MikMod

Infobox Software
name=MikMod
logo=


caption=MikMod Player
developer=Jean-Paul Mikkers
maintainer=Raphaël Assénat
latest_release_version=3.2.2-beta1
latest_release_date=February 2, 2004
operating_system=Linux, Unix, Macintosh
genre=Media player
license=GNU General Public License
website= [http://mikmod.raphnet.net mikmod.raphnet.net]

MikMod is a player for tracker music module song files. It was originally written by Jean-Paul Mikkers. MikMod supports many formats, including MOD, S3M, IT and XM. MikMod is separated into two parts, the frontend application which is called MikMod and the library libmikmod.

Front end

The front end used the ncurses library for drawing its contents, thus controlled entirely by the keyboard. It supports a playlist and the shuffle feature, plus seeking in the module file. The frontend also shows the volume bar, used samples and specific file information as authors and messages. Newer versions also have themes.

libmikmod

Mikmod uses the library libmikmod for playing music. The library is capable of using the underlying computer architecture for playing music e.g. ALSA, ESD, as well as a network protocol and some outputs to raw sound files in various formats. Through its modular design it is very extensible and new formats can be added easily. Because of its powerful but easy API, it is widely supported by game developing libraries such as ClanLib and SDL, and there are plugins for various media players.

The library is able to transparently play compressed files with ZIP, LHA, and other archive types. Some more advanced features are surround mixing and interpolation.

History

MikMod was originally written in 1992 by Jean-Paul Mikkers for DOS. With its very portable ANSI C code it quickly became popular. Jean-Paul released MikMod the last time around Christmas '95, but other people picked up where he left. Steve McIntyre created a Unix version of MikMod, Jake Stine was responsible for major updates and creating of version 3.0 . Frank Loemker created the core library and was the Unix maintainer for a while followed by Miodrag Vallat. In 2002 Miodrag didn't have enough time, so development came to a halt for about two years. However, Raphaël Assénat decided to work on MikMod and to bring the project further.

The original MikMod code was copyrighted by Mikkers, but still freely redistributable and modifiable. Eventually he released the code as open source under [http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/jmikmod/jmikmod/trunk/source/java/docs/license.txt an informal license] . When Miodrag Vallat became maintainer of the code, he decided to license the libmikmod library code under the LGPL, and the player's code under the GPL. [http://jmikmod.berlios.de/ MikMod for Java] , on the other hand, still maintains the original informal licensing terms, which may also be interpreted as a BSD-style license.

As of June 2007, the project seems dormant, as code in the project's CVS repository is updated rarely.

upported formats

* 669 (Composer 669, Unis 669)
* AMF (DSMI Advanced Module Format)
* AMF (ASYLUM Music Format V1.0)
* APUN (APlayer)
* DSM (DSIK internal format)
* FAR (Farandole Composer)
* GDM (General DigiMusic)
* GT2 (Graoumf tracker)
* IT (Impulse Tracker)
* IMF (Imago Orpheus)
* MOD (15 and 31 instruments)
* MED (OctaMED)
* MTM (MultiTracker Module editor)
* OKT (Amiga Oktalyzer)
* S3M (Scream Tracker)
* STM (Scream Tracker)
* STX (Scream Tracker Music Interface Kit)
* ULT (Ultra Tracker)
* UNI (MikMod's Internal Format)
* XM (FastTracker)

See also

*Tracker
*Module file

External links

* [http://mikmod.raphnet.net/ MikMod Homepage]
* [http://www.algonet.se/~afb/mikmod/ MikMod for Macintosh]
* [http://jmikmod.berlios.de/ MikMod for Java] - a gradual re-implementation of the C code to Java.
* [http://ipodlinux.org/Special:Module/mikmodule MikMod for the iPod] - a module for "podzilla" on iPodLinux