[ INTRO ] [ SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ] [ USAGE ]
[ FORMATS ] [ DISCLAIMER ]
Introduction.
MOD Player is a small utility for the Amiga series of home computers. Its
function is simple, to play music modules. There exists on the Amiga
various different formats of music module, be it a
ProTracker module, an OctaMED, or various others. Some module formats are
quite obscure, and others are just "clones" of existing formats, clones
which may offer greater compression for example, or more player commands.
But all this is besides the point. MOD Player is capable of detecting and
playing five different formats at the moment, with more to follow
(hopefully!). Go to the formats section for more details on the formats MOD
Player can handle.
MOD Player was written in Blitz Basic II by Gareth Griffiths, as one of his
first Blitz Basic programs. The very first versions of the program were
only seen by him, and have now been deleted, because they were, umm, crap.
Of course, you might feel that this version is crap, and that's you're own
opinion! ;)
[ BACK TO TOP ]
System Requirements.
MOD Player is quite lenient on the system requirements of your machine. To
use the program, you will need the following setup:
| CPU: | MC68000 or above, MC68020 recommended. |
| Workbench: | 2.04 or above. |
| Chip RAM: | 1Mb, 2Mb recommended. |
| Fast RAM: | None required. |
| Misc: | A mouse & music modules ;) |
Note that the only time you will EVER need Fast RAM when using this program
is if you are loading in a VERY LARGE module (i.e. 1.5Mb or
more).
[ BACK TO TOP ]
Usage.
Using MOD Player is as easy as saying your ABC's ;), but before you can use
it for module playing, you have to get it up and running! Here's how:
Loading from Workbench:
EASY! Just double-click on the program's icon on your Workbench screen. You
should now be confronted by the GUI (Graphical User
Interface)
Loading from the CLI (Shell):
A bit more complicated this one. First open up a CLI (you should know how
to do this, if not, consult your Workbench manuals) and then CD to the
place where MOD Player is stored. If, for example, it is stored in the C:
directory (this is the recommended place) then you would type:
CD C:
Now simply type in MOD_Player to get the program running. If
however, you want MOD Player to automatically load a module, type
MOD_Player followed by the COMPLETE path to your module. For
example, if I wanted MOD Player to load foobar.mod from my Music: directory on startup, I would
type:MOD_Player Music:foobar.mod
And MOD Player should load the module and start playing automatically.
Obviously, if the module doesn't exist, then it won't be loaded! Now let me
explain the GUI to you:
First of all, you can drag the MOD Player window around your Workbench
screen by holding down the left mouse button whilst it is over the title
bar, and dragging the window to your chosen position. Secondly, to quit the
program, simply click once on the close gadget (in the top left of the
window titlebar) and the program will exit. Note that you are not asked to
quit in 2.2, because many people said they found it annoying. I may build
it as an option in future releases.
OK then, on to the buttons themselves. First of all, LOAD, the button on
the far left. As its name implies, this loads a module. Selecting it brings
up a standard ASL file requester. Simply select your module from the
requester, as you would a file in a text editor, and click OK. MOD Player
will attempt to load in your module. If it is successful, the
filename of the module will appear in the MODULE gadget, and it will start
playing. While a module is playing, this gadget is ghosted. This is because
loading another module whilst another was playing caused audio trash.
Simply stop or eject the module to enable the LOAD gadget again.
Next, the REWIND gadget. This is only available for ProTracker modules at
this time (check the format of the module by activating the MOD Player
window (click once inside it) and then look at the SCREEN titlebar) and
moves the song back one pattern. If the module loaded is an MMDx module,
this gadget will appear ghosted.
The PLAY gadget does what the name implies. It plays the module from the
beginning. This gadget is only disabled if no module is loaded.
The FAST FORWARD gadget does exactly the reverse of the rewind button, and
moves the module FORWARD a pattern. Note that this button is, like rewind,
only available for ProTracker modules at this time. If the module loaded is
an MMDx module, the FAST FORWARD button will be ghosted out.
The STOP button. Hmm, does it really need explaining? ;) This button simply
stops the current module from playing. If you wish to load another module
whilst the current one is playing, you must stop it first. This was due to
some audio trash which occurred. I know its annoying, but I'll fix it when
I can ;)
The EJECT button frees the current module from memory, removing all traces
of it from the program. All the gadgets are now disabled except for LOAD,
and everything is as it was at startup.
The VOLUME slider is only enabled if the current module is a ProTracker
module, because as yet, Blitz Basic does not support volume control for
MMDx modules. The higher the box on the slider, the higher the volume.
Simply hold down the mouse button on the box and drag to adjust the
volume.
The MODULE gadget simply displays the filename of the current module. You
cannot interact with it in any way (yet ;)
And that's about all you need to know when it comes to the Usage of MOD
Player.
[ BACK TO TOP ]
Formats.
MOD Player 2.2 currently supports five different module formats, two of
them being experimental. These are:
| ProTracker: | The most popular module format on the Amiga. Relatively standard module |
| MMD0: | The first MED module format. used in MED and OctaMED. |
| MMD1: | An improvement over MMD0. Used in OctaMED v3.0 and above. |
| MMD2: | EXPERIMENTAL! Bigger improvement on MMD1. Used in OctaMED v5.0 and above. |
| MMD3: | EXPERIMENTAL! The last revision of the MMD module formats. Used in OctaMED SoundStudio, contains mix-module data. |
MMD2 and MMD3 are experimental, because I've only just started using that particular library. They shouldn't crash your Amiga, the
worst they can (probably) do is play the module 'trashy'. Let me know what it's like on your system please.
[ BACK TO TOP ]
Disclaimer.
I, Gareth Griffiths, am providing this software "AS IS" to you, which means
that I cannot be held responsible for any personal injury, property damage,
or damage to your computer that this program may cause. Nevertheless, this
program, during testing, has proved very stable. Indeed, whilst I was
typing out all of this HTML, and doing the graphics for this document, I
had it playing constantly. No bugs have been found, no crashes occurred. It
is perfectly safe on my system, and on the machines of the other
testers.
MOD Player falls into one of two categories:-
TANGO-WARE
If you are a bloke, and you use MOD Player frequently, all I require is a
can of Orange Tango sent to me through the post. Ask for my address via
e-mail ;)
or, if you are a member of the female persuasion...
F*CK-WARE
If you are a woman, and you use MOD Player frequently, all I require is a
nice, long, sh*g ;) Ask for my address via e-mail ;)
Feel free to send me any donations if you feel that it is
justified, but if you do, I'm afraid I can only accept GBP (Great British
Pounds)! Sorry!. E-Mail me if you use (but not necessarily like) the
program. My e-mail address is
mail@gazchap.btinternet.co.uk and any feedback is appreciated. Thanks!
[ BACK TO TOP ]
MOD Player (all versions) is ©Copyright 1998-1999 Gareth Griffiths.
