Pirate Pete reviews Impulse Tracker
Last updated: 23 Sep 98
Impulse Tracker is being touted by afficionados as *the* tracker
to use, and with good reason--a lot of thought has gone into the
program's construction. The documentation is actually readable,
the program interface is easy to use and familiar (it's a dead-ringer
for ScreamTracker--according to the author, Jeffrey Lim, "I've used
Scream Tracker. I loved using it - it was the best, easiest, most
convenient program ever, so why not adopt it's design?????" Why not, indeed!)
From the incredible popularity of the .S3M format (as evidenced by the
thousands of .S3M modules available throughout the Web), any new
tracker software would do very well to maintain a close link with
something that works. Impulse Tracker has done a good job of
maintaining compatibility with ST3, so much so that IT's learning
curve is very gentle for someone already familiar with ScreamTracker.
And yet, for all of its wonderful features, I still have a few
problems with Impulse Tracker:
- Perhaps it's just my card (I have a Sound Blaster 16), but
the stereo playback mode in IT sounds terrible. This
becomes a big problem because...
- Only IT plays .IT files ((Not true any more:
ModPlug does
an excellent job of handling .IT files). There may be plans in the works
for Cubic Player and/or MOD4WIN (Win 3.1) to support .IT files, but at
the moment, Impulse Tracker is the only one tooting its horn.
I'm chomping at the bit to start using all of these new, neat
features that .IT has, but why waste my time when few people
in the PC world are going to be able to listen to my stuff?
- For some reason, IT gives you even less conventional
memory to play around with than ScreamTracker--if you don't
start IT with EMS (and what's with this EMS, anyway? Both
ScreamTracker and Impulse Tracker force you to load EMM386 with
the RAM option enabled, which eats up conventional memory.
Why not use XMS, which *doesn't* eat conventional memory?),
you can only load the smallest of mods without getting "out
of memory while loading" errors.
(Note, 23 Sep 98: These
problems resolved themselves when I upgraded to Windows 95)
In conclusion, I love Impulse Tracker and I can't wait to start
using the program, but until we get some reliable .IT players on
the market, I'm afraid I'm going to have to wait. For now at least,
I'm sticking with ScreamTracker.
Addendum, 31 May 98
This addendum is long overdue. I now have an AWE-64, so my problems
with sound card quality have disappeared. Also, I now use ModPlug
exclusively (sorry, Mod4Win!), which does play .IT files.
Now all that's left is for me to get off my duff and learn
the program!
Addendum, 23 Sep 98
I've finally begun to track .IT mods. At present, I have released
one .IT mod ("Don't Be So Mean D.J.")
and I'm working on several others. Impulse Tracker is a breeze compared to FT2
(but then, I enjoy it so much because I love ScreamTracker). I love the powerful
instrument functions including NNA (new note actions) and pitch envelopes. I
must say I miss the sample editing facility of FT2, but I can get around that
with CoolEdit and Sound Forge (which are more powerful, anyway).
From now on, I'm sticking with Impulse Tracker!
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