Talk:Tracker

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Contents

[edit] About noisetracker

Was noisetracker shareware? I can't remember anything about that... Should it be changed to freeware?

Accourding to this website: http://www.exotica.org.uk/info/trackerhistory/SoundTrackerHistory1.05.txt, the copyright of NoiseTracker was SOLD to "the EAS company" so I believe there is a great chance it was. Someone I know also told me that before ProTracker was released, you had to pay for a Tracker.

-Fredrik "Eagle" Larsson

[edit] The german tracker page

Hey, look at the german wikipedia tracker page. It looks much better. Perhaps someone could translate it to english and include it here? http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracker_(Musik)

[edit] 880 kB

"No bigger than 880 kB"? Is this the actual hard limit for the format, and shouldn't this differ per tracker? Seems like an arbitrary number to me. It needs some elaboration. --Michiel Sikma 06:58, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

That figure is the maximum capacity of a standard Amiga floppy disk. It should be rewritten to be specific about early trackers on the Amiga. - Pixel8 07:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Free image?

For purposes of image freedom, I think it'd be a good idea to use a screenshot of a Free tracker as as the main illustration of a tracker, and leave the proprietary trackers to "History" if they need to be present at all. For instance, you could use Image:Modplug tracker 960.png, a screenshot of the GPL'd ModPlug Tracker. --Damian Yerrick (☎) 20:02, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of well known composers using tracker software

This list is very subjective. It seems to invite vain trackers/ex-trackers who visit the page. Could someone create criteria for being listed here, such as Google hits and/or Nectarine rankings/requests? --Vossanova 19:48, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Except for a few peoples names that I know from the demo scene, I have never heard of anyone of the people on that list, and I doubt many or any of them are well known composers. Like it is now, it would be better if the list was removed entirely. (unsigned comment)

Another suggestion, and maybe a better one, would be to create a "Category:Tracker musicians" or "Category:Demoscene musicians" and add the appropriate musician pages already in existence to it. This would provide an easily referrable list and force each musician to be judged by notability. --Vossanova 18:50, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea... (unsigned comment)

I'm getting close to removing this list and making a category. At the very least, I'd like to require Wikipedia/website links for everyone on this list so we can verify that they're "well known". --Vossanova 16:47, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Finally done! Goodbye vanity list, hello Category:Tracker musicians. Now you actually have to write an article to be listed. :) --Vossanova o< 14:50, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History cleanup

The History section could stand to be cleaned up a bit. Some parts of it are about trackers in general and not about the history, and other parts get too detailed about certain trackers that have or should have their own articles (like Soundtracker). --Vossanova 18:48, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I have spent some time cleaning it up now. I think its fairly to the point and chronoligical now. However, theres still a lot of bad language; too long sentenses and many examples of too complicated language. (I mean, its still horrible ;-), but I don't think its that much confusing anymore.)

Update: I have rewritten almost everything, cut out obvious irrelevant information, and tightened it up a lot. I think most language is okey now, but I still don't have a good feeling about the section. Most of the facts seems to be rather randomly picked. I don't know that much about the tracker history myself, but I'm missing a red thread, maybe because I have cut out too much. What does the german history section say, by the way? Anyone who understands german?

Could you please use the ~~~~ tag to sign your messages? --Vossanova 19:32, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I had another go at that section, fixing some spelling/copyediting issues and editing for flow. I don't think I changed any of the stated facts, but the language as I found it was a little unclear in spots. Most particularly, the prior text didn't explain the issue of downmixing MOD/S3M for the SB cards' 1/2 channels. At the time, software mixing would have been computationally quite expensive, but I don't know if there were further issues. Moppet 22:51, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Factual and Subjective Problems

In addition to the subjectivity issue mentioned above, there seem to be a number of factual problems with this article. Issues I can immediately spot are:

  • MIDI is a communications standard, not a method of reproducing or synthesizing sound.
  • The discussion of PC soundcards confuses software mixdown and hardware mixdown of multiple channels of sound down to stereo output. Problems with the first are generally associated with performance capacity of the general computing hardware, the second with the performance capacity of the sound card.

Since I'm not knowledgeable concerning the vanity demo scene described here, I'm not entirely sure how Tracker software is anything more than a subclass of general music sequencing software (the music sequencer article refers back to the tracker article, but the tracker article does not refer to the music sequencer article). --Superfami

[edit] Notability of tracker articles?

It seems that the article for Schism Tracker, the ONLY decent Impulse Tracker clone for modern operating systems and one of the very few open-source trackers available for both Windows and Unix systems, was recently deleted as per VfM. I'm not sure about the exact criteria that makes a tracker program "unnotable" or even "vanity" for deletionists, but I'd guess that many of the trackers with articles might be found even less "notable". (And BTW, you can still vote for undelete in Wikipedia:Deletion review#Schism Tracker).

As a borderline deletionist, I've been trying to weed out some empty and non-notable tracker articles. I've added as many tracker pages as I could find to the Category:Audio Trackers page, as a list of articles to compare and judge. Maybe some of the less notable IT/FT clones could be appended to the Impulse Tracker and Fast Tracker articles. --Vossanova

[edit] Dispute - swing note difficulty

Regarding the last paragraph in the history section - I disagree that it was "difficult" to make swing tempos in trackers.. it was just that very few bothered in the early days. Many musicians tried the swing tempo trick (e.g. 03, 04, 03, 04..) at one time or another. While the layout of trackers may encourage 4/4 beat music, it's trivial for the average tracker musician to make any other kind of beat - no different than any other method of computer music making. --Vossanova 14:29, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

The reason I wrote that the creation of swing tempos difficult is that most if not all tracker software best complements 4/4 beats and so anyone looking for a swing tempo had to constantly change the tempo - this in itself was not a major feat though arduous - but the effects column was often the same column in which the tempo was changed. If one filled the entire effects column with tempo changes, that left little room for note expression and the very fact that most "module" sequencers favored the 4/4 beat (64 note rows as the standard) made it that more challenging. While of course the amount of note rows could be changed, that's beside the point - tracker software was not designed to accomodate swing tempos and in that respect difficulty arises. D rand 22:12, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
In many cases, one of the instruments doesn't use a lot of effects, leaving a free column in which to insert swing messages. Or one could use a "pattern end" effect on row 47, leaving a 48-row pattern perfect for 3/4 or 6/8 or 12/8. --Damian Yerrick (☎) 04:42, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

~~ A curious standard of "difficulty" this offers. At the time trackers were important (1980s?), their competition for COMPOSING music was MIDI composition software and hardware synthesisers. In a typical MIDI sequencer of the time, there would be a "percentage swing" function, where, for example, 50% was equal note lengths (not swung), 66% was "typical" swing, or triplets, and an in-between setting was in-between. The command could be applied to individual tracks, or in some cases whole patterns (if the sequencer used them) or the entire composition.

The difference in difficulty between setting a numeric percentage, or, say, 8 of them for 8 tracks, and inserting tempo changes for every beat in a composition, whether there are notes on that beat or not, would seem to be orders of magnitude, especially if one wanted something more subtle than generic "everything at 66%" triplet swing.

A column of A07 A05 A07 A05 (in S3M notation) for a 58% swing isn't so hard, is it? It's not even tedious if your tracker has copy and paste (hello Modplug). And it's even more flexible if you're willing to change the "tempo" setting. --Damian Yerrick (☎) 04:42, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Here is a much better history

If we are able to contact the author of this article: http://www.textfiles.com/artscene/music/information/karstenobarski.html

Perhaps it would be better to use material from one instead of some that is currently in the history section?

I already referenced parts of that article for the Ultimate Soundtracker article. You could use parts of it for describing the earliest Amiga trackers, but no more than a paragraph or two, I'd say. Further history of mid to late Amiga trackers (e.g. ProTracker 2 and later) and trackers on PC and other platforms should use other references. --Vossanova 19:28, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Split list of trackers

I've added a suggestion to split the long list of trackers into its own article. I propose calling it "List of audio trackers" to be consistent with the Audio Trackers category. While some specific trackers could still be mentioned in the main article, they would only be cited as examples when useful (e.g. in the History section). --Vossanova 19:25, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree. --Sylph 16:21, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree too. --201.17.211.199 19:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Done. --Vossanova o< 20:17, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Game Boy Advance: tracker music vs. built-in tone generators

"the Game Boy Advance has the processing power to support tracker music, and the quality is vastly superior to the built-in tone generators" They aren't just tone generators. They are 2 square pulsewave channels, 1 custom wave channel (using up to 2 samples at a time, depending on the software) and 1 noise channel. Comparing the GBA-only PCM channels to just "the built-in tone generators" (2 out of 4 channels) just doesn't make sense to me.

As well as saying the quality is better on GBA for tracker music than for hardware-synthesized music. We're talking analog output against so-so digital output! It ultimately depends on what one thinks 'quality' is, but I just think this sentence is just too long.

I would recommend: "the Game Boy Advance has the processing power to support tracker music."

[edit] Early PC MOD players and Sound Blaster info

Some information on early sound blaster cards:

  • Sound Blaster 1 supported 8bit playback in mono, microphone in, headphone out, line out also had a small onboard amp and volume controller on the face of the board.
  • Sound Blaster 1.5 in addition to everything the original card had this version was larger in size and included a line-in port.
  • Sound Blaster pro was the first 16bit stereo card.

Early mod programs for PC:

  • Modedit was the first MOD player for the PC, it supported standard MOD playback although effects did not work while playing inside Modedit, you could still place the effects in and they would be triggered on different players that supported effects.

ModEdit can be downloaded here: http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/ModEdit/

  • DMP (Dual Module Player) - was one of the first multi module player for PC. Mod's could also be played via the PC speaker. Due to it's constant updating it became very popular for DOS.
  • Fast tracker 2 it should be noted was also the first tracker to support midi.
  • Screamtracker 3, it should be noted that it only supported 8bit samples.

[edit] Replaceable fair use image

Image:Modplug tracker 960.png is fair use. Image:Soundtracker.png is free. We are only supposed to use fair use images if it cannot be replaced. --Ysangkok 11:04, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] garageband

Isn't Apple's GarageBand kind-of-a-tracker too? --Have a nice day. Running 20:41, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Not really, since tracker music thingys are 'rendered' real-time, GarageBand is more of a sequencer WalrusMan118 (talk) 20:45, 7 December 2007 (UTC)