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A music tracker (short version tracker) is a type of music sequencer software for creating music. The music is represented as discrete musical notes positioned in several channels at discrete chronological positions on a vertical timeline. The file format used for saving songs is called a module file.
Contents
- 1987 origins on the Amiga
- 1990s MS DOS PC versions
- 2000s Multiple platforms
- 2010s Current state
- Terminology
- Use in professional music
- Interpreted platforms
- Atari ST STE Falcon
- Amiga
- DOS
- Other operating systems
- References
A music tracker's user interface is usually number based. Notes, parameter changes, effects and other commands are entered with the keyboard into a grid of fixed time slots as codes consisting of letters, numbers and hexadecimal digits. Separate patterns have independent timelines; a complete song consists of a master list of repeated patterns.
Later trackers departed from solely using module files, adding other options both to the sound synthesis (hosting generic synthesizers and effects or MIDI output) and to the sequencing (MIDI input and recording), effectively becoming general purpose sequencers with a different user interface.
Music trackers like DefleMask and Famitracker are commonly used to make chiptunes.
1987: origins on the Amiga
The term tracker derives from Ultimate Soundtracker; the first tracker software. Ultimate Soundtracker was written by Karsten Obarski and released in 1987 by EAS Computer Technik for the Commodore Amiga. Ultimate Soundtracker was a commercial product, but soon shareware clones such as NoiseTracker appeared as well. The general concept of step-sequencing samples numerically, as used in trackers, is also found in the Fairlight CMI sampling workstation of the early 1980s. Some early tracker-like programs appeared for the Commodore 64, before 1987, such as Sound Monitor, but these did not feature sample playback, instead playing notes on the computer's internal synthesizer. Later, in Rock Monitor 3 and 4 they implemented sample player, usually with short drum samples loaded in RAM memory.
The first trackers supported four pitch and volume modulated channels of 8-bit PCM samples, a limitation derived from the Amiga's Paula audio chipset and the commonplace 8SVX format used to store sampled sound. However, since the notes were samples, the limitation was less important than those of synthesizing music chips.
1990s: MS-DOS PC versions
During the 1990s, tracker musicians gravitated to the PC as software production in general switched from the Amiga platform to the PC. Although the IBM and compatibles initially lacked the hardware sound processing capabilities of the Amiga, with the advent of the Sound Blaster line from Creative, PC audio slowly began to approach CD Quality (44.1 kHz/16 bit/Stereo) with the release of the SoundBlaster 16.
Another sound card popular on the PC tracker scene was the Gravis Ultrasound, which continued the hardware mixing tradition, with 32 internal channels and onboard memory for sample storage. For a time, it offered unparalleled sound quality and became the choice of discerning tracker musicians. Understanding that the support of tracker music would benefit sales, Gravis gave away some 6000 GUS cards to participants. Coupled with excellent developer documentation, this gesture quickly prompted the GUS to become an integral component of many tracking programs and software. Inevitably, the balance was largely redressed with the introduction of the Sound Blaster AWE32 and its successors, which also featured on-board RAM and wavetable (or sample table) mixing.
The responsibility for audio mixing passed from hardware to software (the main CPU), which gradually enabled the use of more and more channels. From the typical 4 MOD channels of the Amiga, the limit had moved to 7 with TFMX players and 8, first with Oktalyzer and later with the vastly more popular OctaMED (all Amiga programs), then 32 with ScreamTracker 3 and FastTracker 2 on the PC and on to 64 with Impulse Tracker (PC) and MED SoundStudio (Amiga and later PC). An Amiga tracker called Symphonie Pro even supported 256 channels.
As such, hardware mixing did not last. As processors got faster and acquired special multimedia processing abilities (e.g. MMX) and companies began to push Hardware Abstraction Layers, like DirectX, the AWE and GUS range became obsolete. DirectX, WDM and, now more commonly, ASIO, deliver high-quality sampled audio irrespective of hardware brand.
There was also a split off from the sample based trackers taking advantage of the OPL2/OPL3 chips of the Sound Blaster series. Adlib Tracker II and many others survive to this day. All Sound Tracker was able to combine both the FM synthesis of the OPL chips and the sample based synthesis of the EMU-8000 chips in the Sound Blaster AWE series of cards as well as MIDI output to any additional hardware of choice.
2000s: Multiple platforms
Tracker music could be found in computer games of the late 1990s and early 2000s, such as the Unreal series, Deus Ex, Jazz Jackrabbit and Hitman: Codename 47. Tracker software continues to develop. Some of the early Amiga trackers such as ProTracker and OctaMED have received various updates, mostly for porting to other platforms. ProTracker having resumed development in 2004, with plans for releasing version 5 to Windows and AmigaOS, but only version 4.0 beta 2 for AmigaOS has been released. Other cross-platform trackers include Renoise, MilkyTracker and SunVox.
Buzz, ModPlug Tracker, Renoise, Psycle, and others offer features undreamed-of back in the day (improved signal-to-noise ratios, automation, VST support, internal DSPs and multi-effects, multi I/O cards support etc.).
In 2005, FamiTracker, a tracker for the NES and Famicom, was officially released. As of version 0.5 beta, it is so far the only tracker for the system with full expansion audio support including the Sunsoft 5B.
During 2007, Renoise and Modplug Tracker (OpenMPT) were presented in Computer Music Magazine as professional and inexpensive alternative to other music production software.
2010s: Current state
Jeskola Buzz Modular is being regularly updated as of September 2012.
As of 2010, Modplug Tracker (OpenMPT) and Renoise are probably the most actively developed tracker and the most long-living project of this kind, started in 1997 and 2000, respectively.
In 2011, DefleMask was released. It is a multi-system chipmusic tracker, supporting SEGA Genesis, SEGA Master System, Nintendo Game Boy, YAMAHA's SMAF, among other systems, developed by Delek.
In June 2011, an on-line software synthesizer-based tracker called Sonant Live was released. It is different from other trackers in that it runs completely in a web browser.
Adlib Tracker II has been steadily updated since the late 1990s and has become open source on the Google Code in 2012. In January 2015, Adlib Tracker II released its most robust update to date with many new features to control the FM synthesizer chip.
In September 2014, 0CC-FamiTracker was released, a fork of FamiTracker built upon the original FamiTracker 0.4.2 source.
Terminology
There are several elements common to any tracker program: samples, notes, effects, tracks (or channels), patterns, and orders.
A sample is a small digital sound file of an instrument, voice, or other sound effect. Most trackers allow a part of the sample to be looped, simulating a sustain of a note.
A note designates the frequency at which the sample is played back. By increasing or decreasing the playback speed of a digital sample, the pitch is raised or lowered, simulating instrumental notes (e.g. C, C#, D, etc.).
An effect is a special function applied to a particular note. These effects are then applied during playback through either hardware or software. Common tracker effects include volume, portamento, vibrato, retrigger, and arpeggio.
A track (or channel) is a space where one sample is played back at a time. Whereas the original Amiga trackers only provided four tracks, the hardware limit, modern trackers can mix a virtually unlimited number of channels into one sound stream through software mixing. Tracks have a fixed number of "rows" on which notes and effects can be placed (most trackers lay out tracks in a vertical fashion). Tracks typically contain 64 rows and 16 beats, although the beats and tempo can be increased or decreased to the composer's taste.
A basic drum set could thus be arranged by putting a bass drum at rows 0, 4, 8, 12 etc. of one track and putting some hihat at rows 2, 6, 10, 14 etc. of a second track. Of course bass and hats could be interleaved on the same track, if the samples are short enough. If not, the previous sample is usually stopped when the next one begins. Some modern trackers simulate polyphony in a single track by setting the "new note action" of each instrument to cut, continue, fade out, or release, opening new mixing channels as necessary.
A pattern is a group of simultaneously played tracks that represents a full section of the song. A pattern usually represents an even number of measures of music composition.
An order is part of a sequence of patterns which defines the layout of a song. Patterns can be repeated across multiple orders to save tracking time and file space.
There are also some tracker-like programs that utilize tracker-style sequencing schemes, while using real-time sound synthesis instead of samples. Many of these programs are designed for creating music for a particular synthesizer chip such as the OPL chips of the Adlib and SoundBlaster sound cards, or the sound chips of classic home computers.
Tracker music is typically stored in module files where the song data and samples are encapsulated in a single file. Several module file formats are supported by popular music player programs such as Winamp or XMMS. Well-known formats include MOD, MED, S3M, XM and IT.
Use in professional music
The hardcore techno scene has had many releases originally written using trackers and released on CD and vinyl. Notable artists include Nasenbluten, Noisekick, Neophyte and Deadmau5.
Also in video game soundtracks tracker music was used by notable artists as Andrew Sega, Alexander Brandon, Dan Gardopée and Peter Hajba.
Interpreted platforms
These trackers run in virtual machines, such as Java.
Atari ST / STE / Falcon
Amiga
DOS
Other operating systems
Allows users to create music for one system on another. Usually uses emulation to produce sound, some of trackers also can use real sound chips connected to host system.
2003, Mrs. Brisby, Storlek et al. - GPL licensed for Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD, Wii, Pandora (console) (and further platforms with GCC4 and SDL support). Based like the OpenMPT on ModPlug source code, but with focus on look and feel and compatibility to the Impulse Tracker.