When I switched from piano roll midi sequencers to trackers I thought it was liberating and easy, but I had been composing for some time by then. I don't know why I prefer columns of notes to piano roll data, maybe it's the difference in visual to audio feedback?
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Nottingham, UK
Before I got into electronic production I wrote music and played in bands. I've always found it hard to translate the details into production after I've laid down the big ideas. That goes for DAW's and Trackers.
For example I have to really force myself to go back and add little variations to riffs and hi-hat patterns and stuff when I've finished blocking out a song. Because in a band situation variation and accentuation just sort of happens as a natural part of the process.
I basically have a whole EP from last year I haven't released because, to my shame, I've not bothered to go and make the hi-hats less repetitive.
Last edited by ForaBrokenEarth (Mar 2, 2014 3:28 pm)
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N.E. U.S.
I honestly think of trackers as vertical drum sequencers in a way. I don't mind them, but I definitely prefer a more timelined-based way of organizing patterns than what most trackers use. I also like piano rolls because you can move the notes off the grid, something you can't do on a tracker. I primarily use Sunvox, if that shows anything.
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UK
TylerBarnes wrote:
I definitely don't really like trackers at all. I'm most comfortable in a piano roll. But if I need to use a tracker in order to play on the real chips, I will first compose in a DAW to choose my note selection and phrasing, and then I transfer it to whatever medium that will allow me to run it on the real hardware. For example, I use ppMCK to make nsfs, but before I go punching notes into an MML text editor, I will have already composed it in ableton using Midines.
haha, this is exactly my workflow.
but with FL.
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NC in the US of America
Personally, I had trouble transitioning from 5-lined staff sheet music composing to piano roll. Transitioning to LSDJ was pretty easy, and that as a result made transitioning to other trackers much easier for me.
r4c7 wrote:
I honestly think of trackers as vertical drum sequencers in a way. I don't mind them, but I definitely prefer a more timelined-based way of organizing patterns than what most trackers use. I also like piano rolls because you can move the notes off the grid, something you can't do on a tracker. I primarily use Sunvox, if that shows anything.
I don't know what you mean by "off the grid" (seems kind of a weird phrase because piano rolls are pretty heavily gridded, though you can zoom in and all that) but most trackers have some kind of note-trigger-delay effect which I'm thinking accomplishes the "off the grid" result if i'm interpreting that correctly.
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N.E. U.S.
SketchMan3 wrote:
Personally, I had trouble transitioning from 5-lined staff sheet music composing to piano roll. Transitioning to LSDJ was pretty easy, and that as a result made transitioning to other trackers much easier for me.
r4c7 wrote:I honestly think of trackers as vertical drum sequencers in a way. I don't mind them, but I definitely prefer a more timelined-based way of organizing patterns than what most trackers use. I also like piano rolls because you can move the notes off the grid, something you can't do on a tracker. I primarily use Sunvox, if that shows anything.
I don't know what you mean by "off the grid" (seems kind of a weird phrase because piano rolls are pretty heavily gridded, though you can zoom in and all that) but most trackers have some kind of note-trigger-delay effect which I'm thinking accomplishes the "off the grid" result if i'm interpreting that correctly.
Yeah, that's what I meant. Maybe a better way to put it would be more flexible note lengths and starting positions, no note quantization if you would like. I know you can do this stuff with commands, but that can be a finicky way of doing things, esp. triplets. Not really needed, but I enjoy the flexibility and it is probably a personal preference type of thing.
Another thing that bothers me is the inability to easily create chords/harmony, but that is understandable as things like gameboys, NES, etc. weren't made for that.
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NC in the US of America
r4c7 wrote:
SketchMan3 wrote:Personally, I had trouble transitioning from 5-lined staff sheet music composing to piano roll. Transitioning to LSDJ was pretty easy, and that as a result made transitioning to other trackers much easier for me.
I don't know what you mean by "off the grid" (seems kind of a weird phrase because piano rolls are pretty heavily gridded, though you can zoom in and all that) but most trackers have some kind of note-trigger-delay effect which I'm thinking accomplishes the "off the grid" result if i'm interpreting that correctly.
Yeah, that's what I meant. Maybe a better way to put it would be more flexible note lengths and starting positions, no note quantization if you would like. I know you can do this stuff with commands, but that can be a finicky way of doing things, esp. triplets. Not really needed, but I enjoy the flexibility and it is probably a personal preference type of thing.
Another thing that bothers me is the inability to easily create chords/harmony, but that is understandable as things like gameboys, NES, etc. weren't made for that.
I guess it depends on what tracker you are actually using. There are plenty of trackers and formats that are perfectly good at producing all of those things. Includng NES.