I'm largely familiar with the history of trackers, having been using them since 2007 and researching them for the past 14 years, so I admittedly didn't watch the whole thing (it's all mostly stuff...
I'm largely familiar with the history of trackers, having been using them since 2007 and researching them for the past 14 years, so I admittedly didn't watch the whole thing (it's all mostly stuff I know already), but there are a few important trackers that should've been mentioned: Deflemask, AHX (an Amiga chiptune tracker), Hively, a modern AHX clone, and Klystrack, which is sort of like Hively in design, but built around a custom lightweight synthesis engine/sound library.
Deflemask is definitely a unique tool that’s worth mentioning, but it fits squarely into that “make music for older consoles” niche, so it’s understandable that it wasn’t mentioned. As a side note...
Deflemask is definitely a unique tool that’s worth mentioning, but it fits squarely into that “make music for older consoles” niche, so it’s understandable that it wasn’t mentioned.
As a side note I spent so many hours doing audio doodles with Nitrotracker on my DS.
The video wraps by mentioning the current state of things, and bringing up FamiTracker, LSDJ and LittleGPT, so there's some mention of hardware-oriented stuff, I just felt it could've gone a...
The video wraps by mentioning the current state of things, and bringing up FamiTracker, LSDJ and LittleGPT, so there's some mention of hardware-oriented stuff, I just felt it could've gone a little deeper into the cooler parts of the modern state of things at that point.
To be fair, it didn’t go into the details that I thought were cool about trackers either. The reason why mod music got to be so big was that it was very easy to get great performance out of it....
To be fair, it didn’t go into the details that I thought were cool about trackers either. The reason why mod music got to be so big was that it was very easy to get great performance out of it. The mod format on Amiga was basically an IFF (read: the most generic file format ever) containing your samples and the same exact text you wrote into the tracker program. Because most of the audio work was handled by Paula adding a sound driver to handle music playback into a game was very easy, so it was not uncommon to see them used in commercial games.
As a fun aside, during this same time the format du jure in Japan was MML, which was a genericized version of the music command in some versions of Microsoft BASIC. Though of course this would be run through a number of different sound drivers specialized for specific sound hardware.
Odd to see this not mention the Polyend Tracker and the Dirtywave M8, two modern hardware devices that are specifically designed to support the tracker workflow. Otherwise, a super deep look at...
Odd to see this not mention the Polyend Tracker and the Dirtywave M8, two modern hardware devices that are specifically designed to support the tracker workflow. Otherwise, a super deep look at the history of trackers, and really well produced too.
Even as a Polyend Tracker owner, these devices are antithetical to what trackers have previously been, which was a cheap way to make high quality music. They're closer to synth hardware than...
Even as a Polyend Tracker owner, these devices are antithetical to what trackers have previously been, which was a cheap way to make high quality music. They're closer to synth hardware than trackers, in a way. The Polyend is still a decent tracker, but I'd point somebody at Renoise before the Polyend.
Oh, totally. I had and sold a PT for that exact reason - SunVox and Renoise provide a much better experience for the kind of thing I like to do with trackers. I just think it's odd that they're...
Oh, totally. I had and sold a PT for that exact reason - SunVox and Renoise provide a much better experience for the kind of thing I like to do with trackers. I just think it's odd that they're not even mentioned, the M8 especially, since it's explicitly based on the UX of the GameBoy trackers which are talked about.
I'm largely familiar with the history of trackers, having been using them since 2007 and researching them for the past 14 years, so I admittedly didn't watch the whole thing (it's all mostly stuff I know already), but there are a few important trackers that should've been mentioned: Deflemask, AHX (an Amiga chiptune tracker), Hively, a modern AHX clone, and Klystrack, which is sort of like Hively in design, but built around a custom lightweight synthesis engine/sound library.
Deflemask is definitely a unique tool that’s worth mentioning, but it fits squarely into that “make music for older consoles” niche, so it’s understandable that it wasn’t mentioned.
As a side note I spent so many hours doing audio doodles with Nitrotracker on my DS.
The video wraps by mentioning the current state of things, and bringing up FamiTracker, LSDJ and LittleGPT, so there's some mention of hardware-oriented stuff, I just felt it could've gone a little deeper into the cooler parts of the modern state of things at that point.
To be fair, it didn’t go into the details that I thought were cool about trackers either. The reason why mod music got to be so big was that it was very easy to get great performance out of it. The mod format on Amiga was basically an IFF (read: the most generic file format ever) containing your samples and the same exact text you wrote into the tracker program. Because most of the audio work was handled by Paula adding a sound driver to handle music playback into a game was very easy, so it was not uncommon to see them used in commercial games.
As a fun aside, during this same time the format du jure in Japan was MML, which was a genericized version of the music command in some versions of Microsoft BASIC. Though of course this would be run through a number of different sound drivers specialized for specific sound hardware.
Odd to see this not mention the Polyend Tracker and the Dirtywave M8, two modern hardware devices that are specifically designed to support the tracker workflow. Otherwise, a super deep look at the history of trackers, and really well produced too.
Even as a Polyend Tracker owner, these devices are antithetical to what trackers have previously been, which was a cheap way to make high quality music. They're closer to synth hardware than trackers, in a way. The Polyend is still a decent tracker, but I'd point somebody at Renoise before the Polyend.
Oh, totally. I had and sold a PT for that exact reason - SunVox and Renoise provide a much better experience for the kind of thing I like to do with trackers. I just think it's odd that they're not even mentioned, the M8 especially, since it's explicitly based on the UX of the GameBoy trackers which are talked about.
The Polyend Tracker and XOR Nerdsynth were briefly mentioned near the end, though, around the 38 minute mark.
Huh, I missed that. Thanks!