Apogee Sound System Timbre Format
| Format type | Musical Instrument |
|---|---|
| Hardware | OPL, MIDI |
| Number of instruments | 256 |
| Instruments named? | No |
| Games |
The Apogee Sound System Timbre Format is an instrument bank format used by the Apogee Sound System library developed by 3D Realms. The 128 melodic and 128 percussion instrument limit was most likely chosen so that a single TMB file could store all the instruments for a General MIDI song. Files of this format are has .tmb extension.
File format
TMB files have no header and signature. The file contains 256 13-byte instrument entries (first 128 are melodic, and next 128 are percussion).
| Data type | Name | OPL base register | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| UINT8 | SAVEK[0] | 0x20 | Modulator characteristic (Mult, KSR, EG, VIB and AM flags) |
| UINT8 | SAVEK[1] | 0x23 | Carrier characteristic (Mult, KSR, EG, VIB and AM flags) |
| UINT8 | Level[0] | 0x40 | Modulator key scaling/output level |
| UINT8 | Level[1] | 0x43 | Carrier key scaling/output level |
| UINT8 | Env1[0] | 0x60 | Modulator attack/decay level |
| UINT8 | Env1[1] | 0x63 | Carrier attack/decay level |
| UINT8 | Env2[0] | 0x80 | Modulator sustain/release level |
| UINT8 | Env2[1] | 0x83 | Carrier sustain/release level |
| UINT8 | Wave[0] | 0xE0 | Modulator wave select |
| UINT8 | Wave[1] | 0xE3 | Carrier wave select |
| UINT8 | Feedback | 0xC0 | Feedback/connection |
| INT8 | Transpose | N/A | Note offset for melodic instruments, and key number for percussion |
| INT8 | Velocity | N/A | Velocity offset |
The TMB format is directly based on IBK Format, and has first 12 bytes be same as in the IBK Format. Official MAKETMB.EXE utility (can be found with the source code of 3D Realms games in the Audio Library public folder) generates TMB files from the set of IBK files.
Tools
The following tools are able to work with files in this format.
| Name | Platform | Play? | Create new? | Modify? | Convert/export to other? | Import from other? | Access hidden data? | Edit metadata? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MAKETMB.EXE | DOS | No | Yes | No | Yes; .tmb | Yes; .ibk | No | No | Part of Apogee Sound System SDK |
| OPL3 Bank Editor | Linux, Windows, macOS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes; many | Yes; many | No | Yes |