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Here are the DLLs that add more advanced sound capabilities to Game Maker.
Developer: The Music Guy
BGM is a compact and convenient engine for playing a wide range of audio formats. It is built on the well-known free BASS library, developed by Un4seen and successfully used in various software (the most notable example being the popular Russian audio player AIMP). BGM supports MP3, MP2, MP1, OGG, WAV, XM, IT, S3M, MOD, MTM, UMX, and, of course, the original BASS format, MO3. What distinguishes this format from all other tracker formats is its exclusive sample compression algorithm, which allows file sizes to be reduced by up to 25% without noticeable loss in quality.
BGM is extremely easy to use. To start playing any file, you only need to write two functions. All basic control functions are supported, including pause, stop, volume control, and playback status check.
Developer: Chaser (Freefly Studios)
A library from a Russian developer. Built on the once-popular Squall sound engine, a true legend among Russian programmers.
GM Squall includes exclusive control structures—special managers for managing individual channels of the same sound (sample), a convenient storage system for loaded samples, organized into groups, support for 3D (positional) sound, and more. Furthermore, it's possible to customize both samples and managers, changing volume and even frequency. For 3D sounds, you can assign position and audibility parameters. It's worth mentioning that positioning is possible along all three coordinate axes (x, y, z), which gives this engine a huge advantage: it can use surround sound in 3D games.
Like the original Squall, the library supports many popular formats, including tracker formats. It also supports EAX1/2/3 effects.
Developer: Gecko
A version of GM Squall by Gecko. It's being developed for the Dark Arts project and is not ready yet. A more complete implementation of Squall's features is planned, including, for example, support for listening directions. The project is open source, and the source code is available on GitHub.
Developer: PsichiX
A wrapper for another once-popular audio library, Audiere. Supports WAV, AIFF, OGG, FLAC, MP3, MOD, XM, S3M, and IT formats. It can both stream sounds and fully load them into memory. Includes standard audio options: jump to a desired position in a track, change volume, pitch, and stereo position.
Developer: Andrewmc
A decent library for playing a variety of formats. Saudio doesn't support tracker music at all, but it supports a whopping 28 (!) streamed formats: AIF, AIFC, AIFF, ASF, ASX, AU, AVI, CDA, M1V, M3U, MIDI, MP2, MP2V, MP3, MPA, MPE, MPEG, MPG, MPV2, RMI, SND, WAV, WAX, WM, WMA, WMV, WMX, WPL, and WVX. This list includes not only audio but also video formats! All standard functions are supported, plus you can jump to a specific track position, read duration, channel count, and bps, as well as record from a selected source.
Developer: M. Rijks
JBFMOD (short for JukeBox FMOD) is a library specifically written for playing tracker formats in GM. It is based on the popular FMOD sound engine from Firelight Multimedia, but utilizes only those features related to tracker music, not all of its capabilities. JBFMOD supports MOD, XM, S3M, and IT formats. The library offers a wide range of audio control functions. It includes all the standard features plus support for spectral visualization, stereo sound, Zxx commands, and the ability to load tracks from compressed PAK archives, which are impossible to decompress. The archive can also be protected from unauthorized use by linking it to a specific EXE file.Developer: Brandon Rohrer aka Shaltif
SXMS, also based on FMOD, is rightfully considered the most powerful third-party audio library for GM. Judge for yourself: it supports all popular formats (MOD, S3M, XM, IT, MIDI, RMI, SGT, FSB, RAW, WAV, MP2, MP3, OGG, WMA, ASF, AVI, OXM, HTTP, CDA), DirectX 8.1 effects (reverb, equalizer, compressor, etc.), visualization, DSP, independent control of each track, multichannel playback, the ability to select an audio source (including network resources), and recordings from various sources (microphone, line-out). But that's not all. SXMS2 supports Winamp plugins (both in and out), significantly expanding the library's capabilities. For example, this allows you to play SPC in GM—the format SNES emulators use to record game music (remaking 8- and 16-bit games was once very popular, and this feature was very welcome).
But that's not all. To further stave off the competition, SXMS also supports 3D sound, even more fully than GMSquall: for the Listener, you can set not only the position but also the speed and orientation of movement, and for the entire system, you can set the distance factor, the scattering factor, and the Doppler effect.
In addition to the library and documentation, the archive includes several Winamp plugins.
Developer: Brandon Rohrer aka Shaltif
The third version of SXMS. Provides support for FMOD4 and includes many new features.
Developer: snake5
A library based on OpenAL. Plays WAV and OGG files, supports streaming and 3D audio, and has a very simple and intuitive API.
Developer: Jaklub
A library for playing SPC audio, the format used by SNES emulators to record game music. It's a very handy tool if you don't want to burden your game with relatively heavy SXMS and Winamp plugins. It's very easy to use, consisting of just two functions, Init and Play.