Re: Newer MOD player ?

[nathan@cco.caltech.edu (Nathan Mates)]

In article <44mhb3$din@er5.rutgers.edu>, Kid <neiderma@er5.rutgers.edu> wrote:
>>Thus, without some sort of sound board based on a newer chip, the GS
>>cannot properly reproduce S3M files.  This is not a flame on the GS,
>>which I still

>Is some kind of software converter possible?  There was a program
>that converted MODs to SoundSmith somewhere if my memory serves right...

   Did you read Ian's post? S3M files can contain up to 32 tracks,
which is _impossible_ to play decently on a GS. Soundsmith supports
only 14.  Yeah, you could convert, but only if you threw out over half
the tracks. For S3M songs with <15 tracks, that might be an option,
but in general, I'd think not.

   Further, Soundsmith does not support many of the fun 'effects' used
in MODs, let alone S3Ms. There's also this 64K maximum of instrument
samples that'll hurt you also. Once again, if you were willing to
throw out a lot of data, you might be able to play it on the GS, but
it wouldn't sound anything like it should.

   Ian has done many GS sound apps; when he says (and proves it with
facts to back him up) that certain sound/music things are impossible
with the GS's hardware, I'd be inclined to believe him. Only by adding
new hardware (a la SecondSight) can some of the GS's natural
limitations be overcome, and programmers can do things like everyone
wants them to.

   I took this same position last week regarding "Netscape GS" or a
similar clone. The Apple II has survived for many years because people
found a _better_ tool and solution to their problem, rather than
relying on a port of the latest bloated piece of software from another
platform. [Appleworks vs Wordstar/WordPerfect/Word/etc is a great
example: a good, efficient, fast tool that does what most people want,
and if there's a feature missing, then some programmer can add it in
like Timeout.] Unfortunately, people seem to be losing this spirit of
"I don't have to have the same tool as you, but I can do it faster and
better" to "I'll pay $X,000 for a box that'll run that at a decent
speed."

   Also, I'm afraid that I've never really gotten into this whole
computer music thing. It's nice having background music during a game,
but if I want some music when I'm doing other things, my CD player and
radio have better quality, more variety, and less cost than a computer
and storage space for all these mods/soundsmiths/S3Ms/etc. Thus, this
whole quest for neat music off a computer is something strange to me. :)

Nathan Mates

-- 
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~nathan/      <*>
# And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret of the
# Kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in 
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