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Chiptune 2: The Trackening
🕑 Added 2016-12-08 17:14:25 +0000 UTCSo, here we have a rather sparse image that is a source of excitement. If you remember the synthesizer post from earlier this year, well, I need a way to control it...so I'm writing a tracker from scratch. Sure, I could hack up an existing tracker, but I've kinda been-there-done-that with the one I use now that I hacked emulators into the back end of it. Plus, I'm ready to try some cool chiptune things that haven't really been done before, so I want to be in control of the way that happens.
This tracker isn't even in alpha, but one neat thing you can already see is quartertone support about halfway down the rows. I don't honestly see myself writing a lot of music using quartertones, but I still find them interesting, and it's rather rare to see in a tracker so why not?
A lot of the things that DO work are under the hood. There's no load or save because the file format is still developing, and there's no input or output subsystem. I do have code that beeps my boards with selectable amplitude, frequency, and instrument. So, once an output system comes together, things will get rewarding very fast. Other things that are already written in are a flexible channel system, multiple FX handling, alternate tunings, and some other cool things.
Why the name SlowTracker? Well, it's written in Python, so it's no demoscene code beauty, and the name FastTracker was taken (though I did borrow the font). Maybe the name will change once it takes shape.
Until then, feel free to ask questions!
