general digimusic

[Asle]

Hey,

 Maybe it's a question that's a bit more directed to Deus-Ex . Still, what can anyone tell me about "general digimusic" format ? By looking at it, it looks strongly like a replay format, and not a tracked format.
 I'm asking following the recent addition of two musics on modland. Ziks, coming from the mags added recently on pouet. I extracted also those musics but failed to identify it was GDM. However, I've found quite a few on them in the past but I was never able to have any insight of the tool(s) behind.

 So, if anyone can enlighten me .

Sylvain

[Axxy]

Bells, Whistles, and Sound Boards is a
new programming library for adding 100%
digital music and sound effects to your
own games/demos/intro/etc. All routines
are written in optimized 386 ASM. There
are *no* registration fees for freeware
programs. Fully uncrippled release ver.

Not much on the program itelf, but I did find a couple of things on Hornet Archive for a player
/code/audio/players/bwsb120a.zip
/code/audio/players/bwsb120b.zip
/code/audio/players/gdmkit10.zip

Lots of stuff in the zipfiles.  The gdmkit has a mod>gdm converter but not the other way. I have a few gdm mods somewhere, they all look like converted protracker.  Not sure if these are what your looking or if they are anything to do with the gdm format.

Attached is also a gdm file spec or something.  

[Asle]

excellent ! Thanks awfully
Then this is only a player of a lookalike S3M format, apparently => No tracker => No AMP
I might try a converter to S3M, if I find the time (and motivation).

So, thanks again for your kind and thorough reply !

Sylvain

[Axxy]

Does it just convert normal mods to the gdm format?
(ie. MOD, MTM, S3M, 669, FAR, ULT, STM, MED)

I seem to remember some years ago, I got in contact with Tonedeaf asking where most of his modules were available for download, if available. His reply was along the lines, most of his modules were in gdm format and there was no replayer (general playback player) for them, and no way to convert them back to the protracker original format.

I just checked, but I dont seem to have any gdm format mods anymore, did have quite a few when I came across them. Kept them just in case a converter was ever made, so I've probably deleted them all by now. 

[Asle]

and from the format documentation :

Code: [Select]

OrigFmt - Original module format (unreliable for 2gdm < 1.15):
  1: MOD
          2: MTM
          3: S3M
          4: 669
          5: FAR
          6: ULT
          7: STM
          8: MED
heh .. let's see with a few examples
Maelcum - alternate planet - original MOD -> but already on AMP as MOD
Phoenix - Dynamo (album edit) - original S3M -> already on modland as S3M
hum ...
I'm not convinced . Maybe I got unlucky and picked two "wrong".
Oh, well, I'll check a bit further just to be sure if there's some effort to spend on it.

Sylvain

[deus-ex]

I do not know that much about this format, it wasn't too popular back then so I mostly ignored it. You should check the GDM modules with MilkyTracker which can load and thus convert this format. Clicking on "As" (Save as) in the tracker main menu you can only save to Fasttracker 2 format. In order to convert to Protracker format click on "Disk op" in the main menu, then select .mod and click on "Save".

[Axxy]

I do not know that much about this format, it wasn't too popular back then so I mostly ignored it.

I seem to remember the gdm's I came across were mostly from the demoscene.  How many of them were just converted modules I can't remember, but I had quite a few in gdm format, not all were just converted modules.  Back when I was ripping and collecting stuff, I came across several in gdm format from music disks mainly, normally done for MS-Dos.  I had a few by Tonedeaf from some old music disk or two, hence why I emailed him back then.

[Asle]

Yes, well, they are ALL converted musics, whether the musicians kept the originals or not.
It's clearly not a tracker but a replay tool. I think a prog to go back to the original format could be done. However, I need to test the official converter to see if there's some problem with it or not (like if it destroys things, etc.).

I'll keep you posted.
Sylvain