![]() And because hackers and trackers have worked together symbiotically from the beginning, the software encourages tweaking and open-source code most trackers are made and modded by small crack teams and given away free via message boards and torrents. ![]() They read information up and down rather than side-to-side horizontally, ditching the “piano roll” view that became the standard for most sequencers, and the way you work within them – entering hexidecimal values on a grid rather than dragging and dropping – hews closer to computer programming than recording. While most music software is obsessed with becoming ever more intuitive, powerful and better looking, trackers still act very similarly to the way they did in the 80s. While Ableton and Logic have become the popular kids in music production class, trackers remain the punks in the back of the room flipping off the teacher. However, the tracker survived and carved out a niche of its own.” “As computer performance increased, and PC and Mac became the dominant platforms, graphically-oriented sequencers featuring piano roll interfaces more or less took over. “Trackers reached the height of their popularity in the early 90s when the Amiga and the Atari ST were the main computers of choice for electronic music producers,” explains Erik Jalevik, a software developer for Renoise, one of the most powerful and developed tracker programs. It was designed by Karsten Obarski, a German engineer who became a cult hero for the astoundingly evocative soundtracks he composed to Amiga games like Rally Master, Amegas and Crystal Hammer. Tracker software goes back to the early days of computers - the first tracker, Ultimate Soundtracker, was released in 1987 for the Commodore Amiga. As data scrolls up and down the screen, it passes over the numbers you’ve entered, making finely-chopped breaks or haunting 8-bit melodies out of your cursor placements. Commands like sliding the pitch up or cutting don’t live in a menu bar they’re represented by entering the letters U and C, respectively. You enter a numerical value that specifies how far you want to tweak: 7 might be a little, 30 might be a lot. Want to delay a sample? There’s no knob or fader here. If you want to play a C note in the fifth octave, you don’t hit a MIDI keyboard instead you enter “C#5” where you want the note to play in the pattern. They operate far more on key commands than mouse moves, with everything from notes to effects denoted by a hexidecimal value rather than a button or a graphic. Or maybe I need another coffee.In the drag-and-drop era, trackers look especially trippy. An inconsistent measure, repeated, is consistent. This is what I mean by being intentionally inconsistent – but then again, this repeats every measure there’s drums, so the repetition adds to the phrasing, imo. Might be annoying as a dj, but i personally really like the change up instead of just riding the same concept through the end of the track.Īlso, just listen to the drum track in there … the down beat (the ‘1’ of each measure) is pretty well defined, but there’s a bit of swing on the follow up bass kicks, giving it an almost triplet feel. Here’s my example – towards the end, listen around 5.40… there’s a beat concept, then the beat totally flips on itself for a moment (for 8 measures), then goes back to the main concept. Really the question is, how do you want to do it? Is that really what you mean? For typical dnb with a snare on 2 and 4, you’d have a kick on 1 and the ‘and’ of 3 (that is, half way between the 3rd and 4th beat of the measure). So the way I see it ‘9’ would be the first beat of the third measure (2 measures of 4 = 8, plus the first beat of the next measure). That said, being inconsistent can be an artistic interpretation type thing, if that’s what you’re going for.Īlso, not quite certain what you mean by ‘1 and 9’, generally musicians count in 4, for 4/4 music … such as the majority of electronic music. ![]() There’s much to be said about repetition creating larger phrases. Hmm … maybe I’m reading too much into your question but, my. ![]() Is kick placement a big thing in terms of consistancy? Should the kick land in generally the same places each time like in other genres where the kick is usually on the 1 and 9 or whatever or do you just flow with it? I have a question about the production of jungle I was hoping you all could help me with: ![]() I just got jungle warfare vol 1, and Im loving that as well. ![]()
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