Ubuntu Manpage: schismtracker - tracked music editor based on Impulse Tracker

Provided by: schism_20250313-2_amd64

NAME

       schismtracker - tracked music editor based on Impulse Tracker

SYNOPSIS

       schismtracker [options] [directory] [file]

DESCRIPTION

       schismtracker is a tracked music module editor that aims to match the look and feel of Impulse Tracker as
       closely as possible. It can load most common tracker formats, supports saving as IT and S3M, and can also
       export to WAV and AIFF.

OPTIONS

-a, --audio-driver=DRIVER[:DEVICE]
Audio device configuration. driver is the SDL driver to use, e.g. alsa (ALSA), dma or dsp (OSS);
device is the name of the device itself, for example hw:2 or /dev/dsp1.

-v, --video-driver=DRIVER
SDL video driver, such as x11, dga, or fbcon. Note that this is different from the video driver
setting within the program, and is unlikely to be useful.

--network, --no-network
Enable/disable networking (on by default). Used for MIDI over IP.

--classic, --no-classic
Start Schism Tracker in "classic" mode, or don't. This is mostly cosmetic, although it does change
the program's behavior slightly in a few places.

-f, -F, --fullscreen, --no-fullscreen
Enable/disable fullscreen mode at startup.

-p, -P, --play, --no-play
Start playing after loading song on command line.

--diskwrite=FILENAME
Render output to a file, and then exit. WAV or AIFF writer is auto-selected based on file
extension. Include %c somewhere in the name to write each channel separately. This is meaningless
if no initial filename is given.

--headless
Run in non-interactive mode for automated rendering. Requires both --diskwrite and an input song
file to be specified. Useful for batch conversion of songs to audio files.

--font-editor, --no-font-editor
Run the font editor (itf). This can also be accessed by pressing Shift-F12.

--hooks, --no-hooks
Run hooks. Enabled by default.

--version
Display version information and build date.

-h, --help
Print a summary of available options.

A filename supplied on the command line will be loaded at startup. Additionally, if either a file or
directory name is given, the default module, sample, and instrument paths will be set accordingly.

USAGE

       A  detailed discussion of how to use Schism Tracker is far beyond the scope of this document, but here is
       a very brief rundown of the basics.  Context-sensitive help can be accessed at any time while running the
       program by pressing F1.

       The F3 key will bring you to the sample list. Press enter here to open a file browser,  navigate  in  the
       list using the up/down arrow keys, and hit enter again to load a sample. You will likely want to get some
       samples   to   work   with.   You   can   also   "rip"   from   existing   modules;   see   for   example
       http://www.modarchive.org/ for a very large selection of modules.  (Keep  in  mind,  however,  that  some
       authors don't appreciate having their samples ripped!)

       Now that you've loaded a sample, press F2 to get to the pattern editor. This is where the majority of the
       composition takes place. In short, the song is laid out vertically, with each row representing 1/16 note;
       to  play  multiple  notes simultaneously, they are placed in different channels.  The four sub-columns of
       each channel are the note, sample number, volume, and effect. A list  of  effects  is  available  in  the
       pattern  editor  help,  but  you  can  safely ignore that column for now. Assuming a US keymap, notes are
       entered with the keyboard as follows:
           (Note)        C# D#    F# G# A#    C# D#    F# G# A#    C# D#
                      | | || | | | || || | | | || | | | || || | | | || | |
                      | | || | | | || || | | | || | | | || || | | | || | |
           (What you  | |S||D| | |G||H||J| | |2||3| | |5||6||7| | |9||0| |
            type)     | '-''-' | '-''-''-' | '-''-' | '-''-''-' | '-''-' |
                      | Z| X| C| V| B| N| M| Q| W| E| R| T| Y| U| I| O| P|
                      '--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'
           (Note)       C  D  E  F  G  A  B  C  D  E  F  G  A  B  C  D  E
                       (Octave 0)           (Octave 1)           (Octave 2)

       The "/" and "*" keys on the numeric keypad change octaves, and the current octave is displayed  near  the
       top  of  the screen. Try typing "qwerty" into the pattern - it will enter an ascending note sequence, and
       you'll hear the notes as they're entered. (of course, assuming you loaded a sample!)  Press  F6  to  play
       your pattern, and F8 to stop.

       Other  important keys for the pattern editor include Ins/Del to shift notes up and down within a channel,
       Shift-Arrows to mark a block, Alt-C/Alt-P to copy and paste, and Alt-U to clear the mark. There are  well
       over  a  hundred  key  bindings  for  the  pattern  editor; it is well worth the effort to learn them all
       eventually.

       Now that you have something in your pattern, you'll need to set up an orderlist. Press F11 to  switch  to
       the  orderlist  page,  and type 0 to add the pattern you created. Now press F5 to start playing. The song
       will begin at the first order, look up the pattern number and play that pattern, then advance to the next
       order, and so forth.

       Of course, having only one pattern isn't all that interesting, so go back to the pattern editor and press
       the + key to change to the next pattern. Now you can write another four bars of music  and  add  the  new
       pattern to the orderlist, and the next time you play the song, your two patterns will play in sequence.

       You  may  wish  to  give your song a title; press F12 and type a name in the box at the top. You can also
       adjust the tempo and a number of other settings on this page, but for now, most of them are fine at their
       default values.

       To save your new song, press F10, type a filename, and hit enter. You can load it again later by pressing
       F9.

       This tutorial has deliberately omitted the instrument editor (on F4), for the  purposes  of  brevity  and
       simplicity.  You  may  want to experiment with it once you have a feel for how the program works. (Select
       "instruments" on F12 to enable instrument mode.)

HISTORY

       Storlek began studying Impulse Tracker's design  in  2002,  noting  subtle  details  of  the  design  and
       implementation.  Posts  on  the Modplug forums about rewriting Impulse Tracker were met with ridicule and
       mockery. "It can't be done," they said.

       Schism Tracker v0.031a was released in July 2003, though very little worked at that  point,  and  it  was
       more  of  a player with primitive editing capabilities.  File saving was hard-coded to write to "test.it"
       in the current directory, and there was no way to load a sample.

       The first version that was more or less usable was 0.15a, from December 2004.

       From 2005 through 2009, Mrs. Brisby did most of  the  development,  and  implemented  tons  of  features,
       including MIDI support, mouse support, and disk writing.

       Storlek "took over" development again in 2009, and incrementally rewrote much of the code through 2015.

       In  2016,  Schism  Tracker  was moved to GitHub under shared maintainership. Since then, many people have
       contributed improvements and bug fixes to the codebase.

FILES

       ~/.schism/config
              Program settings, stored in an INI-style format. Most options are accessible  from  within  Schism
              Tracker's interface, but there are a few "hidden" options.

       ~/.schism/startup-hook, ~/.schism/exit-hook, ~/.schism/diskwriter-hook
              Optional files to execute upon certain events. (Must be executable)

       ~/.schism/fonts/
              font.cfg,  and  any  .itf  files found in this directory, are displayed in the file browser of the
              font editor.

   Supported file formats
       MOD    Amiga modules (with some obscure variants such as FLT8)

       669    Composer 669 / Unis669

       MTM    MultiTracker

       S3M    Scream Tracker 3 (including Adlib support)

       XM     Fast Tracker 2

       IT     Impulse Tracker (including old instrument format)

       MDL    Digitrakker 3

       IMF    Imago Orpheus

       OKT    Amiga Oktalyzer

       SFX    Sound FX

       MUS    Doom engine (percussion missing)

       FAR    Farandole Composer

       STM    Scream Tracker 2 (partial functionality)

       ULT    UltraTracker (partial functionality)

       S3I    Scream Tracker 3 sample

       WAV    Microsoft WAV audio

       FLAC   Xiph.Org Free Lossless Audio Codec audio

       AIFF   Audio IFF (Apple)

       8SVX   Amiga 8SVX sample

       ITS    Impulse Tracker sample

       AU     Sun/NeXT Audio

       RAW    Headerless sample data

       PAT    Gravis UltraSound patch

       XI     Fast Tracker 2 instrument

       ITI    Impulse Tracker instrument

       Schism Tracker is able to save modules in IT and S3M format, sample data as ITS, S3I, AIFF, AU, WAV,  and
       RAW, and instruments as ITI. Additionally, it can render to WAV and AIFF (optionally writing each channel
       to a separate file), and can export MID files.

AUTHORS

       Schism Tracker was written by Storlek and Mrs. Brisby, with player code from Modplug by Olivier Lapicque.
       Based on Impulse Tracker by Jeffrey Lim.

       Additional  code  and  data have been contributed by many others; refer to the file AUTHORS in the source
       distribution for a more complete list.

       The keyboard diagram in this manual page was adapted from the one used in the documentation  for  Impulse
       Tracker, which in turn borrowed it from Scream Tracker 3.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright    ©    2003-2025    Storlek,    Mrs.    Brisby   et   al.   Licensed   under   the   GNU   GPL
       <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software: you are free to change  and  redistribute  it.
       There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

BUGS

       They  almost  certainly  exist. Post on https://github.com/schismtracker/schismtracker/issues if you find
       one.  Agitha shares her happiness with benefactors of the insect kingdom.

INTERNETS

       http://schismtracker.org/ - main website
       #schismtracker on EsperNet - IRC channel