. If the song seems too slow at 50 Hz, try setting the default to 60 Hz. 

Dancing Lights

When playing a song, dots are drawn on the player screen representing the pitch being played on each track. If you do not like this effect, simply uncheck this box.

Stereo Mode

Music modules are written using stereo effects,  except instruments are played on either the left or right, but not partially on one or the other. This produces a bothersome split in the music. Professionally produced music uses stereo mixing so that even for an instrument that is on the left, it can still be heard faintly on the right. The Stereo Mode option provides soniqTracker with similar stereo mixing. Full Stereo means instruments are played 100% on the left or right. 75% Stereo is 75% volume on the primary channrel (left or right) and 25% on the opposite channel. Similarly for 50% and 25%. These percentages are slightly misleading, though. 25% does not mean 25% on primary, and 75% on the opposite. It should be treated as 100% being full stereo and 0% being mono, therefore, 25% means that the songs is basically played as mono, but the primary channel is 25% louder. Although the terminology is odd, it does make sense and sounds quite well, especially with headphones. Although you may shy away from trying the stereo option, I highly suggest everyone trying the 50% Stereo setting, especially with headphones. It produces a very similar atmosphere like when listening to the radio with headphones. Stereo mixing can also be changes while listening to a song by pressing the s key. Special thanks to James Brookes for suggesting that this option be added to soniqTracker.

Volume

Select a volume level from 1 to 10, where 1 is very quiet and 10 is good and loud (maybe too loud for some stereo cards). This can also be changed in the player using the > and > keys.

                                                               A note about music modules

The music module format originated on the Amiga in the program SoundTracker. Additional music players followed such as NoiseTracker, ProTracker, StarTrekker, and numerous others. Along with these additional players came differences in the file format, yet despite the differences, they use identical signature bytes (except StarTrekker) and provide no method for differentiating between them. Luckily, the ProTracker format has gained momentum and the number of modules using features of other players is diminishing. soniqTracker primarily supports ProTracker modules, but does have advanced code for recognizing other formats.

                                                                    soniqTracker Features

	 intelligently looped instruments
	 instruments can be larger than 64k (good thing, modules can have up to 128k instruments!)
	 All pitch calculations are performed in Amiga units and converted to Hz prior to playing, thus
	   pitch-bending bending is guaranteed to behave like the Amiga.
	 Arpeggio effect
	 Pitch bend up and down
	 Tone portamento
	 Vibrato (with enhancements to make sound even better most mod players).
	 Set discrete volume
	 Slide the volume at any rate
	 Combined Portamento & Volume slide
	 Combined Vibrato & Volume slide
	 Can play at any sample offset. Great for doing tricks with digitized speech.
	 Position jump...typically makes the song play forever. Youll find this a lot in modules ripped 
	  from demos or games where the music plays continuously.
	 Break the current pattern and jump to any line in the next pattern
	 Adjust the speed of the song and adjust the clock rate on-the-fly.
	 Can play at 50 Hz or 60 Hz as default.
	 Fine pitch slide up or down (great for chrous effects)
	 Retrigger a note at any rate (great for percussion)
	 Fine volume slide up or down
	 Delay a note from playing any number of clock ticks (also great for percussion)
	 Can play a larger variety of modules correctly than any other player on the Apple IIgs.
	 Very fast DOC management routines. Experiences no slow-downs while playing.
	 Special sound-enhancement by using the Ensoniq oscillators effectively
	 Tuned instruments (try listening w/o tuning...and youll know why this is handy!)
	 Custom stereo mixing
	 Extended note ranges for songs not obeying the Amiga 3 octave note range. Used in modules
	   created on the Macintosh on IBM. soniqTracker supports 4 1/2 octaves.
	 Way-cool JukeBox Player
	 Pattern-looping...
	 Highest quality sounding instruments.
	 Cool graphics showing the pitch of each track
	 Postion/Pattern/Line counter in player
	 User controlled volume (even while playing!)
	 Pattern delaying
	 soniqTracker employs two state-of-the-art algorithms for modifying waveforms to reduce annoying static
	  caused by a hardware glitch in the 5503 chip. soniqTracker has some of the cleanest sounding instruments
	  available on the IIgs.


Those all important addresses:

internet: meekins@cis.ohio-state.edu
America Online: GNO Tim2              (gnotim2@aol.com)

Or surface mail:
  5760 Johnstown-Alexandria Rd.
  Johnstown, OH 43031
   1 (614) 967 - 3141

I am available immediately for 65816 and C/Unix contract programming. Call (614) 967 - 3141 and ask for Tim for more information.

If you want to see new and original software produced for the Apple IIgs, contact Procyon, Inc. for more information call:   (303) 933 - 4649. 

Also, be sure to support Alliance International, Inc. and the European GS project. 