What's the best tracker for Windows at the moment?
Community Forums/General Help/What's the best tracker for Windows at the moment?
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| I used to make lots of music with trackers back in the Amiga days. To cut the crap short: 1. What's the best tracker for Windows at the moment, especially if I want to use and control songs in BlitzMax games? 2. What are the best sources for free samples at the moment? Sorry if this is wrong section to ask the question. |
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| 1 What do you mean use and control songs in BMax? Like performing pattern jump commands etc. in the traditional mod format? Or just playback start/stop? I'm using reViSiT, which is a VSTi tracker based on the Impulse Tracker 2 layout, it runs inside a DAW. But what I do with it is making tunes to be made into an OGG, and this OGG is something you can play in BMax of course. Keep in mind that you can run Impulse Tracker 2 in a dosbox for .xm and .it formats, if you need those. 2 Specify the style. You won't find free orchestral sounds on the net, well maybe some simple ones. but there're probably plenty lightweight/synthetic sounds to be found, just like the occasional sound effects. Google is your friend. If it's synthetic sounds you want, then I'd rather advice a few free VST instruments and be done with it. There's tons o' quality freeware out there. |
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| "Renoise" bar none. http://www.renoise.com/ |
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| Madtracker is free, but I have no idea if you can get it to work with BMax! |
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| I'd also vote Renoise. |
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| (WOW) I didn`t know you could still get this sort of software.I used to use Quartet on the Atari ST to make music.Deep joy Be Well |
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| I still use MED Soundstudio. Maybe that's why I haven't been enthused into doing anything in years. :) |
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| Thanks for responses. I wasn't aware of Renoise. Renoise feels a lot like Fruity. If paying for Fruity is not an issue, is there any reason to use Renoise instead of Fruity, besides having a true classical tracker? Optimally I'd like to be able to have control on how the song plays in BlitzMax. Jumps, tempo and all that. |
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| Optimally I'd like to be able to have control on how the song plays in BlitzMax. Jumps, tempo and all that. AFAIK it aint going to happen with renoise (or Fruity Loops) as it uses VST's for pretty much everything and would be a pain in the arse to distribute the plugins, let alone actually writing/acquiring a player for it in the first place. MOD/S3M/XM and IT are your best bets for having control during playback. |
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| I agree. I don't think you can play Renoise modules directly in BlitzMax. That said, using Renoise, being a more classical tracker, has a big advantage over Fruityloops, since you can enter notes manually -by keyboard- and cut off patterns halfway. Two things I wasn't able to do in Fruityloops. |
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| Modplug Tracker is a classic. 'Still use it to listen to some old MODs. |
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| You won't find free orchestral sounds on the net, well maybe some simple ones. How about these? Free to download and licence-free too! http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/thesoundexchange/make_music/samples/ The direct downloads are here: http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/thesoundexchange/make_music/samples/library/#samples |
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| I highly recommend renoise too. Excellent tracker for Windows and Mac, worth every penny. |
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| Apologies for my typical incoherence. :) Yes, I understand that you can't control Renoise or Fruity songs on BlitzMax the way you can control more conventional tracker songs. You'd be playing an ogg (or whatever) sound file just like any other sound. That's why I was wondering how Renoise would be better than Fruity. I get the benefits of classical tracker feel, and it's something I sometimes do miss in Fruity. |
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| As for classical/traditional tracking, did you check out reViSiT yet? http://www.nashnet.co.uk/english/default.asp BlitzSupport: am I supposed to click-download each individual sound in order to have complete instruments? :) |
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| I didn't check reViSiT yet, thanks for the link. It's next in line after I have tested Renoise. |
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| CS: Hmm, it seems I was confused by the layout and descriptions. Yes, you can select individual instruments, but there is a "full pack" download on the "Sound Ideas" page. However, it appears that just refers to the samples listed below it (which would explain why it was so small). It really does look like you'd have to download all the instruments/notes separately, which is a bit crap! A bit of sneaky Blitzing would probably make it much easier, not that I would consider such a thing... |
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| I tried a bunch out a few year back and ended up paying for Fruity, it rocks. Great for trance music too. But of course you have to export as wav or whatever, it won't output a "mod" file. |
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| I use Cubase Studio 4 as "tracker" nowadays. Of course it needs also a hardware synth, but then you don't have to worry about instruments, and everything sounds much better than with a conventional mod tracker. |
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| Mind you, this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzrMNaRvFY4 was made with Impulse Tracker.. :P (by yours truly) |
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| This is one I just came across... Very nice find, very cheap and very easy to learn... Sunvox (So good I picked up both the win32 and iPhone versions!) http://www.warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/index.php |
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| Steinberg's Cubase can support virtual VST and midi arrangements. I'd say this beats most competition hands-down. |
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| Steinberg's Cubase can support virtual VST and midi arrangements. I'd say this beats most competition hands-down. What do you mean by midi arrangements? Almost everything supports VST these days. Even the free MadTracker has been supporting it for quite a while. I think its important to point out that VST represents both effects plug-ins which can modify an existing sound, and also instruments that can generate their own sounds in a number of different ways. With a VST instrument in place on a sequencer track, it can be triggered with Midi either by programming it manually or by using an external controller like a keyboard. Renoise, Ableton Live, Protools, FL Studio, and Reaper all do this. I would be hard pressed to find one that didn't support both VST and Midi. The differences usually lie in terms of how this sequencing data is displayed and manipulated on screen. For a tracker like Renoise, the tracker style interface is the main focus and its greatest strength as a sequencer. Other programs offer a variety of different mechanisms to edit and display this information like "piano rolls" or grids or a standard music notation score editor. The score editor is something that is featured in Cubase that you don't see in most others. The last time I used Cubase was a few years ago and I felt that the score editor left a lot to be desired. However, I've yet to really find one that does meet my needs. There are few programs out there like Sibelius that offer a lot of functionality in this area, but severely lack in the audio engine department. It really just depends if you come from that type of background where you're more comfortable using music notation. The best approach I've found is to use a combination of programs depending on what type of work you're doing. I personally use Renoise and Ableton Live. Renoise is great for writing electronic music, where you really want easy access to fine grained control over each note, and you want to more or less "program" your song. Ableton live is great for when you want to plug in a midi keyboard or record vocals, guitar and other live instruments. |
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| The best approach I've found is to use a combination of programs depending on what type of work you're doing. Bingo. I think if you're writing something that requires a more complex composition, a combination of Sibelius (for the arrangement), and FL Studio or others (for the VST Instruments\Samplers and mix-down) should do it. |
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| Impulse Tracker fans may want to check Schism Tracker. I tried it out some time ago, not 1:1 with IT, but good enough. http://sourceforge.net/projects/schismtracker/ |
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| But then reViSiT is a far more obvious (and up to date) choice, as its work flow is based on IT. Does Schism have sub rows? :P 'Cause reViSiT has, meaning you can place notes/events/things 'between' the rows. ( In action in most of my videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/mvsmsx ) |
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| A bunch of free trackers here at pouet : http://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?type[]=demotool&platform[]=Windows&order=views&x=15&y=9&page=1&order=views I love fast tracker 2 so Skale tracker was an hope (available somewhere on pouet.net too) but is no longer being developed :( Why not try Milkytracker: http://www.milkytracker.org/?about (you can change the screen resolution in the config button ;) Renoise is very cool (not free but worth the price) but I don't remember if this one can export to old XM MOD IT format that you want. |
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| I went a ways off the original subject which was about controlling the music in Blitzmax games. Renoise would not be a good choice for this, it uses its own XML based format. It can import a number of old formats, but is not intended to be compatible both ways. Like Armitage mentioned, Milky Tracker is a good choice. It appears to be actively developed and is aimed at being highly compatible with the .xm (Fast Tracker 2 format) as well as being similar in operation. Its also cross-platform. For playback in Blitzmax applications checkout Brucey's modules for both Bass and FMOD, both are great libraries. - http://code.google.com/p/maxmods/ |
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| I wanted to add, per request of the original post, a link to a instrument archive (.xi instruments), they work great in Milky Tracker : http://ftp.kiarchive.ru/pub/misc/sounds/samples/ft2/ Lots of great stuff there. |
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| Why don't you just download WinUAE and use your old mod tracker your used too for making your .mods??? |
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| Came across this V1 free SoftSyth tracker, v2 VSTI support... not tried it yet but looks good. http://www.audio-simulation.com/ |
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| After trying it, I like V2, V1 is a little too primitive but V2 has a great interface and is very easy to use, a keeper for me. |
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| Did anyone mention OpenMPT??? If so sorry for the double post. http://modplug.sourceforge.net/ |
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