What other trackers have people enjoyed using?

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El Nino
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What other trackers have people enjoyed using?

Post by El Nino »

Do any of the sunvox users use other synth trackers as well? Maybe sampling their output into sunvox...

Ive seen a lot of sample based trackers including those that can control VSTis parameters by pattern commands, but its so awkard and not as good as having built in synths like sunvox has.

From what ive seen so far sunvox is easily the best synth tracker out there but I was wondering does anyone know of a good synth tracker other than sunvox? Which synth trackers are the best?

So far I only found a few that have built in synths and they all have problems, for example:

Adlib tracker2 : this is wonderful, but probably anything it can do can be done in sunvox anyway and it has problems with timing, only runs in dosbox or on ancient computers.

LSDJ: Awesome that it is controlled by gamepad, the tables screen opens up cool possibilities, but only four channels, slight problems with timing

Buzz: This looks good but seems like sunvox already does anything it can do anyway.

protracker? -ancient

goattracker? - 3 channels, only SID sounds

etc.
organic io
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Re: What other trackers have people enjoyed using?

Post by organic io »

Renoise has some internal synthesis now :)

http://www.renoise.com/tools/resynth
http://www.renoise.com/tools/overtune
http://www.renoise.com/tools/awesomesawce
http://www.renoise.com/tools/padsynth
http://www.renoise.com/tools/custom-wave-synth
http://www.renoise.com/tools/zynzilla
http://forum.renoise.com/index.php?/top ... orphsynth/

Also there is Psycle, which is kinda similar to Buzz.

Also I tried out Dreamstation earlier this year, I thought the demo songs sounded really good, and that was in the older version 1. Maybe Dreamstation II would be worth you looking into?
http://www.audio-simulation.com/
El Nino
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Re: What other trackers have people enjoyed using?

Post by El Nino »

Hey, Thanks for all the info organicio! These all look really interesting. Psycle looks cool but Ive already been using renoise in the past so those renoise tools look particularly awesome for me...dreamstation looks cool as well...Good to know that there are still new trackers coming out and with built in synths (controllable by the trackers pattern editor commmands) too!

I'm really looking forward to renoise 3 and sunvox 1.74, maybe they will release around the same time (or maybe renoise 3 will be in 3 years time, lol, i think the development slowed down because of developers having babies or something). Hope renoise 3 will have built in synths...Ive tried writing songs using renoise pattern commands to control vst parameters but it doesnt translate that well..a little tricky.

Thanks again for all the great information!
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manganoid
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Re: What other trackers have people enjoyed using?

Post by manganoid »

i have tried almost all of those trackers. The most I like after SunVox is Buzz because of the capability to make other devices/instruments (or modules as they're called in Sunvox) which Sunvox manages to implement via metamodules. But the main problem with Buz is that it's too buggy and crashes all the time (at least on my end) and Sunvox is almost rock solid, I love it. The only bug I've noticed is when I stop a song the compressor glitches (makes weird sounds) and I have to restart Sunvox, but that's the only issue I've got.
El Nino
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Re: What other trackers have people enjoyed using?

Post by El Nino »

sunvox seems to be the best of all of them!
renoise with built in synths would be sweet though...
no more need to use ring modulator with dc offset etc.
excelenter
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Re: What other trackers have people enjoyed using?

Post by excelenter »

Although lately I use LSDJ most of the time I also like to mess with these chiptune trackers:
  • Famitracker (http://famitracker.com/) is great! If you don't want to deal with small amount of channels just slap some vrc6 expansion and you should be fine
  • Klystrack (https://code.google.com/p/klystrack/) is also a favourite of mine! It has interesting sound and I like how it looks and feels. And cat-o-meter haha
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alien_brain
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Re: What other trackers have people enjoyed using?

Post by alien_brain »

I love nanoloop for iOS. Not strictly a tracker, but whatevs.
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samrai katt kovboy
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Re: What other trackers have people enjoyed using?

Post by samrai katt kovboy »

It just got updated for Android so if it is not for iOS it would be soon. Very good update (if you like Nanoloop; I do).
You can read about it here:
http://www.musicalandroid.com/1/post/20 ... dness.html
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MANY CIRCLES
Koekepan
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Re: What other trackers have people enjoyed using?

Post by Koekepan »

I have enjoyed using modtracker (many years ago).

And if you close one eye and squint, garageband pretends to be a tracker sometimes. One can do good things there, but it's not nearly as efficient with system resources as sunvox.
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alien_brain
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Re: What other trackers have people enjoyed using?

Post by alien_brain »

i used 'making waves' all through the 90s... probably a year or 2 wasted behind the controls of that thing. i loved it though.
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The Handle
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Re: What other trackers have people enjoyed using?

Post by The Handle »

I've tried the following:

Buzz
Madtracker
Klystracker
LSDJ

Among those four, Klystracker and LSDJ were my favorites. LSDJ for the portability and Klystracker for the UI (User Interface). Buzz had an awkward UI if I remember correctly, and I think I had gotten used to SunVox by the time I tried Madtracker. Don't remember much about Madtracker, only that it took a while to get anything going and wasn't as easy to use. I haven't used milkytracker yet but I've been meaning to (soley to compare it to sunvox).

All that said, I consider SunVox to be the king of trackers. The internal synthesis, the intuitive UI, the mastering elements (filters, eqs, compressors, etc), the metamodules, the export options, the many standard effects, the sampler that holds 128 freaking samples....it just has tons of features that the other trackers don't, and the list is STILL growing. Plus there's the fact that the tracker, pattern, and module areas are all on one screen without having to flip through menus.

I actually stopped using Ableton once we got compressors (I believe that was v1.6.4). I've never regretted the switch (you guys have heard what I can do with sunvox).
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alien_brain
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Re: What other trackers have people enjoyed using?

Post by alien_brain »

got a link? id love to hear something
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The Handle
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Re: What other trackers have people enjoyed using?

Post by The Handle »

alien_brain wrote:got a link? id love to hear something
https://soundcloud.com/the-handle/skitter-preview
https://soundcloud.com/the-handle/hush
I used to use samples in my very early tracks, but I now make everything from scratch (started doing that about 1.5 years ago). The advantage is that I have fewer limitations than when working with samples, since I have such high customizability. The other advantage is that I don't have copyright issues (since I made them myself). I just can't understate the importance of internal synthesis.
Last edited by The Handle on Tue Dec 17, 2013 3:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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alien_brain
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Re: What other trackers have people enjoyed using?

Post by alien_brain »

nice! say, you dont have anything against vst plugins do you? 8)
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The Handle
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Re: What other trackers have people enjoyed using?

Post by The Handle »

alien_brain wrote:nice! say, you dont have anything against vst plugins do you? 8)
I don't, I just get more customization by making everything myself (plus you can make new sounds and even recreate some of the vsts)
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