Introduction

This tutorial will attempt to get you started in the art of tracking MODs (i.e., creating computer music in MOD format) using ScreamTracker 3.21. It is NOT meant to be a complete musical education (I don't know enough about music myself!) It IS meant to be a supplement to ScreamTracker's documentation, which, as the author admits,

"...is not a complete beginner's guide to the Scream Tracker program, nor is it a text on making better music...it is made for those who have have worked with similar programs before and know some music theory...."

Preliminaries

Tuning your instruments

Before you begin writing your song, it's a good idea to tune your instruments. This basically means changing the "Recording frequency" column until all instruments have the same base pitch. Let's assume you've selected 5 instruments:

     Scream Tracker V3.21         Copyright (C) 1993,1994 Sami Tammilehto     
           +------------------------------+       +-----------------------+   
       Song|                              |   File|                       +
 Instrument|01:                           |  Chord|none                   +
      Order|000/000                       |C.Tempo|7D                      
    Pattern|00        Row 00    Channel 01|C.Speed|06          Baseoctave  3  
           +------------------------------|                                    
                                                              FreeMem:  189K  
                                                              FreeEMS: 8176K  
  ESC ..... Main Menu     F1..F4 .. Edit Screen                               
  F10 ..... Quick-Help    CTRL-L .. Load Module                               
  CTRL-Q .. Quit to DOS   F5/F8 ... Play / Stop                               
----------------------------Instrument List (F3)------------------------------
   +----------------------------+------+-----+----+                           
 01|Bass drum, with kick        |SMP|64|11000|TM|T| Instrument 01: ---        
 02|Snare drum                  |SMP|64|11000|TM|T|                           
 03|Detroit chord               |SMP|64|08363|TM|T|                           
 04|Miami grand piano, mid rang |SMP|64|11000|TM|T|      
 05|Miami grand piano, hi range |SMP|64|11000|TM|T|

In this example, you wouldn't need to worry about the first two instruments (the percussion section); you just need to make sure the "Detroit chord" is tuned to the "Miami grand" because these are "primary voices"--they carry the main melody of your song. To begin tuning:

1. Write down the original "Recording Frequencies" of all the instruments to be tuned. This way, if you make a mistake, you can bring the instruments back to their original tuning state.
2. Choose one instrument to be the base by which all other instruments will be tuned (the tuning group). In the above case, I'd select the piano sample as the base because it's tonal quality is much sharper than the "Detroit chord."
3. Stop at the "Test Instrument" column of each instrument to be tuned, and press the "Q" key several times for each instrument (since most instruments are recorded at middle "C", this will usually play a "C" note. However some instruments are recorded at different notes--for example, the "Detroit chord" instrument above may have been recorded at "F" of the 3rd octave-- what is supposed to be a "C" for this instrument is actually an "F"). Repeat this several times until your ear gets a feel for the relative pitch difference between the instruments. This gives you a clue to the nature of the tuning repair needed-- should one instrument be played at a higher or lower frequency than the next instrument in the tuning group? Listen carefully and your ear will tell you which way you need to tune. (Note: by relative pitch, I mean "C" is lower than "D", "D" is lower than "E", etc...relative pitch is not the same as difference in frequency).
4. Now focus on two instruments--your base instrument, and another from the tuning group. Determine the relative pitch difference between the two instruments:
   • If the base instrument has a lower relative pitch,
     1. press "Q" a couple of times while the cursor is on the "Test Instrument" column of the base instrument.
     2. place the cursor on the "Test Instrument" column of the test instrument.
     3. Go backward through the piano keys of the lower octave (i.e., press M-J-N-H-B-G-V-C-D-X-S-Z in that order) until the test instrument has the same relative pitch as the base.
     4. Place the cursor in the "Recording Frequency" column of the test instrument. Press the "/" (forward slash) key, then press the key that you stopped at in the above step.
   • If the base instrument has a lower relative pitch,
     1. press "Q" a couple of times while the cursor is on the "Test Instrument" column of the base instrument.
     2. place the cursor on the "Test Instrument" column of the test instrument.
     3. Go forward through the piano keys of the upper octave (i.e., press Q-2-W-3-E-R-5-T-6-Y-7-U in that order) until the test instrument has the same relative pitch as the base.
     4. Place the cursor in the "Recording Frequency" column of the test instrument. Press the "/" (forward slash) key, then press the key that you stopped at in the above step.
   • To raise the pitch of an instrument a whole octave, place the cursor in the "recording frequency" column and press "+" (plus). To lower the pitch by an octave, press "-" (minus).
5. Now you may need to fine tune the instruments. Place the cursor in the "Recording frequency" column of the instrument you wish to tune. If you think the tuning frequency should be higher, increase the number in the column. If you think it should be lower, decrease the number.
6. Repeat steps 2 thru 5 until all instruments in the tuning group have identical pitches (i.e., they all should sound like the note "C", even if one instrument sounds like it's being played in a higher octave than another).

Writing the song

Press F2 to begin entering notes. You'll see this screen:

     Scream Tracker V3.21         Copyright (C) 1993,1994 Sami Tammilehto      
           +-----------------------------         +------------------------    
       Song|Agent of destruction         \    File|agent.s3m (S3M)         \   
 Instrument|01:Bass                       +  Chord|none                     +  
      Order|000/022                       |C.Tempo|7D+-------------------+  |  
    Pattern|00+-----  Row|00|   Channel 01|C.Speed|06|         Baseoctave| 3|  
           +--+          +--+           +-+       +--+                   +--+  
                                                              FreeMem:  120K   
                                                              FreeEMS: 8064K   
  ESC ..... Main Menu     F1..F4 .. Edit Screen                                
  F10 ..... Quick-Help    CTRL-L .. Load Module                                
  CTRL-Q .. Quit to DOS   F5/F8 ... Play / Stop                                
                                                                               
----------------------------Pattern Editor (F2)------------------------------- 
   +- 01: L1 ------ 02: R2 ------ 03: R3 ------ 04: L4 ------ 05: L5 ----+  
 00|B-3 11 .. .00|B-3 10 .. .00|F-4 03 .. .00|B-3 11 .. RFF|... .. .. .00|  
 01|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|  
 02|... .. .. .00|^^^ .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 03|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 04|C#4 11 .. .00|B-3 10 .. .00|F-4 03 .. .00|C#4 11 .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 05|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 06|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|F#4 11 .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 07|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 08|E-4 11 .. .00|B-3 10 .. .00|F-4 03 .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 09|E-4 11 .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 10|D-4 11 .. .00|D-4 10 .. .00|F-4 06 .. .00|D-4 11 .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 11|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 12|C#4 11 .. .00|C#4 10 .. .00|F-4 03 .. .00|C#4 11 .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 13|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 14|D-4 11 .. .00|D-4 10 .. .00|F-4 05 .. .00|D-4 11 .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 15|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 16|F#4 11 .. .00|G-3 10 .. .00|F-4 03 .. .00|A-3 11 .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 17|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 18|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 19|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 20|... .. .. .00|G-3 10 .. .00|F-4 03 .. .00|D-4 11 .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 21|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 22|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|B-3 11 .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 23|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 24|E-4 11 .. .00|G-3 10 .. .00|F-4 03 .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 25|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 26|D-4 11 .. .00|B-3 10 .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 27|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 28|... .. .. .00|A-3 10 .. .00|F-4 03 .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 29|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 30|... .. .. .00|B-3 10 .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 31|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00|... .. .. .00| 
 ^ +^-^-^--^--^-^--------------------------------------------------------+ 
 |  | | |  |  | |     
 |  | | |  |  | +- Infobyte column (00-FF, hexadecimal)
 |  | | |  |  +--- Effect command column (A-Z)
 |  | | |  +------ Volume column (0-64, decimal)
 |  | | +--------- Instrument column (00-99, decimal)
 |  | +----------- Octave column (0-7, decimal)
 |  +------------- Note column
 +---------------- Row number
 
          Note: PgDn will show the next 32 rows
                "+" (plus) loads the next pattern
                "-" (minus) loads the previous pattern
    
    

There are 6 items of information in each cell:

• Note--the note name; "C, C#, D, D#..." etc.
• Octave--the note octave (from 0 through 7)
• Instrument--the instrument number (from 1 thru 99)
• Volume--the volume the note will be played at; if no volume is specified, the note is played at the instrument's default volume
• Effect--special effect to be applied (this tutorial does not cover special effect commands--see ScreamTracker's documentation, ST3.DOC)
• Infobyte--this is a hexadecimal number which contains information to be used by the special effect command.

Each note in a song has a specific duration. In standard music terminology, a whole note is the basic unit of measurement of note duration; a whole note is a rather large unit, and it is subdivided into smaller and smaller intervals, each one-half the length of the previous interval: half note, quarter note, eighth note, sixteenth note, etc.

In ScreamTracker terminology, a "note" is the beginning of an event--it signifies the time an instrument is "played" (for example, when a piano key is first struck). To determine how LONG that instrument plays the note (i.e., the duration of the note) you can do one of three things:

1. Turn the instrument off (i.e., stop playing the note)
2. Play another note
3. Use a special effect command

In the above example, the first note played on channel 1 ("B") is terminated by playing another note ("C#"). The duration of the "B" note is determined by the relative distance in rows from the "B" cell to the "C#" cell (4 rows). At default speed and tempo, one row is approximately equal to .12 seconds; therefore 4 rows (or one beat) would be about a half of a second. Rather than fuss with all of the numbers, I usually tend to use this simple table to determine the duration of my notes:

        1 row ................ a sixteenth note
        2 rows ............... an eighth note
        4 rows ............... a quarter note
        8 rows ............... a half note
       16 rows ............... a whole note

Another factor that determines the length of a note is the size (in bytes) of the sample being used to play the note and the sample rate of the sample. The larger the size of the sample (or the lower the sample rate), the longer the sample will play. Let's say you have a piano sample tuned to middle "C", recorded at a rate of 8363 samples per second. Let's also assume the size of this sample is 4,000 bytes. This means that if you play a middle "C" note with the keyboard, the maximum duration of sound will be:

      4000 bytes (samples)
      ----------------------    =  approximately .5 seconds
      8363 samples per second   

The "Note Off" command

Press F1 to go to the Order List and Variables screen. Here you can control the song's speed, specify how the patterns you create are to be played, and more.

    
     Scream Tracker V3.21         Copyright (C) 1993,1994 Sami Tammilehto      
           +-----------------------------         +------------------------    
       Song|Agent of destruction         \    File|agent.s3m (S3M)         \   
 Instrument|01:Bass                       +  Chord|none                     +  
      Order|000/022                       |C.Tempo|7D+-------------------+  |  
    Pattern|00+-----  Row|00|   Channel 01|C.Speed|06|         Baseoctave| 3|  
           +--+          +--+           +-+       +--+                   +--+  
                                                              FreeMem:  120K   
                                                              FreeEMS: 8064K   
  ESC ..... Main Menu     F1..F4 .. Edit Screen                                
  F10 ..... Quick-Help    CTRL-L .. Load Module                                
  CTRL-Q .. Quit to DOS   F5/F8 ... Play / Stop                                
                                                                               
-----------------------Order List and Variables (F1)--------------------------
    +--+      +------+   +------+                                       
 000|20|    01| L1 . | 17|(--). |                        Init Current   
 001|22|    02| R2 . | 18|(--). |                       +----+          
 002|19|    03| R3 . | 19|(--). |                  Tempo|8F  |          
 003|05|    04| L4 . | 20|(--). |                  Speed|06  |          
 004|06|    05| L5 . | 21|(--). |     GlobalVol (00..40)|40  |          
 005|23|    06| R6 . | 22|(--). |     MasterVol (10..7F)|30  |          
 006|07|    07| R7 . | 23|(--). |     Vol0 Optimizations|--  |          
 007|01|    08| L8 . | 24|(--). |     Force Amiga Limits|--  |          
 008|03|    09|(--). | 25|(--). |      Fast volumeslides|--  |          
 009|04|    10|(--). | 26|(--). |          MOD edit mode|--  |          
 010|02|    11|(--). | 27|(--). |     UltraClick-removal|8   |          
 011|00|    12|(--). | 28|(--). |          Enable Stereo|--  |          
 012|10|    13|(--). | 29|(--). |                       +----+          
 013|11|    14|(--). | 30|(--). |                                       
 014|12|    15|(--). | 31|(--). |                                       
 015|13|    16|(--). | 32|(--). |                                       
 016|14|      +------+   +------+                                       
 017|15|     ^  ^  ^   ^   ^  ^                                          
 018|16|     +--|--|---+---|--|--------- logical channel number
 019|17|        +--|-------+--|--------- logical channel name
 020|20|           +----------+--------- default panning column
 021|22| 
 022|19|      +-----------------------------+                           
 023|--|  Song|Agent of destruction         |                           
 024|--|      +-----------------------------+                           
 025|--|                                                                
 026|--|                                                                
 027|--|                                                                
 028|--|                                                                
 029|--|                                                                
 030|--|                                                                
 031|--|                                                                
    +--+                                                                

Changing the order in which patterns are played

In the above example, pattern 20 is the first pattern played in the song, followed by patterns 22, 19, 5, etc. Notice that pattern numbers are in decimal. (Note: when the cursor is in the order list column, pressing PgDn will bring up the next page; PgUp fetches the previous page).

By default, each instrument is played through both speakers (mono mode). When you start a new ScreamTracker session, the stereo mode is turned off. You can enable stereo mode by pressing ALT-S. When stereo mode is first enabled, by default the first 8 channels are defined in the following order: Channel 1--left speaker; channel 2--right speaker; channel 3--right speaker; channel 4--left speaker. Channels 5 through 8 follow the same pattern. This means that all notes played on channel 1 will come from the left speaker. To change this assignment,

• Make sure stereo mode is enabled (ALT-S).
• press TAB until the cursor is in the channel panning window.
• Move the cursor to the channel you wish to change.
• Press the right arrow until the cursor is sitting over the dot character (".").
• Type in a hexadecimal number from 0 to F representing the desired panning "position"--0 is all the way to the left, F is all the way to the right, 8 is exactly center.

Adding/deleting channels

When you're listening to your song, there are times you may wish to silence one or more channels--for example, you may which to turn off a drum track so you can hear what all the other instruments sound like more clearly. To silence one or more channels:

• Go to the Pattern Editor screen (Press F2)
• Press TAB to move the cursor to the channel you wish to silence.
• Press ALT-F9. A pair of parentheses "()" will appear around the logical channel name (e.g., "L1", "R2", etc.) indicating that this channel is now silent. Press ALT-F9 once again and the channel will be turned back on.
• Press ALT-F10 to turn all 32 channels off simultaneously. Press ALT-F10 again to turn them back on.

Appendices

Terminology

There are many new terms to learn. Don't try memorizing this list. Glance through the terms at least one time to begin with, then refer back to it whenever you encounter an unfamiliar term.

Going public: how to "publish" your song on the Internet

There are 4 basic ways of publishing your new song on the Internet:

1. Ask someone who already has a music page on the Web to post your song for you
2. Upload your song to the appropriate Usenet newsgroups;
3. Upload your song to an FTP site which deals with mod music;
4. Create your own web page.

Post your song to someone else's web page

You can get samples three basic ways:

Links to other useful web sites