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[UberBobby]

Hello!  

I'm completely new to tracking, but I LURVE chiptunes, they really bring me back to the glory days of the Amiga, NES, Sega Master System, and Genesis!  

I've had some experience writing a few MIDI tunes, but I've never tracked before.  It's a very different beast from MIDI composing, but it looks/sounds FAR more exciting to me!  I'm currently using a free tracker called ModPlug, so far it seems ok, but there are a few basic controls that are a little frustrating.  I'm very interested, once I've developed some composing chops, and written a piece of music that doesn't sound like the horrid baying of hellwolves, in doing some videogame work!

I've been looking at some of the highly rated pieces (DEADLOCK, Celestial Fantasia, plus some stuff by Radix), for some ideas, but had a few questions:

1)  Are there any good sets of free samples online?  I used Saga-Music's vChip program to create my own Triangle, Square, and Sine wave samples, but is there anywhere I can get some good drum and bass sounds?  I'm using stuff from the mods I've downloaded just for learning purposes, but I wouldn't want to use them forever, and not without permission.  I've also got a Roland Sound Canvas MIDI card that I tried recording a few samples off of, but it didn't sound quite right (didn't have that 'chippy' feel to it).

2)  Are there any good tutorials out there, too?  

3)  Are there any general guidelines on what sort of sounds are better for different purposes (i.e, are Triangle waves better for melody, Square for harmonies, or does one sound better at certain octaves than the other?)

Glad to be part of the community!  Can't wait to get some stuff written up and out there!  

-UberBobby

[barryvan]

Hiya UberBobby!

I'm also a Modplug (OpenMPT) user. You should head over to the Modplug forums -- you can download the latest version of OpenMPT, and ask questions from people who use it all the time. There's a link to a great tutorial written by LPChip on the Modplug wiki there, as well, but I'll include it here for convenience.

http://lpchip.com/modplug/viewtopic.php?t=1994

You will want to stay here at TMA, though, particularly for download MODs. Most of the people at Modplug (myself included) use a lot of plugins etc. which means that we tend to distribute music as MP3s or OGGs, which isn't that great for learning from.

Enjoy your stay, and enjoy tracking!

[Saga Musix]

as barry said, feel free to post questions about modplug in our forums at modplug central.

about samples... you can try either some sample sets from my site (see signature) or download the Waveworld torrents (fully legal, of course) from http://tracker.modarchive.org/

have a nice stay

[MyOwn31]

for creating samples, i'd recommend Organator made by Tangerine^SandS.
http://scene.org/file.php?file=/mirrors/hornet/music/programs/samplers/trx-or2b.zip&fileinfo
there are a few examples and a good manual inside.
program has got even its own sequencer btw)

[UberBobby]

Awesome, thanks guys!  I'm downloading the torrent, and have started fiddling around with Orangator, looks like a really cool program.   

Now I've got all these tools, gotta get something out   Had a melody all figured out earlier today at work, and now it's gone.

I've got a dummy question.  Is it possible to do a proper triplet in a MOD tracker?  Everthing I've listened to so far appears to be in 4/4 time, nothing in 6/8.  It looks like even the mods are set up only for increments of 2 (64 rows per pattern doesn't divide nicely by 3's). 

[Saga Musix]

well, there are many many ways. for example, why not resize your pattern to 48 rows (works in IT/XM format) or break to the next pattern at row 47 (for MOD/S3M)?

[barryvan]

In OpenMPT, you can even change the highlighting of the rows to make it easier. You can write stuff in just about any time signature you want that way.

As to triplets -- well, they're a slightly different kettle of fish. Say your crotchet (quarter note) lasts four rows. That means that two quavers (eighth notes) fit nicely (two rows each). Three quavers, however, don't fit as nicely -- they take 1.333 rows each. There are a few ways that people use to get triplets, though:

1. Use the note delay effect (in IT, SDx). This isn't that precise, but it gets pretty close. It's the method I use and recommend, especially if you work in nice large groups (personally, I always have eight rows per crotchet.)
2. Change the tempo (or speed) for a while, then change it back. In other words, increase the speed by 133% for the duration of your triplet, which will 'look' like normal quavers, and then change it back afterwards. This has the drawback that everything in the pattern will be sped up.
3. What most people seem to do is to use dotted notes, rather than triplets. In other words, instead of having three quavers as a triplet, they have two dotted semiquavers and a semiquaver. In terms of rows, this means that in eight rows of crotchet, notes would be on rows 1, 4, and 7 (indexing from 1).

Hopefully I haven't expressed myself too unclearly... Let me know if I have.

[m0d]

mmmmmmm quavers



Welcome to the community, enjoy the quavers.


As for triplet stuff, I composed a couple or so AHX tunes which are in 3/4 time sig.

Because they're a a strange format, which unless you have a degree in pocket science [sic] you can enjoy the MP3 render of one here:

http://m0d.untergrund.net/music/mp3/m0d_-_strangers_pie.mp3

AHX version (XMPlay with the AHX plugin will play this plus with the module visualization you can see it playing)  http://m0d.untergrund.net/music/ahx/m0d_-_strangers_pie.ahx


I did it by varying the tempo constantly, in old protracker style commands that would be:


F07
F06
F05
F04
F07
F06
F05
F04
F07
F06
F05
F04
F07
F06
F05
F04
F07
F06
F05
F04
etc...

Of course i might be barking up the wrong tree. I have no idea what triplets are, nor do I want to. I can't read music and the only thing I know about quavers is that they're cheesy. :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D