FAQs about missing features - tildearrow/furnace GitHub Wiki

Anything about how possible or likely it is for something to be implemented may be answered with the following:

  • Everything is possible.
  • We don't know when will it be done, or how feasible/practical it is to.
  • Answers are meant to be understandable to the reader who doesn't know any coding and can only make black-box estimates of coding efforts.

A list of examples follows.

  • Q: Multi-voice DAC support? (also covers 32X, Amiga softmixing, and YM2612 CH6 drivers other than DualPCM)

  • A: Same question for adjusting the number of N163 voices. Preliminary though, in the form of the MinMod driver for the GBA by having the "channel limit" slider, but it doesn't change the number of visible channels.

  • Q: CVSD as a sample format?

  • A: There's no real standard, and Williams/Bally uses specifically the Harris format, which is mainly meant for military equipment. As for implementing, there's probably no official answer at the moment.

  • Q: VST effects?

  • A: It's being worked on in an although stale branch, referred to as patchbay effects. VST instruments aren't in mind, as only VST effects are in mind to simulate external DSP hardware, such as Bally's "say it again" board as used in Centaur.

  • Q: Hyper-obscure undocumented chip support?

  • A: First, the datasheet containing at the very least register map must be found. Then, ideally a good emulator of it. If not, add months of creating an emulation core and testing it against the real hardware. That's how ESFMu was created.

  • Q: SF2 support?

  • A: There's already keysplits via sample maps in the instrument editor, but specifically SF2 support is to be adequately answered.

  • Q: MIDI import and export?

  • A: OpenMPT's SMF operations are iffy at best, but easier on OpenMPT because it's centered around the Amiga Paula and a few sample-centric IBM PC sequence formats, all of which are mostly no different and improve on the ProTracker MOD format. The only workaround so far is to import a MIDI file in OpenMPT and save it in a compatible format.

  • Q: VGM import?

  • A: VGM is a method of logging register writes at a high rate, which means the tempo is never specified either. VGM to MID converters only guess how to interpret the captured register writes, such as reconstructing patch data into instrument indices, or knowing when to capture frequency data as notes or portamento. There's a growing number of tools in the wiki pages.

  • Q: NSF import?

  • A: NSF (same with HES, GBS, and others) is specifically ROM data, meaning it's in assembly language when in human-readable form. FamiTracker has a fork with NSF import, but FT has a tremendous difference in API and format data, and that's the biggest obstacle in making a furnace version for it.

  • Q: When will there be [weird and complex DAW-like feature or whatever Renoise has]?

  • A: If you want everything right now, MAmidiMEmo is the best solution, as it's best described as furnace but as a VST plugin. Furnace is not a DAW, and it's being kept that way for the same reasons as OpenMPT.

  • Q: There's a markdown export feature, but why not a more intuitive serialization format like JSON and YAML for the modules and instruments as another way of doing .fur or .fui?

  • A: The .fur format is its own binary format simply for size reasons.

  • Q: No ASIO?

  • A: The ASIO SDK has a license that's not compatible with the GNU GPL license, which means that implementing it is refused for legal reasons.