In the meantime, I have been interested in Famitracker but Deflemask seems to be a better tracker to learn since it is capable of so many other chips as well.
Both are very good trackers, and they also use a similar paradigm for managing patterns (1 independent pattern per channel). I personally get different ideas and moods when I use either one or the other, so I like both.
My pros and cons for Famitracker and Deflemask (I'll try to present it in a positive way for Deflemask as it is a Deflemask thread):
Famitracker
Pros:
- intuitive to use
- standard windows software appearance
- supports several NES extensions
- open source (free software)
- you can import and export to midi, to use in other trackers or software (but it's not built-in though. Also midi import is deprecated)
- can export to wav / nsf
Cons:
- standard windows software appearance
- not themable
- works rather ok with Wine (on Linux, mac os x too probably), but it's not perfect (I get some visual glitches when editing instruments)
Deflemask
Cons:
- Not open source (but good active support from the developper)
- some non standard behaviors in functionalities because of its specific custom interface but it gets better and better after newest releases (for example in previous releases I couldn't use the back / end key for going to the end of a filename, and when I typed enter to validate the name when saving a file it started the song... but it's fixed now)
- doesn't export / import from other tracker formats (like xm/mod)
Pros:
- native to multi-os (linux, mac, windows)
- midi support
- many format support (sid, sega, nec pc engine, arcade, nes, gb)
- can export to vgm / wav / native ROM (like megadrive/genesis)
- intuitive to use
- free as in free beer
- active support from the developper
- themeable
- latest releases has a much better way to interact with it (new menu etc)
probably other things but it's what I remember at the moment...
I think it's also time I send some donation to both Famitracker and Deflemask!
Last edited by garvalf (May 7, 2016 11:37 am)