duckslinger
Not sure how all the US-based Nintendo chipsters missed this interesting looking Blockparty release, but it doesn’t seem like anyone’s been talking about it in all the usual circles. Anyway, this is the first release of a new NDS tracker – NitroTracker means well, but sadly doesn’t seem to be coming up with the goods. If this guy’s gone for his own custom format, then maybe it’ll be able to carve out its own comfy niche…
Looking forward to giving it a shot, when I can find my DS. It took second place in the Wild compo at Blockparty, and the pouet thread is here.
April 27th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Why do UK Nintendo-based chipsters not talk about this?
I couldn’t possibly speak for all the thousands (or at least dozens) of them..
However! Personally, I don’t own a DS .. or particularly want to own one.
My life started out with fasttracking on the Amiga 600/1200 then after years of pissing around on the megadrive/NES/GB I ended up famitracking like an starving child eating pancakes.
April 27th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
[...] VIA [...]
April 27th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Well there’s only one US demoparty of any significance and this got released at it, so I thought some of the guys over there might have caught wind of it. I suppose subconsciously, I was blogging it so that other people would try it out for me; save me the bother if it’s not worth it :)
Famitracker? Fa-meh-tracker :( If I absolutely HAVE to use a grotesque windows synthtracker, it’s always gonna be Vortex ;)
April 27th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
It goes to show ya that nothing gets covered, if the attendees cant be arsed to write a proper write up!
Thanks syphus, for saving us from evil sinful uncy ways. ;)
April 27th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Heh, well I’m not sure anyone’s been arsed to do a proper write-up of Breakpoint yet either. I still haven’t done a proper write-up of Sundown 2006 :/
April 28th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Sweet post man. Thanks for brining this to light. Can’t wait to try it out
May 2nd, 2009 at 7:30 pm
I keep forgetting to try this out! I have it on my DS and everything but I really haven’t sat down to write anything with it. The only thing I don’t like is not being able to noodle around with sounds and stuff without it tracking the notes. I’m used to being able to switch record on and off. Still, the DS has been needing an awesome tracker for a while and I think this is it!
May 6th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Famitracker is good! name a better windows based NES tracker!
Anyway, I didn’t start out on that, but having used it for so long I can’t help myself.
Vortex is .. terrible .. why would you use it?
What about Renoise or Madtracker or Milkytracker?
May 6th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Vortex LOOKS terrible, and seems terrible, and is terribly designed in all sorts of ways…but astonishingly enough, another AY/YM tracker was recently released for Windows/etc platforms (Java) and it’s even WORSE! Anyway, deep deep down, Vortex can let you do some crazy shit that most native Speccy AY trackers won’t – check out Gasman’s tunes on Ate Bit’s chipdisk for evidence ;)
Anyway, I didn’t mean to compare Vortex and Famitracker, by any means. NES vs AY? No comparison :P
I use Renoise and Milky – in fact, both of them have live performance modes thanks to me and my feature-request nagging :)
May 9th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Although it is a nice concept, at the moment the tracker itself is just too limited in sound and design. Only FF rows at the moment, it’s not chain based (which causes a bit of a problem for me at least). The GUI looks nice though and it could become a worthy tracker in the future if they choose to build on it :)
Well, there’s my review of it.
May 14th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
You were crazy live Syphus.. so fast on the keyboards, I couldn’t believe it. Never seen a live show like that before.
I was like ‘Dude! This is like tracking but in real life!’
Which tracker are you reviewing Joseph? Famitracker?
Why would you need more than FF rows.. that’s quite a lot!!
I think it’s just a small time project by someone.. but there aren’t any other decent NES trackers that I know of.
It’s great .. I love the sound of the NES chip. I tried using proper trackers and emulating the sound with VST plugins and things but it just wasn’t the same as making my own NSF file :P
I’d love to be able to use Renoise, I’ve tried a couple times but I get so flustered and daunted until I fall off my chair.
I need to learn properly though.. jt_mind.xm is just too good of a song, check it out:
http://orgasmod.com/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=46499
May 16th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
@HyperSonic: I must have messed up my grammar there, I didn’t mean as in only FF rows, obviously using every row would lead to a very long song :) I just meant that the GB people trying it out probably aren’t accustomed to composing on 64 or 128 rows on older trackers, the sheer amount of rows on Duckslinger will probably frazzle their brains.
May 18th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Hahaha yeah you might be right there Joseph!
Hey guys, I’m thinking of changing my chiptune name (HyperSonic) to something else because there’s some Israeli bloke parading around myspace with the same moniker! – and I’m not popular atall in comparison to him or anyone :(
Any ideas?
May 22nd, 2009 at 1:53 am
@HyperSonic: Keep the name man! Who cares about MySpace popularity and whatnot? Just get down to making some tunes and keep enjoying what your doing :)
Keeping on topic anyway, I did manage to have a little play around with the tracker in more detail, I did actually save a basic jam that I was thinking of transposing over to LSDJ or maxYMiser at a later date. Turned off the DS though and couldn’t load the song back up! Anyone else had this problem or found a workaround solution?
May 23rd, 2009 at 6:32 pm
@Joseph: I was thinking ‘Vectress’ for a new name.
Lol there’s no use in a tracker that can’t save files! haha
May 23rd, 2009 at 6:35 pm
@Syphus: I was thinking, is there somewhere I can get a copy of all of your songs (.mod .xm .it etc.) in a rar file or something? I’m sure would only be a megabyte or two.
May 26th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
@ Hypersonic: http://www.downthemall.net/ – if you use Firefox this should fix your problem and you should be able download all the modules into one folder. At the very least if that doesn’t work then it should do for mp3’s. Hope that helps.
May 26th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
HyperSonic – I keep meaning to get around to zipping it all up, but then I do a few more tunes and previous zips become outdated and I’m forgetful and disorganised and blahnlahblhaghsfljghadsflbgj. But I *will*, and I’ll make a wee announcement when I do :D
August 2nd, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Lol Syphus.
Thanks Joseph, that worked fine!
Hey Syphus, are you playing with the chiptune alliance this year?