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Scrobbling MODs

 

  • Scrobbling MODs

    What do you use to scrobble MODs? So far, the closest I've ever got was the plugin for Winamp, and it still didn't work. I have a very large MOD collection in my music library, and none of it ever shows up on Last.fm...

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    • DJRJ_AU disse...
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    • Dez 5 2007, 1h43
    I think that's because most tracker programs (and players) don't have the capacity for providing the required information (track name, artist etc) for Scrobbler(s) to lock into. What you need to do is convert those MODs of yours into another format like MP3 and then add the required tags manually.

    I did this with my collection of MaxyM and Jogeir Liljedahl MODs some time back and now they scrobble quite nicely. I used the following to do it:
    * DeliPlayer to do the initial conversion from MOD to MP3
    * The Godfather to do the job lot tagging of all files created by DeliPlayer.

    The unregistered version of DeliPlayer limits you to outputting mono tracks from any conversion, but given the limitations of the MOD format's original hardware base (4 channel, 8 bit) this is not a bad thing. If you do register the program then I suggest a 60% channel mix before converting, otherwise the tracks just sound too disjointed when you play them through headphones.

    I'd put my collection of ex-MOD MP3s on the net somewhere if there was enough of a demand for it... Given the nature of the original file format and how they were acquired (anyone else here play with AmiNet?) provided that I tag all the files correctly and cite where I got the original MODs from it shouldn't be too much of a hassle.



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    • [Usuário excluído] disse...
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    • Dez 25 2007, 21h33
    i convert them to ogg :(

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    • It-Alien disse...
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    • Fev 22 2008, 16h09
    I use Xmplay to render them to WAV, then convert them to OGG

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    • iwazaru disse...
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    • Mai 22 2008, 0h04
    I don't think converting modules to mp3 is really the optimal way to go about doing it... but since Rockbox doesn't support formats besides .mod, it might be useful if you want to listen to them on your portable player, too.

    I used foobar2000 for a few tracks, but foo_mod's APE tagging doesn't work for some tracks. Also I think foobar's default component for playing mods might suck, and foo_modplug is no longer updated. I wish someone would fix this, since I'd like to be able to do all my music-listening in one program.

    I've been using xmplay with the xmp-scrobbler plugin. xmplay's tagging features are nice, except I hate when I forget to add stuff to the library and the tags disappear.

    The xmp-scrobbler takes some setting up before it will work (you have to enable it and enter your username/password), and it doesn't show up as "now playing" (in the last.fm software or on your profile), but it scrobbles the tracks after you listen to them (actually about halfway through). It's worked for me really well so far.

    "If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking."
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  • Thank you for this xmp-scrobbler plugin since XMPlay is the more accurate player for modules !

    LA TÉLÉ FAIT GROSSIR ET NUIT À L'ÉVEIL DU CERVEAU
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  • i tried it once with the xmp-scrobbler, but despite taggin the MODs in the library, xmp-scrobbler ignores this tag, so it doesn't work too. but i don't really care since i don't scrobble...

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  • @ iwazaru - I use Foobar2000 to convert them to MP3s, but I really don't notice any loss in quality, and I was overjoyed at how convenient it is... What problems do you have playing MODs?

    Let's make cover versions or music or whatever.
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    • iwazaru disse...
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    • Jun 16 2008, 8h56
    @PossibleNonsens: Okay actually I was wrong about foobar's mod playback... it's fine.

    I hate converting to mp3, since it's tedious and would take up unnecessary space. I tagged my stuff using foobar (foo_dumb allows you to add APE tags to mods, or something). It works for a lot of mods, but on certain ones, it gives me an error, "Could not update tags (Unsupported file format)". I can see why it wouldn't work on any mods, but I don't see why it works on some and doesn't work on others...

    @sagamusix: The xmplay xmp-scrobbler does work for me, and I can't think of why it wouldn't work... did you go to xmp-scrobbler's configuration screen and enable it? Did you wait until after listening to the track to see if it showed up? Um... hmmm...

    "If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking."
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  • That's a relief, I already had loads of trouble with Foobar writing ID3v2.4 tags without it screwing MODs up too...

    With the tags, is there any relationship between the problem and the number of sample tracks? Maybe when a MOD has more than X samples it interferes with the APE tag?

    PS I've gotta agree about the inflated file sizes, it's dumb that modern MP4 players don't just include MOD playback to save us all this trouble, I don't imagine it would take much space or power by today's standards...

    Let's make cover versions or music or whatever.
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    • DJRJ_AU disse...
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    • Jun 18 2008, 1h23
    I agree that given that a program like Protracker was originally written for a CPU running at 7.14MHz with system memory of 256 kilobytes, the current lack of support given the minimal overhead required is dumb.

    But who said that hardware manufacturers didn't have to be dumb in the first place?



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    • muddyb0y disse...
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    • Jun 19 2008, 12h03
    Actually, there is probably a good reason for that. For one, there simply is no demand. Even investing the small amount of time required to implement MOD support would, from a business' point of view, be wasted.

    Secondly, the implementation would have to be pretty damn accurate. I entered the scene when FT2 was popular, so I am not too familiar with MODs. FT2's own format (.xm) is apparently very hard to get right since you have to emulate every bug and quirk of the original implementation. If you don't get that just right, some tracks will sound odd or just plain horrible (happened to me a bunch of times with Winamp. XMPlay does a hell of a job, though).

    It is for that exact reason that I converted all my XMs to WAV using the original FT2 (running in a DosBox), normalized them, encoded them to MP3 and tagged them manually. It was a pain in the ass to do, but totally worth.

    And seriously, who's gonna complain about the few extra megabytes wasted by using MP3? That is just dumb, considering the fact that you might not be able to play them a few years down the road while MP3 and OGG are still supported by dozens of applications.

    I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer.
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  • I agree that MODs may not be supported as much into the future, and I nearly said myself that (from a corporate point of view) there's no demand for the format... That doesn't mean that mp3 and ogg will commerically last forever though - what happens if all the record companies switch to only letting people download DRMed FLAC-alike enconded songs? It seems ridiculous now, but what in ten years?

    In any case, the amount of space wasted is by no means small, (I have a directory of 750 MODs, which take up 130MB, mostly due to wasted allocation units on the hard drive, whilst 32 of those songs, converted to MP3, take up the same amount of space). This is a worst case scenario, using a (perhaps unnecessarily) high bitrate but at that rate the whole directory would take up 3GB! Memory is cheap, but you should never assume it's free - that's bad coding.

    What I don't really understand is how things got this way - why was there never a portable player for MODs when the first MP3 players came out? (which had barely enough memory for a couple of albums)

    If there had been, might there have been more interest in the tracker scene - or does transcribing a song to MOD take so much work that no-one would've ever bothered with it?

    On the plus side, there is supposed to be some work on making RockBox play MODs - though this wont really help those of us with players that don't yet support it.

    Let's make cover versions or music or whatever.
    Editado por PossibleNonsens em Jun 19 2008, 22h08
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    • muddyb0y disse...
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    • Jun 19 2008, 18h49
    I think it is safe to assume that MP3 and Vorbis will be very well supported in the future. The key point here is that both formats are very well documented and standardized and, more importantly, are immensely widespread. MP3 is the de facto-standard for lossy compression, whereas MOD always had to compete with other formats such as IT, XM, S3M and what not.

    It is true that a MP3 is easily 10 or 20 times the size of its MOD counterpart. But as you mentioned, that really doesn't matter nowadays except for mobile players where storage is still rather limited. But even then, given the average sound quality of a MOD, you could probably encode it with Ogg Vorbis at 128kbit/s or less.

    You make an interesting point. I never thought about MOD support on mobile players as a way to counter the space limitations. Considering the fact that there are Linux-based players out there with more than enough CPU power, porting one of the available MOD implementations should not be that big of a deal. Maybe RockBox is the way to go here, too bad my Cowon D2 doesn't support it :-(

    I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer.
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  • I hadn't thought of it that way, I guess whilst the tagging of mp3s can still be a pain today, at least the playback is usually faultless now. I guess the multitude of MOD formats wouldn't just cause comptibility problems but would make the future proofing of a player (in 1995) seem limited.

    Sorry to hear about the D2, I nearly got one of those as the review said the sound quality was excellent - but I didn't like the price or the touchscreen so I got a buggy Sansa View instead :-D

    Let's make cover versions or music or whatever.
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    • muddyb0y disse...
    • Usuário
    • Jun 20 2008, 8h09
    I guess we're getting kinda OT here, but I love my D2. It replaced my old 40GB G3 iPod whose battery was down to a lousy 3 hours. The almost 50h of the D2 is in a whole other ballpark :)

    I, too, was very skeptical of the touchscreen at first, but it is kinda nice, albeit the usability could be better. But I won't bore you with the details since you don't have a D2 and probably couldn't care less =)

    The only thing that I really do miss though is a remote control like my iPod had. It is annoying as hell that I always have to get the D2 out of my pocket (or backpack) whenever I want to skip a track or so.

    Oh damn, I just got all excited when I googled for 'xm support mp3 player' and got tons of results. Turns out, XM is a satellite radio brand. Rats. :)

    I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer.
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  • the xmp-scrobbler only worked for mp3 half a year ago, dunno why. at least it recognized my beloved mod music now. :)

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  • MadTracker can make OGG files.

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