wormius|9mon ago

A tracker is a type of sequencer. Not all sequencers are trackers. Trackers use hexadecimal notation for effects, volume, stereo, etc... They run vertical (see screen shot at OP link), whereas most traditional sequencers (pianoroll, step sequencer, etc) run horizontally.

You have a row consisting of Note, Amplitude, Volume, etc. There are multiple columns, one for each instrument (in modern trackers it's often samples, or you can even use VSTi (VST Instruments, a standard virtual synthesizer format).

I've used various trackers since the 90s, and for some reason, as much as I like the idea of a piano roll sequencer on a PC, this seems to be the most efficient for entering notes to me. I love hardware step sequencers (especially for drums; the standard roland 16 step, for example is fun/great).

This particular one allows you to use emulated chipsets which I assume are controlled via the effects commands (00-FF values) to determine things like delay, echo, repeat, pwm (pulse-width modulation), etc...)

People do amazing things with them, and the demoscenes tend to use them alot.

SO yeah, they're sequencer in the sense they sequence notes, and effects, and can control software instruments, samples, or in this case, virtual chips. But the layout is very different and more "nerdy" than most sequencers. And definitely very good for looping/electronic music.

The one I've used for about a decade if not longer is Renoise: https://www.renoise.com/

It was the first one that I saw that let me use VSTi, and that's what really did it for my personal style. It has sample chopping and tons of other features that blew other trackers in the dust at the time it was released (Buzz was one that was similar in that you could build your own virtual synths via modular boxes connected to each other), but up til that point most trackers were IIRC sample based only. They all did things differently, but the core principle was the same between them. Fast Tracker, Impulse Tracker, Modplug Tracker are some of the ones I played with before Renoise came along.

Definitely want to check this Furnace one out. I've seen one other one that was IIRC, only a Nintendo chip based tracker.

There's also sunvox which is a weird little tracker that uses like... bitmap fonts for game characters to represent things, but I never quite understood that one. It's cool to look at though :)