Trackers

[dArAzAc]

The only tracker that I'm aware of for Linux is Renoise, but it isn't open source (although affordable and community driven). I'm sure there are many, so lets discuss some open-source Linux-native trackers.

[kaimerra]

I've never understood for sure what is mean by the term Tracker. Is it different from a MIDI sequencer?

[dArAzAc]

A tracker is primarily a sample based sequencer (although most handle midi as well). If you've ever seen What the Future Sounded Like, they use mostly trackers. Trackers handle much differently than most popular DAW's now-days. They have an interesting workflow-- with a vertically scrolling hexadecimal number-based grid.

http://www.renoise.com/ # Remarkable cross-platform community driven proprietary tracker
http://www.milkytracker.net/ # An open-source alternative
http://hunz.bandcamp.com/ # A great example of the potential of trackers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ5jTaXywuM # Some video to understand the basic flow.

I think that it's a very unique and efficient system, although I haven't tried working with lengthy audio files in a tracker. I'm quite partial to it and I'll go so far as to say that prefer them to hydrogen for making realistic drums.

[spm_gl]

My first steps in computer music were:
1. Start a tracker (some DOS-based thingy, can't remember)
2. Spend an hour staring at the interface
3. Close it again

I then resorted to programming Midi on my Atari 512:

Code: Select all

10 Note 67 On
20 Note 78 On
30 Sleep 200 

And so on

[musicbloke]

Oh, yes, my old beauty, there's more trackers than you can shake a stick at...

cheesetracker and soundtracker are open-source and linux-native

Psycle and Buzz are modular (and even host VST) and will work quite happily under wine.

milkytracker, sunvox, and psytexx2 all work beautifully.

how much more choice do you want?

madtracker2 works, but is glitchy.

any questions?

[studio32]

And there is neil-sequencer, fork of Aldrin
http://sites.google.com/site/neilsequencer/home

[dArAzAc]

On the subject of trackers, here's a recent CDM post following a Renoise/Indamixx competition:
[http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/11/2 ... #more-8401]