There’s a lot of hype around the latest schemes for changing how artists get their music to fans, but not actually a whole lot of news. (It always seems to boil down to a website with some unpronounceable name.)

Well, this is news: Harmonix is opening up Rock Band to anyone who wants their music in it, and giving you the same sophistication of tools they use themselves. That’s a real game-changer – literally.

And I don’t mean just for the actual game Rock Band. Sure, Harmonix was the house that made music games a phenomenon in the US. They learned well from Japan’s Masaya Matsuura, perfected music games’ mechanics in Amplitude and Frequency, popularized the formula by launching Guitar Hero, then rocked collaboration with Rock Band before convincing the infamously-guarded Beatles to finally embrace digital tech. But the sad reality of game music in general is that it’s been a playing field for the old guard – it’s licensing deals with major labels to promote music you’ve already heard. It’s the top hits on the radio, redigested onto your game console. There’s commercial calculation behind even the tune that’s in the background while you’re paging through a screen in Madden. Harmonix has already changed some of the economics, and disrupted even what could be a hit, as kids discover classic metal for the first time or geeks grab music by Jonathan Coulton and Stephen Colbert. But that’s not quite the disruptive shift in game music so many people have expected.

I think Rock Band Network could be the first real sign of that shift.

Rock Band Network promises to be something really different. How?

• Anyone can get their music in the game. You don’t even need a label. You need a few (cheap) software tools, a computer, and some basic MIDI chops, and for a fraction of the cost of pressing a couple hundred CDs, any artist can get their work into Rock Band 2.
• It’s a real community-driven process. Your A&R people don’t have to shmooze with MTV. You don’t have to enter into some complex developer agreement with Microsoft or Sony. There isn’t even a shady, mysterious review process like the Apple iTunes App Store. Actual Rock Band fans will get to play your music and tell you that the animation needs fixing and the difficulty level needs to be fixed on the drums.
• You use Reaper – an actual music production tool for grown-ups. Harmonix could have given us some weird in-game tool they cobbled together themselves. Instead, they give us a special verison of Reaper, the brilliant, full-blown Digital Audio Workstation that inexplicably costs just US$60 but blows the pants off a lot of better-known tools. So you actually get to assemble your music the way Harmonix has been doing for years, with a real tool. Fortunately, the process has been made much easier and copiously documented, but it’s nice to be treated like adults for a change.
• If it works, Rock Band is just the beginning. It’s impossible to see into the future. RBN is a leap of faith both in the artists and the game fans, in terms of their taste and the amount of effort they’ll invest. But if it works, Rock Band Network could change the way people think about interactive user-created content, well beyond just furniture in the Sims or Little Big Planet.

Anyway, enough of the big picture – let’s talk details. I got to sit down with the Rock Band Network team from Harmonix high above Times Square in MTV’s offices this week to get a full-blown demo – including some seriously fun nerding out with composer/sound designer Caleb Epps, plus Senior Producer Matthew Nordhaus and MTV’s games man, Paul DeGooyer. (In a sign that the big media world still doesn’t quite get what’s going on in this field, no one at the Viacom security desk had even heard of Harmonix.)

The team was extremely generous with technical details of Rock Band Network, and walked me through the process of how artists would get going with RBN. Here’s a first look at that process.

What You Need to Get Started

$60 Reaper + free plug-ins + a computer + Windows to beam over the music + an Xbox 360 to test on.

1. Reaper (Mac, Windows) For the authoring itself, you may be surprised: you don’t need some special tool. You use Cockos’ brilliant, lightweight, Reaper. It’s not even Reaper Rock Band Edition. Reaper for Mac will work, too. Cost: US$60 for the standard license, or US$225 if you’re already a huge rockstar.

http://www.reaper.fm/

2. Reaper plug-ins (Mac, Windows) Reaper plug-ins: this download is the real magic, adding everything from shortcuts for making tempo maps to color-coding tracks to helping you add lyrics, animations, and everything else that makes your song into a Rock Band track… game. Gamesong? Songgame? Cost: Free.

3. MAGMA Packaging Tool (Windows) MAGMA is a simple tool that facilitates getting those files packaged up with artwork and keywords and such, and moving them over to the Xbox 360 for testing yourself and for sharing with the rest of the community. It is Windows-only because it relies on Microsoft’s networking functionality with the console, but Harmonix says they’ve had no problem using it on the Mac via an emulator or Boot Camp. Cost: Free. (or the cost of Windows if you’re on the Mac).

4. Xbox Creators’ Club Membership: Join Microsoft’s game development community, and you get access to a special Rock Band creators area that lets you upload and share your tracks – and other tracks from other users (which is where item #5 comes in). Cost: $99 /year (Note that there are some discounted ways to get at this for shorter terms, and you get all the game developing features of the community, too, in case you want to try to make your own game in XNA.)

5. An Xbox 360 and Rock Band 2: You do want to actually play the results, right? (Unfortunately, because of the reliance on Creators Club, Sony’s PS3 isn’t yet supported, though some sort of PS3 distribution is planned for the future.) Cost: About to come down thanks to sales – and now you get to write off an Xbox 360 on your taxes.

Total cost: as little as $100-160 or so with the various pieces, or a little more if you need to pick up an Xbox 360 and the game and/or equip your Mac to run Windows.

By the way, Ars Technica claimed this month, based on the experience of one developer, that Xbox Live [is] not ready for user-generated content. That claim is simply wrong. Sure, LittleBigPlanet is cool on PS3, but the infrastructure for moderating content is there, on the community created for the XNA game development platform. And the tracks for Trails HD (the game mentioned in that article) or even LittleBigPlanet really pale in comparison to what Harmonix is about to unleash. It’s the first time a game has really been a platform, which was long the vision of Harmonix’s founders.

Now, let’s get into actually making your music.

The Tempo Map

Since Rock Band is assuming …well, a rock band, you’ll need to allign a tempo map with the audio so the software knows where the bars are. Caleb Epps showed me some of the nifty shortcuts that make moving from bar to bar snappy and automagical. Reaper itself has actually incorporated feature enhancements to accommodate the Rock Band workflow – which, in turn, means that the wider Reaper community may find improvements that impact them outside of preparing tracks for the game. I’ll cover this process in more detail once Harmonix unveils the wider beta.

MIDI Mapping and Animation

Here’s where the real work begins. When I visited Harmonix in Cambridge as they were developing the first Rock Band game, I found one guy hunched over a copy of Cubase doing just this: adding MIDI events for the game play at different skill levels. Now, in Reaper, you’re doing a process that’s just as sophisticated – it’s just much more user-friendly and quicker. (Harmonix says they’re gradually adopting the tools for the Rock Band Network internally, and some of their work already uses it.)

Especially nice: you’ll see color coding that matches the different game controllers.

MIDI isn’t just used for the notes in gameplay, though. You also add notes for the vocals, with the “+” key signifying a syllable extending across notes and another character designating notes that can’t be sung. (Bob Dylan, I’m looking at you.)

Most interestingly, you can tightly control animations, down to when the onscreen drummer chokes a hat or the camera cuts to the singer or the lighting in the venue activates, all using MIDI events. Check out the “Text Events” dropdown in the screen grab above.

If this sounds like a lot of work, it is. Fortunately, Harmonix says that the finished release will include tools that, say, allow the software to intelligently generate the animations. You can come back and tweak those if you wish, but you won’t necessarily have to manually add every single camera move – even though that’s traditionally how Harmonix does it.

All of this gets saved as standard MIDI files, so theoretically DAWs other than Reaper could perform the task, too – though for now, I can’t imagine wanting to leave Reaper, given the level of integration and documentation. But it’s nice that Harmonix hasn’t invented some crazy closed format, because if this takes off, I could see people creating other tools.

The Simulation

Now, if you had worked at Harmonix up until recently – as I saw when I did that first office tour – you’d then have to figure out how to get this song over to an Xbox console to play test it. Happily, you don’t have to do that any more. A convenient plug-in will pop up a graphical representation of any of the four parts. You can watch them animate through and get a real sense of what it’s like playing the game.

This is implemented as a standard plug-in, but the UI requires Reaper to work properly, so for now, it’s restricted to Reaper.

MAGMA and Play Testing

Good game design is all about play testing. So, when you’re distributing your music as a game, it’s essential that you actually play it as a game.

Yep, that’s right. This is the stage of the process where you have to play your Xbox. (Shame.)

MAGMA is the tool that packages in artwork and beams the track over to your Xbox 360 console. Provided your computer and your console are on the same network, the process of getting a built track to the Xbox is nearly instantaeous.

You can “audition games” locally, thanks to a patch to Rock Band 2 allows anyone with a Creators Club membership to play the games. That means you can easily test your own tracks on your Xbox, but also explore what other people are doing. And the community will ultimately determine which tracks are good enough to be approved.

In other words, if you don’t want to make your own Rock Band tracks, but want to become a virtual Xbox music “scout,” you could sign up for a membership and look for the next big thing by playing their music – interactively – on Rock Band.

That’s got to be better than dealing with all the CDs that usually show up in your mailbox.

The best part of all of this to me is that people can offer feedback. You can get through the first pass of your music, but then see how it’s playing with other people. Need to fix a camera angle? Dial down the difficulty on one level? Now you’ll get real feedback.

Interestingly, this also complements Microsoft’s other purpose for the Creators’ Club, which is to encourage independent game development using their elegantly-designed XNA game tools, some of which ultimately make it to Xbox Live Arcade. I think there’s actually a chance this could breathe some life (and users) into that service. Now, if only Microsoft would build more robust audio tools into the game toolkit so some crazy indie developer can built the next Frequency or Amplitude …but I digress.

Q&A

Anticipating the kind of questions you may be asking yourself…

When does it all happen? The network is now in closed beta. A larger beta is planned for next month, with a full launch expected around October.

So who will use all of this? I think there will be several groups:

1. Indie bands with tech savvy.

2. Indie bands who aren’t tech savvy, who will learn Reaper to get this working – and wind up using Reaper and other computer audio tools to produce their next album. (Harmonix promises extensive documentation to give them a hand. I’m sure CDM can help, too.)

3. Electronic artists who build a cottage business around prepping other people’s tracks.

4. Game developers and game fans who pick this stuff up because they love Rock Band, and wind up getting further into music.

And while 1-3 are certainly interesting to CDM, I hope we get to interract with people in that fourth category.

Isn’t this going to be too hard for some people?

Yup. Yup, it is. On the other hand, Harmonix is going to great lengths to make this easier – and if you are a skilled MIDI sequencer, you’ve just found a business opportunity.

I’ve got a Mac and a PS3.

Don’t sweat it. A lot of the Harmonix folks are Mac users, alongside the happy Windows users. It could be well worth running in an emulator or a second partition, and you can still do all your music production on the Mac. As for the PS3 – well, you can either make friends with an Xbox owner, or watch for the sale I hope is coming. You do need a hard drive, but otherwise this seems a reasonable investment.

Will I get paid?

We’ll talk more about this in a future story, but yes – thanks to the Xbox Creators Club payment infrastructure, you can expect to get paid early and often (payments arrive quarterly), meaning this could be a decent revenue stream at a time when they’re hard to find.

Performance licensing is apparently not applicable to Rock Band (I did ask about that); that’s, again, a topic for a separate article.

What if my instrumentation doesn’t fit Rock Band?

Check out the Rock Band catalog. There’s some flexibility here, as long as the game play works. You just need to make it work for the default setup so that people with a mic, a guitar, a bass, and a drum kit in front of their TV can have a good time.

And as I talked to Harmonix, we talked about the fact that previously unavailable genres could look really fantastic in the game – yes, Norwegian Death Metal, your time has come! (Now, if we just got vocal harmonies as in The Beatles…)

I also expect some really, really odd submissions in the community. (“The World’s Hardest Rock Band Track,” anyone?)

Meanwhile, I’m hoping that Harmonix will re-release their back catalog, Frequency and Amplitude, on Xbox Live Arcade, and then doubly hoping they’ll let people author for them, for all of us fans of electronic music with unusual instrumentations, and the unusual gameplay mechanic of those games. (Their new PSP game, incidentally, quietly returns to that game style.)’

On the other hand, I don’t expect Harmonix to do everything here. If this works, Rock Band could be just the beginning.

Changing the World of Music

Harmonix has long talked about wanting to create a “platform” for music, but I think it’s really Rock Band Network that could get them there. Rock Band alone can’t be the exclusive future of interactive music – that’d be boring. But if Harmonix pulls this off, it could be a real catalyst for transforming all recordings into an interactive experience – not just the established hit parade we’ve already seen. And that’s utterly huge.

I also think it’ll be well worth the time of CDM to watch as this evolves. We talk a lot about alternative controllers, about interaction design, about the merging spheres of games and music, but also about musical integrity and creativity and new outlets for spreading musical material. Rock Band Network could bring all of those ideas into mainstream consciousness in new ways.

And, oh yeah – it’ll be a heck of a lot of fun to play those tracks, and to get people playing your music. Stay tuned.

Sign up for the beta and get more information here:

http://creators.rockband.com/

Welcome to the alt-DAW scene. Last week, not only did Renoise continue its rebirth of the forgotten “tracker” genre of music making software with ReWire support, but we saw a big new version of REAPER, the beloved lightweight audio production tool from the original creator of Winamp.

What makes an “alt DAW”, or “indie” production software? To me, it’s:

• small development teams of a few people
• tightly-integrated communities directly involved in feature requests
• trusting users instead of adding significant DRM, returning to the traditional “shareware” business model of old
• affordable pricing

That’s not to take away from some of the bigger players – I was struck this week with the (unsurprising) ubiquity of Ableton Live at MUTEK; it’s a real testament to what they have accomplished. But choice is essential, and looking at the history of music technology, it’s in the periods of real choice that the most interesting things have happened. It makes everything better when developers really have to compete.

Cockos REAPER has spread almost virally as an underground DAW, partly because you can download the thing and get started with without any restrictions, then buy it for as little as US$60 for personal use.

http://www.reaper.fm/index.php

It’s not just for Windows people any more, either – the Mac version is now officially supported. You can run on Windows 7 or Windows 2000 or even 98 (with limited support). You can run on 10.4 Macs, or even PowerPC (though Intel is recommended). You can even run on Linux with official WINE support, though I’d still like to see a native Linux version, especially as Linux on netbooks is getting so lovely.

Version 3.0 came out this week. There are a huge number of improvements:

• MIDI editing with inline editing, event filtering, Sysex, controller automation – finally, REAPER is getting as good with MIDI as it is with audio
• Automation lanes
• Unlimited folder nesting
• Multichannel audio support
• User-created track and mixer control panels and macros
• Game controller support, including joysticks and even Guitar Hero controllers, which you can integrate with existing MIDI and macro facilities
• New graphics engine, new theming

And that’s just a few examples; see the full changelog:

http://www.reaper.fm/whatsnew-300.txt

You can script your own audio and MIDI plug-ins using JS, and use 64-bit plug-ins included with the package. And all of this is a 4MB download. And there’s no DRM.

While some software increases memory and resource consumption with new versions, REAPER reverses the trend: it’s getting more lightweight and faster as it develops. That’s something we need more of; it’s absolutely possible with the right development approach, and is a welcome change from the “get fatter as computers get faster” approach that infected decades of software development.

Upgrades are $149 if you bought Reaper after September 1, $199 otherwise, or EUR249 for Europe, or $99 if your favorite color is blue, or $123.5 * PI / 2 if you had LE, or $999 for REAPER Suite, or $699 for a Grande REAPERccino Latte, unless you don’t want all the plug-ins, in which case you can get Tall as an upgrade for $119.3587 plus a $150 fuel surcharge, unless you bought your license on a full moon…

Oh, okay, actually, upgrades are free for two major upgrades – meaning if you buy now, you’re covered through 4.99. And there’s one version, called REAPER, which includes… REAPER.

You’re seeing what this hype is about, right? And, if you’re like me, you’re wondering why, you know, other things can’t be a little more like this?

Updated: Sorry, I lost my mind and wrote “JavaScript” instead of the unrelated scripting language JS. Here’s a good explanation from the JS Programming Reference to what this is.

JS is a scripting language which is compiled on the fly and allows you to modify and/or generate audio and MIDI, as well as draw custom vector based UI and analysis displays.
JS effects are simple text files, which when loaded in REAPER become full featured plug-ins. You can try loading existing JS effects and since they are distributed in source form, you can also edit existing effects to suit your needs (we recommend if editing an existing effect you save it as something with a new name–if you do not you may lose your changes when upgrading REAPER).

JS Programming Guide

There’s also an extensions SDK in C++ and an LGPL-licensed SDK for control surfaces. You can contrast this with Ableton, which will charge extra for its Max for Live runtime and has no officially supported or documented API for control surfaces, which means that support for more exotic devices routinely breaks, and trying it yourself is harder.

Focusrite – Novation Beta

There’s a registration form for beta testers so you can stay up to date, but you can grab the download immediately. Sounds great to me, as more (quality) feedback can mean fewer bugs!

And what about the HUI support in Automap (which apparently includes the free Automap 3 Standard)? HUI, or Human User Interface, is the older version of Mackie’s control scheme, implemented over MIDI for more extensive control over DAWs’ editing features. HUI support (added first in the 2.0 ReMOTE SL operating system) gives you control compatibility with the wonderful, affordable Reaper DAW, plus Logic, Final Cut Pro (yes, the video app), Nuendo, Cubase, Ableton Live, and others. Some of those are supported separately by Automap, but others – like Final Cut, for instance – could be fun to try out.

Welcome to Reaperworld. It’s an alternative universe, in which a “2.4.5″ update is huge. Released yesterday, it’s a new build for what might best be described as an “indie” DAW from the original creator of Winamp.

Check out the full feature list, but here are some highlights:

• “Solo in front” for easier soloing
• Track folding for MIDI to hide unused / unnamed rows
• Multimedia keyboard support, so you can use those silly, useless buttons PCs have for something cool
• Mute fades, so you don’t get that annoying pop on muting
• A ridiculous number of MIDI workflow and technical improvements

What’s really nice is I get an overwhelming sense that they’re improving the kinds of arcane MIDI and plug-in details that users would want improved. You know, there are all sorts of little annoyances you find when working that developers probably don’t think of. Those kinds of VST and MIDI improvements might not make big headlines at NAMM or in magazine copy, but then, that’s why so many users pour over release notes — these are the things they actually encounter working.

If you’re interested in using Reaper, now is the perfect time to point out the work Peter Dines has started trying to optimally combine Reaper and Native Instruments’ Kore, with Kore providing various live performance, sound design, sound cataloging, and synth/effect features:

Kore Host How-Tos: Reaper, Affordable PC/Mac DAW [Kore@CDM minisite]

Mac Experience?

I haven’t really had a chance to try the Mac beta; anyone on Mac had testing experience?

The wonderful cellular automation synth glitchDS has just gotten its 1.3 update, with per-sound volume, a tap-able “pad play” page for triggering samples, quick snapshot saving, and other improvements.

Better still, the author has created a new tool, demoed in the video above. repeaterDS lets you draw on the DS screen to play a looped sample, with the Y axis impacting repeat length and X axis controlling playback offset.

repeaterDS

(Thanks, foosnark!)

dsmcu is an in-progress wireless mix controller, focused on wireless control of the mixer in the affordable Windows production app Reaper. (Eventually Pro Tools, Logic, and other DAW support is planned.) Right now, it works with the mcu protocol to support two-way fader control, VU meters (handily displayed on the top screen), track controls, banks, and scrubbing. Dan warns it’s a little tricky going getting it set up, but it looks well worth it for the brave:

Project page / getting started

Author Dan has also created a drum machine, synth, and sequencer program called bliptracker

If you’re having keeping track of all this goodness, Dan has put together a little list of the best music tools for DS:
DS music apps

And if you like wireless MIDI, be sure to check out DSMI, on which the other wireless implementations are generally based.

Finally, the Korg DS-10 DS cartridge got its launch in the UK last week, although there’s not really any news to report from the launch event and we’re mostly still waiting to get one. In the meantime, though, the 1UP Show has picked up the DS-10 in this video:

Hope to have CDM’s DS-10 hands-on soon, once I can get my hands on a DS-10!

Cockos’ REAPER, the lightweight audio and MIDI multitrack editor from the creator of Winamp, is coming to (Intel/PPC) Mac, too. There’s a full discussion of the update on the REAPER forum. It’s an “alpha” build, but comes as a surprise: REAPER may have a lot more appeal as the “standard” lightweight host as a cross-platform app. Finished version is due “Q4″ of this year.

REAPER has been getting endless updates of other kinds, as well, including this new “Stealth” color scheme which looks suspiciously like SONAR to me. (Sorry to be harsh, but it was fugly before. If it’s SONAR-y now, that’s a huge improvement.) If you want to try it, it’s downloadable as “uncrippled unexpiring shareware.” Remember when most shareware worked that way? That’s a retro trend I could get behind.

REAPER

Rather than praise or criticize REAPER, what I’d really like to know is, are any readers using it? What do you think so far?

Well, we knew that wouldn’t last. REAPER, the promising, lightweight audio software from the creator of Winamp, hit version 1.0 last week. (This week significant bugfixes and optimizations, plus editable keyboard shortcuts, were released in updates; the software now looks quite stable.) During the beta, REAPER was free, but now you’ll have to pay for it.

The basic price, US$39.95, is a bargain for what this software does:

1. Seamless, tool-less editing with arbitrary grouping of objects, automation envelopes, markers, and everything you’d expect
2. Unusually flexible routing, which allows any track to arbitrarily be a track and a bus, a sophisticated monitoring and matrix facility, and support for feedback routing
3. Looped recording
4. Direct multi-track recording to WAV/W64/BWF, MIDI, WavPack, FLAC, and OGG
5. MIDI support (not present in early releases), which lets you add MIDI to audio tracks, record MIDI from audio inputs, and other nice tricks
6. Configurable UI, keyboard shortcuts, and colors
7. VST and DX plug-in support (effects and instruments) with latency compensation, real-time and offline processing, and even supports for the Jesusonic (the crucifix-style computer shown below
8. Tasty bundled effects: a sidechain-enabled noisegate and compressor with look-ahead, an “FFT EQ+dynamics processor” (um, okay!), and a convolution reverb

REAPER now features music by Brad Sucks as a demo, giving it extra street cred. The real story here is how quickly the software has evolved, as seen in screen shots. There are some really powerful features in there as far as editing, subtleties that really have no direct equivalent in other software I’m seeing. But there are some caveats, largely having to do with the new commercial pricing:

In an unexpected move, you only pay $40 if you’re a “non-commercial” user. If you’re making money in any way off your music (or intending to), the price jumps to US$199.95. I have two problems with that. First, it’s confusing: having different pricing for the academic market makes some sense, but I’ve always found separate “commercial” licenses to be counter-intuitive. It invites abuse, and the difference in price here could dissuade serious users. Second, $200 puts REAPER in the area of software like Mackie Tracktion, Ableton Live, Cubase LE, Adobe Audition, lighter versions of SONAR, and so on. No, these products don’t have some of the unique features of REAPER. But they also do a lot of things REAPER doesn’t — many of which people need. I think REAPER should just drop the commercial license and sell as many $40 copies as they can — because at that price, even owners of these other programs might spring.

I’m torn here. REAPER is fascinating, and if you qualify for the non-commercial license, it looks like a serious bargain. As it continues to grow, I expect it’ll become an even more serious threat to its competitors, and it’s terrific that it has such a lightweight core. But I don’t like the new pricing system, and I personally can’t find a use for this application. I’d rather just shell out the cash for something like the extremely polished Adobe Audition for my editing work, or for music production use Ableton Live for its more powerful capabilities in terms of improvisation and music creation.

But if you don’t need the features of those other products, and you’re a non-commercial hobbyist on a budget, REAPER does look like the software to beat. Hopefully we’ll have a full review soon.

Previously:
Free Windows Sequencers/Hosts for Music: Straight Out of No Cash 2

Straight Out of No-Cash 1: How to Make Hi-Fi PC Music on a Lo-Fi Budget

Welcome back to another installment of “Straight Out of No Cash”. Despite repeated delays, death threats, acts of God, ElectroPlankton, and a laptop catching on fire, I’m finally back to give more bargain basement tips, tricks, and goodies for the Windows-centric set.

It used to be the case only 5 years ago that one had to spend money, sometimes several hundred for even the most basic DAW software. In recent years however, there has been such a large explosion in the amount of Windows freeware that it’s now gotten to the point where it’s possible to get a pretty good plug-in host sequencer without spending a single red cent. In this week’s article, I will examine four kick-ass free sequencer/plug-in hosts for Windows. Two free trackers, and then two free-while-in-beta sequencers.

Trackers (see Wikipedia, CDM) have had a long and venerable history in computer music, going all the way back to the 8-Bit era of Amiga and Atari. By far the simplest form of computer sequencer, to most modern musicians they look rather strange and alien. Despite the shift towards piano roll multi-track sequencers, many musicians to this day swear by the tracker method for its workflow and low performance overhead. Although not terribly difficult to learn, it often helps if one has a programming background, as a tracker file can look very much like a set of programming instructions. Tunestore.de has a great section for the beginning tracker, as it gives some basic concepts about what tracking is and how one can write music in such an environment.

Today’s trackers take the old tracker paradigm, and add modern features such as VST plug-in support, audio track recording, automation, and modular patching. Both Psycle and Skale Tracker are modern tracker style plug-in host sequencers with the full range of features, active development, and vibrant communities available for help and advice.

Psycle is similar in style to an older tracker program, Buzz but with integrated handling of VST-plugins (no wrappers), better handling of audio files, and active development so that when bugs do occur there is an actual chance of them being dealt with. Aside from that, they’re pretty similar in that they are modular, have a wide range of third-party native modules, machines, and plug-ins, and a fairly active user community that can be relied upon for help. The major downside is that because it’s both a tracker as well as a modular host, Psycle can be rather daunting for someone new to computer music. Be prepared to spend several days getting one’s head around many new concepts in the working environment. Also, the handling of VST plugins can be a bit wonky at times, so be prepared for the occasional bug or crash when using third party plugs. Check out the Psycle wiki for the current list of problematic VST plugins.

Skale (http://www.kvraudio.com/get/302.html) I would consider to be similar in style to that of FLStudio (”Fruity Loops”), only with a tracker sequencing interface. Like FL, it has a pleasant user-friendly look, pattern-based playlists, inclusion of an integrated sample editor, and can not only host VST plug-ins but be hosted as a plug-in in another host should the user want to take a track to a different environment. Skale’s sampler supports Soundfont, Akai S5000/6000, and Gigastudio formats which is rather nice for a free tool. Skale also comes with its own visualizer and set of games as a quick diversion