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Post by skirmisher on Sept 25, 2020 6:14:03 GMT -5
So I decided to dive back into trackers. I did do some tracking as a kid/teenager when there was still a scene but I never got fluent with it. It's also been so long I'm pretty much relearning the whole thing. So far I've fiddled with Arkon 2, Vortex 2 and Famitracker going straight to chiptunes. I'm thinking of getting a ZX Spectrum somewhere along the road to run these sequences on hardware. Also probably going to install Fast Tracker to my 486DX for some FM stuff. It's a pretty interesting way of working even though it's very cumbersome and confusing in the beginning. I have a great fondness of the old demo scenes and the electronic music history of mod trackers and I'm very happy to be back at it finally properly learning the workflow.
Anyone else into trackers? Any suggestions? Websites? Forums? Software? Music?
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Post by thekeeper on Sept 26, 2020 3:15:19 GMT -5
Our boy arillius is going to be the tracker master here, and in terms of other new artists, and I think we have it confirmed that Erang uses Fast Tracker II. I believe there are a couple more around, garvalf as well. There's definitely tracker-made DS music out there from the 90s as well. If I remember correctly, the old Nasgul demo featuring Murgrind and Grimrik was made with tracker software. Valor is another one, and I believe (at least) the first Olgerd tape is tracker music. Myself, I've only played around a bit with some programs, but I do want to like actually learn one and compose a full release. I'm kind of torn between learning Milky Tracker or Schism Tracker. I would prefer a pretty barebones experience, but not something so archaic that I impose too many limitations on myself. Milky tracker has some more modern features, but I also like the simplicity of Schism. Stuff like renoise is a real turn off though, just looks way too crowded. I've used LSDJ like over a decade ago and that was pretty easy. I think there's a different kind of composing style that comes with trackers, a little less minimalistic than a lot of keyboard-based DS or VST stuff. I'm also wanting to do some kind of keygen sounding music, so I'm looking forward to that, too!
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Post by anfortas on Sept 26, 2020 12:39:28 GMT -5
I tried to get into it, after I have heard of tracker music for the first time, due to arillius' youtube channel. But as you have said, it is pretty confusing when you are new to this, and I have given up again already. I also tried to find a way to convert tracker files to MIDI, which I thought should be pretty simple, but as it turned out, it doesn't seem to work that easy.
I did find the Mod Archive, a collection tracker files, but I am sure you already know of this already.
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Post by skirmisher on Sept 27, 2020 13:03:44 GMT -5
Our boy arillius is going to be the tracker master here, and in terms of other new artists, and I think we have it confirmed that Erang uses Fast Tracker II. I believe there are a couple more around, garvalf as well. There's definitely tracker-made DS music out there from the 90s as well. If I remember correctly, the old Nasgul demo featuring Murgrind and Grimrik was made with tracker software. Valor is another one, and I believe (at least) the first Olgerd tape is tracker music. Myself, I've only played around a bit with some programs, but I do want to like actually learn one and compose a full release. I'm kind of torn between learning Milky Tracker or Schism Tracker. I would prefer a pretty barebones experience, but not something so archaic that I impose too many limitations on myself. Milky tracker has some more modern features, but I also like the simplicity of Schism. Stuff like renoise is a real turn off though, just looks way too crowded. I've used LSDJ like over a decade ago and that was pretty easy. I think there's a different kind of composing style that comes with trackers, a little less minimalistic than a lot of keyboard-based DS or VST stuff. I'm also wanting to do some kind of keygen sounding music, so I'm looking forward to that, too! Thank you. I will be checking out everything mentioned here. Good thing about trackers is once you've learned one, it's very easy to get into another one. Then it's mostly just about details, shortcuts etc. If you're going modern my one tip is to try and use mouse as little as possible. Once you get the flow going it's best to just keep your hands on the keyboard at all times and not have to reach for a mouse. Some trackers even have midi in which means you can punch notes in with a midi keyboard. Pretty handy but I'm trying not to since I'm probably going to be programming old hardware that can't do it and I want to get used to doing it with a PC keyboard. I agree about the style of tracked music. It's such a different workflow. I'm used to working with hardware sequencers, samplers and analog synthesizers which helps tremendously since I already understand envelopes, sequencing, waveforms etc. Tracking is almost exactly like that. Mostly just learning where's what and getting the muscle memory / shortcuts down right now. I tried to get into it, after I have heard of tracker music for the first time, due to arillius' youtube channel. But as you have said, it is pretty confusing when you are new to this, and I have given up again already. I also tried to find a way to convert tracker files to MIDI, which I thought should be pretty simple, but as it turned out, it doesn't seem to work that easy.
I did find the Mod Archive, a collection tracker files, but I am sure you already know of this already. Actually I had completely forgotten about this site. Thank you for reminding me. Yeah you mostly never get midi out for trackers. It's a thing you have to accept and embrace. Tracker stuff is tracker stuff and there's usually no way around it. I dare you to try again! Once you've got the basics down it gets a lot easier. It's just that even the simplest things are rough in the beginning. But after a while it's easy to fall in love with it.
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Post by arillius on Sept 28, 2020 10:46:48 GMT -5
This thread makes me so happy. I would love to hear some more tracked music because it's essentially what I grew up on and learned how to write music with. I am overdue for that damn video tutorial. But for now, if anyone has any questions on making music this way, let me know here. I made a video of one of the tracks on my album here: youtu.be/047hItViRR8There's a lot going on here and I don't expect anyone new to tracking to understand it at first glance. You can do so much with less stuff going on. The old mods from the early 90s only had 4 channels. This song probably had a good 40 hrs of tracking in it. Spending that much time on this stuff can make you go crazy, lol. That said, it's not as hard as it looks. At least the basics. I'll type a more detailed response soon.
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Post by arillius on Sept 28, 2020 21:21:03 GMT -5
I think one of the most important things with tracking music is to not feel intimated by how it looks. ESPECIALLY for those who are used to seeing piano roll or MIDI-based composition. What you are dealing with is driven by samples. That is, short sound clips which represent an instrument. This is one of the big differences between tracking music and MIDI. The best way to describe this to someone who is not familiar is to think of the old-fashioned pianos you see in Westerns. The ones that don't need anyone to actually play it and can play whichever notes the feed gives them. This is what tracking is, in a nutshell. You're essentially the person who is composing music by telling the computer (piano) what to play. You will be placing notes in order, in what they call patterns. When you are watching the tracked videos I make on youtube, what you are seeing are notes and octave numbers. So if I want to go up the scale, it would look like this, where the note comes first and the octave next to it to it: C 05 D 05 E 05 F 05 G 05 A 05 B 05 C 06 D 06 E 06
...and so on. As the tracker goes down the pattern, the program plays whatever sample you have there with the note you put. When you are editing a pattern, it looks a little different but I can mention that another time. Because of this, I've always found it quite easy to make some simple loops using tracking programs; you can build off of them by copying and pasting it into the next pattern and then adding another instrument, etc. This is all very weird to type it out and would be much easier to describe in a video, but the basics of tracking are quite simple. All you need to know is you are programming notation to an instrument sample, which could be ANYTHING you'd like. Here is a very basic video I uploaded to my channel for reference. It is quite minimal, so maybe it would make sense watching it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt8FzcdfJDQ
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Erang
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Posts: 130
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Post by Erang on Oct 2, 2020 16:25:13 GMT -5
thekeeper I use to make music in the 90's with Fasttracker 2 but not anymore. Since then, I've only used Madtracker 2 and never changed. Those are the only 2 softwares I've ever used to make music. Tracker music is life.
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Post by skirmisher on Oct 3, 2020 7:33:06 GMT -5
thekeeper I use to make music in the 90's with Fasttracker 2 but not anymore. Since then, I've only used Madtracker 2 and never changed. Those are the only 2 softwares I've ever used to make music. Tracker music is life. The two exact trackers I learned tracking on. Madtracker is the one I've probably used the most. I'm still in process of finding myself a trusty tracker for sampling purposes.
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Post by disgustingcathedral on Oct 4, 2020 6:38:39 GMT -5
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Post by skirmisher on Oct 4, 2020 6:49:51 GMT -5
Oh wow. This doesn't make any sense at all. I like silly things like this. There's a reason I sold my eurorack though and the only thing I've left from it is a mixer module I built myself and a couple of hp of empty space for a filter or something I might get later on. It was too expensive, too cumbersome and it made me want to fiddle with things instead of being creative. Great fun though.
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Post by disgustingcathedral on Oct 4, 2020 14:06:06 GMT -5
Oh wow. This doesn't make any sense at all. I like silly things like this. There's a reason I sold my eurorack though and the only thing I've left from it is a mixer module I built myself and a couple of hp of empty space for a filter or something I might get later on. It was too expensive, too cumbersome and it made me want to fiddle with things instead of being creative. Great fun though. yeah. Mine is just a couple of small racks of mostly DIY filter/distortion + noise stuff, I love that these massive deep obtuse modules are out there but have no desire to get into this level of sequencing/complexity in eurorack. I've seen some really cool setups with these kind of digital things which look more like some cyberdeck or piece of medical equipment than a synth re: hardware trackers on a more sane scale/price, this looks cool dirtywave.com/
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Post by garvalf on Oct 7, 2020 2:45:12 GMT -5
There are some fundamental differences in trackers. Some are using samples (like the one designed for .MOD, .IT, .XM formats), some others are using "calculated" sound generation, typically the trackers designed for soundchips on old 8-bit computers. Famitracker is targeting the Nintendo NES chip, Deflemask can handle several chips (sega genesis, gameboy, arcade...). I especially enjoy FM synthesis we can find on Genesis/Megadrive. And some simple square sounds can truly fits in the Dungeon Synth style, like in old video games. I've made an article with comparisons between a few sound trackers: garvalf.online.fr/index.php?page=articles_trackersskirmisher I'm also using zx spectrum to render some Vortex Tracker tunes, even though it's quite tedious (even is quite fun as well). It's also possible to play vortex tracker tunes on Arduino, like on this video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzpGbokxwZ4
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Post by skirmisher on Oct 7, 2020 2:55:35 GMT -5
Interesting article, I'll be checking out a lot of these trackers I haven't seen before. Thanks! Yeah I can imagine running Vortex tracker files on a ZX Spectrum is not the simplest setup. I've used C64 stuff some so I can imagine what it's probably like. That's part of the charm for me though. I just installed Fast Tracker on my 486 DOS machine, gonna see how it works out. I have a Sound Blaster 16 with the proper Yamaha OPL chips in there, should sound good.
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Post by garvalf on Oct 7, 2020 7:57:03 GMT -5
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Post by arillius on Oct 7, 2020 9:55:54 GMT -5
There are some fundamental differences in trackers. Some are using samples (like the one designed for .MOD, .IT, .XM formats), some others are using "calculated" sound generation, typically the trackers designed for soundchips on old 8-bit computers. Famitracker is targeting the Nintendo NES chip, Deflemask can handle several chips (sega genesis, gameboy, arcade...). I especially enjoy FM synthesis we can find on Genesis/Megadrive. And some simple square sounds can truly fits in the Dungeon Synth style, like in old video games. I've made an article with comparisons between a few sound trackers: garvalf.online.fr/index.php?page=articles_trackersskirmisher I'm also using zx spectrum to render some Vortex Tracker tunes, even though it's quite tedious (even is quite fun as well). It's also possible to play vortex tracker tunes on Arduino, like on this video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzpGbokxwZ4I love Deflemask because I'm a huge fan of the Genesis sound. I have a few tracks I'm working on using this tracker. But ultimately with the subtle differences in how they look and work, I'm slowly going at it. I grew up using Impulse Tracker, so I generally use Schismtracker for my stuff because it's the modern version of IT. it is quite amazing how many different trackers there are.
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