31–40 of 61 posts
Ahoy might be one of my favorite creators on youtube. His production value is truly 'broadcast quality' while simultaneously including content that is so much more interesting and in depth than you'd ever see on television.
Corrections on "MIDI Soundcards" ( https://youtu.be/roBkg-iPrbw?t=1704 ): re. "their instrument banks were effectively hard-coded", the Creative Music System was a PSG-like chip with only square waves and no sample ROM at all, the AdLib was a FM synthesizer with no ROM banks either (though some MIDI banks which sounded nothing like sample-based MIDI players like the SC-55), and the GUS had a mix of ROM and RAM (and I…
My only quibble is he left out how trackers are what basically led to the invention of jungle, trance, and hardcore
Trackers are underrated. In a way, I'm a bit sad that most of the time I see them mentioned, it seems to be in a historical context. Modern production tools have mostly settled on the combination of pianoroll, automation curves, and visual placement of samples on the project timeline. That's great for some types of music, but becomes really awkward in other cases. As a basic example, making a breakbeat sequence makes…
Take your breakbeat example, most DAWs also have a drum machine style layout which allows you to arrange samples in a more intuitive way than with a piano roll while still offering a visual layout that means something to the average musician.
In fact ironically both the piano roll and drum machine layouts are older than trackers. But their birth is from hardware instruments rather than software. Thus really emphasising how familiar they are to your average musician.
Polyend Tracker
In my younger days, I used to spend hours and hours playing with trackers on the Commodore Amiga. Over the years, I've always toyed with the idea of firing one up again but the one thing that's keeping me from doing that is the lack of sample banks. Admittedly, I've never spent too much time looking into it, so I might be wrong (I actually kind of hope it), but it seems to me that getting hold of a tracker program is…
Trackers are underrated. In a way, I'm a bit sad that most of the time I see them mentioned, it seems to be in a historical context. Modern production tools have mostly settled on the combination of pianoroll, automation curves, and visual placement of samples on the project timeline. That's great for some types of music, but becomes really awkward in other cases. As a basic example, making a breakbeat sequence makes…
I actually really wanted to use anything but a tracker, specifically Ableton, and kept trying to force myself to like it, even going so far as buying the full version of Ableton (the day before I got made redundant as well, not my finest purchase). The main reason is that I prefer synthesis to samples, though I think both the VST market and the sample market are a bit broken at the moment (VST's have become like node modules, and its getting harder to find samples of individual instrument notes rather than just loops).
That all being said, I kept coming back to Renoise as a DAW that just made sense in a way the piano roll never did.
Obligatory plug for Renoise [1], the best modern tracker. It supports VSTs and AUs and is my favorite composition tool. I've been a happy customer for a decade and a half. My production breakdown these days tends to be 70% Renoise 30% Logic. [1] https://www.renoise.com/
It's an incredibly full featured DAW.
I really wish modern media servers (e.g. Plex) that are built on ffmpeg would support tracker formats since it's basically "free" for them.
Also modern musicians working with modern trackers like Renoise work very heavily with VSTi instead of just samples. Though trackers really give an absolutely incredible amount of expressiveness to sample playback that I don't really think anything else can quite match.
Trackers are underrated. In a way, I'm a bit sad that most of the time I see them mentioned, it seems to be in a historical context. Modern production tools have mostly settled on the combination of pianoroll, automation curves, and visual placement of samples on the project timeline. That's great for some types of music, but becomes really awkward in other cases. As a basic example, making a breakbeat sequence makes…