ProTracker 3 (PT3) module file support

[sylvain]

Hi! Congratulations for this tracker !
I would like to ask you, as there exists pt3 players on MSX, if you plan to add support of these music file format?
I can send you some pt3 files if you want to.

Thank you!

Best regards,
Sylvain

[Targhan]

Hi, thanks!

I’m not sure I will, because you can already import VT2 files. With Vortex Tracker 2.5, load your song and save is as “VT2” (which are actually the same text files when you export a song as TXT in VT1). You can then import these files in AT2.

Tell me if that solution is good enough for your needs.

PT3 is a strange beast, because there is a “ProTracker 3” format, but in the VT2.5/Modules for test/Vortex Tracker II folders, there are also PT3 files, which are in another format (which I don’t think I could find the description…)! So this is very confusing, I would have to support both “real” PT3 and “fake” PT3 files. So I preferred the VT2/TXT solution, which was simpler and works in all cases.

[sylvain]

I already tried to rename my pt3 files as .VT2 but when opened AT2 says “Unable to load the song The format of the song could not be recognized.”

Vortex Tracker II (Version 1.0 beta 19) reads and plays theses files. But VTII doesn’t export files to .VT2 !

[Targhan]

Renaming won’t work :). Update to VT 2.5 (https://github.com/oisee/vti/tree/master/bin), the “save as” will be here! I’ll update the Import page with this info.

[sylvain]

Thank you for your answer.
The URL you gave is not for VT2.5 but VT II 1.2 that doesn’t export/save to VT2 format.
I found VT2.5 from an other URL and then, save my PT3 file as VT2 format.
But when played with AT2, it sounds not like with Vortex Tracker.
Can I send to you my module file for testing ?

[Targhan]

Well, I’m interested in your URL because I can not find the right one actually :).
You can send me your music, but like told in the import page, imports are only “best effort”. They will *not* sound like the original VT music because the way you create your music and instruments in both tracker is very different.
The import is made to get the notes and music structure, then it is up to you to re-work the song for it to sound as you want. For example, the hardware sounds are in the tracks in VT, whereas they are in the instruments in AT2. It’s a different philosophy, and creating an import that would manage all this would be a lot of work, and I’m not sure it would be really useful because people usually create songs in either tracker, not both.

See the VT2 import as a convenience, but it will not do all the work for you.

[Targhan]

Ok, I have the URL, don’t worry :).

[sylvain]

Well, in fact this .pt3 is not my creation. I think you should hear the rendering and how it differs between VT2.5 and AT2.
When I open this “VT2.5” file with Arkos Tracket, I get the message “W: Unsupported effect: 9”. Maybe is it the reason of the rendering problem…

[Targhan]

I don’t remember what the effect “9” is but yet, this is not abnormal. Please read this:

VT2 import

The important thing is, what are you trying to achieve? If you just want to use the AT2 players then yes, you will have to import the song and “correct” it to the AT2 philosophy.

[sylvain]

My goal is to include PT3 musics, of my creation or not, in some MSX programs.
I’m looking for some music trackers which can read, edit and write this file format.
The edit part of the tool is important for me, so I’m trying different trackers… but until today I did not know version 2.5 of Vortex Tracker. Maybe it’s the one I need?

And if I can help to improve Arkos Tracker, I would be happy 🙂

I translate/wrote specification of PT3 format, if one day you change your mind.

Thank you, and again, congratulation for all your work.
Sylvain

[Targhan]

Well, what I don’t really understand is why you didn’t use VT2 to play PT3 as VT2 was made to play PT3! There is a player for MSX for sure (or if it is for Spectrum, adapting it to MSX should be easy).

I have this doc about PT3, is yours different?
http://karoshi.auic.es/index.php/topic,397.0/wap2.html

But PT3 is basically the same as VT2 (the same philosophy, I mean), so I will not try to import it, you can convert it to VT2 as explained above and import it to AT2.

Thanks and see you soon!

[sylvain]

> why you didn’t use VT2 to play PT3 as VT2 was made to play PT3
I did!
But :
-I’m looking for tracker working on Linux (Ubuntu) and Arkos Tracker II do, not shure for Vortex Tracker
-In my opinion Arkos Tracker II seems to be easier and convenient to use (I did not know Vortex Tracker 2.5 until today)
-I have some music modules .MOD and midi file I’d like to convert into .PT3. Vortex Tracker does not the trick.

[Targhan]

VT2 works very fine with Wine on Linux (I tested in on Ubuntu).

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