WHAT'S A TRACKER
(Lesson 1)
Easy question, very tough answer. I will try using as many examples as possible and to make everything easier, otherwise I really think we won't make out of it alive.... :)
Good. Do you have in mind a Pentagram notation?
___
/ \ _ _ _ _
|-|---|--|-------------_----|----------|----------|----------|----||
|--\-/---|_|_---------|-----|------_---|------_---|------_---|----||
|--/\------|----------|----0------|---0------|---0------|---0-----||
|-/-|_---|-----------0|-----------|----------|----------|---------||
|-| / |--|_|_--------0-----------0----------0----------0----------||
\_/ |
E/G B E B E B E B
(fig - 1)
Ok. So now hit it a little on a side so that it's almost upside down... what? you see a violin key upside down? no. damn, you hit too much... :) You need to imagine a vertical pentagram... hmm... so you have to read notes top to bottom, and not left to right, and each one of them will be placed on its own "channel" (remember this term...) and not together with the other notes as happened in the pentagram.
So here is what it would look to your eyes a standard 4 tracks tracker:
00 | E-2 10.C40|| --- 00.000|| G+3 05.C20|| --- 00.000|
01 | --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|
02 | --- 00.000|| B-3 14.C20|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|
03 | --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|
04 | E-2 10.C40|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|
05 | --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|
06 | --- 00.000|| B-3 16.C10|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|
07 | --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|
08 | E-2 10.C40|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|
09 | --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|
10 | --- 00.000|| B-3 14.C20|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|
11 | --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|
12 | E-2 10.C40|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|
13 | --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|
14 | --- 00.000|| B-3 16.C10|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|
15 | --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|| --- 00.000|
..
(fig - 2)
This is (to let you learn a bit of terms) a Pattern, a page that together with the others, put in Sequence, forms a musical Module.
A module Sequence can be, for instance, composed by 7 patterns:
Pos1 - Pattern1 .. Introduction
Pos2 - Pattern5 .. Initial Part
Pos3 - Pattern4 .. First Part
Pos4 - Pattern3 .. Chorus
Pos5 - Pattern4 .. First Part
Pos6 - Pattern3 .. Chorus
Pos7 - Pattern2 .. Final Part
As you can see it's not necessary to have patterns used in sequence (which means that Pattern 1 doens't have to be *strictly* played first, Pattern 2 played second and so on...). The important thing is to sort them in the right order into the Sequencing menu. And in this pretty easy way you can swap parts of a song, for example, to let "First Part" be played before "Initial Part", just swapping position 2 with position 3. Also if you want to play "Chorus" after the "Final Part", you just need to add this row...
Pos8 - Pattern3 .. Chorus
... in the Sequencing menu... obviously!
Before going on we need to clearify the fact that all the trackers use "American" notation instead of the latin Doo, Ree, Miiiiii (ouch! missed right note!). But this is easier knowing that "C" stands for "Do", this anyway is the table:
C = Do
D = Re
E = Mi
F = Fa
G = Sol
A = La
B = Si
The most difficoult part can probably be the space/time differentiation between the "tracker" as opposed to the classical "pentagram". Don't worry, don't worry, don't be staring at me like that... I'm just gonna explain you:
In the classical method note lenght is expressed by the symbol:
| O| - two/quarters note O - four/quarters note
... and so on, but on a tracker you just write the note and nothing else. It's duration depends on how much space there is between the note itself and the next one... No worries, here's an example:
00 | E-2 10.C40| 01 | --- 00.000| 02 | --- 00.000| 03 | --- 00.000| 04 | E-2 10.C40|
In this case note lasts four lines, which is an absolute value.
And now how do I know if these 4 lines last 4 seconds or 40 ?! Correct question. And the rules are the same as the pentagram ones, a 4/4 bar will last more or less, depending on base tempo defined at the beginning, example:
Allegro
___
/ \ _ _ _ _
|-|---|--|-------------_----|----------|----------|----------|----||
|--\-/---|_|_---------|-----|------_---|------_---|------_---|----||
|--/\------|----------|----0------|---0------|---0------|---0-----||
|-/-|_---|-----------0|-----------|----------|----------|---------||
|-| / |--|_|_--------0-----------0----------0----------0----------||
\_/ |
E/G B E B E B E B
A bar like this
(note base tempo ALLEGRO) could last about two seconds.
Surely in this song...
Lento
___
/ \ _ _ _ _
|-|---|--|-------------_----|----------|----------|----------|----||
|--\-/---|_|_---------|-----|------_---|------_---|------_---|----||
|--/\------|----------|----0------|---0------|---0------|---0-----||
|-/-|_---|-----------0|-----------|----------|----------|---------||
|-| / |--|_|_--------0-----------0----------0----------0----------||
\_/ |
E/G B E B E B E B
... bar duration could last for at least 4 seconds.
So we can declare
that "base tempo" is like a scan speed at which a song gets read/played.
A Pentagram gets read left to right, a tracker top to bottom. Ok?
Good. Scan speed then exist in trackers aswell. It's called SPEED
Let's get back
to describing what all those numbers in a tracker page are. (Fig2)
So... the number on the side of the note stats the played octave
(for example C-2 = Second octave C)
On a standard PC tracker there is a usable range of 7 octaves.
We can then give a meaning to that column (on notes side) full of zeroes):
C-2 10.000
First two digits are used to distinguish the selected instrument, which is the one which gets used to play the note (C-2). In this case we will listen a (second octave) C played by instrument 10 (which could be, for example, a piano)
C-2 10.C20
The last three digits define the effect to be applied on the instrument while playes the C-2 note. If you leave that to 000 the sound of the instrument will remain the original. In our case we instead used the "C" effect which acts on the volume. The last two digits define the "intensity" of the selected effect. For example with C20 the note will be played exactly with the half of the original volume (which is 40). So if we write C-2 10.C40 or C-2 10.C00 we won't hear any difference in the sound.
Are you with me now? Let's hope so... remember that for any clarification you can contact me here
Good, let's go on.
Let's give examples of
well diffused trackers. Protracker, for instance.
This has been created in the end of '80s on Amiga, to fill a series
of trackers, more or less powerful, more or less easy to use... Surely
the first release of Protracker (and its evolution in the next releases)
shook the uprising home computer music.
Protracker indeed "monopolized" Amiga music with a bit of time,
and since '90-'91 fiercefully entered PC world... Programs like
Scream Tracker and, even more than it, FastTracker2 (if you want to learn
something more on it I suggest you to click here)
are nothing but "evolved clones" of the mythical Protracker, with more
channels and sometimes better quality (as in the case of FastTracker2
where you can even have 32 stereo 16bit channels!)
We can't avoid to remember that Scene (relatively to music) owns "everything" to the invention of this historical program (although the base original idea was developed around the time of the mythical C-64)
Okay, this short note was a must....
Perfect, now all you have to do is grab a tracker in order to compose and some instrument to start playing.
Wish you good job... and watch out for your neighboors.