Welcome to the full-featured yet free edition of StoneTracker.
This is a music composing program, belonging to the "tracker" kind.
Back then, before MP3, CD music and other formats, it was the popular
way of packaging demo and game tracks.
This Amiga software was written by Michael Lavaire and myself (Emmanuel
Marty) in 1994-1995, and sold through a reseller, Quartz, in
1995-96. A demo (with file saving code removed) has been available
on Aminet since then. Today is february 2001. By popular demand,
and as a tribute to the still active Amiga communauty, the full
program is re-released for free, where the demo always was, on
Aminet. Michael has been contacted and also agreed to this release.
StoneTracker is comparable in concept to earlier work such as ProTracker,
NoiseTracker, Art Of Noise, Octamed and others, although everything has
been written from scratch.
The main features, taken from the original README, are :
- System friendly, OS 2.0 look compliance (adding our personal
touch), no enforcer hit!, installs as a commodity, AppIcon,
AppMenuItem... Allocates channels, can deallocate without
quitting. Compatible with all screens (PAL, VGA, multisync..)
Makes use of the best features of AmigaOS and puts you in
a safe environment.
- Locale support. English and French are available. Feel free to
add more.
- "Everything on screen" and ergonomic user interface, designed
together with a tracker musician. Protection against unwanted
actions.
- Full-featured AREXX port
- Extreme configurability.
- Noise/ProTracker keyboard shortcuts emulation.
- Custom module format, allows compression of sample banks with
three different and dedicated methods.
- Import of 13 existing formats (e.g. ProTracker, FastTracker,
OctaMed, Oktalyzer, ThePlayer...)
- Export of ProTracker and FastTracker formats in addition to
its own format (full version only)
- XPK support. Passwords supported.
- XFD support (allows for decrunching of more than 100 packers,
like CrunchMania, StoneCracker...).
- Built-in decompression routines for Powerpacker and
CrunchMania (if XFD is not available).
- Multi-song: 65.535 possible ! Available song-syncing
commands in the player for interactive music.
- Up to 65.535 patterns! Shared between songs.
- Patterns seperated for each track, allowing you, for insta,ce
to reuse beats, or a bass line, from a position to another !
Command for "remapping" duplicate patterns in imported
modules that don't have this feature (ex. ProTracker), saving
a lot of memory.
- Up to 255 samples! Can be loaded in FAST memory : no size
limit except the size of your fastmem.
- 4 ("native") tracks or 5,6,7,8 tracks, all with configurable
mixing quality, from 4 to 50 Khz (28 Khz on PAL/NTSC "basic"
displays). All effects can be used in all modes, no
restrictions! Mixing technique is more alike TFMX than OctaMed
or ArtOfNoise resulting in high quality sound. Each song
can have its own number of tracks, and you can jump from
one song in 4 tracks to one in 7, for instance, without hearing a
single glitch in the sound.
- Each track has its own volume. General volume for the music.
Master volume on top of all controlled by the programmer.
- Loads samples in CHIP or FAST memory, makes no difference.
- Up to SEVEN effects per note per track!
- Special "FX" track with up to EIGHT effects per line,
dedicated to speed and general control commands.
- Extended effects!
- Effect for syncing your program to the music (calls a user
function when this effect is reached). Ideal for game intros,
demos, etc.
- Command for MIXING a position into a sample ! Make your arpeggios,
drums or whatever...
- Command for timing a song; no need to play the whole song to know
its duration anymore.
- Highly optimized routines for playing and mixing.
- Player is an AmigaOS shared library, used even by the editor!
- AmigaGuide Documentation in English and French (German planned).
- Nice example musics in 4 to 8 tracks, composed by Jerôme
Angelot, the musician who helped us designing this tracker.
(more musics in the full version)
- Harddisk-installation Installer script provided.
- Full developer documentation for player and file format, with
examples in Assembler and C, link library for SAS; you can
use the player library or include the player in your
programs ("system friendly" and "no operating system" (for
games and demos) versions provided)
- Players for DeliTracker and EaglePlayer, as well as independant
player.
- Editor, player and packers fully programmed in Assembler.
- Constant support. Most user requests have been satisfied yet and
we will continue to do so.
This re-release also includes modules that weren't part of the
original distribution. Composed by Mytholog using StoneTracker,
they make full use of the special features available in the program.
We hope you enjoy them, and send our thanks to the author, after
so many years.
We hope this full release will be appreciated by the undying Amiga
enthusiasts. Feel free to provide these archives for download on
your own site, as long as you retain this document.
I recommend the following site as an excellent source of information
about trackers and music formats (including StoneTracker):
http://hangar18.campus.luth.se/exotica/
Thanks to Michael <michael deibus.com> for agreeing on this
re-release; good luck with your life.
Thanks to :
Nicolas Daire <ndaireubisoft.fr>
Laurent Clevy <lclevyclub-internet.fr>
for bugging me enough for me to clean the dust off my Amiga and
generate this re-release.
--
Emmanuel Marty <emartynexwave-solutions.com>
Montpellier, France
February 12, 2001
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