TW #32 — Not So Advanced Tracking Tips (Atlantic)
Atlantic's "confession" of the habits that slowed his own progress, sorted into five tracker types.
Key claims#
- Indulgers think complicated means better and try to copy Skaven or basehead at once; the K.I.S.S. principle applies — "the best musical quality with as little sound as possible. Start small."
- Hotshots never learn what a chord is; without theory you guess which notes fit by trial and error and the clashes show. Two consequences: (a) frequency spread — low-end and high-end sounds at the same time give depth; all-bass is noisy, all-treble irritating; (b) time — release less, work on a song for a month, so you don't look back and think "I really blew chunks".
- The Sample Happy make songs from bad self-made samples for originality's sake; ripping is not a crime — "just GIVE CREDIT where credit is due — always" — and otherwise use the best samples you can get.
- Trackstackers build one channel at a time, two patterns each: predictable and boring; write bridges, start "in the midst of the action", vary.
- Sheep load a favourite musician's module (Fencer, for him) to learn how a sound was made — good — but then try to sound like Necros or Purple Motion: "Only those musicians sound like those musicians."
Practical takeaways#
Keep it simple, learn chords, balance the spectrum, take a month per song, credit samples, don't stack channels one by one, study modules without imitating.
Notable quotes#
- "The K.I.S.S. principle applies to music."
Relevance#
A second scene voice, after Generic Blues (#77) and Psibelius (#3), for the beginner rules in tracking-workflow; the frequency-spread and "start in the action" advice belong to arrangement.