This application is a player for tracker music files ("module" files) as they were –and still are– common in the demoscene. With its fullscreen interface and limited interaction options, it's specifically targeted towards presenting tracked music in a competition ("compo") or for random background playback.

Features

• based on libopenmpt, a very well-regarded library for module file playback
• plays all common formats: MOD, XM, IT, S3M, and a dozen others
• fullscreen interface based on OpenGL
• metadata display (title, artist, technical info, module comment, instrument and sample names) with smooth scrolling
• pattern display for visualization, including channel names (if present in the module file)
• optional custom logo in the background of the pattern display
• fake VU meters (based on note velocity and channel, not the actual audio samples)
• smooth fade out (triggered manually, automatically after looping, or after a configurable time)
• loudness normalization, with a built-in EBU R128 (a.k.a. ReplayGain 2.0) loudness analyzer
• cross-platform (tested on Windows and Linux)
• single executable; no extra DLLs/.sos needed
• open source (MIT license)

Usage

Just drag a module file onto the executable, or into the window once the player has already been started. If a directory is opened this way, the first playable file therein is loaded. Note that this is not recursive; TrackMeister won't play entire directory hierarchies. If no file is specified upfront, but there are playable files in the current directory when TrackMeister starts, the (lexicographically) first file is loaded.

The screen is split into three parts: The pattern display, the info bar at the top (containing basic information about the module format as well as filename, title and artist), and the metadata bar at the right (with the free-text module message, instrument and sample names). If the content doesn't fit in the metadata bar, it slowly scrolls down during playback, so it reaches the bottom end at the end of the track or after four minutes, whatever comes first.

If a module's filename starts with exactly two decimal digits, followed by a space, dash (-) or underscore (_), the digits will be removed from the filename display and shown as a "track number" in a much larger font in the info bar instead. This can be used to curate playlists by simply prefixing each filename with 01_, 02_ and so on.

The following other controls are available:

For directory navigation, "previous" and "next" refer to case-insensitive lexicographical ordering.

To use the loudness normalization feature, perform a loudness scan on the desired module(s); this will write a small .tm file next to the module file that contains the measured EBU R128 loudness for the currently set up rendering parameters (i.e. filter, stereo separation etc.). The next time that module is loaded, TrackMeister picks up this loudness value and automatically computes a suitable gain to normalize the volume levels to a target of -18 LUFS. (The target can be adjusted with the target loudness configuration setting.)

Configuration

TrackMeister can be configured using configuration files with an INI-like syntax.

The following aspects can be configured:

• display colors, font sizes and font
  • font selection is limited to a few "baked-in" presets
• windowed/fullscreen mode and window size (*)
• audio sample rate and buffer size (*)
• audio interpolation filter
• amount of stereo separation

All items can be changed at runtime when loading a new module or pressing the F5 key, except those marked with an asterisk (*); these are only evaluated once on startup.

The following locations are searched for configuration files:

• tm.ini in the program's directory (i.e. directly next to tm.exe)
• tm.ini in the currently opened module file's directory
• a file with the same name as the currently opened module file, but with an extra suffix of .tm; for example, for foo.mod, the configuration file will be foo.mod.tm

Configuration files are processed in this exact order, line by line. Options specified later override options specified earlier.

The configuration files can contain multiple sections, delimited by lines containing the section name in square brackets, [like so]. The following sections are evaluated, and all other sections are ignored:

• the unnamed section at the beginning of the file
• the [TrackMeister] or [TM] sections
• sections that match the current module's file name, e.g. [foo*.mod]; the following rules apply for those:
  • only the filename is matched, no directory names
  • matching is case-insensitive
  • exactly one '*' may be used as a wildcard (no '?'s, no multiple '*'s)

All other lines contain key-value pairs of the form "key = value" or "key: value". Spaces, dashes (-) and underscores (_) in key names are ignored. All parts of a line following a semicolon (;) are ignored. It's allowed to put comments at the end of key/value lines.

To get a list of all possible settings, along with documentation and the default values for each setting, run TrackMeister normally and press Ctrl+Shift+S, or run tm --save-default-config from a command line. This will generate a file tm_default.ini in the current directory (usually the program directory) that also be used as a template for an individual configuration.

All sizes (font sizes, margins etc.) are specified in 1/1000s of the display width, so they are more or less resolution-independent.
Boolean values can use any of the 1/0, false/true, yes/no or enabled/disabled nomenclatures.
Colors are specified in HTML/CSS-style hexadecimal RGB notation, but with optional alpha, i.e. in the form #rrggbb, #rrggbbaa, #rgb or #rgba.

Here's an example for a useful INI file as a compo organizer would set it up for hosting a competition:

[TM]
; generic options, specified in classic INI syntax

; when hosting an actual competition, we want to start playback manually
autoplay=disabled
; and we want fullscreen too!
fullscreen=yes
; if the track has a loop, we want to fade out automatically at this point
fade out after loop = true

[*.mod]
    ; this section is only active for MOD format files, which tend to be
    ; written with little stereo separation and no volume ramping in mind
    stereo-separation: 20;
    volume-ramping: 0;

[03*]
    ; the entry with the track number 3 in the filename has a loop;
    ; we want to play the loop, but fade out directly after it;
    ; the fade has been configured above already, now set up the loop:
    loop: true

Note that in practice, the track-specific options would rather be written into the tm.ini file in the directory where the entries reside, or the even into the .tm file next to the module file itself, and maybe not into the "global" config file that's located next to tm.exe.

Another example is this INI file for a typical "random module jukebox" setup:

[TM]
; play all files continuously in random order
autoplay = yes
auto advance = yes
shuffle = yes
; and in fullscreen, of course!
fullscreen = true

Options can also be specified on the command line, in the syntax "+key=value" or "+key:value". No extra spaces are allowed around the value. Command-line options take precedence over all configuration files.

Building

• prerequisites:
  • a C++17 compatible compiler (GCC 7.1 or later, Clang 6 or later, Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 or later)
  • CMake 3.15 or later
  • Python 3.8 or later
  • SDL2 development packages (only required on non-Windows systems; on Windows, the SDL2 SDK will be downloaded automatically during building)
• make sure you cloned the repository recursively, as it pulls in a few libraries as submodules; if you forgot to do that, run "git submodule update --init"
• building itself is done using standard CMake (e.g. "cmake -S . -B build && cmake --build build")

Acknowledgements

TrackMeister was written by Martin J. Fiedler a.k.a. KeyJ of TRBL. It is built upon the following third-party libraries:

• SDL 2 is the basic framework for window management, event handling and audio playback
• GLAD is used as the OpenGL interface generator
• MSDF is what TrackMeister's font rendering is based upon
• Inconsolata is the default vector font that's used in the UI and logo
• Iosevka is an alternate vector font that can be used
• LodePNG is used to decode PNG files
• libopenmpt is doing all the heavy lifting concerning module file parsing and audio rendering
• libebur128 is used for loudness normalization