Short: Creates a 8ch module out of a 4ch one Author: andezl@kastelli.otol.fi (kastelli.ouka.fi soon?) Uploader: andezl kastelli otol fi Type: mus/edit Architecture: m68k-amigaos This text file doubles as achive's readme and in-lha instructions to use, so I'll make it short. This application makes it possible to make your pt the long sought 8 channel tracker. ModForm takes in one 4ch module and according to some rules, constructs a 8ch one out of it. I made this because GuruS2 (PS3M's author) again refused to make the FT2 Song Editor I have been brainwashing him to do for a few months. ;) I was too lazy to make a real 8ch editor myself, so think this as a compromise. ModForm's command line usage is as follows: 'ModForm filename'. Use no quotas/wildcards, file name is taken in as typed. Path can be specified. What ModForm does? It picks all the adjacent patterns of a module as pairs and combines them as one, in other words, it takes patterns 2n and 2n+1 and joins them as one 8ch pattern n. Thus patterns 0 and 1 are joined as one 8 channel pattern 0. The next patterns 2 and 3 are joined as 8ch pattern 1 and so on. Note that the real PATTERNS are joined, not the song-position -referring patterns! The even pattern defines the 1-4 channel side of a 8ch pattern and the odd pattern defines the 5-8 channel side of it. To construct your module, you specify the pattern order table as normally, remembering that the 4ch patterns 0 and 1 ALWAYS mean the 8ch pattern 0. So now the first free pattern after 0 is 2, then after 2 comes 4. You can also specify the odd patterns in the order table - it will still refer to the correct 8ch pattern. The last pattern of a module must be odd, because otherwise the whole 8ch module will be corrupt: the pt must save an even number of patterns! So avoid this mistake by making sure you save the both parts of the last 8ch pattern. I retrackered one of my favourite 4ch tunes I have always thought needing extra channels, but did very quickly and roughly and only partially - apologizes to the module Belle-Helene's author Tiny. To be honest, I have always thought myself to be better as coder than musician. ;) Use the ModForm to make the real playable 8ch module for PS3M/Hip/others. The mod-prefix will change to md8 to indicate the 8channelness. I know that this piece is a complete fuck-up on the code level. But as a two-hour utility I think I'll allow it to it. Did you know that this document is three times the size of the actual utility? If you have comments, suggestions, booze and/or advise then I'll be extatic and looking forwards to hearing from you. If you find this useful and/or manage to make a good 8ch tune with the help of this, let me know. Should this document seem ununderstible (it does), look at the example. Oh yeah, I just made this utility backwards compatible - it is possible to convert normal mod8:s back to program's special 4ch modules, but that loses 8ch patterns above 32 unless 100 patterns mode is enabled - 50 should be enough, you know. ;) Have fun! * STL / Damage --- andezl@kastelli.otol.fi --- Antti Lankila *