#samples
- Chip samples — tiny looped waveforms techniqueIn a sample tracker, a "chip" is a very small looped sample — a single waveform cycle or a few hundred bytes of a real instrument — that stands in for a sound-chip voice. A chiptune module is built from nothing else, …
- Multisampling and drum-kit instruments techniqueOne sample cannot cover a keyboard: transposed more than a few semitones it sounds artificial — ±7 at the very most, often only ±1 (source: s-tw084-perfect-samples-the-piano ) . Multisampling records several keys and …
- Recording samples (sources, cabling, sound cards, rates) techniqueGetting a sound from a synth, CD, tape or microphone into a sample cleanly: the part of sampling that happens before sample-looping and multisampling . Cowboy's 1996 article is the wiki's source on the hardware chain …
- Sample looping (perfect loops, sustain loops, long loops) techniqueTwo very different things: looping a short cycle so a sampled note sustains forever, and using long loops (drum breaks, guitar riffs) as building blocks that must stay in time with the song. The loop is what separates a …
- Sample offset tricks techniqueThe sample-offset command ( 9xx in ProTracker/MOD, Oxx in impulse-tracker ) starts a sample partway through — in units of 256 bytes, so 00–FF covers 64 KB (the SAx high-order command extends it in IT). Three classic …
- Realism in tracked music concept"Realism" was the 1990s PC-scene word for modules that try to sound like a recording of real instruments or a commercial production — large, carefully sampled instruments instead of the few-kilobyte waveforms of a …
- Sample ripping conceptTaking samples out of other people's modules — with a ripper such as GetSamps v2.42 by Zab [Hardcode], or by loading the module in a tracker — and reusing them in your own songs. In the 1990s PC scene it was both …
- Aleksi Eeben personFinnish coder-musician (29 in July 2005; Southern Finland; "Sound designer by trade, employed and underpaid by a mobile phone company") who wrote two C64 music tools — the low-rastertime editor John Player and the …
- DigiOrganizer toolA C64 editor and player by Polonius of the group Padua (code banner "DIGI-ORGANIZER BY POLONUS/PADUA") that adds a fourth, sampled voice to a normal single-speed tune made in any other editor: 4-bit samples packed two …
- Rockmonitor toolThe scene's unofficial extension of soundmonitor with a sampled drum track, made by The Dutch USA-Team in 1987: "Dutch USA-Team take Soundmonitor from Chris Hülsbeck … and adds a digi-drum routine to it, so you can edit …
- TFMX toolchris-huelsbeck 's second-generation driver, born on the C64 in the summer of 1988 and carried to the Amiga (and later DOS, SNES and the N64's MusyX): instead of only "the typical rigid instrument table" it runs "a …
- The Great Giana Sisters (C64, 1987/88) songrainbow-arts ' platform game (label Time Warp, released 1988-01) whose soundtrack made chris-huelsbeck 's name: seven songs and fifteen sound effects composed in soundmonitor and converted to his private The Final …
- Impulse Tracker HINTS.TXT — Hints for Composers (summary) summarySeven short contributions shipped with impulse-tracker .
- OpenMPT manual — Samples summaryThe sample tab of openmpt : formats, the edit toolbar, tuning per format, loops and sustain loops, auto-vibrato, time-stretching, the drawing and resizing tools that make chip samples, and the OPL (AdLib) FM instrument …
- Remix64 — An Interview with Martin Galway (Neil Carr, 2001) summaryNeil Carr's e-mail interview with martin-galway for the remix community site Remix64, dated 2001-03-28, when Galway was Audio Lead on Freelancer at Microsoft's Magic Anvil studio. Mostly about taste, remixes and career, …
- Retrogaming Planet / EmuWiki — Interview with Chris Huelsbeck (2011) summaryThe interview in which chris-huelsbeck describes his actual C64 workflow — two machines, soundmonitor then TFMX Editor, hex numbers shown as A-2 / G#3 — and the idea behind tfmx 's per-note script.
- SIDin #10 — Tiny Sid 2, part 1: XL5, Mini Digi Drum, RM, Miniature Rhapsody (Stefano Tognon, 2006) summaryFour entries of the Tiny Sid 2 compo (2006) — two of 256 bytes, two of 512 — with full source and Tognon's analysis: how a whole tune, player and note table fit into one disk block ( tiny-sid-compo , sid-player-routine …
- SIDin #15 — Inside Matt Gray's Serpent Demo player (the 4-bit sample voice, reverse-engineered, 2015) summaryAnswering Gray's remark in the same issue that the Serpent Demo drums were "too loud" ( s-sidin15-matt-gray-interview ), Tognon reverse-engineers the tune's player: the Driller -generation matt-gray-player plus a …
- SIDin #15 — Matt Gray interview (technical questions during Reformation, 2015) summaryThe most technical of the matt-gray interviews: why his tunes are tuned to A4 ≈ 424 Hz, when he started using filters, how the matt-gray-player took shape and what he borrowed from Hubbard, the Serpent Demo samples, and …
- SIDin #5 — Chris Huelsbeck interview (Stefano Tognon, 2004) summaryA short e-mail interview with chris-huelsbeck whose one long answer is the most precise account he has given of his C64 drivers: Soundmonitor built on his third player, then TFM and a sample revision, then tfmx — and …
- SIDin #6 — Inside DigiOrganizer, Polonius's 4-bit sample editor (Stefano Tognon, 2004) summaryTognon's manual-plus-disassembly of digiorganizer , "a great peaces of software wrote by Polonius of Padua for making 4bit sample music using SID volume register": an editor that adds a fourth, sampled voice — drums, …
- SIDin #8 — Aleksi Eeben interview (Stefano Tognon, 2005) summaryTognon interviews aleksi-eeben , "a coder and a musician that had created some useful tools for creating music" — the low-rastertime C64 editor John Player and the four-channel sample tracker Polly Tracker , released …
- The Brief History of SID — Jan Harries (SIDwave), Vandalism News #64 (2015) summaryA scener's memoir of C64 music from 1982 to the 2010s, written by a ripper who says he has "seen many players, 5600+ to be exact" — opinionated, sometimes score-settling, but full of first-hand claims about who wrote …
- The SID Homepage — Interviews with Jeroen Tel (Commodore Zone 1997, 64'er 3/91) summaryTwo reprinted interviews with jeroen-tel on the sid-homepage : a long commodore-zone interview from June 1997 (Warren Pilkington gave permission) and a short one from the German magazine 64'er, issue 3/91. Between them: …
- The SID Homepage — Interviews with Martin Galway (Commodore Zone 6–7, Happy Computer 11/86) summaryTwo interviews with martin-galway reprinted on the sid-homepage : a long commodore-zone one from the mid-1990s and a short Happy Computer one from November 1986, when he was twenty and at Ocean. Together they give the …
- TW #15 — Advanced Tracking Tips II (Necros) summarynecros adapts Jim Aikin's "Demo Tape Workshop" (Keyboard, June 1995) to tracked music: six lessons on structure, dynamics, melody, drums, harmony and samples.
- TW #24, #25, #64, #65 — the sample-ripping debate (Mhoram, Psibelius, Kristian Eriksen, Beacon) summaryFour articles a year apart on "the dreaded 'R' word": taking samples out of other people's modules. The first two (1995) argue etiquette, the second pair (1996) argue copyright. Together they are the scene's own …
- TW #25 — Loops and Extended Samples (The Zapper) summarythe-zapper defends long samples and loops ("texture, presence and some kind of feel") and explains how to make them sit in time.
- TW #32 — Not So Advanced Tracking Tips (Atlantic) summaryAtlantic's "confession" of the habits that slowed his own progress, sorted into five tracker types.
- TW #59 — Tracking Hints (Vivid) summaryTechnical tricks "using Protracker commands" from Vivid of kosmic .
- TW #70–73 — the realism debate (#trax log, Behemoth, GBlues, Alan Robinson, Raphael, Sturm, brn, It-Alien, Purple Haze, Necros) summaryA #trax argument about a tracked saxophone, printed as TraxWeekly's second survey question ("is 'realism' something viable for tracked music?", replies to Psibelius), followed by three issues of answers; Behemoth's …
- TW #76 — Realism in MODs (Behemoth) summaryA reply to a #70 argument (Necros, in_tense and others) about "realism" in tracked music. Behemoth samples his own instruments from a Korg X5 rather than reusing "three or four Purple Motion samples"; reproducing a …
- TW #77 — General Tracking Tips (Generic Blues) summaryTen tips for a beginning tracker.
- TW #77–81 — A Chip Off the Block / Chiptune Seminar, parts 1–4 (The Modsquad) summaryA four-part, mostly satirical "seminar" on making chiptunes by the-modsquad ; the editor noted he was "not that enthused". Parts 3 and 4 are almost entirely nonsense (paper boats, Elvis, nail collections, "encryption"); …
- TW #81–89 — Impulse Tracker Tip of the Week #1–8 (Pinion) and More Impulse Tracker Tips (Pulse) summarypinion 's series, started because "Impulse Tracker has too many features that are not utilized to their full potential", with a correction and extra tips from IT's author jeffrey-lim (Pulse).
- TW #86 — Wrecking Samples with Impulse Tracker (Graham the Happy Scum) summaryThree tricks in IT's sample window (F3): smoothing — Alt-E (resize with interpolation) to length +1, then −1, damps high frequencies; a crude noise gate — Alt-A to unsign, Alt-M amplify to ~103–104 %, Alt-A again, which …
- TW #9 — Samples, Lameness, Preconceptions, and Fluffy Bunnies (Necros) summaryA reply to Perisoft's piece in #8: why necros , once a "siner-synth" purist, became "a loop junkie".
- TW #94 — Stereo Samples with Impulse Tracker (Zinc) summaryWhy and how zinc uses stereo samples instead of panned mono ones.
- VGMPF wiki: Chris Hülsbeck summaryThe most detailed dated timeline of chris-huelsbeck 's C64 years anywhere on the web — a fan wiki, so every date below is second-hand, but it cites the interviews it was built from (listed at the end of the raw page).
- VGMPF wiki: Soundmonitor, TFMX Editor (C64) and The Great Giana Sisters (C64) summaryThree VGMPF pages that together describe the editors chris-huelsbeck used on the C64 and what happened to the great-giana-sisters music between editor and game.