What exactly is a tracker?

[intel]

I Buzz

[mahtazz]

Me Psycle!!

[pHz]

slainte rob

[Kriminal]

My old fave from the Amiga days, works on PC now, havent tried it tho.



http://www.octamed.co.uk/

[rounser]

I imagine those would kill workflow.

Ironic, because workflow is the number one reason I use Renoise and can't go back to the abstraction of a sequencer (tried to with energyXT's yesterday). And I'm not just saying that to rebut you; you can do a search and find I've posted about how I think that for me it's got a very fast workflow and immediacy that not much else comes close to.

Why? The little things like not needing to switch between apps matter to me; there's no distinction between your sequencer and your sampler and your audio editor, one app on 3 tabs does it all, and lets you reap the rewards of integration (e.g. resampling some sequencing into a new sample slot, then audio edit that, or permanently apply FX to a wav sample, read in mp3s into sample slots and copy and paste bits and pieces for immediate enveloping and sequencing etc.)...and the sample envelopes have to be seen to be believed. It's a samplist's playground, and given that most of dance music is simply throwing them around, enveloping, modulating, effecting and sequencing them, the immediacy of workflow is definitely there IMO.

Then there's the step-sequenceresque advantages of input into the pattern editor...and it's easy to make a lot of noise in a tracker really easily, making it IMO "additive" sequencing rather than "subtractive" sequencing. You can hold down a key and fill the pattern editor with note-ons (on every 4th 16th, say, if you're adding kicks), whereas in a sequencer the same would take a heap of mouse clicks, some event highlighting or a special command. So that's fast too. (Perhaps it's not by accident that there's a more elderly tracker with the name "Fasttracker" out there, for instance...)

After finding out how boring it would really be to do anything musically with a tracker, I gave it up!

That's right, go back to your piano roll, nothing to see here, move along...

[jens]

You can hold down a key and fill the pattern editor with note-ons (on every 4th 16th, say, if you're adding kicks), whereas in a sequencer the same would take a heap of mouse clicks, some event highlighting or a special command.

or you could just press record

[jens]

b.t.w.: I never found out how to record vocals or guitars in Renoise...

[rounser]

or you could just press record

You record rather than program your 4-to-the-floor kicks?

(And just for the record, I can press record too... )

[rounser]

b.t.w.: I never found out how to record vocals or guitars in Renoise...

That's because it's pretty much for making dance music. You want to record a band, use a sequencer. Guitars in Renoise come from a rompler plugin, vox from a sample.

Many of the things that make sequencers cumbersome or feature overkill for making dance music can be traced back to catering for bands, IMO. Thanks for raising that, it's a good point...

[jens]

or you could just press record

You record rather than program your 4-to-the-floor kicks?

(And just for the record, I can press record too... )

first of all: who said that I use '4-to-the-floor-kicks'?

then: I use eXT's composer (or just quickly click them in with the mouse...)

but if I have a somewhat busier groove I indeed play it with my master-keyboard and record it...
- it often grooves better if it isn't 100% perfect on beat

[rounser]

first of all: who said that I use '4-to-the-floor-kicks'?

No-one, but my example referred to it, and it seemed reasonable to assume that you were referring to my example when you replied.

[jens]

b.t.w.: I never found out how to record vocals or guitars in Renoise...

That's because it's pretty much for making dance music. You want to record a band, use a sequencer. Guitars in Renoise come from a rompler plugin, vox from a sample.

Many of the things that make sequencers cumbersome or feature overkill for making dance music can be traced back to catering for bands, IMO. Thanks for raising that, it's a good point...

yes, I can see how a tracker can be useful if you're doing strictly dance-music...

but I love e.g. mixing 4-to-the-floor beats with rock-guitars... I love to break conventions and to mess with genres - therefor trackers currently can't satisfy my needs...

[jens]

first of all: who said that I use '4-to-the-floor-kicks'?

No-one, but my example referred to it, and it seemed reasonable to assume that you were referring to my example when you replied.

you just wrote 'if you're adding kicks'

[rounser]

yes, I can see how a tracker can be useful if you're doing strictly dance-music...

but I love e.g. mixing 4-to-the-floor beats with rock-guitars... I love to break conventions and to mess with genres - therefor trackers currently can't satisfy my needs...

I can't sing or play guitar, but I don't think you need to do either in order to break genre conventions. Sampling alone gives you all the scope in the world to turn genres inside out and create mutant genre hybrids if you want to, IMO.

But for what it's worth, I'm really looking forward to audio in into Renoise (or failing that, rewire)...apparently they're both near the top of the dev's list, maybe we'll get it later this year...along with the piano roll (which will be the only one around which can be completely keyboard operated, apparently).

[cron]

I imagine those would kill workflow.

Ironic, because workflow is the number one reason I use Renoise and can't go back to the abstraction of a sequencer (tried to with energyXT's yesterday). And I'm not just saying that to rebut you; you can do a search and find I've posted about how I think that for me it's got a very fast workflow and immediacy that not much else comes close to.

Gotta agree with you there. Moving up to a VST enabled sequencer from my humble FT2 setup on a 486 was simultaneously the best and worst thing I've ever done. I could often program faster than I could think in FT2. It was pretty much all (QWERTY) keyboard input, and you should see the speed I can type.