Tracker

Related Topics:
Trackers :: Tracker

Tracker is the generic term for a class of software music sequencers which, in their purest form, allow the user to arrange sound samples stepwise on a timeline across several monophonic channels. A tracker's interface is primarily numeric; notes are entered via the keyboard, while parameters, effects and so forth are entered in hexadecimal. A complete song consists of several small multi-channel patterns chained together via a master list.

How it works

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 stopped when the next one begins.

A pattern is a group of simultaneously played tracks that represents a full section of the song. A pattern is intended to represent 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 scheme 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. These programs are also often called "trackers" and are listed in this article.

Tracker music is typically stored in so-called module files where the song data and samples are encapsulated in a single file. Several module file formats are still supported by popular music player programs such as Winamp or XMMS. Well-known formats include MOD, S3M, XM and IT.

History

The term tracker derives from Ultimate Soundtracker; the first tracker software. Ultimate Soundtracker was written by Karsten Obarski and released in 1987 by Electronic Arts for the Commodore Amiga. Ultimate Soundtracker was a commercial product, but not much later 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 late 1970s.

The first computer game to feature tracker music was Amegas (1987), an Arkanoid clone for Amiga. The music, which was composed by Obarski, is these days frequently described as being the first MOD ever made and is well known by fans of "old school" computer music.

Although Obarski himself is a German citizen, most early tracker musicians appeared to be from the United Kingdom and Scandinavia. This may be attributable to the close relationship of the tracker to the demoscene, which grew rapidly in Scandinavian countries, and the relative affordability in the UK of computers able to run tracker software. Tracker music became something of an underground punk phenomenon, especially as so much contemporary chart music was then sample-based dance music. Music of this genre was relatively simple to produce with step-based sequencing. It is believed that tracker music served as a training ground for a generation of electronic dance musicians who later rose to prominence using professional sampling and effects equipment.

The popularity of the tracker format may also be attributable to its inclusion of both score data and samples. In the early 90s, the price of wavetable sound cards for personal use was very high, and the expressive capabilities of the cheaper FM-synthesizer sound cards were rather limited. A tracker requires neither of these sound card features.

The first trackers supported only four channels of 8-bit PCM samples, a limitation derived from the Amiga's Paula audio chipset. However, since the notes were samples, the limitation was less important than those of synthesizing music chips. Commodore's SID or General Instruments' venerable AY-3-8912 and Yamaha's compatible YM2149. For example, a process which became a cliche in early pop-rave chart tunes was to sample chords and play them back on a single channel. Rapid chordal stabs, often of fifths, were the hallmark of Altern-8 and other transient techno phenomena. Later tracker software, most famously OctaMED, allowed for eight or more channels, whilst special hardware could allow for 16-bit playback.

Over time, 'tracker music' became something of a term of derision for stereotypically ravey, computer-game-style pop tunes, whilst the difficulty involved in adding 'swing' to a mechanistic sequencing style resulted in much 4/4 music based around strict four-bar sections, often using similar samples. For a tracker song to be instrumental and tuneful, it required distinctive lead voices, of which chimes, pitch-bent guitar tones and rave piano were overused. One tracker addressing these issues is Radium; however, it is debatable whether Radium itself qualifies as a tracker at all.

PC

Over the 1990s, tracker musicians gravitated to the PC, although the platform initially lacked the hardware sound processing capabilities of the Amiga. The most popular sound cards of the time, the Sound Blaster line from Creative offered only limited sound quality, offering only two-channel stereo. Tracker software was thus obliged to perform its own mixing, fitting MOD's 4 channels into one or two output channels. The introduction of ScreamTracker 3, in 1993, with its standardized 16 channel tracking, exacerbated this problem significantly.

These restrictions led in part to the success of the most popular card on the PC tracker scene, the Gravis Ultrasound. The GUS solved the channel mixing problem by offering dedicated digital audio output channels for each track. Since the card supported 32 channels and had onboard RAM for storing samples, the card almost instantly became the tracker's choice, and by consequence that of the demo scene at large. Understanding that the support of the demo scene would benefit sales, Gravis gave away some 6000 GUS cards to its most prominent participants. With the introduction of the GUS, the PC demo scene quickly shifted to widespread (and often exclusive) support for the GUS. Many demos and intros made in the 1990s support only the GUS. This situation did revert in part with the introduction of the Sound Blaster AWE32 and its successors, which also featured on-board RAM and 30-channel wavetable mixing.

Current state

Tracker music lives today. Computer games still use it, notably the Unreal series and its descendants such as Deus Ex. However, the easy availability of software samplers/synthesizers and sequencers, and the advent of the MP3 format has caused most professional musicians to adopt other music software. Nonetheless, tracker software still exists and, in some cases, is still being developed as of 2005. The original Tracker series (Sound/Noise/Pro Tracker) started on the Amiga still lives on the PC with ProTracker version 5 under development since 2004. Buzz, ModPlug Tracker, MadTracker, Renoise, Skale, CheeseTracker, BeRoTracker, and others offer features undreamed-of back in the day (hi-quality output, automation, VST support, internal DSP's and multi-effects, multi I/O cards support etc.). Tracker files have also become popular in the Game Boy Advance community; unlike the original Game Boy, the Game Boy Advance has the processing power to support tracker music, and the quality is vastly superior to the built-in tone generators, while still taking up little space compared to MP3s or other forms of higher-quality audio.

Commodore Amiga | Demoscene | Audio trackers | Music software

How it works

History

PC

Current state

See also

External links

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Tracker

How it works

History

PC

Current state

See also

External links