Impulse Tracker HINTS.TXT — Hints for Composers (summary)

Seven short contributions shipped with impulse-tracker.

Key claims#

• Pulse: never release your first song, and re-listen a couple of days later; for channel echoes use Mxx in the copied column so no Dxx needs editing; create several instruments from one sample for different articulations ("the reason for why I created instruments the way I did"); listen and experiment; write what you like listening to; tune all samples to one long clear looped reference sample; avoid too many samples at centre pan — use initial/instrument panning and pitch-pan separation; the perfect-loop method (turn the GUS loop off and reload, pick forward or ping-pong, find the loop at a much higher pitch by holding +/- on a boundary for least clicking, then lower the pitch octave by octave and repeat); imagine how the instrument is played (a real piano "will ALWAYS have more than one note playing"); balance low and high frequencies.
• Greebo: listen; spend a day learning every feature and key ("ST3 is widely acknowledged to be a bitch to learn, but … was the most powerful tracker out"); look at how nice-sounding bits are done; be different; sort and trim samples ("samples are the building blocks"); tune samples with the speed value; build chords from notes rather than sampled chords — with inversions — for a professional sound; save regularly, never track under Windows; release by uuencoding to alt.binaries.sounds.mods.
• ToalNkor: extract one channel of a stereo sample — Ctrl-F halves the length by keeping every second byte (left channel); for the right channel cut the first and last byte first; then double the mix frequency.
• StereoMan: flanging = the same sample on two channels at the same pan, one with a fine pitch slide (EE1 or volume-column u11…); with the pair at X00/XFF it becomes "a smooth three dimensional sound"; reverb-like echoes = copy the sequence a row or two later, zero its volumes (Alt-V, Alt-W) and let Dx0 slides fade each note in; pan the pair X22/XDD or X80 + S91; read the whole help; keep tunes small; don't track in the wrong mood; a custom colour scheme inspires; experiment with effects, envelopes and NNAs.
• Ilpo Kärkkäinen: listen to many styles; concentrate on one part (backing vocals, drums, the notes in a chord); details make the whole, too many spoil it.
• Onix4MAN: clean clicks by looping the first ~50–100 bytes and pre-loop-cutting (Alt-B), same at the end with Alt-L; render new samples with IT itself — compose a break in one pattern, restart IT with the WAV-writer driver, play, reload as a sample; three ways to a spacious stereo pair on two channels: offset the copy by one row, delay it with SDx (finer), or use a duplicated instrument whose pitch envelope delays it by a tick (keeps both columns free — not for pianos).
• Nacho Segura: the "128 rows at half speed" habit gives little control and costs ergonomics; speed of writing is not a virtue; discover Scroll-Lock; avoid 8-bit/low-quality samples; some Gravis patches misbehave in chords; keep the global volume high for signal-to-noise and smooth fades (at global volume 5–8 a fade jumps); group channels (percussion together, chords together) with empty columns between; print and read the manual; pay the author.

Pages touched#

tracking-workflow, fake-echo, detune, stereo-panning, sample-looping, chip-samples, instrument-design, volume-slides, impulse-tracker, multisampling, sidechain-pump, sample-offset, chord-inversions, levels-and-headroom.