Adlib Music Tools, Part 1: Reality ADlib Tracker (RAD)

The first in an ongoing series that aims to document and demonstrate various types of music editors and trackers that utilize Adlib (aka OPL2/OPL3), which is an FM synthesis based sound chip.

Reality ADlib Tracker (RAD) was released in 1995 by New Zealand based demoscene group Reality Productions. It is an OPL2 tracker, and runs well and relatively problem free in DOSbox. Other pluses are the easy to use instrument editor and interface.

The songs demonstrated in the video are (in order of appearance):

"Ad It Up" by Louis Gorenfeld. (http://www.gorenfeld.net/lou/)
"Rain" by Phandral.
"The F in FM is for Funky" by Louis Gorenfeld.

Come talk to other people interested in FM at: http://www.soundshock.se

Category:

Music

Tags:

• adlib
• reality
• tracker
• opl2
• dos
• chiptune
• chipmusic
• fm
• synthesis
• frequency
• modulation

[EdOscuro]

Is the OPL2 emulated or original? Sounds very clean.

[seablue]

i recorded this from dosbox, so it's emulated. real opl2 sounds slightly more crisp and the metallic timbres stand out more.

[modplugrad]

It may be really old and dusty by now, but I still love writing in this program :D

Check out my channel for a bunch of songs, many of which are composed in RAD. I highly recommend getting this program :)

[seablue]

@Acadianiste yeah, at2 is pretty demanding... especially when you start playing around with macros and what not. you could possibly try editing at2's ini file to optimize the speed. it really depends on whether you want to use the opl3 features that at2 supports. if you just want to do some basic opl2 stuff, then rad will do fine and should run okay under the specs you listed.

[s3rris]

This seems a lot more friendly than Adlib Tracker 2!

[bormisha]

Great tune!!!

[HoneycombAgent]

Link down. (404)

[DaVince21]

Nevermind, I just realized that DOSBox can record RAW OPL commands to DRO. And there's a DRO2IMF converter out there. :P

[DaVince21]

Thank you for making this video series!

What filetypes does it save to? I plan to make songs for a few DOS game mods (mostly Commander Keen 4 to 6), so it's important to know if it can export to IMF or an IMF-friendly format.

[alpharisc]

Awesome,I remember listening to Prince of Persia on an OPL, and Space Quest 4, it is funny how people said the Amiga version of the music for Prince of Persia sounded better,hehehe.

[DeadBeatBlast]

Man I have a hell of a time trying to learn these old trackers.