Here’s a phrase you won’t hear often on, say, Download Squad:

"PS The AmigaOS port will be up in a few days."

Welcome to the wacky world of trackers, the music production tools time forgot. While the rest of the world frets over the environmental impact of computing and the cost of digital tools, the music community has a solution: recycle that garage sale / $50 eBay computer as a powerful music tool that might even be better than what you’ve got now.

If you have something with a CPU, odds are pretty good MilkyTracker runs on it. That includes Mac OS X (PowerPC and Intel), Windows Vista and XP — oh, and 2003, 2000, NT, Me, 98, and 95, Windows CE, Windows Mobile, FreeBSD, and emerging builds for popular Linux distributions and, yes, AmigaOS. It’s not just cross-platform. It’s pan-platform. (Hey, just for old time’s sake, anyone want to start a Mac versus Amiga flame war in comments? Go for it. Be brutal.)

MilkyTracker has some other good news: as of this weekend, it’s fully free and open source (GPL).

The new release (unceremoniously titled 0.90.80) has new features, too: tabbed modules so you can see up to 32 modules at once on the desktop version, playing simultaneously and copying-and-pasting between, new resamplers (even including Amiga-style resamplers) for better sound quality, direct rendering, and lots of other goodies.

So, this means MilkyTracker is the tracker to beat, right? Wrong. Tracker preferences are personal and nuanced, and competing tools offer subtle, unique workflows, plus features like the ability to run as plug-ins or support ReWire, and support for gaming platforms and other devices. But if you’re looking for a tracker to try, this should definitely be on your list. And soon you may be able to get that Amiga out of the closet. Reusing beats recycling any day.

MilkyTracker

Proof in pictures that MT can run on lots of different platforms

In case you haven’t seen it, Nine Inch Nails has taken to the multi-touch Lemur control surface and More Buttons Than Thou top-end Monome. There’s a short video of an experiment combining the two with a real (MIDI-enabled) Yamaha piano. It’s just under a minute, but already evocative — I’m not entirely sure why Alessandro is manning the touchpad on his laptop given all this hardware around, but the cascading patterns on the Monome suggest both LED art and a digital take on a player piano.

More videos on the official NIN YouTube page, which has recently launched a visuals contest for interpreting music from the new album.

But lest you think you need all that pricey hardware to make use of an unusual tool, look no further than MilkyTracker. Platform wars end here: MT runs on Windows (95, 98, Me, NT, 2000, XP, 2003, and Vista), Mac OS X (PowerPC, Intel), Linux (x86, 64-bit x86, PowerPC), Linux game/mobile platforms (GP2X, ARM), UNIX (FreeBSD x86), and Windows CE. Wowsa. And it’s all yours for a donation, if you can spare one. Heck, there are even video tutorials on the site.

But geekdom aside, I love that MilkyTracker ninjas can make so much music out of so little. Without taking on the aesthetic style here, if that’s not your thing, it’s a reminder that economical choices with your tech can produce all kinds of different sounds. So, maybe rather than loading that preset, try to construct a drum kit out of basic waveforms.

Enjoy!

Video by extrabajs; for some reflections on MilkyTracking, see our friend thumbuki — who, speaking of doing more with less, is working with an OLPC. Economical hardware use is back in an age of power efficiency and computing beyond the deep-pocketed “first world” — and everything old is new again:

Milky Tracker @ thumbuki

What? MilkyTracker is fanning the flames of a platform war with the Atari ST? No worries: MaxYmizer is a newly updated (yep, you read that right) tracker tool for the Atari platform. Polyphonic MIDI input and MIDI clock output means it should easily integrate with your existing studio. See the Digital Tools blog for full details.

While on the subject of hacking animation into music tools and audiovisual performance, here’s about as far out as you can get:

What you’re seeing is actually the user interface for Renoise, an app in a category of music tools called “trackers”, being animated directly. The little characters you’re seeing light up are events in the sequence, so as the sequence plays, so does the animation. (What you’re hearing as the musical background in the video is essentially unrelated, I’m guessing, but it’s nonetheless a wild idea.)

Seems a fitting way to celebrate the latest upgrade to Renoise and its arrival on Linux. making it tri-platform. (Very 2008 thing to be.)

By dodgyrecordings, who has some other good stuff; this entry is from a Beat Battle competition.

See dodgyrecordings.com for more.

Commercial music development on Linux is at a trickle, but a real gem as far as music production is now available: Renoise, the modern tracker tool.

Not only is Renoise a cult favorite for its unique approach to composition, but the Linux version looks to fully embrace Linux technologies. And that’s a big deal, because many music and audio users aren’t interested in Linux for political correctness. We want audio functionality and performance. Renoise promises:

• ALSA support (the high-performance audio and MIDI system for Linux)
• JACK audio support (for interconnecting application audio and other features)
• LADSPA (the native, open Linux plug-in format)
• Native Linux VST support

Renoise 1.9.1 Final and public Linux demo [Official announcement]

If you give Renoise a try on Linux, we’d love to hear about it. Renoise joins EnergyXT, another unique music creation tool — but hopefully with better native Linux support, which seemed a little less mature on EnergyXT.

Of course, “support” is an open question. We heard mixed feelings last summer when EnergyXT arrived on Linux. Part of the appeal of open source software is the ability for programmers to fix issues with code. Renoise supports Linux technologies, but it’s not open source. Still, if an application is fully supported — and you’re willing to pay the (low, in this case) price for that — I wonder if for-pay, closed software isn’t such a bad coupling with an open OS, after all.

The big question: will musicians adopt Linux, and will Linux users adopt (and pay for) payware apps. If they do, more apps could make the OS leap, too. Let us know what you’re using.

Thanks to Scott Meschke (who calls Renoise “awesome) and karhu (aka Niklas) for the tips!

Previously:

Renoise 1.9 Music App Begins Beta; Why You Shouldn’t Overlook This Tracker

Marc writes with some great news for musically-inclined portable gaming fans — and visualists, too:

Intially, after a while of finding out where the trouble was we nailed midi
for littlegptracker running on GP2x. Here’s a little vid for it.

Of course, another application would be also to use the 2x as sequencer to
drive sequences on any midi-aware VJ program. So you could for example write
an audio track using 6 channels and use the two remaining to have perfectly
sync’ed video :)

Description:

This is Little GP Tracker [LGPT] running on a Gamepark Holdings Gp2x handheld, outputting midi using a custom serial to midi interface designed & coded by FirestARTer, board & assembly by IDMCLASSICS.NET.

In this clip, LGPT is driving a Clavia Nord Micromodular [3 seperate mono patterns into a polyphonic patch] and has an Alesis HR-16 drum machine slaved via Midi Sync.

FiresARTer: http://www.firestarter-music.de
Little GP Tracker: http://www.10pm.org/nostromo/lgpt/
IDMCLASSICS.NET: http://idmclassics.net

If the lack of a stylus Mario Kart hurts, though, see also this:
Hacked MIDI Support for Nintendo DS: DSerial

See comments: the upcoming F200 will have stylus/touch input. Awesome.

Multi-touch mobile gaming, could you be next?

The tireless developers behind the modern tracker Renoise announced a new beta on Tuesday. While the devs themselves are calling this a “maintenance and improvements release”, they’ve introduced enough bug fixes, new features and workflow improvements, along with multiprocessor support, that any other company would have slapped a new major version number on the top and called it a day.

Here’s a short list of the changes:

We were already very excited about the DS-Xtreme (”DS-X”) when we first saw it. In brief, why the DS-X makes us drool:

1. DS storage
2. Play media files
3. Run homebrew software
4. Connect directly to a computer via USB
5. No weird hardware sticking out of the back of your DS that could get broken

(Previously: DS-Xtreme, Plug-and-Play Solution for Nintendo Homebrew: Reactions from NitroTracker Developer)

It’s pricey, but it’s also the only device that manages to combine all those features. The main draw for CDMers, though, is the ability to run homebrewed apps for the DS so you can make music with your game system. That makes this latest revelation the most important one: new firmware should make the DS-X play nice with homebrew. Tobias, developer of the NitroTrack homebrew DS tracker, writes:

Good news: The DS-X people released a new firmware which has fixed some issues with the filesystem support. So now, NitroTracker works perfectly on it!

Corrected: Full details on the evolving software updates are detailed in a post yesterday on the DS-X site. Currently a Windows-only pre-release but cross-platform final updates are due soon. Bleeding-edge stuff, indeed, but it’s coming along fast.

The DS-X news blog has plenty of interesting content to watch, so worth an RSS subscribe if homebrew DS gets your Mario Kart revving. Via their blog, after the jump: videos of homebrew software in action, and onboard LEDs dance to music from the player:

Sony PSP users: turned off by new-fangled graphical drum machines and wireless Ableton Live controllers? Want to kick it oldskool with a tracker? Check out PSPSeq, which has now matured to version 1.0 (from 0.2). Here’s what’s new:

1. editable parameters on instruments
2. customizable instrument groupings
3. multiple loops/song sequence
4. tap tempo
5. multiple audio presets, new generators/fx
6. improvements and optimizations to many of the generators and fx
7. configurable step length
8. proper swing handling

I have to say, those are some pretty luxurious features for a portable game system tracker, all while maintaining the feel of similar homebrew trackers on systems like the original Game Boy. Not to be overlooked are PSPSeq’s formidable synth capabilities, which sound appropriately glitchy and 8-bit but are capable of producing some unique results. The demo here, built in 0.2, sounds really fantastic — “A Day in the Life of an Android” by billy:

A Day in the Life of an Android

A next-gen game portable sounding like a tripped-out Game Boy? Priceless.

In fact, between this and the aforementioned, more modern software, the PSP is becoming a pretty impressive music system between games of Lumines. Earth to Sony: resistance is futile. Win back much-needed credibility in your core market (ahem, rootkit) and embrace the homebrews instead of fighting them. Sure, that might make the lives of pirates easier, but it’d also attract new attention — and likely hardware sales — to a platform that could use a little extra buzz. And think of the great parties you could hold with PSPSeq DJs glitching out in the booth.

On the subject of great user-built creations Sony has unwisely disabled, this is one of them. Read the fine print for compatibility information:
“PSPSeq runs on all firmwares between 1.0 and 2.71, along with 2.71 SE. PSPSeq is not compatible with 2.80/2.81 and cannot be loaded via devhook or Hen-C.”

For Nintendo fans, visit our sister site CDMotion and witness the Nintendo DS acting as a wireless VJ controller, cueing, scratching, fading, and effecting live video and animation over Wi-Fi:
Nintendo DS as VJ Controller, with vvvv and Homebrew Developer Tools

Homebrewed software is the key to making the Nintendo DS a platform for electronic musicians and not just mainstream gamers. The challenge, though, is getting homebrew software to work; unfortunately, piracy concerns have made the hardware somewhat less than open. We’ve covered homebrew DS development efforts, including the banner homebrew app, NitroTracker, a stylus-savvy app for oldskool tracker-style music construction, and some of the tricky bits to making this work. This week, the gang at Gizmodo gets their hands on a solution that’s very powerful and offers lots of plug-and-play features, without the usual work. Travis Hudson has a great hands-on with photos:

First Grope: DS-Xtreme Nintendo DS Media Enhancer [Gizmodo.com]

DS-Xtreme Product Page

I asked Tobias Weyend, creator of NitroTracker, what this might mean for homebrew DS musicians:

Yeah, I find the DS-X pretty sweet myself. If they keep their promises, it will be the simplest (although not the cheapest) homebrew solution for the DS so far. The company behind it also seems to be very homebrew-friendly. For example, they announced they will be sending free unit to homebrewers with interesting projects. So, I also applied for one.

As mentioned on their blog, the device supports FAT-enabled homebrew. That means that NT probably already works with it, and if not then it is a matter of minutes to compile it with another FAT library such that it works.

One particularly sweet thing about the DS-X is the USB port. If they release a library for use in homebrew applications for accessing the USB port, it might be possible to use the DS as a regular USB MIDI device!

Whoa, that last line got my attention! The DS-X is indeed pricey, at a whopping US$124.99 for a 512M unit, though if you can round some friends together you could bulk buy them. Even at that price, though, these features could potentially be worth it.