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1

Software Showcase / SickTracker - an open source Java chiptracker

« on: March 10, 2017, 17:29:35 »

Hi everyone,
The past few months have been interesting for me, to say the least. For a computer science research project I was working on for school, I successfully created my own software synthesis library for Java after some mild research and pulling my hair out. Now my goal is to not only refine the library and add new features (right now it's only basic tone generation, envelope generators, LFO, and sample playback with linear interpolation to change pitch), but develop a tracker that uses my library. I also plan to program some audio effects classes such as reverb, filtering, distortion, etc.

I started out using the Java platform's included libraries (JSwing for GUI, SourceDataLine for audio, etc.) to develop the tracker. That was very stupid of me.
I think the biggest problem I came across was since I'm still a somewhat novice programmer, I think the concept of thread synchronization was hard to grasp. The program obviously required multithreading, and the threads went massively out of sync. Also, audio latency was reaaaallly bad with my pitiful attempt at a software mixer.

So I restarted, this time deciding to use the game library LibGDX to develop the GUI. It's working a lot more smoothly and it looks much nicer so far. One big plus of using LibGDX is audio latency is low, I get to use OpenGL for rendering, and BitmapFonts! I don't have to use FontMetrics anymore to position text correctly. One downside I guess is that I'm learning to use a new library as I program my tracker. Also, I'm not a graphics guy, I'm a programmer and musician, so the interface is kind of minimalist at the moment, and I'm using keyboard shortcuts for input right now like ST3 and IT did instead of mouse controls.

Attached is a teaser screenshot.

2

Look what I made! / Re: Gamestuff!

« on: February 26, 2017, 05:34:24 »

Oh no! Don't tell me the game was discontinued  . Well, I really enjoyed the concept track.

3

Look what I made! / Working on a new LP. Probably coming back to FT2 for a track or two.

« on: February 26, 2017, 05:23:19 »

Hi everyone.

tl;dr I'm making an album with Renoise and I want to get the word out there. I'm also submitting a few my tracks to some demo compos, so look out for them. See the bottom for the link to my LP playlist.

Well. Wow. It's been a while since I've been here to The Mod Archive. I haven't quit tracking though; I use Renoise for every single one of my releases now. My musical style has changed a lot; some would use the word mainstream but I don't like that term because my music is still very reminiscent of my days with FT2. It's a weird, no, SUPER eccentric fusion of all the influences I've gained since I stopped using FT2 and the influences that I had when I still used FT2 (Anvil, Elwood, Bobby Prince, 4mat, Purple Motion, Skaven). Samples though...I only use samples for my drums now, for better or for worse  . VSTs rule everything around me, V.R.E.A.M. Bad pun, I know  .

If you care enough about me to read what direction my musical style is heading in, read the below. Just skip this if you want to hear about the LP.
In the past few years, I've gotten influence from lots of recording artists and non-tracker music (Noisia, Phace, The S.O.S. Band and other various 80s contemporary RnB, Synthwave, Metallica, Megadeth, Wu-Tang Clan, The Prodigy) and video game musicians as well (Manabu Namiki, Yuzo Koshiro, Tim Follin, Jeroen Tel, Chris Huelsbeck, Jun Ishikawa, Shinji Hosoe, Soyo Oka, Michiru Yamane, Michiel van den Bos, Necros, Tomonori Sawada, Naofumi Hataya, Nobuo Uematsu, Intero. The list goes on and on, but you can probably tell that I love playing Japanese produced video games. The Super NES is the greatest console ever created ). I've also discovered new modules that I enjoy the past few years as well, mostly Skaven's stuff and some Amiga modules that I reaaalllly enjoy, two being Jungleism and Addiction.

About the LP though.

The past few years, I went through a lot of crap and produced a lot of, well, crap. I was moving up along the steep learning curve of using a modern DAW with the modern software synthesis instruments known as VSTs. Mixing and mastering music was something I didn't really start to get right until this year in fact, which is why I'm finally producing my first EP and LP. School kept me from composing and producing music as often as I used to, as well as the fact that I began to fall in love with coding and computer science. I started to code more and produce music less. Now my right brain is taking over again, and I've started to write music, poetry, and some sci-fi short stories once again. Who says I can't be a talented coder AND a talented musician? 

I've experimented with genre after genre, and finally decided that Synthpop/Synthwave, Techno, and Neurofunk/DnB are the three genres I enjoy producing the most.

I'm releasing all the tracks one by one as I finish them on SoundCloud and Newgrounds, but you won't be able to download them until I'm finished with the entire album. I also need to redo the mixing and mastering for some of the tracks, as, like I said, it's taken up until now for me to finally learn how to mix and master properly. You should see my DSP chains in Renoise, ugh  . I refuse to let my tracks go over 0 dB though. Just turn my crap up if you want to hear it better .

And I may open up FT2 again to release another module or two for this album, haha. Don't count on it though, you're dealing with one of the laziest musicians of all time. I was lazy even when I had to repeatedly type "3xx" to do a portamento to a note. Now my VSTs have a setting for note portamento/legato and I'm still lazy.   

I would prefer if I could get some label to distribute my album, but I'm still not good enough. The experience will come with time though.

Link to single releases:
https://soundcloud.com/exodus-6/sets/emancipation

4

Look what I made! / Re: ModTomIT - Single Sample EP

« on: May 15, 2014, 15:46:13 »

How long have you been composing?

5

Look what I made! / Tracking Some Turrican II MODs...

« on: May 15, 2014, 01:37:26 »

This isn't really me asking for help anything... but since I don't have a lot of homework because of finals, I've decided to track a few of the Turrican II tunes (the ones I like the most) as MODs, using the original samples from them (don't worry, I'm studying for my exams! ) I'm using 8-channel MODs for the 7-channel TFMX tunes, and 4-channel MODs for the 4-channel TFMX tunes.

The point of this small project is to better my tracking skills and also to see how close I can get to the original tunes. Also, for anyone who likes remixing tunes and stuff, you can open the MODs and see the patterns and stuff. I'm not sure whether the samples in the tunes are copyrighted, so I don't know whether or not they can be ripped legally...
 
I'm working on a bunch of other musix right now, but that's OK because I plan on finishing all of them. Tracking these tunes as MODs has been very fun, and for the title, I've gotten super close to the original TFMX!

Below, I've posted a preview of the title (I'm nowhere near finished with this, or the project). I'm not doing this MOD in order -- I'm doing my favorite parts first, and then going back and adding the missing parts. The finished song will have all the patterns and stuff intact, no worries!

6

Tracking / Re: Tempo problems...

« on: May 14, 2014, 19:03:15 »

Also, if I'm not mistaken, Vince DiCola used the Fairlight CMI for most of his works back then. I'm wondering if the CMI had BPM issues...but that's off topic   

7

Tracking / Re: Tempo problems...

« on: May 14, 2014, 19:01:24 »

Tracker tempo (at least the "classic" tempo mode used in MOD,S3M,XM,IT..) doesn't produce whole numbers either, due to how the tempo is defined internally. Tempo isn't equal to "BPM". You can use OpenMPT () to calculate the "real" BPM value if you need to know the exact BPM. Only a few selected tempo values (such as 125 and 150) are whole number BPMs. A tempo of 100 would be around 100.04537 BPM, for example.

I think I have heard this before...I read somewhere that it was a clock problem or something.
So you mean that it would be possible to achieve a mixed number BPM using normal methods? Well, I guess I'll download and install OpenMPT once I get home so I can obtain the actual BPM...

8

Tracking / Re: Tempo problems...

« on: May 14, 2014, 13:48:24 »

Or you could 1) live with the fact that musicians are humans and not keeping their rhythm 100% at all times and just do the same in your module (as long as the tempo difference isn't too big, noone will notice) or 2) make a remix made with your own materials instead of sampled stuff.

Yeah, I intend on using my own materials for this remix.
So the solution to this is to just round the BPM to the nearest whole number?
I think I can find the intended BPM manually (count the time it takes for four beats and multiply by 25).

9

Tracking / Re: Tempo problems...

« on: May 12, 2014, 14:45:23 »

Instead of trying to achieve something impossible (accurate BPM with traditional tracker means), you could instead slightly pitch the samples up and down to fit into "regular" tracker BPM.
Using alternating Fxx commands will result in a swing rhythm, and not necessarily in a different tempo.

Agghhh...so I can just try to get the BPM as close as possible...or use Renoise.

10

Tracking / Tempo problems...

« on: May 12, 2014, 05:08:48 »

So anyway, I'm trying to remix Escape by Vince DiCola with my samples and synths and stuff. But I'm having a hard time determining the tempo. I used Mixxx (DJ Software) to calculate the BPM, but as I was playing the song, I noticed something very important: the tempo is not entirely constant!

I read somewhere that songs composed in the 80s and before didn't always have a constant BPM. Therefore, if it's possible I need a way to determine how the BPM fluctuates so I can "emulate" the BPM change using the Fxx (speed/tempo commands).
Here's what I mean:

Code: [Select]

01 --- F??
02 --- F??
03 --- F??
04 --- F??
05 --- F??
06 --- F??
07 --- F??
08 --- F??
09 --- F??


Each nth line can have a different Fxx, causing the tempo to change every nth line, "emulating" the tempo fluctuation of the song. If that's too hard, the tempo was spit out as 73.73 BPM by Mixxx, which I can't input into FastTracker II, so is there some way I could use the Fxx command to make a song with a tempo of 73.73 (no, I don't want to use OpenMPT ). If this is too hard, I can just use Renoise...