Amiga-style Tracker!


T

Topcat

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I dream of having samples on my SMC, and a tracker-style music creation app. Preferrably a clone of some old Amiga tracker (ScreamTracker, FastTracker, OctaMed, whatever). As module-players and tools like PGSmack is already available, i guess this is possible ??
 
i've been dreaming of the same thing ever since i got my GP32!


i use a tracker on my PC to make music (Modplug Tracker VST) and it would be nice to have something similar (albeit in a smaller, more limited cut down form) on my GP32 to get a few musical ideas down when i'm on the move (especially as i could store quite a bit of samples on an SMC)

Modplug Tracker itself has recently become fully OpenSource...are there any programmers out there willing to take up the challenge of creating a stripped down GP32 conversion?

Modplug Tracker Source Code
 
the ST used to have some of the best trackers ever, have you tried giving one a go under emulation? I think Skeezix said sample playback was fixed in the last update of castaway...
 
Topcat posted on Feb 24 2004 at 12:43 PM said:
Would these ST trackers produce modules in amiga format ??
Click to expand...
MOD is MOD, and thats to say that MODs started on Amiga, so you could say its an Amiga format.. but whatever :) ie: Theres dozens of Trackers for the ST, and they use various MOD formats like ScreamTrack, NosieTracker, etc etc. 've not touched trackers much in a decade though :p

The one issue Iwould guess woudl be that most trackers were made by the crack groups and as such they wanted to show off a lot of course.. so most of the tracks have a lot of fancy demo stuff going on, and CaSTaway could likely get tripped up by such low level hardware activity..

However, I have tried some tracker players and played some MODs quite nicely in CaSTaway, so the audio portion worked pretty well.. its just a question of whethor trackers would work.

I've not tried any, but email me if you find any that work.. that would be cool :)

jeff
 
Last edited by a moderator:
And there you go, straight from the horses mouth (so to speak!)
Your best bet will be to find one of the few commercial trackers, or any one that doesn't have scrollies/effects in the background. Now all we need is a USB to MIDI cable and we can have the smallest portable cubase studio (although I think cubase only hit version 2.0 on the ST)

here is a good place to read about ST trackers http://www.modplug.com/modfaq/4-1-2.html it appears that protracker was ported :)
 
"Music" for GBA was really good. I think wub is planning something along those lines one day.

Meanwhile you could try lsdj or nanoloop on GBC .
 
Here is one that is opensource...
http://www.soundtracker.org/screenshots.php3
But this one looks too advanced (ie to many controls too big screen etc)...
What I want is a much simpler variant like the old MED (Music EDitor, later OctaMED and more later OctaMED Soundstudio which in 1993 if I remember was the best and still is the best tracker there is...)
Anyway... I think original Soundtracker was 320*256 pixel or maybe 640*256 (all PAL) not too much controls...
This would be great with the chatboard for example...
 
I used to be prolific in realm of trackers. Started on the amiga, but I do know that it would be hell to use other than very basic funtions on the GP32. Can you imagine entering all those control codes if you wanted to play with effects?

oh man! :blink:
 
Taras!?!?!? What do you base this on? Because it might be the most efficient way to make good music... not the least... what is more efficient... maybe midi format and played thru fm synth... but how does that sound???
Then there is directly programming some kind of sound processor (like SID chip on C64) this might be more efficient and sounds good but no samples... no vocals and so on...
Tracking music mods (and all different mod formats) is a very efficient... OctaMED and the likes wich included FM synthesis like sounds + samples where actually very good but not much used (FM synthesis)...
Wow I just rembered a really cool tracker on the Amiga... it was called THX and was very simpel and basic (3 channels I think) and was made for the smallest form av mods ala C64... this was a great little tracker you could almost emulate all the sound a C64 could produce... very small executable and player... hmm... maybe the source is laying around somewhere... OK I'm pretty sure it is 68K asm but maybe, maybe...
I'll be back for a update!

Edit--------------------------
OK it was called AHX, the file extension was THX (my mistake) and it was 4 channels... not 3 as i recall... mailed him (guessing that he has forgotten about this piece of software because the latest update for the Amiga was in 1998...)

Second edit--------------------
Mail returned with an error... too bad as this is freeware (and in Amiga terms this is do what you want with it...)
 
LOL Taras. Expert on trackers are you?

I'm sure you listen to mods on your GP32 all the time. Loads of the homebrew has mods in it. Amiga mods are small, portable and very efficient. No need to lug round an 8 meg library of midi sounds. You want efficient try Amiga chip mods where some execllent tunes start at around 5 or 6 kilobytes or less in size.
 
Computerised music was an artform in itself with the invention of chip tunes and mod formats (not forgetting chip mods). I guess your from the post 16bit era of gaming Taras? used to commercial tunes as background music? Before that, chip and mods were all that were used.

As for not being efficient- I remember someone did a carbon copy of firestarter in 600K, vocals and everything. And some of my favourite mods are only 40KB in size (and if you think about rob hubbard chip tunes, some of which contain samples so are technically mods- they are under 5K).
 
Found som sources for a couple of old trackers (include the original SoundTracker!!!) but as I said before this is in 68000 assembler...
Anyone has a 68k ASM to ARM ASM converter... or 68K ASM to C converter!??!? :)

Anyways... its here i someone wants to look at it...
http://exotica.fix.no/source/editors/
 
What is the point in porting soundtracker when you can already run the ST one?
Has anyone actualy tried it yet?
 
Well Khephren.... I would love to, but how am i going to compensate for the missing keyboard ??

A port of a tracker designed to be controlled with buttons and joystick would be the ultimate solution!!.. i think :unsure:
 
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