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is a
freeware Freeware is software, often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the free ...
music editing program. The program is developed by Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya. It is currently in the beta stage of development, and has been since 2006. The program also is capable of opening other sample formats developed by Pixel (.ptnoise and .ptvoice) in addition to some more popular audio formats, such as .
wav Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced or ) is an audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on personal computers. The format was developed and published for the first time in 1991 ...
and .
ogg Ogg is a digital multimedia container format designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of digital multimedia. It is maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation and is free and open, unrestricted by software patents. Its name is ...
. The primary interface of the program is a piano roll display. It is used to place notes and specify duration, volume, panning, and pitch, among other things. The
tempo In musical terminology, tempo (Italian for 'time'; plural 'tempos', or from the Italian plural), measured in beats per minute, is the speed or pace of a given musical composition, composition, and is often also an indication of the composition ...
of a song can be set once, but it cannot be changed during playback (or at any point in the song other than the beginning). The .ptcop and .pttune formats also allow the storage of some additional information, such as song comments and song name. Along with PxTone Collage are included several programs for creating instrument samples (.ptnoise and .ptvoice format) and a small player application. Included with these programs is the PxTone engine library. The source code for said audio processing engine can be downloaded separately.


History

In 1998, Pixel released a small music-writing and playback application known as PiyoPiyo. This format features three melody tracks with customizable wave samples, and a fourth track dedicated solely to drum samples. The editor interface uses a piano roll, a similarity shared by all of Pixel's future music editors. A considerable flaw with the PiyoPiyo design is that its playback is linked to CPU usage, in that a heavily taxed CPU will cause playback to slow down. Some time later, Pixel developed the Organya (OrgMaker) format for use in the
indie game An indie video game or indie game (short for independent video game) is a video game created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A ...
Cave Story ''Cave Story'' is a 2004 Metroidvania game for Microsoft Windows. It was developed over five years by Japanese independent developer Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya in his free time. ''Cave Story'' features 2D platform mechanics and is reminiscent of the ...
. This format is very similar to PiyoPiyo, with the major difference being support for up to 8 melody tracks and 8 drum tracks for 16 simultaneous sounds. Rather than having the specifications of the waveform editable, Organya uses a built-in library of 100 wave "instruments" to choose from. PxTone began development in 2006 for use in a number of future games, such as Kero Blaster (and other games using its engine like
Pink Hour is a platform game created by Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya released in 2014 for Windows and iOS. It was the first major released from Pixel since ''Cave Story'' in 2004. The game places a heavy emphasis on shooting and received positive reviews on bot ...
), Guxt, Shine-Shine Galaxy, and Soaprun.


Features

* Up to 100 voice samples, 50 instrument units, and 500,000 events per file * Sampling of .
wav Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced or ) is an audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on personal computers. The format was developed and published for the first time in 1991 ...
, .
ogg Ogg is a digital multimedia container format designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of digital multimedia. It is maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation and is free and open, unrestricted by software patents. Its name is ...
, .
pcm Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to Digital signal (signal processing), digitally represent analog signals. It is the standard form of digital audio in computers, compact discs, digital telephony and other digital audio application ...
, .ptvoice, and .ptnoise * Effect groups for echo and overdrive * Comment metadata * Velocity, Pan, Volume, Key Portamento and Key Correct adjustment * Exports to .
wav Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced or ) is an audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on personal computers. The format was developed and published for the first time in 1991 ...
and .pttune


Limitations

* Does not support VSTs * Does not support 32-bit output sampling * Does not support
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, ...
import or export


See also

*
List of music software This is a list of software for creating, performing, learning, analyzing, researching, broadcasting and editing music. This article only includes software, not services. For streaming services such as iHeartRadio, Pandora (service), Pandora, Prime ...


References


External links


Pixel Development
Developer's website
ptCollab
A third-party collaborative PxTone editor
PxTone Collage Collective
A third-party board with helpful resources, among other things.
PxTone web
Third-party website for sharing and listening to PxTone music
PiSTON SOURCE
A netlabel of PxTone music {{Daisuke Amaya Music software