Hi all,
I have a few questions about a few things I've messed with while experimenting with Open MPT. One of which is about tracking in general, the other two are about Open MPT. I'm also blind so it's very possible I'm missing something that's more visually obvious. If this is the case feel free to say so. Lol
1. I only recently was familiar with how tracking actually works, and the concept of rows, columns, patterns and orders... I think I understand it. But I want to clear up something I feel fuzzy about. Because tracking is very grid-based, it doesn't seem as open as midi sequencing. For example making rhythms that aren't so evenly divisible isn't easy to do, though there are potentially workarounds in certain cases. Triplets against strait notes could be a challenge I think. It's not as simple as putting a note here, and another one there, with up to 960 or even more ticks per beat as is the case with a sequencer. Is the grid-like approach part of what makes tracking an art? Is it visually easier to work with than midi sequencing for some people? Or is it actually frustrating to some musicians who are more used to midi sequencing? I have a few other ambiguities in my head with how best to do certain things in a tracker but I'll save those.
2. In Open MPT, it feels uncomfortable to make instruments and even patterns because I haven't figured out how to delete one or move stuff around, so I have to sort of build from the beginning and hope I don't miss something on the way. The reason this bothers me most is that I'm kind of OCD about having things nice and tidy and in order without gaps or odd turns in the sequencing. But I see many modules with orders referencing pattern numbers which look seemingly random. For instance, order 1 might have pattern 4, 2 might have 5, 3 might have 1. And while it sounds organized when you listen to it, to me it seems a little jarring. Sometimes there are huge gaps in the instruments in a module, and the sorting of the instruments seems disorganized. I was wondering if I'm just being too picky, or if there's good reason to want to be more organized, and if so, how to delete patterns and instruments with the keyboard or move them around in their appropriate lists. I haven't found mention of this yet.
3. Last one for this post. What is the tree view useful for? Is it mostly a visual thing allowing you to see the structure of things? I've never really used it, I use the items in the view menu to switch between tabs.
Thanks for reading and providing your input, and have a good weekend!