Tracking workflow — advice from the scene

How experienced trackers of the 1990s said to work — most of it still true for sid-wizard and lsdj.

Learning#

• Learn your tracker thoroughly before writing music: print the docs and practise every function until you use them without thinking (Generic Blues, source: s-tw077-general-tracking-tips). In LSDj, A,A on anything shows help; in DUET ? does.
• Open someone else's module, delete the patterns, and write with their instruments — how Psibelius made his first tune in an afternoon (source: s-tw003-beginning-the-tracking-experience). Credit the people whose samples you keep.
• Listen to music you like and analyse what makes it work; then add your own flair.
• Theory speeds you up: Future Assassin (1995) watched theory-trained trackers compose "in a fraction of the time" and found ear-only tracking fails once several instruments must fit together — see chord-progressions (source: s-tw007-the-importance-of-music-theory).
• Study modules in the player: listeners of 1996 muted channels and moved pans in Cubic Player to hear how a tune was built (source: s-tw051-how-to-listen-to-tracked-music); Pedersen (1998): the point of the open module is to "solo every single channel … to learn from the work of others. But … learning by no means is the same thing as stealing" (source: s-tw118-tracking-the-format).

Writing#

• Pick the instruments before you start (Modsquad); "form the song's base and build up" — one order that works: lead, percussion, a simple bassline, then the arpeggiated chords (source: s-tw077-chip-off-the-block). See instrument-design, arrangement.
• Track in spurts: leave a tune for a day or two and come back with fresh ears — you will hear the out-of-tune sample and find the missing section (source: s-tw077-general-tracking-tips).
• Tune your samples and keep sample volumes relative to each other, balancing with the global volume, so a mix that is bass-heavy on another system is a one-value fix (sources: s-tw077-general-tracking-tips, s-tw075-it-percussion-tips). "Don't overdo it."
• When blocked, stop and get inspiration elsewhere — "not everyone can compose 999999999 songs a day" (source: s-tw003-beginning-the-tracking-experience).
• Plan the whole module first: Sir Nick (1996) — make "a chord diagram or some kind of structure plan before getting on with the actual tracking"; the pattern-copy arc (build-up → mayhem → drumless middle → snare fill → transpose a whole step) is monotonous by construction — see arrangement (source: s-tw072-composing-whole-modules).
• Write your own style: Sturm (1996), after his ambient Music Contest 4 entry was judged "too boring" — not a "demo tune" built from a Purple Motion melody, H81 everywhere and a Skaven bassline: "PLEASE write your own stuff"; judges should not mark tunes down for length (source: s-tw070-realism-debate).
• Keep the author's name with every ripped sample so you can credit it later (Mhoram; source: s-tw024-sample-ripping-debate; see sample-ripping).

Releasing#

• Don't release your first tune; get a second opinion and separate constructive criticism from rudeness; announce within netiquette; track for yourself — "it is an artform" (source: s-tw077-general-tracking-tips).
• Don't hype ("totally awesome", "WRiTe LiKe THiS"), avoid "trial member" groups (source: s-tw003-beginning-the-tracking-experience).
• Groups are for distribution and collaboration: Spyder (1996) — share music because "its in our nature", take peer feedback at your own discretion, and don't seek acceptance so hard that it "stifles creativity" (source: s-tw050-aesthetics-of-composition).
• Compo feedback as the mix check: a 12th place with "leads too loud, chords dissonant" and chord bass notes too low; remix, then release (source: s-tw099-why-tracking-is-the-perfect-artform); see compos. For release outside the scene, MarkVM's hi/lo-quality instrument twins and the .WAV render (source: s-tw114-commercial-tracking-debate; see commercial-tracking).

From the Impulse Tracker hints file and later TraxWeekly pieces#

• Pulse: never release your first song, and listen again "a couple of days after"; tune every sample against one long looped reference sample; balance lows and highs (source: s-it-hints).
• Greebo: "spend a day figuring out every feature of the tracker … all the effects and all the keys"; sort your samples into directories and trim them; save regularly (source: s-it-hints).
• StereoMan: never track when you're not in the mood; keep tunes small; a custom colour scheme inspires. Ilpo: listen to many styles and concentrate on one part at a time; details make the whole, too many spoil it (source: s-it-hints).
• Nacho Segura: don't double the rows and halve the speed for "control" — it costs more than it gives; speed of writing "is not a virtue"; group channels (drums together, chords together) with empty columns between so new ideas have a place; print the manual and read it (source: s-it-hints).
• Catspaw: spring-clean before release — delete unused patterns (30 k of dead patterns in one tune) and samples, use effect memory, and make the song initialise and loop properly (song-init-and-looping; source: s-tw058-the-finishing-touches).
• Necros: "do it FOR YOURSELF" — the joy of turning "half-baked arcane garbage from my head" into music is the only reliable reward (source: s-tw005-what-its-like-to-be-a-pc-musician).

Necros, Atlantic and Hartrell (1995)#

• Order of work: drums first, then a bass, so the downbeats are visible before the melody; never place melody notes at a fixed row interval (Hartrell, source: s-tw021-tracking-tips). Necros: before tracking, sketch the song's shape — intro, verse, chorus, bridge, resolution — and its peaks and valleys; sing the melody before you track it; if the chord progression is stock, let the groove and orchestration carry it (arrangement, melody-writing; source: s-tw015-advanced-tracking-tips-ii).
• Samples (Necros, source: s-tw015-advanced-tracking-tips-ii): "GET GOOD SAMPLES" — never the Second Reality soundtrack or the ST: Amiga sets, rip only obscure sources (Aminet mods) and credit them; sample your own CDs — line-out or headphone jack into the sound card's line-in, 22 kHz, through FT2, then ALT-A in ST3 and save as .IFF; shielded cables against RF noise; 16-bit libraries on FTP. Earlier he defended looped and sampled riffs against the purists — bowed strings, distorted guitar, reeds and brass are nearly impossible to fake from single samples (source: s-tw009-samples-lameness-preconceptions).
• Atlantic's five mistakes (source: s-tw032-not-so-advanced-tracking-tips): Indulgers copy Skaven or Basehead at once — "K.I.S.S.", start small; Hotshots skip theory and guess at chords; keep a frequency spread of low and high sounds; take a month per song; the Sample Happy ruin songs with bad home-made samples — rip if you must but "GIVE CREDIT"; Trackstackers build one channel at a time — start in the middle of the action, write bridges; Sheep study a favourite's modules (good) and then try to sound like them (bad).

Studio habits adapted to tracking (Zinc, 1997)#

From Future Music's studio tips, via zinc (source: s-tw096-studio-tracking-tips): write ideas down; clone patterns instead of repeating a pattern number in the orderlist so later edits stay local; when 64 rows are too few, use 128 rows at double speed; back up before a remix and change the tempo when remixing (6/126 → 4/80 alters the feel); sample with everything else switched off, tune samples with a chromatic tuner, save samples dry and effect them later; render your own drum loops with IT's WAV driver; check the mix in mono, on bad speakers, at low and high level and from the next room, and don't normalise a song that is meant to be quiet; "keep it busy" or cut the section; rest your ears.

How the 1995 scene started a song#

From the traxweekly interviews (1995–97): basehead — pick a mood, load 30–35 samples, find a chord progression or hook, write the intro, then variations (source: s-tw001-interview-basehead); jugi — chords on a keyboard first, melody second, sounds last; his six rules: take breaks, no marathon sessions, don't copy modules, copy a favourite CD to learn from it, learn an instrument or sing, compare your mix with real records (source: s-tw010-interview-jugi); pinion — load samples and play until a bass line appears, then layer (source: s-tw014-interview-pinion); zinc — a short melody plus a few good samples (source: s-tw032-interview-zinc); phoenix — a simple rhythm or synth pattern (source: s-tw001-interview-phoenix); the-zapper — jam on bass, guitar or keys over a tracked arrangement for hours, then build the song (source: s-tw027-interview-zapper); maelcum — doodle until something works (source: s-tw009-interview-maelcum); the 1997 beginners Sonalore and Exokai — random notes until an idea appears, keyboard jams; their weak points were percussion, chords, leads and finishing (source: s-tw105-newbie-interviews). Two more rules from the same interviews: don't track drunk (Basehead and Necros; source: s-tw018-interview-basehead) — a rule disputed below — and expect inspiration to come in bursts (source: s-tw003-interview-five-musicians).

How the 1995–98 interviewees worked#

More from the traxweekly interviews, grouped by what they agree and disagree on.

Samples first. leinad — samples (mostly self-made), simple drums, chords, structure, leads, then back to the drums and a volume pass so nothing "drowns"; vary the drum patterns (source: s-tw002-interview-leinad). thehacker — pick samples and let the first set decide the direction, swapping as needed (source: s-tw005-interview-thehacker). ryan-cramer — sample a lot; a chord pattern checked against bass, drums and melody, then contrasting counter-melodies: "Music has to change, so I try to concentrate on the changes the most" (source: s-tw007-interview-ryan-cramer). perisoft — audition a downloaded module's samples, clear it and write until "a mental block or 30 patterns", or three standby samples and stream of consciousness (source: s-tw011-interview-perisoft); two years later, build a pattern around a sample or "a rezo flange" and let the song follow the mood (source: s-tw087-interview-perisoft). beaner — new samples or no creativity; drums, chord progression, details, lead (source: s-tw011-interview-beaner). shawnm — samples first, no note before a direction; a stuck tune is parked (source: s-tw041-interview-shawnm). ganja-man — start from a sampled sound; ideas after clubbing (source: s-tw052-interview-ganja-man). blaze-runner — from a sample or from a melody in the head; one or two patterns → variations → the song (source: s-tw008-interview-blaze-runner).

Chords or melody first. nemesis — a few chords played until something catchy, then drums, bass, intro, B part (source: s-tw004-interview-nemesis). jase — ideas on keyboard, piano, guitar or singing → a structure plan in his head → samples chosen to fit → track → revise (source: s-tw022-interview-jase). paganus — a chords-and-melody writer working on rhythm as his weak side (source: s-tw030-interview-paganus). mick-rippon — mood-driven; writes down melodies he wakes up with; analyses why brilliant music works rather than listening widely (source: s-tw041-interview-mick-rippon). clef — captures melodies in class as note names or spaced dots, writes on the piano, and builds songs in many short sessions; zinc adds that some memorise ideas in C-4 64 notation (source: s-tw055-interview-clef). luv-kohli — usually a beat first, because melodies in the head get lost (source: s-tw031-interview-luv-kohli). lord-pegasus — no set way: bassline, chord pattern, samples or key-banging; changes notes until it sounds good and admits theory would help (source: s-tw018-interview-lord-pegasus). smeghead — stream of consciousness in ST3, tracks out of boredom (source: s-tw029-faces-in-the-crowd-smeghead).

Guitar or paper first. big-jim writes on the guitar, then tracks — with the warning that spending the time on samples and rushing the tracking "gets boring half way through" (source: s-tw013-interview-big-jim). saxy prefers the tracker over paper: you hear it, bar lines are automatic, all parts sound together (source: s-tw054-interview-saxy).

Hours per song. Nemesis: 28–30 hours over two months for a polished song, 3–4 for a quick one (source: s-tw004-interview-nemesis). Fred went from "1-2 tunes per day" to slowing down — "It's not quantity, it's quality" (source: s-tw031-interview-fred); deus-ex founded a group so that unpolished tracks would not go out, and master-of-darkness observed that newbies "release something they made in two hours, rather than wait a month" (source: s-tw034-interview-deus-ex); the complaints column of #32 adds that group deadlines make people "produce MORE" rather than "compose WELL", that dry spells are real, and that feedback is for improvement — compose for yourself (source: s-tw032-fitc-complaints).

Listen as a stranger. Jase: "get an idea first … take one step away from your piece … listen to it like it's the first time" (source: s-tw022-interview-jase). cosmic (RR) ran his own quality control — half of his tracks never left the hold directory; "play it to friends" (source: s-tw090-interview-cosmic). liam-the-lemming waited a year and a half before his first upload; Basehead's critique of his AutoEmotive named percussion, sample choice and cheesiness (source: s-tw066-interview-liam-the-lemming). scirocco: release only what you are proud of (source: s-tw054-interview-scirocco).

Theory from an instrument. ender's nine years of violin are his whole theory background — "almost impossible to track without any theory background" (source: s-tw030-interview-ender); Fred (two semesters of music school, piano since six): it helps, "although there ARE a lot of 'naturals'" (source: s-tw031-interview-fred); Jase and esper-division's de Brienne credit years of classical training — de Brienne: it "enables you to listen with a more critical and learning approach" (sources: s-tw022-interview-jase, s-tw029-faces-in-the-crowd-esper-division); vegas: learning the basics "improved [my music] tenfold", he still tracks by ear but trained, and teaches newcomers the bare-bones basics (source: s-tw062-interview-vegas); mental-floss: "Thinking monophonically is a bit of a mental change" when writing techno, and theory keeps layered parts under control (source: s-tw119-interview-mental-floss). Lord Pegasus learned chords by phone from basehead and theory from the Necros/Basehead articles (source: s-tw018-interview-lord-pegasus).

Learning by imitation. daedalus — emulate a model (Tangerine Dream) until it becomes a style (source: s-tw052-interview-daedalus); Scirocco — learn by "picking apart other tracker's work", and network on #trax (source: s-tw054-interview-scirocco); pariah — lessons, a newcomer-friendly group, or study other songs (source: s-tw043-interview-pariah); acidfrog — "learn something new with every song" (source: s-tw044-interview-acidfrog).

Fewer channels. zalt: fewer channels force better tunes, and extra channels invite "10 chnls of echo" — "it's so much easier to make good tunes with 28 channels than 4" (source: s-tw040-interview-zalt); see chiptune.

The drunk-tracking debate. Against Basehead's and Necros's rule above, populus: "when you're drunk you forget your surroundings and feel alone with the tracker"; Lord Pegasus disagrees too, and his substitute is caffeine (sources: s-tw016-interview-populus, s-tw018-interview-lord-pegasus).

Advice lines. Leinad — "Try to be original. And if you can't, at least not boring" (source: s-tw002-interview-leinad); mosaic — stand out from "general demo music" (source: s-tw006-naid-opinion-interviews); Populus — small harmonies even if harder, a mood, the ten-year test, "don't take the easy lane" (source: s-tw016-interview-populus); Master of Darkness — "compose for yourself … not for competitions" (source: s-tw027-faces-in-the-crowd-master-of-darkness); Esper Division — "Eat three times a day and sleep at least 4 hours" (source: s-tw029-faces-in-the-crowd-esper-division); maelcum — the 4/4 beat, and know your bass drum from your snare (source: s-tw019-interview-quarex); u4ia — "Experiment and don't go for the norm all the time", his early weakness was "listening to much to other people and what they had to say", and "distort your samples and be happy" (source: s-tw067-interview-u4ia); khyron — "if you're still young with lots of free time, bum around ... Once you have to go to work every day you'll miss it" (source: s-tw111-interview-khyron).

C64-specific advice#

• Real hardware if you can: "the sound quality (e.g. warmth and filter distortion) of the real thing is still unbeatable. There will also be practically no delay (latency) when jamming"; transfer with an X1541 cable, SD2IEC, 1541 Ultimate or Turbo Chameleon (commodore-64). In the emulator, use ReSID and remember "your music will sound different on different versions of the SID chip" — check 6581 and 8580 (vice). Save instruments as files and carry them between tunes through the clipboard (source: s-witchmaster-creating-chiptunes-with-sid-wizard).
• Keep the editable file: "Always save your songs in the .SNG-format … Packed & relocated songs (PRG/BIN/SID) can not be loaded back into the editor"; and "the reSID emulation is in some cases quite far from the output of a real SID. Especially if filters are in use" — test on a C64 or HardSID before release (source: s-goattracker-readme).
• Design the instrument and the part together: rob-hubbard tweaked bytes in a machine-code monitor while the music looped, four bars at a time, and wrote driver features and the music that used them "simultaneously"; "we were always looking for ways to try to find something that the machine could do that it really wasn't designed to do" (source: s-newman-driving-the-sid-chip).

• A beginner's first hour on the SID (ant1's 2012 tutorial, corrected by Hermit): pick sid-wizard because it runs on a real C64 and in vice; learn three screens (F5 patterns, F7 instruments, F6 orderlist); make three instruments before writing a note — a saw lead (00F0, 21 ..), a pulse kick, a noise hi-hat; press space to leave edit mode while testing so stray notes don't land in the pattern; write one pattern per channel, then extend the orderlist; save every version under a new name (1.0 could not overwrite); export with SID-Maker and check the result in both SID models. Jellica: "lots of good info that can be applied to almost any c64 tracker" (source: s-chipmusic-c64-music-for-dummies).
• Learning SID sound design (a Lemon64 thread of 2020; source: s-lemon64-learning-sid-sound-design): read the datasheet (s-mos-6581-datasheet) and work through the sound examples in the C64 manual (c64-programmers-reference-guide) — "the numbers in those trackers start making sense"; then witchmaster's book. Learn in lasse-oorni's order: "Basic waveforms, ADSR, pulse width + modulating it, vibrato and pitch slides, 'wavetable' programming (can get started for example by adding a frame of noise waveform into the beginning of notes …)", and leave ring modulation and sync until "you understand everything else" (Tobias). Then analyse other people's tunes: slowed down (how Lasse learned Hubbard's drums), live in SIDViz (tamats.com/apps/sid — which channel uses which waveform and ADSR), or frame by frame with siddump; chordian's editor comparison (chordian.net/c64editors.htm) lists each player's rastertime when you choose a tool.
• Dissecting with siddump (source: s-chipmusic-sid-music-hints-n-tips): siddump tune.sid -t<seconds> > out.txt, one row per frame, 50 rows per second on PAL; read one channel's WF, ADSR and note columns across a drum or a note attack (wavetable-programming has a worked drum); multispeed tunes may not dump. Alternatives: mute channels in the old SIDPLAY and record a .wav (source: s-ucapps-wavetable-sounds-tutorial-1), or "get a SID player, a couple of SID songs, solo whatever channel you want the sound from and sample that" (source: s-chipmusic-typical-sid-sounds). Everyone ends up with "a set of magic numbers that seems to always work for them" — write yours down.

How the C64 composers worked (1985–2014)#

• Learning by study: jeroen-tel, 1985–87 — "sit down and study his [Hubbard's] music. Making notes about his arrangements, techniques, melodies & sounds", then composing inside Hubbard's driver before he had his own (source: s-hugi38-interview-jeroen-tel); but "Copying someone is boring" (source: s-sidmusic-jeroen-tel-interviews).
• Time budgets: rob-hubbard — "about two weeks to compose and arrange", two days when forced (commando, Zoids, One Man and His Droid); the Dragon's Lair 2 tunes were sketched from three hours of recorded improvisation (source: s-sidmusic-hubbard-interviews). martin-galway — Short Circuit's cover took "4 weeks to put in the data"; Highlander and Miami Vice a week each; Parallax a week or two at home (sources: s-remix64-galway-interview, s-sidmusic-galway-interviews).
• Sketching on hardware: Galway tried ideas on a Seiko DS202/DS310 and a Yamaha CX5M before entering "every single note" into the C64 (source: s-sidmusic-galway-interviews); Tel in 2014 on the piano and in Renoise (source: s-hugi38-interview-jeroen-tel).
• Finishing: Galway's self-diagnosed weaknesses — length, drums, and no time to revise ("pushed out the door as soon as they were typed in") (source: s-remix64-galway-interview); Hubbard's three phases — safe, adventurous, over-pushed (source: s-sidmusic-hubbard-interviews).

Chords, bass lines and cinemas: the 1987–89 interviews#

• chris-huelsbeck, 64'er 2/88: "Das ist einfach Intuition. Ich setze mich an den Synthesizer, spiele irgend was und setze es um. … Ich fange erst mit einer Baßlinie an, dann folgen die Begleitung und die Melodie"; inspiration from the cinema and much listening (source: s-64er-rainbow-arts-feature). Happy Computer 3/87 adds the sound-choice stage before composing: match the game's setting (medieval → baroque, present-day → disco, fantasy → mystic synth), plus "die Dramatik der Musik, ganz wie im Kino" (source: s-happy-computer-soundprofessor).
• jeroen-tel at 16, C=Lehti 4/89: strum the guitar a few moments to find chord progressions → type the chords as numbers into the machine → doodle melodies on the synthesizer over the C64's backing → add drums and a few special effects last; one to four days per piece (source: s-c-lehti-maniacs-of-noise).

Finishing songs: Kotlinski's constraint#

johan-kotlinski on why constraints help: with ProTracker and later Cubase he "mostly made loops and had difficulties actually finishing anything"; the Amiga's Musicline Editor let him "create new sounds rather than just using samples" and "the vertical workflow made it easier for me to actually finish songs" — the reasoning behind writing lsdj for a four-channel handheld (source: s-intense-tech-13-kotlinski-interview).

LSDj habits#

From infu's course (source: s-infu-getting-started-with-lsdj): run the latest development ROM but give a new one "a week or two in case of any critical bugs"; back up often; name every instrument ("Bass, Lead, Kick, Snare, Hihat"), one instrument per drum; know where START plays from (phrase, chain or song screen; SELECT+START plays everything); fill gaps with silent chains so playback stays in sync (song-init-and-looping); expect a tempo change to shift every table, arp and retrig; CLEAN SONG DATA frees unused chains and phrases. From chipmusic-org (sources: s-chipmusic-tables-and-chords-threads, s-chipmusic-lsdj-advanced-tricks, s-chipmusic-kotlinski-interviews): learn tables by counting ticks and by "dissecting other people's song files" — members share .savs and lsdsng.com collects them; "Don't make it a chore. If you get frustrated feel free to walk away from it for a bit" (Dire Hit); and johan-kotlinski's reason the tool works: "the workflow is fast and flexible and … the program is fixed to doing one thing very well", getting "from point A (first musical idea) to B (finished song) very quickly".

Sabrepulse's first song (source: s-sabrepulse-getting-started-with-lsdj): sabrepulse's beginner tutorial builds one track in the order bass → lead → kick → snare and hats at 140 BPM, and teaches the habits on the way — every value changes by holding A and pressing a direction; play the phrase (START) or the whole song (SELECT+START) in the background while editing an instrument so changes are heard at once; name instruments (BASS, LEAD1, KICK, SNARE, HAT); and above all clone — put the same phrase in a chain four times, then SELECT, B, A on each copy gives it a fresh number with the same notes, "the backbone of working quickly and efficiently with LSDJ". Advice for the discouraged: learn the basics in a DAW with a friendlier interface first, and keep the manual and the LSDj wiki open.

Grooves, not tempo (pain-perdu, source: s-painperdu-06-grooves): in lsdj the habit worth forming early is to stop reading TEMPO as BPM — "What actually governs the structure of your song is not the tempo setting, it's grooves. What tempo does is govern the clock speed and the tick rate." A phrase step is not a sixteenth note and sixteen steps are a bar only at groove 6; his working convention is to number grooves by their tick count (groove C = twelve ticks) so the table number tells you the feel (shuffle-funktempo, rhythm-and-groove).

Save files, versions and backups (sources: s-intense-tech-04-liblsdj, s-intense-tech-20-lsdpatch, s-intense-tech-12-scoping-out-new-features): saves come off a flash cartridge or an emulator as .sav; 4ntler's liblsdj tools turn a folder of them into a master list (lsdsng-export -p saves > songlist.txt), export every song into its own folder so all versions from all backups land together (-f), rescue the unsaved song still in a save's working memory (-w), and assemble a live-set save from .lsdsng files in file-name order (lsdsng-import). lsdpatch exports songs as .lsdprj, which carries the kits the song uses — the format for sharing with other LSDj users — and upgrades a ROM without losing patched kits, fonts and palettes. Development versions crash: Defense Mechanism's rule in January 2020 was to play with version 7 but back up first and stay on the stable 6.9.0 for real work, which matches Infu's "a week or two" above.

Key combinations and the habits built on them (pain-perdu, source: s-painperdu-05-shortcuts-and-workflow). The clipboard: SELECT+B starts a highlight, B ends it and copies, SELECT+A pastes — but SELECT+A while a highlight is live cuts instead, and the only way out of highlight mode is a copy or a cut, so re-entering it silently overwrites the clipboard. Cloning has two depths: slim clones a chain but leaves it pointing at the same phrases (for a one-note variation or an octave change); deep clones the chain and every phrase inside it into the next free slots, which is what runs a project out of phrases. The general rule he arrives at — "everything you can highlight you can copy, paste and cut, and every value you can select you can clone" — extends to instruments, tables, transpose columns, single table columns, whole screens and, least known, waveforms: a section of a wave, or a whole wave, can be copied between waves in the WAVE screen, which is what makes hand-drawn banks affordable (wavetable-programming, ghost-channel).

The clipboard survives loading another song, but it carries values, not what they point at: chain 1B pasted into a second song refers to that song's 1B. With template saves whose instrument numbers line up, that is a feature — his stated route to quick remixes. Two more habits from the same session: prefer the chain's transpose column over cloning (a whole eight-bar motif in Evasive Maneuvers is two phrases and a transpose), and set KEY DELAY/REPEAT to the song — the first digit is the ticks before a held button repeats, the second the ticks between repeats; he uses 61, 62 or 72 and adjusts it to the tempo.

Composing in an assembler (Matt Gray, 1987–90)#

"Working out melody & chord ideas on a small 3 octave casio keyboard and then inputting the data manually via a 6502 assembler … Once you had something going it was just the usual process of refining it and maybe coming back to it in a few days with fresh ideas"; "it could be a pain waiting for code compiles to hear the results. Working on lengthy tracks could also be tiring because you'd often have to listen from the top every time to keep your perspective in the overall piece"; nights — "come 11.15 I'd be home ready to work often until 3 or 4am"; "several days to start and finish a track", "A 5 minute track on the SID could take several days or a week" (sources: s-retrogamesmaster-matt-gray-interview, s-arcadeattack-matt-gray-interview, s-vandalism63-matt-gray-interview).

What "composing in the assembler" looked like (from the sources)#

• Ocean, 1988: note names, command names and note-value constants — !by LOOP,2,D2,CR+QV,D2,CR+QV,D2,CR,NEXT — with the durations named SQ2, QV2, CR2, MN2, SB2 (6, 12, 24, 48, 96 frames) and the assembler reporting the bytes left in the budget (source: s-realdmx-ocean-dunn-hughes-driver).
• Fred Gray, 1987: one subroutine per section of the song, hard-coding ADSR, instruments and tempo, reading one note byte per row (source: s-realdmx-fredgray-kimmel-whittaker).
• Bjerregaard, 1989: a job sheet in the header (RECEIVED : 18/6, LATEST DELIVERY : 19/6, the specification) and a change log of the player above it; a built-in test harness with keys for tunes, fade and fast-forward and a frame clock (source: s-realdmx-bjerregaard-player).
• Deenen, 1988: a commented-out Turbo Assembler harness that flashes the border around the play call to show rastertime, exits on SPACE and jumps back to the assembler at $9000 (source: s-realdmx-deenen-test-tunes).

The six tables of an assembler-era driver#

Tognon's guide to composing in matt-gray-player reduces a 1980s driver to a fixed order of work, and it generalises to any of them: 1 set the tune's speed (TDATA), 2 fill the instrument rows, 3 write the drum tables, 4 write the arpeggio ("plex") tables, 5 type the patterns, 6 chain them into tracks. Then the step that makes the source readable — define constants for the bytes you type most (INSTR = $FA, ARPEG = $FD, FLUTE = $00, DUR5 = $75), so a pattern reads INSTR,FLUTE,DUR5,F2,ARPEG,P850,E2 … instead of $FA,$00,$75,F2,$FD,$32,E2 …. Assembler composing is bearable in proportion to how much of the hex you have named (sid-player-routine, orderlist; source: s-sidin14-dominator-player).

A MIDI-to-SID cover in GoatTracker 2 (Tognon, 2006)#

• Tognon's What is Love cover for sidin: find a MIDI (a karaoke file, for the lyrics), open it in a sequencer (Rosegarden: matrix, drum-matrix and notation editors on a 1/16 grid) with a software synth (TiMidity as ALSA server) to hear the GM instruments before rebuilding them as goattracker tables, mute tracks at run time until three lines remain — drum, bass, melody/lead/chords — then track it. He kept a spreadsheet of bars × voices with the pattern number and instrument in each cell, colour-coded by instrument type, "to remember each patterns into goattracker and even to control that filter may stay always into voice 3" (arrangement, filter-programming) (source: s-sidin10-goattracker-2).
• richard-bayliss on how he learned instruments: DMC V2.0's utility disk came with example tunes, and "I needed to play around with the example tunes before I was able to create my own instruments" (source: s-sidin10-bayliss-interview).

Related#

tracker · instrument-design · arrangement · chip-samples · sample-ripping · compos · commercial-tracking · traxweekly · lsdj · liblsdj · lsdpatch · sabrepulse · sid-wizard · siddump · rob-hubbard · martin-galway · jeroen-tel · chiptune

Sources#

s-tw077-general-tracking-tips · s-tw003-beginning-the-tracking-experience · s-tw077-chip-off-the-block · s-tw075-it-percussion-tips · s-witchmaster-creating-chiptunes-with-sid-wizard · s-goattracker-readme · s-newman-driving-the-sid-chip · s-intense-tech-13-kotlinski-interview · s-infu-getting-started-with-lsdj · s-chipmusic-tables-and-chords-threads · s-chipmusic-lsdj-advanced-tricks · s-chipmusic-kotlinski-interviews · s-tw021-tracking-tips · s-tw015-advanced-tracking-tips-ii · s-tw009-samples-lameness-preconceptions · s-tw032-not-so-advanced-tracking-tips · s-tw096-studio-tracking-tips · s-it-hints · s-tw058-the-finishing-touches · s-tw005-what-its-like-to-be-a-pc-musician · s-tw007-the-importance-of-music-theory · s-tw051-how-to-listen-to-tracked-music · s-tw118-tracking-the-format · s-tw072-composing-whole-modules · s-tw070-realism-debate · s-tw024-sample-ripping-debate · s-tw050-aesthetics-of-composition · s-tw099-why-tracking-is-the-perfect-artform · s-tw114-commercial-tracking-debate · s-tw001-interview-basehead · s-tw010-interview-jugi · s-tw014-interview-pinion · s-tw032-interview-zinc · s-tw001-interview-phoenix · s-tw027-interview-zapper · s-tw009-interview-maelcum · s-tw105-newbie-interviews · s-tw018-interview-basehead · s-tw003-interview-five-musicians · s-chipmusic-c64-music-for-dummies · s-sabrepulse-getting-started-with-lsdj · s-intense-tech-04-liblsdj · s-intense-tech-20-lsdpatch · s-intense-tech-12-scoping-out-new-features · s-lemon64-learning-sid-sound-design · s-chipmusic-sid-music-hints-n-tips · s-ucapps-wavetable-sounds-tutorial-1 · s-chipmusic-typical-sid-sounds · s-tw002-interview-leinad · s-tw004-interview-nemesis · s-tw005-interview-thehacker · s-tw007-interview-ryan-cramer · s-tw008-interview-blaze-runner · s-tw011-interview-perisoft · s-tw011-interview-beaner · s-tw013-interview-big-jim · s-tw006-naid-opinion-interviews · s-tw022-interview-jase · s-tw018-interview-lord-pegasus · s-tw029-faces-in-the-crowd-smeghead · s-tw016-interview-populus · s-tw027-faces-in-the-crowd-master-of-darkness · s-tw029-faces-in-the-crowd-esper-division · s-tw019-interview-quarex · s-tw030-interview-ender · s-tw031-interview-fred · s-tw034-interview-deus-ex · s-tw032-fitc-complaints · s-tw031-interview-luv-kohli · s-tw041-interview-mick-rippon · s-tw030-interview-paganus · s-tw040-interview-zalt · s-tw041-interview-shawnm · s-tw052-interview-daedalus · s-tw054-interview-scirocco · s-tw055-interview-clef · s-tw054-interview-saxy · s-tw043-interview-pariah · s-tw044-interview-acidfrog · s-tw052-interview-ganja-man · s-tw087-interview-perisoft · s-tw062-interview-vegas · s-tw090-interview-cosmic · s-tw067-interview-u4ia · s-tw066-interview-liam-the-lemming · s-tw119-interview-mental-floss · s-tw111-interview-khyron · s-hugi38-interview-jeroen-tel · s-sidmusic-jeroen-tel-interviews · s-sidmusic-hubbard-interviews · s-remix64-galway-interview · s-sidmusic-galway-interviews · s-vandalism63-matt-gray-interview · s-arcadeattack-matt-gray-interview · s-retrogamesmaster-matt-gray-interview · s-realdmx-ocean-dunn-hughes-driver · s-realdmx-fredgray-kimmel-whittaker · s-realdmx-bjerregaard-player · s-realdmx-deenen-test-tunes · s-sidin10-goattracker-2 · s-sidin10-bayliss-interview · s-64er-rainbow-arts-feature · s-happy-computer-soundprofessor · s-c-lehti-maniacs-of-noise · s-painperdu-05-shortcuts-and-workflow · s-sidin14-dominator-player · s-painperdu-06-grooves