
FAQ
====

QQQQ: SoundTracker complains about not being able to open /dev/dsp.

a: Either you have not configured a sound driver for your system (you
could check that by running an MP3 player or something) - or you are
running GNOME and your soundcard is kept busy by the E Sound Daemon,
which you can get rid of by using "killall esd" in a shell.

There's also an "ESD" driver in the Audio settings, but it's not
possible to do any serious tracking work because of the delay
introduced by it.

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QQQQ: The sound output gets quite choppy under machine load.

a1: Don't run the compiled executable directly, but do a full 'make
install', this installs the executable setuid root and the audio
thread gets a much higher priority. Read the notes in the INSTALL file
about this subject.

a2: Increase size of audio buffer in the Preferences section (for
sound drivers which support it).

a3: Disable Double Buffering a.k.a. Flicker-free scrolling. This may
not look exactly nice, but can relieve your CPU from a lot of hard
work (this depends on the graphics card and X server you are using).

a4: Switch away from the scrolling patterns page and disable the
scopes.

a5: Reduce scopes and patterns update frequency in the Preferences
section.

a6: Install at least glibc2.1.1pre3, this fixed a strange sound bug
for me.

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QQQQ: What about MIDI support?

a: SoundTracker allows one to use a MIDI keyboard for playing and
recording notes. Indeed, ST can receive MIDI events from any source
like MIDI software players. Export to and import from MIDI files is not
supported at the present moment as well as MIDI events sending.

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QQQQ: Why did you choose the XM format instead of the IT format?

a: Primarily because XM is all what I need in order to make music.
But that doesn't mean that the program couldn't be expanded in the
future towards other formats. The part of the program needing most
work is the editor (the user interface) anyway. You can basically use
it to edit any module format, it just needs tuning and (of course) a
new player routine. But this is not in scope for Version 1.0 of
SoundTracker (limited IT format support might be added in Version 1.1).

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QQQQ: The scopes don't work, i.e., they show a flat line no matter how
loud my music is playing.

a1: Increase the scopes buffer size in the GUI settings.

a2: If that doesn't work, your OSS kernel driver may be buggy. In that
case, go to the source file app/drivers/oss-output.c, search for the
line that says

    d->realtimecaps = i & DSP_CAP_REALTIME;

and change it into

    d->realtimecaps = 0;

Please report to mk@soundtracker.org if this fixes the problem, and
what audio driver you are using.

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QQQQ: After upgrading to the SoundTracker 1.0.1 (or higher) some of the
Play/Rec Song/Patter/Row keybindings stopped working.

a: Starting from v1.0.1 some more keybindings are made configurable.
Perhaps for your X11 keyboard layout the default keybindings are not
applicable. No problem, just go to the Settings->Keyboard->Other keys
and assing the desired keybindings. This should be made only once, then
your keybindings will be remembered.

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QQQQ: Some charachers in the tracker panel are missing or incorrectly
displayed.

a: By default, "Monospace 10" font is used to display the patterns'
contents. In yor particular system it can be mapped to something insane.
To fix this problem, go to Settings->GUI Configuration menu entry, then
select appropriate monospace font installed in your system.

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QQQQ: I set up symbolic representation of effects in the volume column,
but when I use "tone portamento" effect (indicated by a quarter note
symbol), some tracker lines appeared displaced from where they should be.

a: This means that the font being used for pattern contents displaying
does not contain the quarter note character and it's taken from another
font with different metric; this brakes proper alignment of tracker
lines. This is quite common situation (only few fonts have qurter note
character), so the workaround is provided: set 'Leave Tone Porta as
symbol "m"' setting on.
