As some of you may or may not have heard, there's a new tracker out that's shaping up to dethrone Deflemask. Its called Furnace

, though the name isn't final.

Its still in development and doesn't have all the features from Deflemask just yet, though it can read .dmf modules and export VGM files for systems that the format supports. This is on top of supporting the same systems Deflemask does and more, such as the 2600 and AY-3-8910. There will be more chips coming along the way, and possibly support for more instrument formats.

"Well if its just free Deflemask, why should it be a format?" Simple; multichip songs.

One of the best features this tracker has, imho, is the ability to have multiple systems in one module. Want to make a song with two Game Boys, a Speccy, a 2600, and PC Engine? You can do that.

All in all, this is shaping up to become an absolute beast of a tracker, and I really think it deserves its own format here.

woah! if this thing's even half as cool as it's made out to be (or, heck, if it gets to that point), then this is fantastic news : )

crazy multichip capabilities! can't wait to give it a shot!

Feature request: Multichip module export to a MAME driver and romset! ^^ A readily approach for to play on hardware sounds wonderful to me! ^w^ Congratulations for progress achieved so far on Furnace!

FYI: There is a Discord.

https://discord.gg/EfrwT2wq7z

As an addendum and comment: I love its project filename extension; .fur!

i didnt look into it yet, just read the initial post here BUT

1) damn sounds nice
2) we shld wait until development is a little more progressed before we make it a format i thiiiiiink, because i dont rly want yet another unfinished/partially finished tracker-format on botb, in case development randomly stops on this thing

but its definitely good to keep in mind

looked into this a little more.
seems very promising.

Yes! A successor to deflemask. Hope it's a smooth transition for deflemask-users.

edit: it is, really looking forward to future less buggy version :D

I agree maybe we could wait a bit longer to see the software mature... but this has me wondering: do we need a VGM format?

.vgm as a broad format sounds interesting, since it'd really be "pick an actual soundchip/chips and go to town".

like, you do end up with some really powerful options that no one has made tools for in the mix too (Saturn SCSP is a 32-channel sampler/FM thing, OPL4 is similarly wild), but you could also just have like four YM2151s hooked up or something if someone made tooling to write VGMs that could do that AFAIK

could be really wild potentially, even if most entries at the start wouldn't be that crazy due to the lack of tooling

Furnace does support soundchips other than ones by VGM format!

well, yeah all that, except the spec only allows you to have up to 2 of the same chip -- but given how similar some of the yamaha chips are it could seem like 4+ using the same/similar instrument patches

Indeed; Furnace supports more numbers of chips of the same type than supported by the VGM format too.

feels like "wildchip, but submit .vgm instead of .mp3" to me. but i dont mind another format heh

feels like "wildchip, but submit .vgm instead of .mp3"

I was thinking that, but I do like the fact that it's a logged format vs just a recording, which means you could theoretically (or in some cases, actually) play it back yourself on the chips yourself.

_{like yeah, if you had a song that used the wonderswan audio hardware and the YM2151, you'd have to go through a LOT of effort to play it back on hardware, but you could}

i spent like 20 minutes with it and holy Fuck

Multi-Chips Party Mix!

nooo you cant just dethrone deflema- haha multichip go brrrrrrrrrr

lacks some relevant features (import/export txt files (like from famitracker, vortextracker and openmpt clipboard), full colourscheme edit), but it is indeed a very promising deflemask-killer

so... just so i understand...

Furnace can import deflemask?
has its own file format?
and only exports .vgm?

...since when are those two "relevant" features lmao

curious that it has vgm export, and supports systems like amiga, c64 and atari2600 that aren't supported by vgm format - only shows "nothing to export" when our editing song has these non-vgm formats (could be another behaviour since deflemask exports c64 vgm as ay-3-8910 or another chip i can't remember)

it opens and saves in deflemask format - i didn't tested, i think if it saves in deflemask uncompressed format, it might be better than deflemask for saving in deflemask format, besides that it might always save it, when deflemask only saves sometimes (as happened to @kleeder as well)

i'm expedting it will import/export txt format soon, which would be really great

edit: .fur format specification: https://github.com/tildearrow/furnace/blob/master/papers/format.md

@kleeder ergonomics and interoperability! ;)

work on rom export takes more time, it is planned

IT HAS FM PARAMATER MACROS! I'm so down for this.

from deflemask i think almost all rom exports have embedded vgm files, from furnace i think wouldnt be that different

it seems like the export is designed to be modular: meaning anyone can make their own export thing... unless I am mistaken on what tilde was sayin

another cool thing about Furnace: clipboard management is way better than Deflemask: when you select and copy from Furnace, you can paste what you copied on a text editor!!!! and vice versa!!!! just like openmpt!!!! cool!!!!!! :)

and what about the actual deflemask format at botb becoming about deflemask+furnace (named as deflenace, furmask, whatever), so both .dmf (legacy only) and .fur could be accepted?

cooked mask

it's amazing how furnace is becoming far more stable and featured than deflemask - asking seriously, wouldn't it be a good idea just to rename the actual deflemask format to furnace? xD (and having it .fur as default format, and .dmf as alternative if anyone want to submit songs made on deflemask-legacy there)

it will be its own format
no reason to ruin legacy formats

oh also, there would be discrepancies between versions like newer version instrument cant be used on older version so that might be an issue, and theres also people who used the dev build (like me) and will have issues if others are using the stable build.
though 0.6 might be the release that could just throw all of that problem out of the room

@A64 the dev builds are publically available, so one can just mention the intended version for the module, it happens when people upload LSDJ saves and whatnot

@hisa: i know that dev builds are publicly available and you can label the module version, though there could be a situation that you built a version from source and someone had an already built release (that if its a version older), which will cause issue if that person used the built-from-source version to submit a module. and i also cant forget to mention in cases like XHB where every entries are all anonymous to each other unless module version stated in bitpack and/or the song itself.

that said, all those problem could be mitigated with strictly using the stable build for all entries. which limits system and combinations to some extent :( (or just mention the file version in irc or discord, tho that will break the anonymity in XHBs)

EDIT: im also confident you wont be building Furnace from source in an instant unless you have a good machine.

New year's update: Furnace has reached version 0.6pre3 now, and lots of stuff has been added since I first made this thread. Like, a lot. Here's a rundown of the stuff I think is most notable:

- Dozens of new chips added, some never seen before in a tracker (X1-010, MSM5232, Namco WSG, Virtual Boy VSU, T6W28...)
- Every Famicom expansion chip
- SPC700 support
- OPL3 with 4-operator support
- CSM for FM chips which support it
- ZSM exporter for the Vera chip
- Hundreds of different presets for all sorts of systems (computers, consoles, arcades)
- Wavetable synthesizer
- The ability to use wavetables on Amiga, SPC700 and generic DACs
- Future Composer 1.3 and 1.4 modules can be imported
- Built-in sample editor

...and a bunch more stuff I can't remember off the top of my head.

I know this sounds way too good to be true, but trust me. It's not just real, it's freaking amazing. Tildearrow has been working incredibly hard on this tracker since I first found out about it, and they've made something I never imagined would be possible over a year ago.

i suspect that furnace's inauguration as a format is basically inevitable! but i wonder about when the right time is to do so. there hasn't really been a point in its development yet where it's in a stable position without lots of new stuff being added to it, and it's sorta compounded by there being 1250410 dev builds along the way that some folks will be using instead of the release build. so, there's a bit of a concern about differences in playback + features.

that said, i'm not sure when that's gonna change; it's been almost a year now! i'm not 100% against just going for it, but the fact that some people will be using dev builds and others not worries me. and there's so long between stable releases

i wld giv it more time to see what will actually come out of this development-marathon.
maybe another year hehe

I agree with kleeder, maybe once it gets more traction and is at an established release, it would be wise to revisit this thread.

in the meantime as a middle ground, we do have the .vgm format here now, which i realize isn't *quite* the same but is still very much something that furnace is uniquely poised to target with e.g. multichipping

<3

Would sure be nice to see sid, gbs, spc, bin, tap and prg exports for the respective formats that are said to be implemented by furnace. Doesn't look like it's high on the priority list since some of the chips have been available to track with for over a year without this in place

Since this got bumped, let me drop some info I got from lurking on the Furnace Discord.

Soon, Furnace 0.6 will be released - the last update (for a while) that will focus mainly on adding new features. Tildearrow (the developer) is a bit of a perfectionist, so 0.6 will be basically bug-free, and every chip already in Furnace will be more or less "done" once it comes out. This, imo, will make Furnace viable as a BotB format, because it will have reached a sort of feature-completeness. So if you've been waiting to jump into Furnace, do it now! The latest 0.6 prerelease is pretty close to what you'll get in the full release.

Tilde's working plan is that every update after 0.6 will be almost entirely dedicated to adding hardware playback engines. 0.7 will cover C64 and SNES (because Deflesid is awful and the SNES tracking scene is dire). 0.8 will probably be Genesis and maybe PCE. And so on. (This is also a further incentive for Tilde to not mess with the feature set after 0.6.)

This will be a really slow process- partially because Furnace supports so many features (including software synth on basically every wavetable and sample channel!) and partially because Tilde doesn't have much experience writing software for old game consoles, and the list of people with experience who've said they'll help is pretty short. 0.7 might not even come out in 2023!

This is why I think, even though hardware export will be awesome, it doesn't make sense for us to wait for it. Like I said, the feature set of the tracker will basically be locked in after 0.6.

And, I just wanna say that VGM is not really a substitute for a Furnace format, because VGM has a limit on the max chip count, and it doesn't have meme chips like the Pong soundchip. (And because I want to grind for the Furnace badge and make FURNACE THURSDAYS a thing.)

afaik we've been waiting for v0.6 this whole time :thonk:

6 months later and the full release of v0.6 is still not coming out

i spent another year and 4 months with it and holy Fuck

Scope creep has done a number on the likelihood of 0.6 coming out soon. If we're waiting for that, it's going to be a while. Not a ton of work has been made recently on the in-app tutorial, which has become the big feature of 0.6.

The software is still getting updated at an impressive rate - but it's a lot of bugfixes and smaller things. And the latest prerelease build of 0.6 is pretty good from my own experience.

IDK how this affects BotB's plans.

personally i stand by my previous thoughts that it would be best to introduce the format once it's hit a stable version where there isn't going to be a lot more feature creep besides new exports (which would not impact a .fur format anyway)

however again i wouldn't be wholly opposed to welcoming it onboard sooner, it just seems suboptimal since there's so many dev builds and everyone's gonna be on different ones. you'd wanna update before every battle i guess. it would be equally a pain in the ass to mandate usage of the latest non-dev release version too cause there's plenty of people who do grab dev builds and would need to have the release build on standby.

idk it's just messy as a format for now, and it's unfortunate that it seems on track to stay that way for longer since the tool itself is quite a joy to use

Yeah I would personally wait for 0.6 full to be out before, too

While it's mostly bugfixes now and maybe small workflow changes rather than big format or file extension or extra chip updates, devs ARE talking about potentially implementing a few more. These might not be in 0.6 though as they're relatively very complex.

Even when the format does get implemented on BotB, I'd just limit it to whatever the latest release is for simplicity's sake - if the format was to be added NOW, the 0.6 beta 5 that's currently the latest "stable" version would be acceptable, nightly versions shouldn't be imo as they could potentially make use of features that are experimental then removed.

Looks like there's a feature freeze for 0.6 as of the past week. Only bug fixes and annoyance fixes until the 0.6 full release.

awesome. only one year left until it's out

to be honest i respect the hustle of not releasing it until it's almost certainly bug-free but i do have to wonder if tildearrow is just TIRED of working on it by this point

from what I can see, tilde's more tired of people questioning that decision than anything else

Tilde is an anti-narcissist. He feels like the only way the product will be "good enough" is if it's feature-complete and bug free. It also really gets under his skin that Deflemask updates are usually underwhelming or half-baked, and wants Furnace to be a counterexample.

He's probably going to drop 0.6 and then immediately jump headfirst into ROM export, because he's crazy like that.

He has a point in that more often than not FOSS that isn't backed by a team with a budget can be sort of fucky, and he wants his project to be Not That which is admirable

How practicable that is remains to be seen, but honestly it does make me wanna slide a few bucks his way whenever I get the chance

It seems to be a pretty nasty case of perfectionism imo. I really respect their work effort, but at times I fear theyll get burnt out with the amount of commits I see each day. Heck, thats kind of what Ive been thinking as of late with the freeze and all...

He's taken 'breaks' before, but they usually only last a week or so

Its official, Furnace 0.6 just got released a few minutes ago!

https://github.com/tildearrow/furnace/releases/tag/v0.6

https://tildearrow.org/furnace/

https://tildearrow.org/vembed?v=furtrailer

Let the Furnace badge grind BEGIN

pinch me i'm dreaming

🤏

ok v6 is out but nobody can agree on the icons!

i have created a very straw poll
https://strawpoll.com/GPgV6PzQ4ga


tilde arrow chip
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/239107754575265803/1159924149343502377/furnace_icon_proposal_2.png

big F chip
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/239107754575265803/1159942383442600010/Furnace_icons.png

furnace
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/239107754575265803/1159348695913996348/image.png


let's see where we're at in a few days!

will there be a Furnace-themed major like how one happened for Deflemask Legacy a long time ago?

only 3 entries allowed

i do not get the joke

https://battleofthebits.com/arena/Battle/1049/Vomitorium/DefleMask+6 <- This "major" battle somehow only had 3 entries

and i ruined the joke oops

"somehow" -> deflemask is shit, thats how I explain it.

funny funfact, it's 3 entries but only 2 botbrs because sexyelf is a chipchampion alt acc

only 2 botbrs allowed

only 2 botbrs allowed, no items, fox only, final destination

it lives!

https://battleofthebits.com/lyceum/View/furnace%20(format)

Much obliged!

Can't wait to have this format in next Winter Chip
heheh

feels more like a spring trax format to me, but maybe it will be in the advent calendar, mmh?