[HN Gopher] MilkyTracker 1.04
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MilkyTracker 1.04
Author : app4soft
Score : 168 points
Date : 2023-08-09 11:15 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (milkytracker.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (milkytracker.org)
| eterevsky wrote:
| That's very cool! Back in the 90s when my computer wasn't able to
| play MP3's yet, MODs and XMs were the best sounding music that it
| could produce.
| sprash wrote:
| The big unique selling point of MOD/XM/S3M is that it is
| essentially "open source" music. You can exactly see what the
| artist does and how it is done as well as access all used
| samples.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| Pity that no one has packaged it for flatpak yet. I guess the
| AppImage will have to do.
| catboybotnet wrote:
| Ah, MilkyTracker! I loved using this guy all the time before
| eventually moving to Renoise. Still go back sometimes. Maybe
| now's one of those times!
| AlbertoGP wrote:
| Coincidentally I was trying to compile this yesterday and it
| failed because it did not find the RTMIDI library, which
| INSTALL.md says is optional: "RtMidi/ALSA (optional, for Linux
| MIDI support)".
|
| The machine I'm using does not have that library nor any
| convenient way of installing it right this moment, so I just
| moved on. I don't know whether there will be further snags.
| robinsonb5 wrote:
| I just had a quick look at the CMakeLists.txt file on github
| and I see "find_package(RTMIDI "2.1.0" REQUIRED)" - maybe
| removing the REQUIRED would solve your issue?
| AlbertoGP wrote:
| Thanks, after doing that it still fails in the same way as
| when installing RTMIDI from source: CMake
| Error at cmake/FindRTMIDI.cmake:51 (string): string
| sub-command REGEX, mode REPLACE needs at least 6 arguments
| total to command.
|
| I'll see if I find some way of either compiling this one, or
| finding another one that does.
| ilyt wrote:
| I guess they assume people gonna compile that on normal linux
| box
| AlbertoGP wrote:
| I went ahead and compiled and installed the current version
| of RTMIDI, and now it fails with something else that looks
| like some file is not compatible with current CMake:
| CMake Error at cmake/FindRTMIDI.cmake:51 (string):
| string sub-command REGEX, mode REPLACE needs at least 6
| arguments total to command.
|
| There might be issues even with normal linux boxes, just
| because of bit rot.
| ilyt wrote:
| Oh yeah, that's bad. I guess that's why you want tests
| running from time to time on <current stable> even if the
| software itself doesn't change.
| zellyn wrote:
| If you want to try out a tracker in your web browser, there's
| BassoonTracker: https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/
|
| Also, the amazing-but-curiously-absent-from-many-lists-of-
| trackers SunVox. Some of the demo tunes I've listened to over and
| over! https://www.warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/ Almost all the
| software on Alexander Zolotov / NightRadio's site is worth
| checking out, both free and paid. Virtual ANS in particular is
| amazing for making old-school Doctor Who-style background noises.
| kqr wrote:
| SunVox is an amazing blend between tracker/sequencer and analog
| synth emulator.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Nice, they even have Guitar Slinger (GSLINGER.MOD from my
| memory) as a loadable example. Brings back memories...
| geon wrote:
| The second half was so good.
| glonq wrote:
| Ditto! I don't think I've played that mod in 20+ years.
|
| Back in the late 1990's I received a massive collection of
| MODs from a guy in the Netherlands, and those kept me
| entertained for years until MP3's took over.
| zellyn wrote:
| Fun tip for Virtual ANS (it's basically just a spectrogram -
| audio): if you record yourself talking, look at what it looks
| like, then clear it out and make a bunch of little swipes and
| curves and stuff in the same region, you get fascinating alien
| speech!
| naikrovek wrote:
| yeah, SunVox is legitimately amazing. I wish I had enough
| musical skills to use it.
| junon wrote:
| Cool, never heard of this one. Famitracker was kind of a pain to
| use back when I did some NESdev, so might try out this one just
| for some fun.
|
| For anyone doing this seriously, you may also appreciate the
| music-as-code library Pently for smaller music sizes for ROMs,
| especially for new games that are using mappers with smaller bank
| sizes.
| amlib wrote:
| Is there a way to or has anyone been able to use milkytracker as
| a decoder for a music player or even as a standalone player with
| the usual amenities such as playlists? I quite like how it
| sounds, specially when you tweak some of its settings such as
| setting an appropriate resampling filters for each song.
| daneel_w wrote:
| It's not the right tool for that job. What you want is e.g.
| XMPlay/BASS (https://www.un4seen.com/) or MikMod
| (https://mikmod.sourceforge.net/).
| snvzz wrote:
| Or UADE[0].
|
| 0. https://zakalwe.fi/uade/
| daneel_w wrote:
| Yeah Delitracker is a great choice, too, since it runs
| practically every replay routine ever made.
| amlib wrote:
| I've used xmplay and modplug, but specially xmplay don't
| always produce the best sounding output. I've also seen a few
| modules just play corrupted on xmplay... I've also used stuff
| like audacious to play those files with wathever tracker
| decoder they provide, but they don't allow much flexibility
| in the playback settings nor associating an specific decoder
| to an specific module. They usually also lack a variety of
| different decoders..
| daneel_w wrote:
| That's the opposite of my experience. BASSMOD (XMPlay) is,
| second to actually running the original replayers on the
| Amiga, the most accurate MOD replayer I've ever come
| across. Unlike e.g. Milky~ and MikMod, it already ages ago
| managed all of the effect commands of the "NT2" MOD
| standard, including the curiosities of the Amiga's audio
| hardware, with 100% accuracy. It has a reputation of being
| just as accurate for FT2, ScreamTracker and ImpulseTracker
| etc., though I can't confirm it personally since I never
| got into either of those very much.
| mlatu wrote:
| there used to be excellent youtube tutorial videos for this by
| one brandon walsh, archived here:
|
| https://archive.org/details/milky-tracker-tutorial/MilkyTrac...
| jiffygist wrote:
| Fonts at 1920x1080 resolution are very small. Are you supposed to
| use it at half the resolution?
| dean2432 wrote:
| If it's too smol try PT2Clone and FT2Clone. Works very well and
| scales nice to my high res screen. https://16-bits.org/pt2.php
| pengaru wrote:
| For anyone familiar with ScreamTracker and ImpulseTracker from
| the MSDOS days, a cross-platform IT clone SchismTracker is still
| maintained and relatively recently transitioned from SDL1.2 to
| SDL2:
|
| https://github.com/schismtracker/schismtracker
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Try opening this file with it
|
| https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu...
| pmoriarty wrote:
| If you're interested in seeing a modern, full-featured tracker,
| check out Renoise.[1]
|
| [1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renoise
| fb03 wrote:
| I own Renoise and have played around with it for the last 12
| years, and I can attest that it is better than sliced bread.
|
| I've done this with it:
| https://soundcloud.com/flipbit03/twothousandseventeen-feat-m...
| epiccoleman wrote:
| That is really cool, thanks for sharing! I really like the
| intro guitar riff trill thing.
| can16358p wrote:
| As an astrophotographer I was 100% sure I was about to discover a
| milky-way tracker software until I opened the link :)
| enobrev wrote:
| As just some random person, I was about 98.7% sure this was
| going to be milky-way tracker software.
| abrugsch wrote:
| As an Amiga fanboi I was 99% sure this was going to be a mod-
| type music player in the vein of MED/OctaMED, Sound Tracker
| etc. Then I remembered hearing about Milky tracker a long
| while back and was then 100% sure ;)
| moondowner wrote:
| I always wondered, why are these called trackers? It's tracking
| the notes from a file?
| bityard wrote:
| I can't say much about the early history, but trackers have a
| unique UI compared to other DAW software. Instead of a staff or
| piano-roll, the tracker UI looks more like a spreadsheet, with
| each column being a channel, each row being a step, and each
| cell containing a note or effect.
|
| This representation meshed well with early demoscene music
| storage and code, and evolved into its own subculture in the
| late 80's and early 90's.
|
| See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_tracker
| daneel_w wrote:
| The term probably arose from the naming, starting with the very
| first one: Soundtracker (1987) on the Amiga, obviously a play
| on the word _soundtrack_. From there we got Noisetracker,
| Startrekker, Protracker, Fasttracker (MS-DOS) and so on.
| ValentinPearce wrote:
| I think Ahoy answers the question in this video [1]. I'm not
| sure and I'm watching it again to check
|
| EDIT : Wikipedia says the first one was called Ultimate
| Soundtracker so probably from that
|
| [1] Trackers: The Sound of 16-Bit :
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roBkg-iPrbw
| gcr wrote:
| The original was "Ultimate Soundtracker," and it was so
| influential that derivatives often named themselves ___tracker
| (noisetracker, screamtracker, impulsetracker)
|
| Ahoy on YouTube has a great video about tracker music,
| https://youtu.be/roBkg-iPrbw
| kqr wrote:
| Or because you use it to make soundtracks.
| orangepurple wrote:
| I love the extremely high information density. I abhor the vast
| wasted space on most modern UIs.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I agree but its hard to read on mobile. Very small, lots of
| wasted space.
| vpaulus wrote:
| I believe @orangepurple was talking about the app UI, not the
| website
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Ah, I suppose you are right. The text content is pretty
| dense on the site which definitely reminds me more of 90's
| era web, which is what I thought he was talking about.
| spellbaker wrote:
| [dead]
| ssharp wrote:
| I have very fond memories of starting my music journey with
| trackers back in the 90's, but moving Scream/Impulse Tracker to
| Fruity Loops (as it was called at the time) was such a massive
| level up in terms of functionality and usability.
| freeCandy wrote:
| Are there any resources for an absolute newbie to learn music
| production from? I really want to get into it but the dense UIs
| are intimidating and there doesn't seem to be a simple easy
| starting point.
|
| Are video tutorials the way to go? Or should I start with music
| theory first? I checked out some videos but they seem to assume
| some music theory knowledge but I'm not sure if that's needed if
| all I want to do is make chiptune music.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| some renoise tutorials will probably give you an idea whether
| you dig it enough to learn music composition
| Luctct wrote:
| Good news: you don't need music theory and I don't even
| recommend it. Bad news: it takes a lot of work to make one
| song. A lot.
|
| I suggest you download Caustic for Windows (free, also runs on
| Linux with Wine) or Android ($10 I think):
| https://singlecellsoftware.com/
|
| And just fiddle with it. You will get the hang of it. But you
| will see that building up an entire song takes a lot of time
| and effort.
|
| Caustic is not good enough for serious business. You should aim
| for a DAW with plugins. But Caustic can be a very good start
| for someone who knows nothing. Some DAWs are easier than
| others. Tracktion Waveform has a very capable free version.
| Mulab also has a free version but with limitations.
|
| The story people are commenting here is about a "tracker" type
| of DAW. I find those horribly difficult to use. I suggest you
| avoid them.
| schemescape wrote:
| Coming from my perspective of having a basic understanding of
| major/minor scales and being able to name the notes on a piano
| keyboard, here's what worked for me:
|
| I chose a free DAW and limited myself to the built-in
| instruments, then I tried to recreate a song I liked from
| memory.
|
| My memory and skill was bad enough that the result was nearly
| 100% different, but sounded good enough to me.
|
| I just started with some percussion, then added a bass line,
| then added some melody on top, and finally played around with
| arranging it.
|
| It took a lot of time, but was pretty fun. I hope to go back
| and learn how to make the song sound good outside of headphones
| someday!
| epiccoleman wrote:
| Learning music theory is a lot like learning programming (or
| really anything) in that you can't just frontload the "theory"
| and then hope to use it. Music theory is important in the sense
| that it helps you put a name to sounds you like, but it's much
| _less_ useful as a set of guiderails for composition.
|
| That said, it's still _sort of_ useful in that sense,
| especially when you're getting started. My advice is to get
| only the very basics into your mind, and then as you start to
| branch out, learn what you need as you go. And don't be afraid
| to break the "rules" - most of the coolest stuff you will hear
| is stuff that upends some convention, and draws your interest
| by subverting your expectation.
|
| I think that the best introduction to music theory that you can
| use to help get you rolling is to learn the concept of the
| major scale and how to use it to build the diatonic chords of
| any given key. Signals Music Studio is a really great channel
| for this, and I would recommend his intro video on the diatonic
| chords and chord progressions to anyone who's interested in
| learning more about music theory:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8eItITv8QA
|
| After this, you could try programming some of those chords into
| a simple tool like Google's "Song Maker" toy, and play with the
| basic ideas. This is maybe the lowest friction way to "play
| with music" that I can think of.
|
| https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Song-Maker/
|
| Here is an example where I just programmed a really basic chord
| progression (Cmaj, Fmaj, Amin, Gmaj):
| https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Song-Maker/song/52866...
|
| Here's an example with the same progression, but with a little
| more interesting arrangement. I threw this together in just a
| few minutes. Nothing revolutionary, but fun to do! Most of this
| was not done with any theory in mind besides knowing which
| notes belonged in each chord of the progression. I also just
| drew random shit at certain points, and fiddled with it until I
| liked it. https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Song-
| Maker/song/49767...
|
| If you find that you enjoy this kind of workflow, trackers are
| somewhat similar. You can also go a long way just hand-entering
| notes into the piano roll in GarageBand or whatever other DAW
| (Bandlab is a pretty cool online one that is fairly easy to get
| started with). Once you feel like keyboard/mouse entry of notes
| is limited, grab a cheap MIDI controller (i.e. a piano shaped
| computer peripheral for entering MIDI data) and go to town. You
| can go very far without ever buying any gear or software.
|
| Above all, just be willing to experiment, play, have fun. And
| cram as much music as you can into your head. If you like
| something you hear, try to work out what it was that made it
| cool. See if you can ape that sound, steal it, twist it, etc.
| There's endless fun to be had in this pursuit and it doesn't
| take much to get started.
|
| Lastly I just want to emphasize once more that music theory is
| a descriptive language, whose main use is to help you put names
| to sounds you like. I found this thing that Bill Wurtz (music
| youtuber) wrote to be a really great perspective on the use of
| theory and also a good example of how the game is not to "learn
| the rules" but rather to find stuff you like and pull it apart
| to see how it ticks:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/comments/8n7w5k/comment...
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(page generated 2023-08-10 23:02 UTC)