Splitting the free music downloads?

Saga Musix · May 03, 2009, 16:40:57

When it comes to showing friends what trackers actually can sound like (but also when browing the free music forum), it can be very hard to actually find a good example because much non-tracker stuff is posted there these days. I think it would be a good idea to create two seperate subforums. To save the admin(s) the hassle, every memeber would be responsible for moving their own threads to the appropriate forum (dunno if that's possible in phpBB, though). This way, the archive can be kept more tidy and you get a better overview what's made in modplug and what's not.

LPChip · May 03, 2009, 16:59:57

Its not possible to do that, I'm affraid.

But honestly, I don't feel that much for this idea either. It requires alot of moderation to keep it clean. A new user often is confused if there are 2 forums and will most likelly release the music anyway.

I chose the (.

) extension to combat this. In the free Music Forum, you can select the modules from the trackers by looking at the extension.

I might be able to write somekind of query that'll display only the items that has .it, .xm, .s3m and .mod in it. but other than that, I suggest leaving things as they currently are.

Saga Musix · May 03, 2009, 17:36:13

Quote from: "LPChip"Its not possible to do that, I'm affraid.

of course it is. you're just too lazy.

psishock · May 03, 2009, 18:46:49

Quote from: "Jojo"what trackers actually can sound like

heh, trackers does not "sound".

-if you don't know what are you doing and have crappy samples, your music will sound bad.
-if you know what are you doing and have crappy samples, it will sound a lot better.
-if you know what are you doing and have a very good choice of samples or even passing on to VSTis, it will sound perfect.
Tracker is just a tool to host and mix your sounds. It all depends on the artist, not on the host. It's very variable. Mayb if a bigger number of guys are using similar samplepacks, some common sounding could appear.

Recorded live instrument plays are a whole different story, but that is not the purpose trackers are designed anyway. You can pinpoint those songs easily from the rest.

Saga Musix · May 03, 2009, 19:06:55

Quote from: "psishock"heh, trackers does not "sound".

They do. And the best example was today when people from university found my music and I had to explain them what a tracker is and stuff... and they were wondering if you can also do "non-electronic" music with trackers. Well, try searching on the forums for non-electronic tracker music becomes quite a hard task due to the high amount of non-tracker work that's being posted.

LPChip · May 03, 2009, 19:09:46

I mean, its not possible to let people move their own stuff, unless I'd make them a moderator, which is something I'm not gonna do.

psishock · May 03, 2009, 19:18:30

Quote from: "Jojo"They do

They don't.

Samples/VSTis do.
Non-electronic? Hmmm, Barry made a lot of nice classical stuff, TheEagle did some rock ballads recently, i could find more examples, but haven't been really interested to non electronic stuff.

Saga Musix · May 03, 2009, 19:21:11

Quote from: "psishock"
Quote from: "Jojo"They do
They don't. Samples/VSTis do.

Still, the tracker outputs the audio, in comparison to a real drum, real guitar or whatever those guys that are not used to electronic music think of.

LPChip: See, that would work perfectly in SMF without having to make everybody a moderator.

Although a little script could do the same...

psishock · May 03, 2009, 19:35:47

Sure, now we're getting to real instruments vs. digital here, but then again, ultimately its the soundcard/speakers that actually sounds here, because sequencers, trackers, and any other music making tools are digitally processing the sound to the final output in a same way. You can't really go and tell them: this is what trackers sounds like. Mayb this is what are they also capable, but other tools for similar purpose can do the same, with different approach.

Sam_Zen · May 03, 2009, 19:54:50

hmm, a bit of a vague discussion here.

A tracker module is a binary description, so doesn't make any sound. Players do that.
I could load the tracker data in a graphic viewer, and it would make some non-descript bitmap.

A tracker making non electronic music ? Absurd and impossible. Let's keep it a bit strict here.

But I understand Jojo's point. In the beginning, one could be sure that any track in the DL section was made with OMPT.
This distinction has been vanished slowly in time.

I don't think it's necessary to make extra fuzz with new forums to solve this.
Some indicator in the DL-topic title could mean if the compressed file is tracker-based or not.

psishock · May 03, 2009, 20:22:06

Quote from: "Sam_Zen"A tracker making non electronic music ? Absurd and impossible. Let's keep it a bit strict here.

non electronic, in a sense of the genre, Sam.

Sam_Zen · May 03, 2009, 23:14:38

Sure, I know what you mean. But in genres el. music is some kind of artificial one, leading to misconceptions.

So you have 16 different kind of music made by electronics, 15 of them have a specific style-name.
And one category not placeable is called 'electronic music' for all the rest. Or even simply 'electronic'.

But I admit, it's vague.

Some sounds of the 'realtime acoustic world' I will call an 'electronic sound' because it has the properties.
Listen to the singin of a blackbird, answering another blackbird. Pure and very detailed Frequency Modulation..

uncloned · May 04, 2009, 00:26:31

Quote from: "Jojo"
Quote from: "psishock"heh, trackers does not "sound".
They do. And the best example was today when people from university found my music and I had to explain them what a tracker is and stuff... and they were wondering if you can also do "non-electronic" music with trackers. Well, try searching on the forums for non-electronic tracker music becomes quite a hard task due to the high amount of non-tracker work that's being posted.

With all due respect Jojo, the distinction was lost when MPT first supported VST instruments. At that point, when one didn't not load samples into the actual tracker, the door was opened to MPT being in effect just another sequencer.

A place of purity to the original tracker format is mod archive.

And please don't consider my response in the wrong light - I think I can understand that modplug site is a sense supposed to be about the modplug sofware suite. It is just that the community has moved passed the initial tracking phase one could call it. Mixed tracked and live performance music occurs in a lot of tracker scenes any more. On traxinspace, which does make a good cross section of all tracker communities, this is mix is common.

I think in summary - we are a community of composers and software is just another tool. Modplug tracker just happens to be one of the very best tools available - and free.

Sam_Zen · May 04, 2009, 00:44:06

Well said, Clones. The introduction of VST plugins indeed sets a distinction in functionality.
OMPT is then more, or only, acting as a 'host' for external applications or to say 'plugins'.
Not only VST as extra effects, but also VSTi as a replacement for samples, rendering sound material.

bvanoudtshoorn · May 04, 2009, 00:51:37

Well, Jojo, all of my music that I release is 'tracker' music, in that I make it using OpenMPT. I just happen to not using OpenMPT's internal sampling engine, because, to be honest, Kontakt's is better. (No offense to you or the other devs, but then, you're not being paid a salary to work full time on it with a large team of devs.)

I will agree with you, though, that there is a leaning towards a 'tracker' sound, and I think that this is caused not so much by the samples or the way they're put together, but rather by the fact that trackers work in a row-based pattern format. Most tracked songs tend towards four-bar (or eight-bar) progressions, or 'groups', because it's the easiest way to work, generally speaking. In a sequencer, by contrast, you tend to work outside of these groups (the exception would be FLStudio, and that's pickable for the same reason).

This is actually one of the reasons that I've been making so many requests about prev/next pattern and continuous scroll: I want to escape this pattern-based way of looking at music. Yes, I might still work in four- or eight-bar phrases, but I want that to be because that's what the music *should* be, not because of the tool I use to make it.

I guess, then, that I would consider a tracker 'sound' a myth, but a tracker 'style' to actually exist. There's a very good reason why so little tracked music *isn't* in 4-4.