FastTracker 2

The DOS tracker of triton — Fredrik Huss and Magnus Högdahl — behind the xm-format. Work began in June 1993 "to write a music program that could set a new standard in the confused PC-scene"; the design idea: "Who want to do more effects? We made instruments instead of a bunch of effect columns" (source: s-ft2-manual). Version 2.00 shipped in November 1994 with 32 channels, multisampled instruments, envelopes, GUS support and the XM format (influenced by Scream Tracker 3.01); 2.04 (1995-07-23), 2.05/2.06 (1996), 2.08 (1997-08-21, a leaked SB16 build with broken GUS support), 2.09 (1998, unofficial), and Olav "8bitbubsy" Sørensen's bug-fixed 2.10c (2019-04-05) (source: s-tracker-history-notes). Mouse-driven, in contrast to the ST3/IT school; Urban Jonsson's manual (1996) documents version 2.08.

From the scene: its volume column takes pan positions P0–PF (a position is a balance — P3 ≈ 80 % left / 20 % right) (source: s-tw055-panning-debate); "the current version ships ft2.doc" (source: s-tw077-general-tracking-tips); Pinion's reversed ping-pong loop trick works "using IT or FT2" (source: s-tw081-it-tip-of-the-week); IT set out to match its envelopes, 16-bit samples and SB16 stereo, and imports .xi/.xm (source: s-it-manual); chinaski found its documentation "incomplete" (source: s-tw086-hexadecimal-101); IT "dealt a low blow to Fast Tracker as well", but "the die-hard FT2 users didn't switch" because of the interface (source: s-schism-tracker-wiki). OpenMPT's verdict: "a rather buggy program" whose quirks must be emulated — always use the FT2 compatibility defaults for XM (source: s-openmpt-manual-compatible-playback).

Cheat sheet#

Timing#

A tick is "number of VBL's to wait until playing next row"; the first tick plays the note, the rest run the effect; fine effects act once per row. Fxx: 01–1F speed (ticks per row), 20–FF tempo in BPM; ticks per second = BPM × 2 ÷ 5 (125 BPM = 50 Hz); "the BPM is correct at speed 06". The linear frequency table makes slides constant across pitch — switch it off (Amiga table) only for MOD export (source: s-ft2-manual).

Effect column (hex)#

(sources: s-ft2-manual, s-openmpt-manual-effect-reference, s-openmpt-manual-compatible-playback)

Volume column#

00–40 volume · +x / -x slide up / down · Ux / Dx fine up / down · Sx vibrato speed · Vx vibrato · Px pan · Rx / Lx pan slide right / left · Mx tone portamento (source: s-ft2-manual).

Instruments and samples#

An instrument = 1 volume envelope, 1 panning envelope, 1 auto-vibrato, 1–16 samples, 1 keyboard split, 1 MIDI definition; a sample = volume, panning, finetune (−128…+127, audible in steps of 8), relative tone, waveform. Envelopes: one pixel = one tick (50 per second at 125 BPM), a sustain point holds until key-off (Caps Lock), then fadeout; predefine 1 is applied to every loaded sample; turning the envelope off leaves the vibrato on. Sample editor: X-Fade (smooth loops), Minimise, 8/16-bit, Backwards, Convert, Echo, Morph, Resample, Mix, draw mode (right mouse button); copy/paste masks with transparency. Main screen: BPM, Spd, Add, pattern length up to $100, Expand/Shrink (source: s-ft2-manual; see instrument-envelopes, multisampling).

Keys#

F1–F7 octave · Right Ctrl play song, Alt Gr play pattern, Right Shift record, Space stop/edit · Shift/Alt/Ctrl+F3/F4/F5 cut/copy/paste track/pattern/block · Shift/Ctrl/Alt+F7/F8 and F1/F2 transposes · Ctrl+A advanced edit, C config, D disk, I instrument editor, S sample editor, E sample editor extension, T transpose, X main screen, Z full-screen edit · keypad picks instruments · Alt+1…0 write and Shift+Alt+1…0 read command macros (source: s-ft2-manual).

Known traps#

Amiga L-R-R-L stereo must be typed as P0/PF per channel ("That's very boring!"); MOD saving fails with the linear table or envelopes; no random LFO waveform; note delay and retrigger interact strangely; period slides can wrap to a very high note (sources: s-ft2-manual, s-openmpt-manual-compatible-playback). And the .MOD it does save cannot be trusted on an Amiga compo machine: it can write 32-channel .MOD (Psibelius), it gives no warning, and a friend of zalt's entered a chiptune whose sixth-octave notes "all became Bs in the 5th" and placed last — both wished for a real Amiga ProTracker on the PC (December 1995; source: s-tw040-interview-zalt; see mod-format).

Reception and use (1995–98)#

Chuck Biscuits "loved" FastTracker 1 (easy, fast, 8 channels, good on a Sound Blaster 1.05) but could not use it with a GUS and never got into FT2 "even with 16-bit samples and volume envelopes" (source: s-tw003-interview-chuck-biscuits); zinc learned it but preferred ST3's editor (source: s-tw032-interview-zinc); catspaw found FT2 and IT "entirely opposite schools of thought as far as user interface", with features 80 % of trackers won't need (source: s-tw057-interview-catspaw). Maz dates FT2's 16-bit samples and envelopes as the scene's "revolutionary" moment of 1995; MarkVM's contest winner was recorded at Wisseloord Studios straight from FT2, and his release recipe saves the .XM plus a .WAV render for mastering (source: s-tw114-commercial-tracking-debate; see commercial-tracking). Exxon (November 1997) played samples and daughterboard synth sounds live from an input keyboard with FT2 2.08 (source: s-tw115-tracking-semantics; see live-tracking). Cowboy's 1996 recording advice singles out FT2's direct digital CD recording — "If you are using FT2 or some other direct CD recorder, you are set" — over analog CD-ROM cables through the case (source: s-tw066-sound-recording; see recording-samples).

What the 1995–98 interviews say#

Early adopters and hold-outs (1995). claim used FT2 "since like the first week ft2 came out" and thanked triton for its features while "a lot of people hate it" (source: s-tw015-interview-claim); blaze-runner tracked 16-bit samples in FT2 on an AWE32 configured as an SB16 and played back through AWEplay (source: s-tw008-interview-blaze-runner; see gravis-ultrasound); leinad used it beside Extreme's Tracker, which he had beta-tested before FT2 existed (source: s-tw002-interview-leinad); beaner tried it and went back to ST3 (source: s-tw011-interview-beaner); master-of-darkness thought FastTracker the better program but could not get its IRQ setup to work (source: s-tw027-faces-in-the-crowd-master-of-darkness); quarex, a DOS purist, "like[s] fasttracker for some reason" (source: s-tw019-interview-quarex); luv-kohli (October 1995): "some superior features, and … really nice sound quality", but he could not get used to the interface (source: s-tw031-interview-luv-kohli); zalt — "ft2 came like a blessing" for a Pro/NoiseTracker user; the mouse interface is fine and rarely needed (source: s-tw040-interview-zalt). jase won Music Contest 3 (1995) with an XM to answer those who gave FT2 "the thumbs down before trying" and said no good XMs existed; the benefit he wanted to show was "envelopes" (source: s-tw022-interview-jase; see instrument-envelopes). The other side of that argument: psibelius (June 1995) said XM's capability for samples over 64 k "has added to the noise", and populus mocked PURE's new members "sav[ing] up dumb .XM files for fun" (source: s-tw016-interview-populus; see xm-format). deus-ex founded Chill Productions because he "was getting flack … for using a GUS and for using FastTracker" (source: s-tw034-interview-deus-ex), and kal-zakath planned a "Faces in the Crowd" column of "FT2 tricks" (same source).

1996. balrog: the envelopes drew him from X-Tracker; "the interface takes a while to get used to"; his colour scheme was a dark blue and green desktop with the rest mauve and light green (source: s-tw042-interview-balrog). ganja-man chose XM for the mouse support, having started on TCB Tracker on the Atari ST (source: s-tw052-interview-ganja-man); clef hated the mouse interface and the new keys and skipped FT2 for IT (source: s-tw055-interview-clef). scirocco used FT2 from early 1995 after Tetra Compositor and MTM and claimed the only five-star XM on ftp.cdrom.com (source: s-tw054-interview-scirocco); saxy was given FT2 by Ms. Saigon and tracked her first tune in it (source: s-tw054-interview-saxy). acidfrog: "even on FT2 you have to put alot more work into your music" than with MIDI gear (source: s-tw044-interview-acidfrog). Master of Darkness's explanation of the dance-music prejudice: FT2's sound quality brought the 1995–96 wave of trance and dance, and with it the jibe that dance "is so easy to make in FT2" (source: s-tw043-interview-pariah). u4ia (August 1996) chose FT2 2.06 because it "looks and feels and reacts like a tracker from my Amiga days"; FastTracker 1 had lacked cut/paste and sample editing; FT2's volume envelopes and panning were "so close to CD quality" (source: s-tw067-interview-u4ia). ryan-sprott used FT2 — IT and FT2 are "better than st3, and look how long st3 lasted" (source: s-tw063-interview-ryan-sprott); vegas saw no real advantage over IT "other than interface preference. 32 channels or 64, whats the difference" (source: s-tw062-interview-vegas).

1997–98. Cosmic/RR (March 1997) switched to FT2 from "xtracker" because it is "somewhere a pt clone" with envelopes and panning — "best solution for musician on pc (imo)" (source: s-tw090-interview-cosmic); perisoft jabbed at "ft2 gimps" (source: s-tw087-interview-perisoft). Live use: the Toronto act Sourfly played with two computers and two copies of FT2, muting and unmuting channels, and mental-floss cited FT2's sample editor as the benchmark IT still lacked in February 1998 (source: s-tw119-interview-mental-floss; see live-tracking).

The argument itself, and who ended it. The FT2-versus-ST3 question runs through the whole archive, and by 1996 the participants are tired of it. shawnm (1995) puts the hold-out case without heat: he prefers ST3, and FT2 "offers more features he does not need yet" — his path had been MultiTracker → ST3 → eventually FT2 (source: s-tw041-interview-shawnm). mick-rippon, in the same issue, refuses the premise: "I mastered Protracker on the Amiga, and I've nearly mastered ST3 and FT2 on the PC" — "a tracker is only an artistic tool, and not vital to creating a piece of music" (source: s-tw041-interview-mick-rippon). vadimvs (1996) reports the mixed reality most people lived in — "basically, it st3, of course. sometimes i use ft2 and itracker" — and makes the prediction that turned out right: what would decide the question was not the interface but the feature set, "in future only trackers with 16-bit samples and multiple instruments will survive", i.e. FT2 and IT (source: s-tw050-interview-vadimvs). daedalus simply calls it "beyond silly … people should just accept it, and let that stupid old argument DIE!" while himself using "screamtracker 3.21" (source: s-tw052-interview-daedalus). jugi's TraxWeekly interview identifies him as an FT2 user; his six tips for newcomers are about method rather than the tool and sit on tracking-workflow (source: s-tw010-interview-jugi).

A C64 editor author's verdict. JCH — who had written his own editors for the C64 — moved to FT2 in the summer of 1995 and describes it structurally rather than as a matter of taste: "much of the same principle as my own music editors of the past, except the channels did not use separate sequences". That one difference is the orderlist question: the C64 editors of the jch-editor family give each voice its own sequence, while the PC trackers advance all channels through one shared order list. He wrote 28 tunes in it between "Memories" (July 1995) and "Sweet Kettle" (September 1998), released 14, and stopped composing during 1999 — the PC scene having been "a black hole" for someone with a C64 reputation: "JCH? Drax? Who are those?" (source: s-chordian-my-computer-chronicles).

The Interwave episode (1997)#

In May 1997 "hundreds (thousands?)" of users e-mailed Triton demanding Interwave support in FT2; jeffrey-lim, who had written his own Interwave driver for IT and was asked for the source, told them that nobody has a right to demand features of a free program — send Triton a card, the specs and "at least a thousand dollars in cash and ask them politely" (source: s-tw100-tracking-on-impulse). Necros's 1995 tips chart still called FT "FT 1,2" and converted from ST3 letters to its numbers (source: s-tw012-advanced-tracking-tips).

Related#

xm-format · mod-format · triton · impulse-tracker · scream-tracker-3 · protracker · openmpt · gravis-ultrasound · stereo-panning · instrument-envelopes · effect-command-crosswalk · recording-samples · live-tracking · commercial-tracking · traxweekly · orderlist · chordian · jch-editor

Sources#

s-ft2-manual · s-tracker-history-notes · s-openmpt-manual-effect-reference · s-openmpt-manual-compatible-playback · s-openmpt-manual-module-formats · s-tw055-panning-debate · s-tw077-general-tracking-tips · s-tw081-it-tip-of-the-week · s-it-manual · s-tw086-hexadecimal-101 · s-schism-tracker-wiki · s-tw100-tracking-on-impulse · s-tw012-advanced-tracking-tips · s-tw003-interview-chuck-biscuits · s-tw032-interview-zinc · s-tw057-interview-catspaw · s-tw114-commercial-tracking-debate · s-tw115-tracking-semantics · s-tw066-sound-recording · s-tw015-interview-claim · s-tw008-interview-blaze-runner · s-tw002-interview-leinad · s-tw011-interview-beaner · s-tw027-faces-in-the-crowd-master-of-darkness · s-tw019-interview-quarex · s-tw031-interview-luv-kohli · s-tw040-interview-zalt · s-tw022-interview-jase · s-tw016-interview-populus · s-tw034-interview-deus-ex · s-tw042-interview-balrog · s-tw052-interview-ganja-man · s-tw055-interview-clef · s-tw054-interview-scirocco · s-tw054-interview-saxy · s-tw044-interview-acidfrog · s-tw043-interview-pariah · s-tw067-interview-u4ia · s-tw063-interview-ryan-sprott · s-tw062-interview-vegas · s-tw090-interview-cosmic · s-tw087-interview-perisoft · s-tw119-interview-mental-floss · s-chordian-my-computer-chronicles · s-tw010-interview-jugi · s-tw041-interview-mick-rippon · s-tw041-interview-shawnm · s-tw050-interview-vadimvs · s-tw052-interview-daedalus