12/31/2023 0 Comments Milkytracker interfaeFirst, I created a quick bass sound, which is basically a sine wave, but I hand drew it so it would have a little more grit. I recorded a simple demo of me singing the melody and playing the bassline on piano (note: my goal was to create a chiptune jingle for my Composer Quest patron Rob Waite – that’s what these lyrics are all about).įrom there, I started entering the notes one by one in MilkyTracker. So for my second attempt at creating a chiptune track, I waited until a melody popped into my head. But again, thinking about the importance of constraints in art, I realized I should just see what I can do with the basic sounds – sine wave, triangle wave, square wave, sawtooth wave, and noise. I also thought I needed to start with a huge musical color palette by creating some intricate sample sounds. I was trying to make the musical equivalent of the Mona Lisa right away, when I should have approached my first chiptune song like drawing a tiny picture. ![]() That’s another thing that initially discouraged me. If you were drawing pixel by pixel without an idea of the final drawing, it might eventually turn into something cool and unexpected, but it would be much quicker and probably more satisfying if you can imagine the whole picture before you start.Īlso, your first attempt at pixel art would probably be a tiny avatar or sprite, not a huge pixel art version of the Mona Lisa. I realized my tracker experience would be much better if I had the melodies and chords fleshed out in my head before I start typing in note after note. I decided I would probably give up.īut after a little break, my perspective started to shift. It felt really clunky when I tried my normal method of composing and recording on the fly, as I do in Ableton Live. I got really excited about it after watching tutorials and seeing that it wasn’t as daunting as I thought.īut then I tried making a song, and it seemed painfully tedious. I thought I’d give it a shot though, so I downloaded a free tracker that works on Mac called MilkyTracker. Instead of seeing waveforms, you have a scrolling list of all the notes, like “A4” and “C#3,” along with numbers representing their volume, effects, etc. If you’ve never seen a tracker before, it looks more like computer code than a modern music sequencer. ![]() Since I’m getting more into writing video game music, and since a lot of game developers are looking for an old school chiptune synth sound, I thought I should learn the authentic way to make them: by using a music tracker. I could do more, i really like using the music interface.If you’d rather listen to this article than read it, check Episode 9 of the Charlie’s Music Production Lessons podcast. ![]() Well, i've only done the first half of the original because of the limits (all the slots are occupied just as expected!). Even with the 64 sfx slot limits, i managed to whip up a (reduced) cover of one of my most listened videogame soundtracks. While i still play around with Pico-8's game carts, i once again came back to the music interface and discovered that i could use SFX instruments as i've seen on some game around. All i did was just a bunch of incomplete covers that sounded quite lame to me, but it was a likeable experience. I had tracker music experience back when i used FamiTracker, so it was easy for me to interact with the tracker interface, however, the Pico-8 tracker was something, it was so limited i can't easily make dope instrumentation with it. However, since i can't get the hang on the programming side of Pico-8 i messed around on the sound interface. ![]() I got it back when i was on the first stages of programming in GameMaker: Studio (until however i stopped after not being able to easily think deeper on what to do.) I am also an addictive video game music fan whom actually has been continously listening to them for a bunch of years before GameMaker. I got Pico-8 back several years ago when it was pretty trend and i enjoyed the vast amount of content the community created.
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