1SCHISMTRACKER(1) General Commands Manual SCHISMTRACKER(1)
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6 schismtracker - tracked music editor based on Impulse Tracker
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9 schismtracker [options] [directory] [file]
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12 schismtracker is a tracked music module editor that aims to match the
13 look and feel of Impulse Tracker as closely as possible. It can load
14 most common tracker formats, supports saving as IT and S3M, and can
15 also export to WAV and AIFF.
16
18 -a, --audio-driver=DRIVER[:DEVICE]
19 Audio device configuration. driver is the SDL driver to use,
20 e.g. alsa (ALSA), dma or dsp (OSS); device is the name of the
21 device itself, for example hw:2 or /dev/dsp1.
22 -v, --video-driver=DRIVER
24 SDL video driver, such as x11, dga, or fbcon. Note that this is
25 different from the video driver setting within the program, and
26 is unlikely to be useful.
27 --network, --no-network
29 Enable/disable networking (on by default). Used for MIDI over
30 IP.
31 --classic, --no-classic
33 Start Schism Tracker in "classic" mode, or don't. This is mostly
34 cosmetic, although it does change the program's behavior
35 slightly in a few places.
36 -f, -F, --fullscreen, --no-fullscreen
38 Enable/disable fullscreen mode at startup.
39 -p, -P, --play, --no-play
41 Start playing after loading song on command line.
42 --diskwrite=FILENAME
44 Render output to a file, and then exit. WAV or AIFF writer is
45 auto-selected based on file extension. Include %c somewhere in
46 the name to write each channel separately. This is meaningless
47 if no initial filename is given.
48 --font-editor, --no-font-editor
50 Run the font editor (itf). This can also be accessed by pressing
51 Shift-F12.
52 --hooks, --no-hooks
54 Run hooks. Enabled by default.
55 --version
57 Display version information and build date.
58 -h, --help
60 Print a summary of available options.
61 A filename supplied on the command line will be loaded at startup.
63 Additionally, if either a file or directory name is given, the default
64 module, sample, and instrument paths will be set accordingly.
65
67 A detailed discussion of how to use Schism Tracker is far beyond the
68 scope of this document, but here is a very brief rundown of the basics.
69 Context-sensitive help can be accessed at any time while running the
70 program by pressing F1.
71 The F3 key will bring you to the sample list. Press enter here to open
73 a file browser, navigate in the list using the up/down arrow keys, and
74 hit enter again to load a sample. You will likely want to get some
75 samples to work with. You can also "rip" from existing modules; see for
76 example http://www.modarchive.org/ for a very large selection of
77 modules. (Keep in mind, however, that some authors don't appreciate
78 having their samples ripped!)
79 Now that you've loaded a sample, press F2 to get to the pattern editor.
81 This is where the majority of the composition takes place. In short,
82 the song is laid out vertically, with each row representing 1/16 note;
83 to play multiple notes simultaneously, they are placed in different
84 channels. The four sub-columns of each channel are the note, sample
85 number, volume, and effect. A list of effects is available in the
86 pattern editor help, but you can safely ignore that column for now.
87 Assuming a US keymap, notes are entered with the keyboard as follows:
88 (Note) C# D# F# G# A# C# D# F# G# A# C# D#
89 | | || | | | || || | | | || | | | || || | | | || | |
90 | | || | | | || || | | | || | | | || || | | | || | |
91 (What you | |S||D| | |G||H||J| | |2||3| | |5||6||7| | |9||0| |
92 type) | '-''-' | '-''-''-' | '-''-' | '-''-''-' | '-''-' |
93 | Z| X| C| V| B| N| M| Q| W| E| R| T| Y| U| I| O| P|
94 '--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'
95 (Note) C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C D E
96 (Octave 0) (Octave 1) (Octave 2)
97 The "/" and "*" keys on the numeric keypad change octaves, and the
99 current octave is displayed near the top of the screen. Try typing
100 "qwerty" into the pattern - it will enter an ascending note sequence,
101 and you'll hear the notes as they're entered. (of course, assuming you
102 loaded a sample!) Press F6 to play your pattern, and F8 to stop.
103 Other important keys for the pattern editor include Ins/Del to shift
105 notes up and down within a channel, Shift-Arrows to mark a block, Alt-
106 C/Alt-P to copy and paste, and Alt-U to clear the mark. There are well
107 over a hundred key bindings for the pattern editor; it is well worth
108 the effort to learn them all eventually.
109 Now that you have something in your pattern, you'll need to set up an
111 orderlist. Press F11 to switch to the orderlist page, and type 0 to add
112 the pattern you created. Now press F5 to start playing. The song will
113 begin at the first order, look up the pattern number and play that
114 pattern, then advance to the next order, and so forth.
115 Of course, having only one pattern isn't all that interesting, so go
117 back to the pattern editor and press the + key to change to the next
118 pattern. Now you can write another four bars of music and add the new
119 pattern to the orderlist, and the next time you play the song, your two
120 patterns will play in sequence.
121 You may wish to give your song a title; press F12 and type a name in
123 the box at the top. You can also adjust the tempo and a number of other
124 settings on this page, but for now, most of them are fine at their
125 default values.
126 To save your new song, press F10, type a filename, and hit enter. You
128 can load it again later by pressing F9.
129 This tutorial has deliberately omitted the instrument editor (on F4),
131 for the purposes of brevity and simplicity. You may want to experiment
132 with it once you have a feel for how the program works. (Select
133 "instruments" on F12 to enable instrument mode.)
134
136 Storlek began studying Impulse Tracker's design in 2002, noting subtle
137 details of the design and implementation. Posts on the Modplug forums
138 about rewriting Impulse Tracker were met with ridicule and mockery. "It
139 can't be done," they said.
140 Schism Tracker v0.031a was released in July 2003, though very little
142 worked at that point, and it was more of a player with primitive
143 editing capabilities. File saving was hard-coded to write to "test.it"
144 in the current directory, and there was no way to load a sample.
145 The first version that was more or less usable was 0.15a, from December
147 2004.
148 From 2005 through 2009, Mrs. Brisby did most of the development, and
150 implemented tons of features, including MIDI support, mouse support,
151 and disk writing.
152 Storlek "took over" development again in 2009, and incrementally
154 rewrote much of the code through 2015.
155 In 2016, Schism Tracker was moved to GitHub under shared
157 maintainership. Since then, many people have contributed improvements
158 and bug fixes to the codebase.
159
161 ~/.schism/config
162 Program settings, stored in an INI-style format. Most options
163 are accessible from within Schism Tracker's interface, but there
164 are a few "hidden" options.
165 ~/.schism/startup-hook, ~/.schism/exit-hook, ~/.schism/diskwriter-hook
167 Optional files to execute upon certain events. (Must be
168 executable)
169 ~/.schism/fonts/
171 font.cfg, and any .itf files found in this directory, are
172 displayed in the file browser of the font editor.
173 Supported file formats
175 MOD Amiga modules (with some obscure variants such as FLT8)
176 669 Composer 669 / Unis669
178 MTM MultiTracker
180 S3M Scream Tracker 3 (including Adlib support)
182 XM Fast Tracker 2
184 IT Impulse Tracker (including old instrument format)
186 MDL Digitrakker 3
188 IMF Imago Orpheus
190 OKT Amiga Oktalyzer
192 SFX Sound FX
194 MUS Doom engine (percussion missing)
196 FAR Farandole Composer
198 STM Scream Tracker 2 (partial functionality)
200 ULT UltraTracker (partial functionality)
202 S3I Scream Tracker 3 sample
204 WAV Microsoft WAV audio
206 FLAC Xiph.Org Free Lossless Audio Codec audio
208 AIFF Audio IFF (Apple)
210 8SVX Amiga 8SVX sample
212 ITS Impulse Tracker sample
214 AU Sun/NeXT Audio
216 RAW Headerless sample data
218 PAT Gravis UltraSound patch
220 XI Fast Tracker 2 instrument
222 ITI Impulse Tracker instrument
224 Schism Tracker is able to save modules in IT and S3M format, sample
226 data as ITS, S3I, AIFF, AU, WAV, and RAW, and instruments as ITI.
227 Additionally, it can render to WAV and AIFF (optionally writing each
228 channel to a separate file), and can export MID files.
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231 Schism Tracker was written by Storlek and Mrs. Brisby, with player code
232 from Modplug by Olivier Lapicque. Based on Impulse Tracker by Jeffrey
233 Lim.
234 Additional code and data have been contributed by many others; refer to
236 the file AUTHORS in the source distribution for a more complete list.
237 The keyboard diagram in this manual page was adapted from the one used
239 in the documentation for Impulse Tracker, which in turn borrowed it
240 from Scream Tracker 3.
241
243 Copyright © 2003-2022 Storlek, Mrs. Brisby et al. Licensed under the
244 GNU GPL <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software: you
245 are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the
246 extent permitted by law.
247
249 They almost certainly exist. Post on
250 https://github.com/schismtracker/schismtracker/issues if you find one.
251 Agitha shares her happiness with benefactors of the insect kingdom.
252
254 http://schismtracker.org/ - main website
255 #schismtracker on EsperNet - IRC channel
256
258 chibitracker(1), milkytracker(1), protracker(1), renoise(1), ocp(1),
259 xmp(1)
260 Jun 14, 2019 SCHISMTRACKER(1)