anyone got any suggestions for the best tracking software and where the hell to find a tape for a ZX spectrum?
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Seattle, WA
Arkos tracker is a pretty good emulator if I recall correctly.
Disregard this post I'm dumb.
Last edited by Dire Hit (Dec 12, 2014 6:34 pm)
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United Kingdom
Hi,
If you want a dabble with some spectrum sound engines on the PC I'd recommend Beepola. I've done some stuff with that, http://www.soundcloud.com/lamptonworm
Have a look at www.worldofspectrum.org in utilities for trackers. As for Tapes, you can find on amazon, they still have Maxells up there for example.
Cheers,
LW.
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Thanks for the help!
i wasnt talking about emulation i was talking about actually using a spectrum and the original tape tracker software, i wanna buy a zx spectrum and the tape that contains the software to track on
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Are you talking about AY or Beeper music? I don't know how many trackers actually support tapes, the ones I tried out were all disk back in the day. The old Soundtracker (for AY) at least works, and something like 'Wham The Music Box'. (for Beeper) Either way they're very old, probably Factor6 or somebody would know newer ones. On PC I'd recommend Vortex Tracker.
Last edited by 4mat (Dec 12, 2014 8:53 pm)
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There were disc drives as well, and microdrives. these days a lot of people have a divide or similar. (or use an app to play tape files into their spectrums via the headphone jack, there are a few of those) btw you do know there are various types of Spectrum yeah? (48k (no AY without interface), 128k, +2, +3, various clones)
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yeah i was looking at 128k just cos it looks so cool , is there one that would be best fro tracking?
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Well it has an AY chip in but probably best to ask Factor6 or somebody like that. I've always done AY stuff on PC because I'm not keen on the GUIs in the native tools I've tried, and the emulation isn't really far off these days. One thing I will say though is download a Spectrum emulator to try some things out, not necessarily for trying out the tools but just how a Spectrum works in general. ZXSpin, for example, is a good one for trying out all the hardware configs and has a tape browser built-in. Though most emulators support all available hardware.
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Ooh. I'll have to check out ZXSpin. I need an emulator to play back beeper stuff.
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if you want to control the AY chip you can also get vortex tracker II (windows clone of protracker), or if you want to control the beeper check beepola
for the real speccy thing check this big list of software http://www.zxsystems.ru/06_music.html , I think protracker and sound tracker may be the ones more frequently used by musicians from that list, but Im not sure if you can load them on tape but with the TR-DOS disck system, but I will sugest dont rely on tape, you will get a hell of a nightmare trying to save your songs (but is perfectly safe to load stuff by tape using o.t.l.a https://code.google.com/p/otla/ )
Last edited by r0lemusic (Dec 13, 2014 10:51 am)
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Jody, you are uk based, there is only one good uk spectrum musician and it's matt (gasman).
Try to contact him on wos forum.
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Ĺwidnica, Poland
I think that the _best_ person for asking about tracking on Spectrum is Yerzmyey. Try to catch him on forum.
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Brighton/Southampton
I'm not too sure about the second question. But, as far as ZX tracking on PC goes:
Vortex Tracker II is pretty alright. I've used it a couple of times and it's not too hard to get the hang of.
For ZXBeeper tunes, I'd personally recommend Beepola as it has a fairly good range of engines now, and it's very easy to pick up.
ZXSpin is a decent playback emulator but iirc it does add an artificial reverb that you might wanna disable.
Last edited by Fearofdark (Jan 20, 2015 11:28 pm)
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there are many zx spectrum beeper enthusiasts also to be found over at http://1bit.i-demo.pl/ as well, if you want any advice on the beeper side of things. Although most folk that are there have knowledge of the AY too, of course 
I agree with above sentiments in regards to using the PC first to track stuff for AY or beeper - Beepola is your best bet as it supports a ton of engines to create different 1 bit sounds. If you don't want to use beepola but you are familiar with the xm format, there are also xm2tap converters for the Tritone and Octode engines, among others.