Impulse Tracker is a multi-track music tracker (

music 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 Musical note, note and performance information in several forms, typically CV/Gate, MIDI, or Open ...

). 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, Impulse Tracker became

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

and the

source code In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

was released.

History

''Impulse Tracker'' was authored by Jeffrey "Pulse" Lim for the DOS/

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel, based on the 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. Th ...

- PC platform. ''Impulse Tracker'' was coded in

assembly language In computing, assembly language (alternatively 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 bet ...

, and the GUI was heavily influenced by that of '' Scream Tracker 3''. The first version was released in 1995 and included example songs "Drifting Onwards" and "Blue Flame" composed by Jeffrey Lim and Chris Jarvis respectively. The software was distributed as freeware, though extra features, such as support for stereo WAV output and a personalized version of the driver for co-editing songs over IPX networks, were provided for a fee. After the stereo WAV writer plugin was leaked publicly, Lim announced that he would discontinue development after version 2.14. The latest version was v2.14 Patch #5 released on April 8, 1999. On February 16, 2014, Jeffrey Lim announced that he would release the complete source code of Impulse Tracker as part of its 20-year anniversary. On October 19, 2014, the first part of the source code was released on a Bitbucket repository. On December 25, 2014, the missing parts (sound drivers) were added and the code was officially released under the

BSD license BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have share-alike requirements. The original BSD lic ...

Functionality

Like in most module editors, music is arranged on a grid of ''channels''. Each supports note on and note off instructions similar to

MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface (; MIDI) is an American-Japanese technical standard that describes a communication protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, ...

. ''Impulse Tracker'' modules use the .IT file extension. New Note Actions (NNAs) is a feature that handles commands received on the same channel as another instrument which is still playing. NNAs allow the user to customize the subsequent action: * Cut: The new instrument replaces the current instrument. * Continue: The old instrument continues to play using its ADSR curve. * Off: The old instrument begins the release section of its ADSR curve. * Fade: The old instrument fades out to 0 volume at a designated rate overriding the ADSR curve. ''Impulse Tracker'' supports hardware MIDI channels on the Gravis Ultrasound, InterWave and Sound Blaster 32 card families (provided enough RAM is available).

IT file format

The .IT file format is the format native to Impulse Tracker. It is similar to older formats such as .MOD, but features new additions such as new note actions which allow the user to customize subsequent actions on receiving commands from the same channel as the one playing. There is also the .ITZ format, which is a renamed zip file that contains a .IT file.

Compatible software

Other music-playing software that supports the IT file format include '' Cowon jetAudio'', '' AIMP'', ''

Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP, officially referred to as Windows Media Player Legacy to retronym, distinguish it from Windows Media Player (2022), the new Windows Media Player introduced with Windows 11) is the first media player (application soft ...

''*¹, '' MikMod'', '' ModPlug Tracker'', '' OpenMPT'', '' Renoise'', ''Schism Tracker'', ''ChibiTracker'', '' XMPlay'', ''

TiMidity TiMidity++, originally and still frequently informally called TiMidity, is a software synthesizer that can play MIDI files without a hardware synthesizer. It can either render to the sound card in real time, or it can save the result to a file, ...

'', '' VLC'', '' Winamp'', and '' XMMS''. *¹ - Supported only under

IA-32 IA-32 (short for "Intel Architecture, 32-bit", commonly called ''i386'') is the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture, designed by Intel and first implemented in the i386, 80386 microprocessor in 1985. IA-32 is the first incarn ...

releases.

Usage and impact

Erez Eizen of Infected Mushroom and Shiva Shidapu composed his first trance music on Impulse Tracker. Ian Stocker used IT with other software in his collaboration for the music in the Nintendo DS version of '' The Sims 2''. The

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

s '' Pocket Tanks'' and '' Grid Wars'' use the IT format for some of their songs. Various games by

Epic Games Epic Games, Inc. is an American Video game developer, video game and software development, software developer and video game publisher, publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney (game developer), Tim Sween ...

such as the first '' Unreal'' and '' Unreal Tournament'' as well as '' Deus Ex'' used the IT format in a " UMX" container format. The video game composer and demoscener Andrew Sega (Necros) used Impulse Tracker extensively in his

demoscene The demoscene () is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off computer programmi ...

days.

C418 Daniel Rosenfeld (born 9 May 1989), known professionally as C418 (pronounced "see four eighteen"), is a German musician, composer and producer. Known for his minimalistic ambient work, he rose to fame as the original composer and sound designe ...

began making music in Impulse Tracker, before moving to eJay, MTV Music Generator and eventually Ableton Live, which he used to compose the Minecraft soundtrack. Trance producer Sean Tyas began his music production career using Impulse Tracker. Electronic rock musician Blue Stahli has revealed to have used Impulse Tracker and other trackers in the past. Deadmau5's career began in the mid-1990s with a chiptune and

movements-influenced sound with Impulse Tracker. Machinedrum used Impulse Tracker for many years before switching to Ableton Live.

References

External links

* {{official website, http://www.users.on.net/~jtlim/ImpulseTracker/ Former was last online in 2023, so use archive.org for that version. New Site: * https://www.lim.com.au/ImpulseTracker/

Sound examples

IndusTree's Homesick (ogg)
Free audio software Audio trackers 1995 software Assembly language software Formerly proprietary software Software using the BSD license