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Wanted: Music for Projects / Re: [LF] Music for a new Amiga game
« on: May 04, 2021, 18:03:42 »
I'll point Andreas at this thread.
- May 11, 2021, 22:55:08
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2
Feedback & Suggestions / Re: modarchive submission standards
« on: April 29, 2021, 18:34:25 »
I have removed the comment on the module.
But just to be clear on the module itself - it may not be what we want to have on the website, but it's 17 years too late for that. As an archival site, we generally don't delete stuff because we think that something is tasteless, offensive, is not up to today's standards anymore or has similar issues (as long as it doesn't break any laws, of course). Generally we of course try to avoid getting that kind of stuff into the archive to begin with, but based on the date, this module in particular could have even been an automated import from another module archive and thus noone might have ever reviewed it in person.
So what are the options - Discuss it and criticize it? Absolutely. Delete it? There's no point in doing that, it would essentially be whitewashing. We're all aware that some people have released really dumb things into the scene when they were teeangers. We should reflect on that and do better ourselves, and in particular not post terrible comments like the one on that comment. But I think what we shouldn't do is going on a censorship spree and delete everything we find questionable.
But just to be clear on the module itself - it may not be what we want to have on the website, but it's 17 years too late for that. As an archival site, we generally don't delete stuff because we think that something is tasteless, offensive, is not up to today's standards anymore or has similar issues (as long as it doesn't break any laws, of course). Generally we of course try to avoid getting that kind of stuff into the archive to begin with, but based on the date, this module in particular could have even been an automated import from another module archive and thus noone might have ever reviewed it in person.
So what are the options - Discuss it and criticize it? Absolutely. Delete it? There's no point in doing that, it would essentially be whitewashing. We're all aware that some people have released really dumb things into the scene when they were teeangers. We should reflect on that and do better ourselves, and in particular not post terrible comments like the one on that comment. But I think what we shouldn't do is going on a censorship spree and delete everything we find questionable.
3
Help & Support / Re: Small QoL request: Show maximum allowed characters for artist comments
« on: April 24, 2021, 01:13:11 »
Maximum lengths are now enforced on edit fields and there's a note on the artist page how long the comments should be (it's just an approximation because the limit imposed by the browser might not be exactly the same as what the server checks against after converting the comment to internal storage, but it should be good enough).
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Help & Support / Re: Small QoL request: Show maximum allowed characters for artist comments
« on: April 21, 2021, 20:48:50 »
That would be the first thing to do, yeah. 
I probably won't have time for this before the weekend, though.
I probably won't have time for this before the weekend, though.
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Help & Support / Re: Small QoL request: Show maximum allowed characters for artist comments
« on: April 20, 2021, 23:13:40 »
I'll look into this.
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Look what I made! / Re: My first full song, made with ProTracker 2.
« on: April 20, 2021, 20:05:34 »
As the track is currently in the "2nd opinion" queue, I will give you some feedback why that is the case and why it might get rejected in the end.
The track itself shows typical signs of being a firstie (which you just confirmed), and you should be aware that uploads to ModArchive are permanent. It's rarely a good idea to upload your first module, only very few artists are skilled enough that their first composition is actually listenable and that they themselves would enjoy listening to a month later.
In this particular case, the song has at least the following issues:
The track itself shows typical signs of being a firstie (which you just confirmed), and you should be aware that uploads to ModArchive are permanent. It's rarely a good idea to upload your first module, only very few artists are skilled enough that their first composition is actually listenable and that they themselves would enjoy listening to a month later.
In this particular case, the song has at least the following issues:
- The drums are out of sync. The drum loop is slightly shorter than 16 rows, so the loop is not in sync with the tempo at the end of the loop there is always a jarring bit of silence. Look into tempo command F to fix this.
- The song is essentially repeating three notes for almost two minutes before introducing a new concept. Yes, that doesn't necessarily need to be a bad thing, good musicians can get away with this (see example below). But especially when you are new to making music, it's very difficult to figure out why a minimalist techno track made by an experienced composer that uses just three notes can be worthwhile listening to but your own composition isn't. Typically that is because there is more to the song than just those three notes. This "extra fluff" can be subtleties like slowly changing filters over time (you do this over the course of less than a second, which gets very repetitive very quickly), or other changes in the sound (e.g. adding effects).
- After four minutes, a new instrument is finally introduced, but it doesn't really make the song any more worthwhile listening to. Voice samples can be used to create interesting effects that go well with the music (take e.g. this classic which is roughly in the same genre as your track - and, to add to the previous bullet point, only uses a single (!) note throughout the whole track, yet it made people rave like mad in the 90s), but in your case it's just four random notes that are in dissonance with the acid line playing at the same time. The result is very jarring.
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Project / Coder's Corner / Re: Where can I start learning about programming a module player?
« on: April 20, 2021, 19:25:51 »
A variety of module formats is documented at https://ftp.modland.com/pub/documents/format_documentation/ - but it's important to keep in mind that often this documentation is not very formal or complete, because
- it was written by teenagers
- it was reverse-engineered and thus might be missing some details.
As MOD is a pretty popular format, there are several documents on the format with various degrees of completeness. You may want to look into this one in particular, because it's essentially a corrected version of another popular document:
https://ftp.modland.com/pub/documents/format_documentation/Protracker%20effects%20(MODFIL12.TXT)%20(.mod).txt
It's also important to keep in mind that a MOD file isn't necessarily a MOD file. By that I mean that there are several closely related variants of the format with tiny differences. For example, the original Ultimate Soundtracker format is almost identical to the "M.K." ProTracker format, with the difference that it only contains 15 instead of 31 sample slots, and doesn't contain the magic bytes ("M.K."). There are many more tiny differences beyond that, but those two would be the main reason why a SoundTracker MOD wouldn't load in a regular MOD loader. Many of these small details are not properly documented and can only be found by dissecting other loaders.
- it was written by teenagers
- it was reverse-engineered and thus might be missing some details.
As MOD is a pretty popular format, there are several documents on the format with various degrees of completeness. You may want to look into this one in particular, because it's essentially a corrected version of another popular document:
https://ftp.modland.com/pub/documents/format_documentation/Protracker%20effects%20(MODFIL12.TXT)%20(.mod).txt
It's also important to keep in mind that a MOD file isn't necessarily a MOD file. By that I mean that there are several closely related variants of the format with tiny differences. For example, the original Ultimate Soundtracker format is almost identical to the "M.K." ProTracker format, with the difference that it only contains 15 instead of 31 sample slots, and doesn't contain the magic bytes ("M.K."). There are many more tiny differences beyond that, but those two would be the main reason why a SoundTracker MOD wouldn't load in a regular MOD loader. Many of these small details are not properly documented and can only be found by dissecting other loaders.
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The Lobby / Re: Module not uploading
« on: April 18, 2021, 19:27:53 »
You can see the upload status of pending modules at https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=members_uploads_page with a short explanation of the status. Please note that ModArchive is run by volunteers and we screen modules when we have time to do so.
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API Support / Re: API Key Request
« on: April 12, 2021, 20:27:50 »
Please check your private messages.
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The Lobby / Re: More pattern scrolling effects
« on: April 08, 2021, 00:08:12 »
Ranked 1st in the tracked music compo at Revision 2021. 