
                ---------------------------
                ModPlug Player User's Guide
                ---------------------------


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                 HOW TO USE MODPLUG PLAYER ?
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[SOFTWARE INFORMATION]
ModPlug Player is a freeware and may be freely distributed.
As it is a freeware, I am not responsible for any
problems that could be caused by the usage of this program.

[SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS]
- 486DX2-66 minimum (Pentium 100MHz highly recommended).
- Windows 95 or Windows NT 3.51 or higher.
- A soundcard with 32-bit drivers.

SETUP:
------

  Clicking on the Setup button will bring a 4 property pages
  dialog:

  - Soundcard Setup:
  ------------------
    * Mixing quality:
      Select the output quality (A CD-ROM is 44.1KHz).
      If you don't want to take too much CPU, 32KHz is a good
      compromise between CPU and audio quality.
      A 32-channels IT module played at 48KHz,stereo can take up
      to 100% of the CPU on a DX2-66 (Especially with Spectrum Analyzer).
      Note: I noticed that 48KHz output can create noise on some
      sound cards, because the hardware is downsampling it to 44.1KHz.
      In this case 44.1KHz is much better (Come on, it's only 4KHz
      difference, you don't need to upgrade your sound card).

    * Stereo:
      This will create a stereo output.
      Playing in mono takes less CPU than in stereo.
      You need to have the stereo option enabled to hear panning
      effects and surround sound.

    * 16-Bit:
      You are strongly advised to use this option, unless your
      soundcard doesn't support stereo playback.
      Playing in 8-bit mode doesn't decrease the CPU usage.

    * Sound buffer length and Number of buffers:
      This option configure the size of the buffer sent to the soundcard.
      (Total length = SoundBufferLength*NumberOfBuffers milliseconds)
      If you are using a small buffer, the player will respond faster
      when you change the player options or move the Pre-Amp slider.
      At the same time, if the PC is very busy in a multitasking
      environment, the sound may get cut from time to time.
      The buffer length must be between 50ms and 250ms.
      The bigger the buffer length, the slower the spectrum analyzer will
      be updated.
      The default settings should work fine, but you may want to increase
      it if you are using CPU-intensive applications, or decrease it if
      you have a very fast PC.

    * Stereo Separation:
      This allows you to control the stereo separation between right and
      left channel. You may want to decrease it with headphones, or increase
      it to feel a stronger stereo. This works only in stereo mode.

    Note: If you choose a setting that your soundcard doesn't support,
      the player will ignore it.

  - Player Setup:
  ---------------

    * Spectrum analyzer:
      When this option is checked, ModPlug Player will display the frequency
      spectrum of the sound (using Fourier analyzis). This takes more CPU and
      doesn't affect the quality of the sound. When the player window is behind
      another window or is minimized, the spectrum is not calculated and doesn't
      take any CPU. The frequencies in the spectrum display range from 86Hz
      to 11KHz (There is 44-bands).

    * Stereo Spectrum:
      When this option is checked, together with the Spectrum Analyzer, the
      player will display one spectrum for the left and right channels.
      (In this case, there is 2x21 bands in the spectrum, and the range
      for each channel is from 86Hz to 8KHz). It doesn't take more CPU than
      the mono spectrum analyzer. (You need to play in stereo mode to use this
      option, or else you'll see the same on each channels, duh!)

    * Reverb:
      This will create a echo on the sound with 25% depth and 150ms delay.
      It doesn't sound really good on all modules, but sometimes it does.
      That's why it's here (I noticed it sounds very good with guitar).

    * Pro-Logic Delayed Surround:
      This options sends 25% of the the sound to the Dolby Pro-Logic Surround
      channel (center + rear speakers) with a fixed delay of about 50ms.
      Use it only with a Dolby Pro-Logic decoder, or else the sound
      will sound weird. This option works only with Stereo enabled.

    * Disable Oversampling:
      This option will completely disable the oversampling. Unless you
      have a 486SX-25, you should use this option. Try without it, and
      if you don't hear a difference, go see your doctor.

    * Noise Reduction:
      Use this option only at 44.1KHz or 48KHz, or else it will filter
      all the high frequencies.

    * Bass Expansion:
      This option will make the player doing a 2x bass amplification
      of the sound at 50KHz (About 1.6x at 44.1).
      It takes a little bit more CPU, but not that much.
      If you like low frequencies, or just want to make you neighbour
      upset, that's the option you'll need.
      (This option is much better since version 1.11).

    * Enable Multi-Point oversampling:
      You shouldn't use this option if you're working on other applications
      with ModPlug in the background: it takes much more CPU for a very
      small difference in sound quality.
      By default , the player is using a 256x linear oversampling to create
      a smooth sound. At the same time, the linear oversampling decreases
      a little bit the magnitude of the sound, especially on high frequencies.
      With Multi-Point oversampling, if you play at 44.1KHz, the player will
      create a 88.2KHz sound internally, and downsample it to 44.1. It's
      twice more accurate than the linear oversampling.
      

  - Directories:
  --------------

      * Songs Directory:
        You can enter the path where your mods are located, and the
        player will automatically go to this directory when running.

      * Register Extensions:
        This makes Windows use ModPlug player as the default player
        for all the modules recognized. After clicking this button,
        you can open a song just by double-clicking it in the Windows
        Explorer. If "Use DDE" is selected, each time you open a mod
        it will stay in the same window, or else Windows will open
        another ModPlug Player Window.

  - Packing:
  ----------

      The slider allows you to control the quality of packing for the
      Pack As command, and give you information about which samples
      would be packed in the current song. The compression used to pack
      the samples is ADPCM, which can make the file size twice smaller.
      If the compression quality is low, more samples will be packed,
      but you may lose quality. If the compression quality is high, you
      probably won't lose any quality, but less samples will be packed.

OPEN:
-----
  Opens a file or a module list.
  The following file types are supported in the current version:
    - *.669: UNIS 669, 669 Composer modules.
    - *.IT:  Impulse Tracker modules.
    - *.MED: OctaMed modules.
    - *.MOD: ProTracker modules (4-32 channels, 15/31 samples).
    - *.MOL: Module lists, compatible with MOD4WIN.
    - *.MTM: MultiTracker modules.
    - *.NST: NoiseTracker modules.
    - *.S3M: ScreamTracker III modules.
    - *.STM: ScreamTracker II modules.
    - *.ULT: UltraTracker modules (in alpha).
    - *.WOW: Grave Composer modules.
    - *.XM:  FastTracker modules.
    - All the above when zipped (*.MDZ, *.S3Z, *.XMZ, *.ITZ, *.ZIP).

INFO:
-----
  This button will make the song information (comments and sample names)
  scroll in the LCD display.

ABOUT:
------
  Shows the current version of ModPlug Player.

REPEAT:
-------
  This button will cause the song to play again. If you click 4 times
  on this button, the song will be repeated indefinitely.
  The repeat count is displayed in the LCD screen.

SHUFFLE:
--------
  This button will cause a random song to be played after the current one.

EDIT:
-----
  This button will bring a dialog allowing you to edit the playing list.
  You can double-click in the list to activate a song.

SAVE AS:
--------
  This button will save the current song under a new name. You can use it
  to unpack/unzip a module, or to convert to a new format.
  You can also use this button to create a WAV file: just enter a file name
  ending with the .WAV extension.

PACK AS:
--------
  This button allows to save a module and pack the samples with ADPCM
  compression. Most players won't recognize the song anymore, but you
  can use it as a module in a Web page: it will be faster to download it.
  You can also ZIP the saved file to make it even smaller.
  If you want to unpack a previously packed module, just use the regular
  Save As button.

DETAILS:
--------
  This will bring a window displaying more details about the song being
  played. Note that if the song changes while this window is open, you will
  have the information of the current song and the information of the new
  song mixed up (Sorry about that).

SAVE LIST:
----------
  This button saves the current playing list, as a .MOL file.

CLR LIST:
---------
  This button is clearing the current playing list.

REMOVE:
-------
  This button removes the current song from the list. The file is not erased
  from the disk. You should use Ctrl+D if you want to remove the file from
  the disk.

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                       SHORTCUT KEYS
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Ctrl-O:    Open a file
Ctrl-S:    Save the current file
Ctrl-D:    Delete the current file (useful to remove crappy mods)
Del:       Remove the current file from the playing list
Shift+Del: Clear the playing list
Space:     Jump to next song

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                          HISTORY
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Get the latest version at "http://www.castlex.com/modplugplayer"
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1.14:
-----
- Added Advanced Player Setup
- Fixed a bug in Pro-Logic Surround.

1.13:
-----
- Fixed oversampling bug.
- Improved surround and reverb effects.
- Added Custom Colors for VU-Meter & Spectrum Analyzer.

1.12:
-----
- Fixed bug with XM modules with more than 128 patterns.
- Added Noise Reduction filter.
- Added Pro-Logic Delayed Surround option.
- Remove Filter Control option.

1.11:
-----
- Added channels VU-Meters in ModPlug Mixer.
- Better Bass Expansion (2x at 50KHz)
- Minor other improvements

1.10:
-----
- Added ModPlug Mixer.
- Lots of small new features.
- You can now Drag & Drop files into the edit list dialog.

1.09:
-----
- Removed the Tri-Linear Oversampling option.
- Added the Multi-Point oversampling, doubling the internal frequency.
- Lowered the internal pre-amp when Bass Expansion is used.
- Improved stability of the "Driver CallBack" option.

1.08:
-----
- Added the "Bass Expansion" player option.
- You can now select multiple files in the Open dialog.

1.07:
-----
- Added the "Use Driver CallBack" option in SoundCard Setup.
- Changed maximum mixing channels from 32 to 64 (32 more for NNA).
- Fixed panning bug (command X) in S3M.
- Improved ZIP support, skipping files other than mods.

1.06:
-----
- Added stereo separation option.
- Added stereo samples support in IT modules.
- Fixed bug with ping-pong loop with a non-zero loopstart.

1.05:
-----
- Added Ping-Pong loop support.
- Fixed NNA bug with looping samples.
- Fixed divide error when skipping to next mod in an empty list and shuffle.
- Added beta STM loader.

1.04:
-----
- Added automatic click removal.
- Added Set 64K Offset support in IT modules.
- Fixed bug in S3M detection function (some S3Ms were loaded as MODs)
- You can now drag & drop list files (*.mol).

1.03:
-----
- Fixed crash when loading IT modules with a lot of instruments.
- Fixed problem with some files playing too low.
- Added Tri-Linear oversampling option (P133+ recommended)
- Fixed S3M bug with non-looping samples having a loopend < length.
- Added Stereo Spectrum option.

1.02:
-----
- Added "Edit" button.
- Fixed finetune bug in XM modules.
- Added "Details" button.

1.01:
-----
- This version fixes most of the 1.00 bugs.
- You can now use the Open button for both lists and modules.
- Command line, Drag & Drop, and DDE bugs fixed.
- Added NNA/DNC effects in IT modules.
- Added beta ULT support.

1.00:
-----
- First public release of ModPlug Player (Actually a beta)

