''Scream Tracker'' is a tracker (an integrated multi-track

step sequencer A music sequencer (or audio sequencer or simply sequencer) is a device or application software that can record, edit, or play back music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically CV/Gate, MIDI, or Open Sound C ...

and sampler as a software application). It was created by Psi (Sami Tammilehto), one of the founders of the Finnish

demogroup Demogroups are teams of demosceners, who make computer based audio-visual works of art known as demos. Demogroups form a subculture collectively known as the demoscene. Groups frequently consist of students, young computer enthusiasts who spend ...

Future Crew Future Crew was a Finnish demogroup that created PC demos and software, active mostly between 1987 and 1994. History The group was founded in 1986 by PSI (Sami Tammilehto) and JPM (Jussi Markula) as a Commodore 64 group, before moving to the PC ...

. It was written in C and

assembly language In computer programming, assembly language (or assembler language, or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as Assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence be ...

. The first version (1.0) had monophonic 4-bit output via the

PC speaker A PC speaker is a loudspeaker built into some IBM PC compatible computers. The first IBM Personal Computer, model 5150, employed a standard 2.25 inch magnetic driven (dynamic) speaker. More recent computers use a tiny moving-iron or pie ...

, as well as 8-bit output via a

digital-to-analog converter In electronics, a digital-to-analog converter (DAC, D/A, D2A, or D-to-A) is a system that converts a digital signal into an analog signal. An analog-to-digital converter (ADC) performs the reverse function. There are several DAC architec ...

on the

parallel port In computing, a parallel port is a type of interface found on early computers (personal and otherwise) for connecting peripherals. The name refers to the way the data is sent; parallel ports send multiple bits of data at once ( parallel ...

or a

Sound Blaster Sound Blaster is a family of sound cards designed by Singaporean technology company Creative Technology (known in the US as Creative Labs). Sound Blaster sound cards were the de facto standard for consumer audio on the IBM PC compatible system pl ...

1.x card. The first popular version of Scream Tracker, version 2.2, was published in 1990. Versions prior to 3.0 created STM (Scream Tracker

Module Module, modular and modularity may refer to the concept of modularity. They may also refer to: Computing and engineering * Modular design, the engineering discipline of designing complex devices using separately designed sub-components * Mo ...

) files, while versions 3.0 and above used the

S3M ''S3M'' (Scream Tracker 3 Module) is a module file format, the successor to the STM format used by the original Scream Tracker. Both formats are based on the original MOD format used on the Amiga computer. The S3M format has many differences com ...

(ScreamTracker 3 Module) format. The last version of Scream Tracker was 3.21, released in 1994. It was the precursor of the PC tracking scene and its interface inspired newer trackers like

Impulse Tracker Impulse Tracker is a multi-track music tracker ( music sequencer). Originally released in 1995 by Jeffrey Lim as freeware with commercial extensions, it was one of the last tracker programs for the DOS platform. In 2014, on its 20th anniversary, ...

. As of version 3.0, ''Scream Tracker'' supports up to 99

8-bit In computer architecture, 8-bit Integer (computer science), integers or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 8 bits wide (1 octet (computing), octet). Also, 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) arc ...

samples, 32 channels, 100 patterns, and 256 order positions. It can also handle up to 9 FM-synthesis channels on sound cards using the popular

OPL2 The OPL (FM Operator Type-L) series are a family of sound chips developed by Yamaha. The OPL series are low-cost sound chips providing FM synthesis for use in computing, music and video game applications. Internal operation The internal operation ...

/ 3/ 4 chipsets, and, unusually, can play PCM samples and FM instruments at the same time. There are channels referred to as R1..8, L1..8 and A1..9 to be assigned to those 32 ones, which gives an effective amount of only 25 channels. 16-position free panning is available using the S8x command, but only on the Gravis Ultrasound. The usage of the A channels requires the presence of an AdLib-compatible card either by itself or alongside another sound card. Future Crew released the third version (ST3) in 1994, placing it in competition with

FastTracker 2 FastTracker 2 (also referred to as FastTracker II) is a music tracker A music tracker (sometimes referred to as just tracker for short) is a type of music sequencer software for creating music. The music is represented as discrete musical note ...

. Various other trackers (such as

OpenMPT OpenMPT is an open-source audio module tracker for Windows (with an intended Wine-functionality for UNIX and Linux x86-systems). It was previously called ModPlug Tracker, and was first released by Olivier Lapicque in September 1997. ''Compu ...

) adopted the use of the Scream Tracker's S3M format.

References

{{Reflist Audio trackers Demoscene software DOS software 1990 software Assembly language software

See also

References