Provided by: schism_20240129-1_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.
--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 © 2003-2022 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
SEE ALSO
chibitracker(1), milkytracker(1), protracker(1), renoise(1), ocp(1), xmp(1)
Jun 14, 2019 SCHISMTRACKER(1)