Has anyone worked on S3M music file format? I need a software which can convert MP3 to S3m or Wav to S3M. www.harishsave.com

S3M is the ScreamTracker format. There is no viable conversion, it is a completely different type of music file, where the individual samples of a song are stored, and the notes and timing information are also kept, and played by a specific playback mechanism.

If someone is demanding s3M format, and you already have your music mixed down to wav or mp3, then you better have a heart to heart with them about changing their method of playback.

[edited by - krikkit on February 23, 2003 3:22:14 AM]

Thanks for the help. I''m about to finish my new game and wanted to have the music in S3M format. I first saw this format in a game called ''Bejeweled''. The length of tracks are quite big enough and file sizes are small. So I though I should also use this format. But as you said there is no conversion possible, I think I use mp3 format. But the problem is my game files (exe files + other files) are about 700 KB and only the music tracks are above 1 MB. So it looks like the tail is bigger than the body. What Should I do? Is there any converter who can convert mp3 to midi or wav to midi?

www.harishsave.com

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Original post by harishjs
... Is there any converter who can convert mp3 to midi or wav to midi?

<a href="http://www.harishsave.com" target="_blank">www.harishsave.com</a>

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Uhhh ... no.

Nope. Midi is a completely different format as well, where the computer has the samples built in, and are referenced byt eh midi file, with the timing and note information as well.

The best thing you can do at this point is reencode your mp3s to a lower bitrate.

You can convert S3M to XM or IT. From there, you can convert XM/IT to MP3 or WAV. Try ModPlug.

Thanks, but is reverse of it possible. I''ve got wav n mp3 files. I visited MODPlug homepage, there are few softwares there, but I didn''t find anything like a converter. There is one software called tracker. Is that the one?

www.harishsave.com

yes,the tracker is called modplug tracker.
but there is no way to convert wav to s3m or any other tracker or midi format...
you can´t comvert a chicken back to its egg ;-)
you would have to recompose your music in the tracker.and there is the next problem:if it should sound like the wav or mp3 which you have,you need the same instruments as used in the wave files...
anyway,i love to create my music in a tracker because of the size of the modfiles.pretty small(depending of your used instruments ;-) )

tilesets games sprites
http://www.reinerstileset.de

Okay a little elaboration on the basic terms thrown about here (which I think people effectively misunderstand):

1) A tracker is any of the music composition programs that allows one to create musical pieces by defining the piece line-by-line, track-by-track, pattern-by-pattern. Search "MadTracker" on Google and hit the first link, download the program, install it and run it. Afaik that is the only true appearance a tracker can have. There are many many many others out there (such as ScreamTracker, FastTracker II, ImpulseTracker, etc.) for different platforms. Trackers originated from the Amiga and have become more or less integrated into the Windows world over the past five or six years. Search for a document called "modfaq3-1.rtf" there are probably later versions of the doc, but that''s the one I have and it''ll give you a fine overview of trackers and their variety.

2) The mod file format is generally a globalized refence to the type of music storage used by the trackers. There is also a file format with the .mod extension. Others include .it, .s3m, .mt2, etc. The mod file format stores information so that raw sample information is stored separately, note information is stored separately, patterns that consist of a number of channels (each of which can have one instrument playing at a time), and 64 lines each of which can contain a note and some effect assigned to it, are stored separately. What this means is that in order to play a mod file you have to first calculate the note data, then apply an effect to it and merge all simultaneous notes to form the final output (that you can listen to and generally conceive as music). The important thing is that you can reposition notes along the time and pitch scale using a tracker and normally this is considered something relatively simple.

3) The time-encoded (or raw) formats, such as .wav and .raw do not have these properties. Instead, they are a constant stream of information that can be read and played back at the rate specified in the header (for example 44100 samples/sec set by the person who recorded/encoded them). What you need to edit a .wav file is called a wav-editor which (if you have one) you can see is cardinally different from a tracker. This is due to the fact that the data storage methods used for either format are cardinally different and interchangable only in one direction (hence, not interchangable ) : mod->wav. You can think of the arrow as an encoder. The bad thing about this is that since the encoding process is so radical it is almost impossible to write a decoder that would be able to convert the raw data back into mod format. Mind you that it is theoretically possible, but will include some overwhelming maths and will not be anywhere close to 100% accurate due to the loss of information in roundoff and other errors during encoding. This is complex stuff - just take it for granted. Any wav-to-midi converter will suffer from heavy approximation and possibly distortion, especially if you''re dealing with a low bitrate source file or a source file with bad encoding quality/capture quality (eg a live concert)

4) mp3 is an encoded streaming format, much like a waveform, but needs a decoder to read properly. Note that the decoder will not change the fundamental format (the bitsetream) of the source signal. You might want to use ogg (google) for your games instead.

5) Just a clarification on the confusing use of the term sample above: in tracker world a sample is generally thought to be something like an instrument with some basic properties and information set aside for it (eg looping information and sound data), while bitstreamed formats (such as .wav) treat a sample as a set of bytes that are formed as: num_bits_per_sample / 8 * num_channels. This means that for a 16-bit stereo file there are 2 * 2 = 4 bytes of information per sample that store a dot on the outline of the signal in time domain (eg a dot in the waveform) - stereo means that 2 dots are really stored, one for the left and one for the right ear.

Hope this clears things up about the wav->mod conversion discussed here and another thread...

Crispy

Try OGG instead, that will also help you to get rid off MP3 patent issues.