It's an interesting idea, certainly.

I'll add it to the list of possible future features.

Sometime in 2011 OK for you?

Did you consider any generative features in the tracker? I know it's tricky to implement it in an effective and useful way (I've had hours of discussions about it concerning Defmon), but I do think it's too rare of a feature in trackers. Especially if you distribute your songs in a non-recorded way. If there is any space left (which there doesn't seem to be? - sorry, didn't read through carefully enough) you could e.g. have a table of 8 steps where you can set instrument, note, ADSR, pulse width, etc. If you want to randomize between C and G but also throw an A in there at times, you'd write C,C,C,C,G,G,G,A in say table 01 and call it from the pattern. Hm, makes any sense? Hope it does, because then I could become a super lazy NES-composer like I always wanted! :----)

I think in the long run, pattern speed is more useful. Full track volume fades are cheesy .

I vote for the "Pattern Master Volume Fade Command".

Awesome, thanks for adding the note delay! A pretty crucial effect imo.

I haven't weighed in an opinion yet on the original question, mostly because I can't make up my mind weighing out the pros and cons. I think I'll be cool with whichever you pick here, really.

Ah, I see!

Yes, the fading would be triggered and operate independent of other effects. Well, this is how it works in the Song Arranger anyway

There are other ways to achieve fade-in notes too;

- the "set volume for single note" command affects the note on the step you use it but can also be used to modify the volume of an already playing note. So you could;

00: C4 B0        ;play C4 with volume 0
01: ---  B1        ;modify the volume of C4
02: ---  B3        ;louder
03: ---  B5        ;louder

etc

or just use an ADSR with a long attack time, tie some notes together so you don't get envelope restart, then switch to a different instrument when you don't need the fade in.

Not easy to explain, even though I just tried to in a PM to akira.

It's not just the screen real-estate that is the issue. Currently the whole 8kb of the battery RAM is used, every single byte. So even if I could display another effect column, there's no space in the data file for that data.

Planned future features will include some kind of compression of the data which may/may not happen and may/may not enable stuff like extra command columns but not right now.

My vote is for the Fade Pattern Volume thing.

I like fade-in notes.

If the "Fade Pattern Volume" command would not be interrupted by other commands further down the pattern I say add it.  As in, as long as I could "Fade Pattern Volume" and while that was going on still set vibrato (for instance).  If that's not the case, I'd prefer the "Speed" option.  I don't know what the instrument editor is like, but it's always possible to get "more effects" into a pattern by swapping variations of the instrument.

Maybe you can make an effects table which runs behind the note table, and then pressing a button or button-combo would flip it over to show just effects or just notes?

Not as intuitive as standard tracker layout but would save all the screen space and screen refresh issues.

OK bear in mind I am a total ignorant code-wise
I sent you a PM!

I'll bear it in mind, thanks for the offer.

The problem cannot be isolated though to just the interface though.

Putting in another Pattern column would require 10 more text columns (5 tracks x 2 digits per column) which absolutely will not fit on the NES screen. I had to redesign my original layout to move all the text in away from the edges of the screen as you cannot guarantee (on NTSC) that you'll be able to read the outermost rows and columns

If anything I also need to be updating *less* information as the screen refresh is already slower than I'd like. Adding more data will mean less can be update per frame which will slow down the screen refresh even more.

I have no room at all where the Song Arranger is - one column at most. I'd need 4 to add an effect per Song Track.

Then there's the memory issue. If I start adding more columns to the patterns they will take 50% more space in the 8Kb of RAM I have (which is totally used up). If I add an effect column per Song Track, that will take up another 50% more space for the Song data.

In future releases I plan to compress the Pattern and Song data and decompress them on-the-fly but a) that's the future and b) it might not be possible.

I see, the. I cannot help with the memory but I could with the interface, let me know!

Memory and interface limitations.