nitro2k01
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Sweeeeeeden

Let me try to analyze the issue from an outside perspective. And since I'm looking at it, again, from an outside perspective, I will be swearing in church. smile

Let's say you're new to this whole business and want to get started. You are statistically likely to end up buying a Gameboy (or use the one of the literally 100 million units sold that ou own since childhood) and a flash cartridge. Why? Well, let's

Lazerbeat wrote:

I totally appreciate this is a very broad topic based on little to no hard research but MOD/XM seems to have quite a few inherent advantages

- You own the hardware

It's true that you own the hardware, but the same hardware can also be used to do so much more. What reason do you have (again, from an outside perspective) to use a program that requires samples, but imposes other limitations, such as no synthesis and no effects? You could just as well use another software (even Renoise) and voluntarily confine yourself to the same limits.

Lazerbeat wrote:

- The software is free
- Easy to install / Multiplatform

With software piracy being as ubiquitous as it is, price is not an issue for most people. And Win and Mac are the only platforms that matter for a wide audience, and most commercial vendors have those covered.

Lazerbeat wrote:

- Easy to share
- Easy to back up

I'd venture to say that no music documents are difficult to back up or share, given how big hard drives are and how easy it is to share even hundreds of MB of data today. As for sharing in particular, I think, rather, that anything that requires the other end to install new software, will be a nuisance. I.e., it's easy to share for what you and your friends are already using.

Lazerbeat wrote:

- High profile community MOD/XM composers / performers (syhpus/4mat/ctrix etc)

...which are unfortunately unknown for most n00bs today.

Lazerbeat wrote:

- Infinite range of sounds available.

Not as infinite as with added realtime DSP capabilities. What about chip consoles then? Aren't they even more limited? Well yes, but the premise there is that while you don't have DSP, you do have some sort of subjective charm or something like that. With MODs/XMs you constrain yourself to "just samples" while getting none of that presumed charm or whatever you want to call those subjective qualities.

Lazerbeat wrote:

- Huge number of resources for new people to learn from

Maybe. But call me crazy, but I think part of LSDj's success is the fact that the commands names are not numbers. Instead of 5 for slide to note, you have L, which you can use to create a mnemonic, like Legato or sLide. (S was taken, so...)

Lazerbeat wrote:

But it would seem the number of people new to the scene (by new I mean within the last few years or so), at least in our neck of the woods, who choose MOD/XM to compose / perform live seems vanishingly small.

Anyone have any thoughts as to why? The only thing I can think of is there aren't THAT many exciting options of things to do live with mods.

That's another big one, when comparing to LSDj in particular. The live manipulation capabilities are just about zero. But there's also something much more subjective. I think Beck's album art summarizes this nicely:

To the outsider, the Gameboy is something you (can) hold in your hands. It's something that gives the impression of being tactile. It's easy to imagine a close analogy to a "real" instrument. You just can't do that with a laptop or even an AMIGAAAAAAH!

cTrix
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Australia
nitro2k01 wrote:

the Gameboy is something you (can) hold in your hands. It's something that gives the impression of being tactile. It's easy to imagine a close analogy to a "real" instrument. You just can't do that with a laptop or even an AMIGAAAAAAH!

You can turn any console into a ridiculous holdable format.  You just have to be creative ;-)

cTrix
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Australia
nitro2k01 wrote:
Lazerbeat wrote:

- Easy to share
- Easy to back up

I'd venture to say that no music documents are difficult to back up or share, given how big hard drives are and how easy it is to share even hundreds of MB of data today. As for sharing in particular, I think, rather, that anything that requires the other end to install new software, will be a nuisance. I.e., it's easy to share for what you and your friends are already using.

\

MODs are piss easy to share.  As are ITs or XMs or any tracked files.  Usually less then a meg.  The reason I don't use all this VSTi and DSP crap outside my day job is because if I send a project to someone, their system has to mirror mine.  Plus to have the whole project - with samples - is a huge collection of files that need to be in the right folders and it's hard to version track and merge.  It's just messy.   

Tracking software is simple to install. Infact IT DOESN'T NEED INSTALLING most of the time!  You just click on the EXE and it runs - hey, why not send the EXE in the file with the project?  It's all freeware anyway and still under a few meg.  Plus the formats are opensource, low-CPU usage and easy to implement into games / demos / whatever - so there are a huge amount of reasons to still be using tracked formats.  Especially when you can pattern jump and have the logic mute parts, etc, to match action of whats on screen (say, if it were a game).  I personally think there are a sizable amount of commercial and creative reasons to still use the tracked formats.

Most of all - everything is in the same window (most of the time).  None of this painfull swapping between tabs and clicking in and out of modes, etc - although that's just a pet hate of mine.  For me, all notes & controllers - BAM - in front of me is the way it feels the most natural.  (end of rant!)

poisoncut
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liverpool - uk

It doesnt have to be about using ready made samples to build up your tune as some people seem to think.

Milky Tracker allows you to create your own samples by drawing the waveform, if you want to do something like a pulse width modulation effect you can actually draw a set of pulse waveforms, each one with a thinner pulse and skip between these samples while the melody is playing. You can also draw kick drums and generate white noise for snare sounds.

It's like synthesis in a way and helps to give you an understanding of whats involved in creating a particular sound.

Someone commented on one of my xm tunes on youtube the other day asking me to rip out the bass sample and upload it for them, it was a simple square wave that could be drawn in about 10 seconds!

Last edited by poisoncut (Jul 12, 2011 9:36 am)

nitro2k01
Offline
Sweeeeeeden

cTrix: You're right in both the things you are saying, but you're missing my point. I wasn't trying to disprove Lazerbeat but answer the question why things ended up the way they are today, i.e. how the general populace perceives things.

ant1
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uhajdafdfdfa

the module tracking "scene" hardly revolves around chipmusic.org/8bc so maybe we just don't see new mod/xm artists because we are always hanging out here. these places are both "Gameboy forums" not really helped by a bouncing gameboy as part of the logo or whatever. if i had just discovered modplug tracker with no knowledge of 8-bits chiptune i wouldn't feel much need to sign up to either of them.

also trackers are not particularly retro or cool or nostalgic or any of the aesthetic considerations that can (and much of the time it is these things) lead people into this. unless it reminds you of microsoft excel. so if i had just discovered chiptune i would probably want a gameboy or a famitracker or something like that

4mat
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Yeah the "readymade samples" thing is only if you're doing it wrong. If you're doing chip modules "properly" you draw the waveforms, you don't cheat with some huge sample off a c64.  You Gameboy guys draw your tri-channel samples, right?  That's what we do, just on every channel.   I've used MODs to write Gameboy music for games, there's really no difference in the interface or workflow.

nitro2k01
Offline
Sweeeeeeden

4mat: The ready-made samples part is of course only for non-chip modules/non-chip samples. As Lazerbeat mentioned as an advantage, "Infinite range of sounds available."

Also, I draw my LSDj  triangles, mainly because LSDj produces a bandlimited triangle that's not stepped in 1-step increments, and also because I want my triangle to start at the bottom of the range, not middle, so I don't get that big DC offset change at the beginning.

irrlichtproject
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Nomad's Land

i f**ing love XM and i think it's the best choice if you really want to learn tracking in-depth.

However it has one huge downside, and that is

Lazerbeat wrote:

- Infinite range of sounds available.

the reason i started to do chip is because i prefer to work with a strictly limited set of sounds. if i have unlimited sound capabilities, i just get stuck fiddling around with the sounds and i never finish anything.

Chainsaw Police
Offline
Sydney, NSW
irrlichtproject wrote:

the reason i started to do chip is because i prefer to work with a strictly limited set of sounds. if i have unlimited sound capabilities, i just get stuck fiddling around with the sounds and i never finish anything.

Exactly. Limitations are what makes chipmusic fun.

4mat
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Chainsaw Police wrote:
irrlichtproject wrote:

the reason i started to do chip is because i prefer to work with a strictly limited set of sounds. if i have unlimited sound capabilities, i just get stuck fiddling around with the sounds and i never finish anything.

Exactly. Limitations are what makes chipmusic fun.

depends what you mean by limitations.  aesthetic limitations are one thing but technical limitations for the sake of it seem a bit weird when we're not distributing things as source files.  but well, personal opinion and all that.

akira^8GB
Offline
New York City
Analog wrote:
Lazerbeat wrote:

there aren't THAT many exciting options of things to do live with mods.

ONE MILLION TIMES THIS.

One million times no.
Protracker allows me to jam around with my mods (messing with pattern orders etc), mute channels, change tempo... basically most of what you do with LSDJ. Which nobody does in most cases, it's just pressing play and fucking around stage. So let's be honest there.

Milkytracker is crappy in this and many other aspects, I just stick to Protracker. Also, I am totally Protracker-focused now, I have returned to it and made it my main composing platform again (adver*cough* next release on Bleepstreet *cough*tisement)

Mentioning the tactile aspect of a Game Boy is also a bit of a weak point. Most electronic musicians are not " holding"  any instruments or doing anything as if it was rock'n'roll music.

Limitations can be put if you wish so. Like 4mat's chiptunes. If you have unlimited sound capabilities but you want to use a limited set of sounds, don't you have the self discipline to do it that way instead of getting lost in "infinity"? Why can't you try to do a mod that just weighs 16KB? Can't you pu the limit yourself? There's a problem there which exceeds the platform you are using.

Last edited by akira^8GB (Jul 12, 2011 1:39 pm)

poisoncut
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liverpool - uk
akira^8GB wrote:

Protracker allows me to jam around with my mods (messing with pattern orders etc), mute channels, change tempo... basically most of what you do with LSDJ. Which nobody does in most cases, it's just pressing play and fucking around stage. So let's be honest there.

Milkytracker is crappy in this and many other aspects

Milkytracker also lets you mute channels, change the tempo and mess with pattern orders.

e.s.c.
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IL, US
ant1 wrote:

tracking "scene" hardly revolves around chipmusic.org/8bc so maybe we just don't see new mod/xm artists because we are always hanging out here. these places are both "Gameboy forums" not really helped by a bouncing gameboy as part of the logo or whatever.

pretty sure this isn't a game boy forum, just putting that out there

irrlichtproject
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Nomad's Land
4mat wrote:
Chainsaw Police wrote:

Exactly. Limitations are what makes chipmusic fun.

depends what you mean by limitations.  aesthetic limitations are one thing but technical limitations for the sake of it seem a bit weird when we're not distributing things as source files.  but well, personal opinion and all that.

i do share this personal opinion wink

akira^8GB wrote:

Limitations can be put if you wish so. Like 4mat's chiptunes. If you have unlimited sound capabilities but you want to use a limited set of sounds, don't you have the self discipline to do it that way instead of getting lost in "infinity"? Why can't you try to do a mod that just weighs 16KB? Can't you pu the limit yourself? There's a problem there which exceeds the platform you are using.

tiny .xm tracking rulez. but i think there's a difference between fighting against limitations that are externally defined (ie hardware limitations, compo rules), and setting those limitations internally (ie limit yourself).

an-cat-max
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astral cat

i like to make mods and xms but i am so bad at it i never release