MOD(1)

NAME
mod - plays modules created by the Amiga ProTracker

SYNOPSIS
mod [global options] file [options] file [options] ...

DESCRIPTION
Mod is a program that can play modules created by any ProTracker compatible composer. It supports all options of the Amiga ProTracker 3.0 except those mentioned in the BUGS - section of this manual. Only 4-voice modules are supported, but later versions might handle more voices and other formats. Currently Gravis Ultrasound is the only supported soundcard. Mod uses /dev/sequencer for sequencing data, but later versions might have support for /dev/audio and /dev/pcaudio (and thus also for SoundBlaster and DACs).

OPTIONS

Options specified before the first filename are considered global and will be applied to all modules played. All other options are used together with the closest filename to the left of the options in question. Global options are parsed before all other options and can thus be negated by options belonging to a specific file.

Options may be grouped, and arguments to an options can be placed immediately after the option or they can be preceeded by spaces.

Options -h , -i , -L , -r , -v and -V can be placed anywhere on the line, but will always be considered global.

-a voices
    Selects which voices are active. voices is a binary-coded integer where each bit represent a voice. Bit 0 (LSB) is voice 0, and a bitvalue of 1 enables the voice. The default value is -1 (all bits set to 1). This option won't work unless you have support for main volume compiled into your kernel.

-c samples
    If a sample clicks or pops repeatedly in a module try this option. It attempts to minimize clicking on looped samples. samples specifies how many samples are to be modified - the fewer the better. Typical values are 1 or 2. The default is zero as short samples that are looped may sound distorted if they are modified.

-f format
    format tells mod what format the file is in. This option is currently ignored.

-h  Gives a list of available options and brief descriptions of them. If this option is present anywhere on the commandline no modules will be played.

-i  Starts up mod in interactive mode (not implemented).

-l amount
    Sets the number of times a module should be played. Default is one.

-L  Causes the sequence of modules to be played over and over again indefinitely (if used in conjunction with -r it will be a different sequence every time).

-m time
    This option can be used to set the maximum time spent on playing a module. Useful when playing a sequence of modules and some of them have a long silent part at the end. It can also be used to browse through a bunch of modules. time should be specified in seconds.

-N  Same as -P but sets NTSC playbackrate of samples instead.

-o

-O  These two options decide what octaves are valid to portamento notes within. The Amiga ProTracker only uses octave 1 to 3, but other trackers has support for more octaves. -o specifies 1-3, and -O allows use of octaves 0-4. If neither is explicitly supplied mod tries to guess the correct setting.

-p position
    Starts playing at a particular songposition. If position is an invalid value the module will be started at position 0.

-P  PAL and NTSC Amigas have a slightly different playbackrate of the samples. This option is the default and will play samples the same way a PAL Amiga would. The difference between the PAL and the NTSC playbackrate is very small, but modules that use long samples might sound a bit "off-beat" if the wrong setting is used. Also see -N.

-r  This option will play the modules in random order.

-s speed
    Starts playing at a specified speed (useful together with -p ).

-s tempo
    Starts playing at a specified tempo (useful together with -p ).

-v  Each occurence of a -v increases the level of verbosity used while loading modules. Normal levels are one or two. Three and four can be used for some extra information, but five or more will fill your screen with numbers that only are valuable during debugging. The default level is zero.

-V  When this option is used notes and effects will be printed on the screen as they are played. All numbers are in hexadecimal and the fields shown for each voice are note, samplenumber, effects and effect-argument. You may hear "jumps" in the playback in conjunction with disk-activity or heavy processing when this option is enabled. It shouldn't happen too often, but if it becomes annoying try removing -V.

-5  Normally modules are played using tempo as the timingsource, but some older modules use vertical blanking for tempo. This option will consider all tempo-changes in the module as speed-changes instead. The tempo will be syncronized with a PAL 50Hz timer (=125 BPM).

-6  Same as -5 but a NTSC 60Hz timer (=150 BPM) will be used instead.

EXAMPLES

mod -rL sahara.mod -c2 klisje.mod -5 awesome1.mod -V

This will play the three modules in random order repeatedly. Sahara will have click-removal enabled and klisje will be played using 50Hz vertical blankingtimer. Notes and effects are shown on the screen as they are played for all three modules.

mod -vv -m 10 *.mod

Here the first ten seconds of all modules in the current directory will be played. Verbosity-level two will be used when displaying information about the modules as they are loaded.

NOTES
mod will break all loops in modules (or allow a certain number of them if -l is used) to make sure all modules specified really does get played.

VERSION
This manual-page is documenting version 0.1 of mod.

BUGS
It's possible to set the tempo with -t after specifying vertical-blanking as the timing-source (option -5 or -6 ). This may also be considered a feature.
There is no support for the samplemodifying effects (inverted loop/funk and karplus-strong).
The lowpass-filter that can be toggled on/off on some Amigas is not implemented.

SEE ALSO
gmod(1), tracker(1), ad(1), sox(1)

AUTHOR
Mikael Nordqvist (mech@df.lth.se, d91mn@efd.lth.se)