tracker

I just received an email directing me to a site

http://www.traxinspace.com

where you can download music from independent artists in different
formats, one called "tracker". I have never heard of the tracker format,
but I listened to the music, and it sounds good. Apparently (and here's
where I will probably screw up) tracker format lets you compose with
waveforms you can choose or build from the ground up and triggers them on
your sound card in a manner similar to MIDI, where the instruction is
"turn on sound number 12 for 2 seconds" "Turn off sound number 12". Is
anyone familiar with this format? This could be really cool. I have
downloaded the ModPlug tracker and am trying to see what it can do.

John Starrett
http://www-math.cudenver.edu/~jstarret

Hi John, I'm a tracker artist, and have been for about 10 years, they are
wonderful peices of software, most of which are free, that work as virtual
samplers. Most modern tracker software (modplug included) has features such
as pitch, cutoff, volume, and panning envelopes (cutoff usually requires MMX).
I compose Microtonal music with Impulse Tracker, Buzz, and ModPlug Tracker.
Although Impulse Tracker is the best as far as the sampler itself go, Buzz has
a nice plugin system called machines, giving various synthesis techniques
(including several different trackers), and effects. There are countless
machines available for Download, Buzz itself is free, its really easy to write
plugins for (with Visual C++ 5 or grater). You can't use most of its synths
for microtuning, but some are detunable, in percentages, or cents, or whatever
the author of the machine decides to make :[ The effects however make the
tracked music sound really nice. I can send you a couple Microtonal MODs
(.MOD is the original tracker format, and still used to refer to all tracked
music). MODs can get massive quick though, so you have to be careful, if you
plan on distributing them in their native format. You can easily save to .WAV
to convert to .RA or .MP3. Basically, I use a software synthesizer
(orangator, stomper, etc) that's geared up for making single note samples, or
load sounds off my keyboards with cooledit, or use guitars, or csound, or
download them off the internet (go to www.united-trackers.org, and click on UT
Sample Ring to find lots of free samples). Another problem is pitch bends, I
take the two notes I want, compare them and bend (using the Exx of Fxx
commandsets, and do it by ear. Theres lots of neat tricks to getting better
sounds. Great stuff. Big time waster though. Check out
http://www.maz-sound.com/ for lots of free and shareware softsynths and
trackers.

>===== Original Message From tuning@onelist.com =====
>From: John Starrett <jstarret@math.cudenver.edu>
>
>I just received an email directing me to a site
>
>http://www.traxinspace.com
>
>where you can download music from independent artists in different
>formats, one called "tracker". I have never heard of the tracker format,
>but I listened to the music, and it sounds good. Apparently (and here's
>where I will probably screw up) tracker format lets you compose with
>waveforms you can choose or build from the ground up and triggers them on
>your sound card in a manner similar to MIDI, where the instruction is
>"turn on sound number 12 for 2 seconds" "Turn off sound number 12". Is
>anyone familiar with this format? This could be really cool. I have
>downloaded the ModPlug tracker and am trying to see what it can do.
>
>John Starrett
>http://www-math.cudenver.edu/~jstarret
>
>
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