FMTribe

OPL3 synth/drum machine/thingie focused on live jamming for DOS.

Tested only with DJGPP and a PC with a Sound Blaster-compatible soundcard.

 

Web version

Diego Dorado kindly ported this to the web using JS-DOS. Check it out here!

Download

• Install a DPMI server if you don't have one. See here for instructions.
• Go to releases tab to download binaries.
• Unzip and run FMTRIBE.EXE.
• Have fun!

Usage

• Esc: Exit
• F5: Play / pause
• F7: Stop after bar (2 times, stop immeadiately)
• F9: Tap tempo
• Shift + F9: Toggle metronome
• F10: Toggle "follow cursor"
• Left: Move to previous frame
• Right: Move to next frame
• Up: Move to previous channel
• Down: Move to next channel
• Del: Clear pattern for current channel
• Ctrl + Del: Clear pattern for all channels
• Tab: Switch instrument editor for the current channel
• M: Toggle "apply step changes to all frames"
• P: Toggle "play channel instrument"
• Z: Toggle "record steps"
• Alt + Number: Mute/unmute channel

Step Sequencer

To toggle a step in the pattern of the 16-step sequencer, use the keys:

Q W E R T Y U I
A S D F G H J K

To select one of the eight channels, use keys 1 through 8. You can mute a channel anytime using Alt + NumberKey.

Press Alt + StepKey to define microsteps (upto 3 for now).

Instrument Editor

To customize the parameters of an instrument, press the Tab key, select a field and change its value. The parameters will update automatically if the step sequencer is playing.

• Left/Right: Increase/decrease value for the current field
• Up/Down: Move between parameter fields

Also, you can still change channels with the numbers from the instrument editor.

To change the base note of the instrument, use the keys:

  W   E       T   Y   U
A   S   D   F   G   H   J

as in a keyboard of one octave. To change the base octave, use PageUp/PageDown.

Source

To tinker with the source code, you need to install DJGPP and its C compiler. Follow the instructions here.