Same song sounds different between in-game and music player.

[UnrealGGecko]

Ok so here's two versions of Organic.umx:

The first one is when I play in-game:
[youtube]lcSQM0emgN8[/youtube]

While here's what I hear from a media player like winamp:
[youtube]tl0eDCEGXzM[/youtube]

The difference starts from about 0:10 of both versions.
Why is there a difference between them? This happens with a lot of UT songs for me

[Higor]

Winamp is most likely playing the tracker file in ascending order sections 0 to 255.
Try opening the tracker file with modplug tracker, you'll actually be able to see the instruments being played on each sound channel and also see how the full song plays (which is how UT plays it).

[papercoffee]

I think because it's a tracker module and every player interprets it different . But Dr.Flay can explain this better.

Oh Higor was faster.

[Hellkeeper]

Not hearing much of a difference on this track, but yes, several tracks have different interpretations.

It's because the way the non-tracker player reads it (or because then it was converted to mp3) doesn't take into account some tracker instructions or instruments. Some specific effects are not understood, so a note might not play, play differently or an entire part be skipped. Hardly fixable except by actually recording the song played by a tracker player.

A track like Go Down has a specific instruction at the end so that it cuts abruptly and loops back earlier in the song (ie: not at the very beginning). If you convert the track to mp3, this instruction cannot be translated into an mp3, it doesn't loop. The track starts from point A, passes by point B, and instead of reaching its actual end (D), reaches point C which loops back at B.

The tracker sounds like A->B->C->B->etc. Once converted to MP3 it sounds like A->D->A->D, etc.

Razorback, IIRC, sounds flat when converted into an mp3 because an entire melodic line isn't translated and the song loses all its cool parts.

[FraGnBraG]

I won't quote hellkeeper, but i will say the issues are quite a few, heh, as he's pointing out...

There's more to it... consider Galaxy processing is more like XM, and most of the modules were created as S3M (not IT as you might think)
They did some patches and instruments in IT, iirc... Anyways, there's a "core" of common commands which the authors adhered to so everything is somewhat consistant - within Galaxy. Notice as well that the number of tracks used is quite limited (usually 16 or less per module). These modules also contained sub-sections of music (the pattern jumping business) to be controlled by music actors and triggers etc. For example, in Unreal and deusEx there would be a theme, ambient, and action music all contained in the same UMX. normally the main pattern set loops until interupted (triggered by some event in-game) when it jumps to the "action" set of patterns etc... I have made several remixes of Unreal action music (essentially dissecting and recombining/editing existing patterns) to create new UMX for use in UT.

Note that musc palyers like VLC, Winamp, (many other players) can play tracker files since they have codecs for that, but those codes will respect the actual IT, XM, S3M, FT etc formats (as long as you have those codecs) I think WinAmp actually tries to play everything as IT, which does very weird things to some effects used in XM or S3M (i.e. UMX) so you might have really exaggerated sounding vibrato "HXX" iirc or other audio ugliness... Wheels is a funny sounding one as well, iirc.

Anyways, ModPlug doesn't help the situation much either, except that you can force it to strict IT (or other) format etc. This results will be importable into UMX, however, you have to limit the number of tracks and commands to compatible ones...

Cheers

[UnrealGGecko]

I see... thanks for the explaination guys!

[Dr.Flay]

Most of my tracker files are Protracker variants, and lots of OctaMED files

The original module plugin for Winamp is a bit buggy with some formats, and the UMX decoder relies on it for the engine.
There is an updated version of the UMX plugin most people never noticed
http://wayback.archive.org/web/20131120 ... ugh/171567

However now I use a newer tracker engine replacement based on ModPlug.
http://wks.arai-kibou.ru/soft.php#modplug
This already supports UMX files so you don't need to add the extra UMX plugins.

BASS module player/plugin also supports UMX extentions, so some people may prefer that in Winamp
http://wayback.archive.org/web/20131120 ... yer/132367

Un4seen (the makers of BASS), also make the most accurate tracker player for windows
http://www.un4seen.com/xmplay.html

XMPlay is an audio player, supporting the OGG / MP3 / MP2 / MP1 / WMA / WAV / AIFF / CDA / MO3 / IT / XM / S3M / MTM / MOD / UMX audio formats, PLS / M3U / ASX / WAX / CUE playlists, and ZIP archives. A load more formats are also supported via plugins. When XMPlay was first released in 1998, only the XM format was supported, hence the name "XMPlay".

This is the one I use to check what a module should sound like.

The new audio renderers from Oldunreal are also built around a new tracker engine, so it will play many more formats (and hopefully more accurately).

[FraGnBraG]

thanks very much for the links Dr.Flay - my WinAmp install is quite old - as i notice now v.5.58 - i don't usually use WA for playing stuff these days ... I default modules to open in OpenMPT. ... I should actually go get pro-tracker, which you did discuss for us a while ago ...

[Dr.Flay]

Since Winamp has new owners the main site is not finished and the downloads are a pain to find.
Winamp 5.666 Build 3516 http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=373755
Winamp 5.7 Beta, build 3444 http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=356750
Icon packs http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=322884
Essentials pack http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Win ... s_Pack.htm

[UnrealGGecko]

I only used winamp as an example, due to it happening on VLC and modplug (which I'm using now quite a lot). And I also didn't mean that it just doesn't loop or that some sections get cut off, I ment that.... the songs seem to have more instruments (?) playing during the song. May be the audio driver in UT is the problem (I am using Galaxy)?
Also interestingly this doesn't happen with Unreal's umx files (or at least, I didn't notice this happening). Sure, the sections get cut, but the song sounds similarly both in-game and music player

[FraGnBraG]

... the songs seem to have more instruments (?) playing during the song. May be the audio driver in UT is the problem (I am using Galaxy)?
Also interestingly this doesn't happen with Unreal's umx files ...

i'm pretty sure that Galaxy has X number of audio channels and these are shared between the MOD file and all the sounds, effects, taunting and weapons sounds - I think it's max 32 channels... Anyways, i remember being told by guru guys that it is best to use as few channels as you can in your MOD music because Galaxy drops music channels if it needs them for sounds (in-game), thus you can have missing instruments....

[UnrealGGecko]

Oh yeah I think there was a discussion here too. I have mine set to 16 so maybe that's why it sounds differently. Thanks FnB!

[Dr.Flay]

most modern sound chips have 64 hardware channels, so you won't even put a dent in performance using 32.