Modplug Tracker Setup
The setup screen allows you to customize most functions of Modplug Tracker.
You can access the setup through the View menu, or from the setup button
in the main toolbar.
General Setup
The general setup screen allows you to configure the default directories
used when opening songs, samples and instruments.
You can also select miscellaneous options of Modplug Tracker: each of
them has a little description displayed next to the option list.
Sound Card Setup
- Sound Device:
This allows you to select a sound device from all the devices available in your
system. I recommend using the 'Primary Sound Driver', which is the default
DirectSound driver, or any other DirectSound driver available.
If you can't hear any sound or if the sound skips too much, try using the
'DirectSound Secondary Buffers' option, with a 50-100ms sound buffer length.
If this still doesn't work, then you can disable directsound, by using a wave
driver, but you will probably experience a long latency (delayed response)
when playing notes.
- Buffer length:
This allows you to control the length of the sound buffer length.
The smaller, the better, but you might experience noise if you set it
to a too small value. Usually, 100 ms should work in most computers.
Note that this doesn't affect DirectSound if you didn't check the
'use secondary buffers' option.
- Enable MMX Acceleration:
It kinda speaks for itself. If you have an MMX processor, you should use
this option, since it will take less CPU to mix.
(it will be grayed out if your processor doesn't support MMX extensions)
Note that it will not make a big difference on a Pentium II, since the
regular multiply instructions are very fast, but it makes a big difference
on MMX Pentiums (P55C).
- Mixing Quality:
This selects the output mixing frequency: the
bigger, the better, but it will also take more CPU. Make sure you read
the documentation of your soundcard if you want to use 48KHz: the best
quality is the same frequency than the codec of your soundcard (usually
44.1KHz or 48KHz
- Stereo, 16-Bit:
Always turn on these options, unless you have a old soundcard that doesn't
support 16-bit mixing. 16-Bit mixing has a much better quality than 8-bit,
and doesn't take more CPU. If you have a slow computer (486, or non-MMX
Pentium slower than 133MHz), or if you have mono speakers, you can disable the stereo
since mixing will be much faster. On MMX processors, stereo doesn't take
more time than mono mixing.
- Max. Polyphony:
This sets a maximum of voices that will be mixed simultaneously.
The default of 32 voices is a very good value. Use more if you have a very
fast PC, or less (24 is pretty good). Usually, you won't notice a difference
in the sound quality. (Note that channels playing at zero volume are not
counted in the active channels. In case too many channels are being played,
Modplug will cut the channels with the lowest volume)
- Stereo Separation:
I recommend using this option only when you're using headphones, since a
high stereo separation can be annoying, otherwise, you should always leave
the slider at the middle (normal stereo separation).
- Headphones:
When this option is enabled, the player uses a softer panning mode,
better tuned for headphones listening
- Pre-Amp:
This slider selects the overall amplification of the mixing. When the AGC
is not active, too high values might cause clipping in the sound (distortion).
It's up to you (the composer) to adjust the overall volume of your
song so that the level isn't too loud or too quiet. Use the global volume
effects or the song volume slider (In the General view) to control the
overall volume of the song.
Player Setup
- Bass Expansion
This option will amplify all low-frequencies in the sound. It can be pretty
useful since each channel has a limited volume, and it is much better to
use the bass expansion than playing 4 times the same sample on 4 different
channels, or to [even worse] to over-amplify a sample causing it to clip,
like in a lot of older amiga MODs. Like all other effects, don't push
it too much. A little bit is good, with both the range and depth sliders
set to 25%.
- Reverb
The reverb can make the final mix more 'rich'. Like all other effects, don't
over-use it. A strong reverb can sound great on some songs, but can also sound
bad on others. I recommend using a medium depth (50%).
This version of Modplug Tracker has a completely new reverberator engine,
much better than in earlier 1.09 versions.
- Pro-Logic Surround
I recommend using this option, especially if you have a Pro-Logic decoder,
but like all other effects, don't make it too strong or else it will sound
weird. Use a small delay (a bigger delay can be useful when mixed with the
reverb), and a medium depth.
- Resampling Mode
This is a trade off between performance and quality. Recommended option
is Linear for Pentium processor, Spline for MMX processors, and High Quality
for Celerons, Pentium II and above. No resampling is not recommended unless
you're trying to run MPT on a 30MHz processor.
- Noise Reduction
The noise reduction is a simple filter for very high frequencies.
If you find that you have too much high-frequency noise, you can try using
this option, but I personally don't recommend using it since it is a very
simple -6dB/octave low-pass filter for very high frequencies (not very high
quality).
- Enable Graphic Equalizer
This enables the 6-bands graphic equalizer (See below for more details).
This option will be available only on pentium processors, since the floating
point unit of slower CPUs (486 and some Cyrix processors) would barely make
it in real time.
- Automatic Gain Control
If this option is checked, the player will decrease the overall amplification
if the song is too loud (causing distortion). I don't recommend using this
with Modplug Tracker, since you should adjust the overall volume of the
song so that it doesn't cause distortion.
Equalizer Setup
This section allows you to control the gain (or attenuation) for each
of the 6 frequency bands: 125Hz, 300Hz, 600Hz, 1.2kHz, 4kHz and 8kHz.
The gain for each frequency band goes from -12dB to +12dB.
Like any other effect, try not to abuse of the EQ, especially if you're
a composer, since listeners might not have the same EQ preferences.
Since Modplug Tracker v1.09, you can also select the center frequency
for each band, by right-clicking on the slider, and save up to 4 different
presets
Keyboard Setup
This section allows you to customize the keyboard so that you can assign
a note to a key. You can have up to 3 octaves on the keyboard, but all
notes assigned to the spacebar will be ignored (You can use only 2 octaves
if you map all the notes in an octave to the spacebar).
The 'Enable FT2 shortcut keys' option allows you to use the right-ctrl
and right-alt (AltGr) as shortcuts for Play and Play Pattern.
You can also customize some of the shortcut keys
See also: Keyboard Shortcuts
Colors Setup
You can customize most of the colors used in Modplug Tracker by selecting
an item and changing the corresponding colors.
Midi Setup
This section allows you to select the midi input device used by ModPlug
Tracker when recording from an external midi keyboard. Both checkboxes should
be checked, unless you have a specific reason for not wanting it.
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