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[Jay]

On the note of MMX, I think there is an unofficial DOSBox build (maybe the daum stuff?) with an MMX implementation, so you could give that a go.

That's right, I forgot about Daum's build; I had that going for a while. But it still doesn't emulate an AWE or Interwave (so no MIDI.) If I just want filters and don't need MIDI it's easier to just pop open Schism.

[IsaacNorman]

To be all fair and honest, I like Milkytracker because it has such a nice appeal to me, and it also has the basic wave shape generators, which makes it easy to make my songs really quickly. However, if I was to choose a tracker on functional capabilities, I would have to go with Open MPT, as it supports the VSTI plugins I use and it allows me to oversample them to 192khz.

My favorite module to use is an .XM format. The reason? 32 channels!!! (Take that .mod!)

[Saga Musix]

IT has 64 channels!!!

[IsaacNorman]

IT has 64 channels!!!

Hmm, true, but I don't know much about IT files. That's why I mainly use XMs.

[zzo38]

Hmm, true, but I don't know much about IT files. That's why I mainly use XMs.

The .IT format uses pointers into instruments/samples/patterns/sample-data (unlike .XM), which has both advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is that you could have multiple samples with the same pointer into sample-data but different sample rates, allowing you to make tunings other than 12-TET without needing a copy of the sample data for each one. One disadvantage of this is that it is more difficult to use with pipes (a program reading from stdin and/or writing to stdout).

[IsaacNorman]

Sounds interesting, but sadly, Milkytracker doesn't export IT files.

With those things being said, are IT files significantly larger than XM files? Or does those shortcuts make them smaller?

[zzo38]

Sounds interesting, but sadly, Milkytracker doesn't export IT files.

With those things being said, are IT files significantly larger than XM files? Or does those shortcuts make them smaller?

I don't know the compared sizes of the file types much, but I do know that, these pointers will normally increase the file size slightly (I don't know that any existing programs can take advantage of these shortcuts), although probably by less than one kilobyte.

(AmigaMML (the program I use) doesn't export IT files either, mainly because it is more difficult to use with pipes.)

IT format does certainly have some more features which are not supported in XM, such as pitch and filter envelopes and more channels. (However, note that many IT effects, such as pitch/pan, random volume variation, and more, can be simulated in XM format.)

I am one who does not use VST and does not like VST. (I can use Csound if I want to create all sort of special effects; that is much better than VST, and is free/open-source, too.)

[Saga Musix]

IsaacNorman: Size largely depends on which features you use. For very tiny tunes (< 4K), XM can often be better, depending on whether you need instrument features in IT or not. However, IT's pattern compression is much better than XM's, and IT can optionally compress samples, which obviously cuts off a large chunk of data.

zzo38: I know you are enthusiastic about your program, but I'd appreciate if you didn't try to squeeze it into every other thread here to make it seem more relevant. Whether a format uses pointers or not should be of no interested for any "which format do you [as a user] like better?" discussion.

[zzo38]

Whether a format uses pointers or not should be of no interested for any "which format do you [as a user] like better?" discussion.

Well, it seems important to me. For doing non-12-TET tuning, and for pipe access, these can be important.

If you want to reduce the file sizes, one other thing that could be done is probably a program could be written to reconstruct all of the patterns to organize all rows making the file smaller.

S3M does support one feature that other programs don't, which is FM instruments. However, only a few programs support such thing even.

And about OpenMPT, well I use that to play music files, although, it doesn't even have SQL. And the PDF lacks a table of contents page.

[Saga Musix]

Well, it seems important to me. For doing non-12-TET tuning, and for pipe access, these can be important.

None of that is practically supported by any tool out there, though. Besides, I'm not sure if this sample re-use thing can be guaranteed to work with each and every tracker/player - I do remember that DUMB has (had?) this concept of only ever reading files sequentially and never jumping backwards, which could pose a problem with such samples of course. I have no idea if this limitation still holds, though. But even then, it's still not a practical problem for tracker users because as said, no tracker software practically does this. It's strictly a developer problem, not a user problem, and this thread so far was only about people talking about their tracker of choice as a user.

And the PDF lacks a table of contents page.

It does have a TOC which can be viewed by any proper PDF viewer (usually in a treeview next to the page display). But that doesn't really matter since the latest versions use a CHM file for the manual instead of a PDF.

it doesn't even have SQL

"Even"?! Are you aware that no tracker out there has this feature, and that you are pretty much the only person that ever came up with it?
But please, go ahead, take any tracker, add an SQL interface to it and demonstrate how much easier it is to edit modules by writing SQL statements rather than by typing in notes and using a GUI.