SuperNoogie Tracker

History

SuperNoogie Tracker was a project I began in the summer of 2000. My dad had bought a new computer, but it had some lame onboard soundcard and I couldn't run FastTracker 2. I downloaded some windows trackers (OctaMed, ModPlug) but, although more powerful that FT2, they had really flimsy windows interfaces and I couldn't get into them. Also around this time I started learning some DirectX programming. After I had learnt the basics of DirectDraw and DirectSound it dawned on me that I could right my own tracker - One which had a good ol' DOS style fullscreen chunky interface. And so SNT was born. It was a slightly over-ambitious project, as I had never done any sound programming before - I am having to learn as I go - so don't expect too much too soon!

Status

Currently SNT is in the middle of a big rewrite. This was necessary for two reasons: I had designed at the keyboard and the code was getting seriously messy, and the target platform is now linux rather than win32. I have only had time to work on it on and off over these past two years due to university.

What has been done

module/pattern/instrument/sample classes
interface logic (event processing)
.xm/.mod module load
.xi instrument load
.wav sample load/save
.pcx loader for skins

What needs to be done for a first release

Interface needs porting to SDL
Skin code needs adding to interface
File operations need adding to interface (had been using win32 dialogues)
Mixer/playback (currently crude) needs porting, and improving
.xm/.xi save

And then...

Effects/EQ
More file format support - .s3m/.mid/other
Synthesis rather than just samples

Screenshot

This is the screen shot from my final win32 version (before the porting/rewriting begun), playing back the intro song from pinball illusions (I think - it's one of Digital Illusions's pinball games at least). Click it to make it bigger.

Alex Sisson - alexs@cyberspace.org