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Trackers: The Sound of 16-Bit [video]

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Re: Trackers: The Sound of 16-Bit [video]

#41
post #15

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 find Buzz a joy to use as a programmable / repeatable mixer, too. I love the tracker's ability to record knob/slider positions and play it back faithfully. Quantized recordings of parameters just make so much sense to me. I think about my Buzz files as the "source code" that will eventually be mixed-down to PCM audio. I can always go back to the "source" if I want to make modifications and re-render. I think of it…

What I missed in buzz was a way to apply tracker commands (shift, reverse, transpose and so on) to patterns, because I always toyed with the synths, hardly ever using samples at all (where tracker commands are traditionally applied to).

I eventually dropped out of my music dabbling phase endlessly failing at building a parser/interpreter/editor for a text-based notation syntax (as an alternative to the spreadsheet of trackers) that would do away with the spreadsheed format of trackers and add multiple levels of "notation controlling notation" for a deliberately quirky macro language (all variables were stacks and those stacks eventually degenerate into ringbuffers when pushed more than popped). It would have existed on peer ctrl level (or as a midi source if pivoted to standalone) which I believe would have been quite unique, because even CucK seems to be more focused on synthesis than on notation.

Re: Trackers: The Sound of 16-Bit [video]

#43
post #34
post #15

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…

Not taking anything away from trackers but DAWs are a lot easier to grok for the average musician. 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…

The piano roll is not really "intuitive to the average musician", though. Most musicians would rather use ordinary sheet music notation, which was also supported in some trackers (like OctaMED Pro).

Re: Trackers: The Sound of 16-Bit [video]

#44
Pretty awesome, thanks. I've been bingeing on retro computing documentaries, and this is right up with the best of them.

If anyone else is interested, I'd heartily recommend:

- The entire "From Bedrooms to Billions" documentary series (3x2h pieces, spanning the UK computing scene, the Amiga and the PlayStation, with several discussions on game music and demoscene)

- "The Chiptune Story", which covers the SID chip and the Amiga (there's also "The Commodore Story")

Re: Trackers: The Sound of 16-Bit [video]

#45
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find Buzz a joy to use as a programmable / repeatable mixer, too. I love the tracker's ability to record knob/slider positions and play it back faithfully. Quantized recordings of parameters just make so much sense to me. I think about my Buzz files as the "source code" that will eventually be mixed-down to PCM audio. I can always go back to the "source" if I want to make modifications and re-render. I think of it…

What I missed in buzz was a way to apply tracker commands (shift, reverse, transpose and so on) to patterns, because I always toyed with the synths, hardly ever using samples at all (where tracker commands are traditionally applied to). I eventually dropped out of my music dabbling phase endlessly failing at building a parser/interpreter/editor for a text-based notation syntax (as an alternative to the spreadsheet of…

> add multiple levels of "notation controlling notation" for a deliberately quirky macro language

Would something like Supercollider fit the deal there?

Re: Trackers: The Sound of 16-Bit [video]

#46

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…

[deleted]

Re: Trackers: The Sound of 16-Bit [video]

#47
post #15

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've poked around a bit with both interfaces. But I'm not enough of a producer to really understand what you mean. Piano roll patterns and tracker patterns seem pretty equivalent to me. Ie "place note on line." Do you mind explaining it a bit for me?

Re: Trackers: The Sound of 16-Bit [video]

#48
post #44

Pretty awesome, thanks. I've been bingeing on retro computing documentaries, and this is right up with the best of them. If anyone else is interested, I'd heartily recommend: - The entire "From Bedrooms to Billions" documentary series (3x2h pieces, spanning the UK computing scene, the Amiga and the PlayStation, with several discussions on game music and demoscene) - "The Chiptune Story", which covers the SID chip and…

Your comment got me thinking: "Wouldn't be nice if existed an 'awesome list' for this kind of content?"

After a brief google search the best I could find is this [0] and it seems to be abandoned.

Does anyone know a better source for this type of content?

I'm leaving some random links to great channels that produce this kind of content:

- CGA Graphics - Not as bad as you thought! [1]

- DVD-RAM: The Disc that Behaved like a Flash Drive [2]

- The Story of Super Mario Bros. 3 | Gaming Historian [3]

[0] - https://github.com/watson/awesome-computer-history

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niKblgZupOc

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecH3OU0R4ls

[3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxT6IwUtLSU

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