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--- milkytracker [2016/03/08 19:36]
slackermedia created
+++ milkytracker [2021/06/03 19:48] (current)
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 MilkyTracker is an open source music application for creating **.MOD** and **.XM** module files. It attempts to recreate the module replay and user experience of the popular DOS program **Fasttracker II**, and even has some compatibility with Amiga **ProTracker**. It's an exemplary fast, lightweight, and effective music sequencing tool.
+Trackers happen to be "retro" because they were popular decades ago and have not changed in design or function since, which may be charming to look at, but //functionally// this is significant, too. Milkytracker works the same today as it did in the 90s, promoting a workflow that produced some great electronic music. It works on low spec hardware, and opens the oldest of files.
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-**Legacy Support**
+**JACK Support**
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-Trackers happen to be "retro" because they were popular decades ago and have not changed in design or function since, which may be charming to look at, but //functionally// this is significant, too. Milkytracker works the same today as it did in the 90s, promoting a workflow that produced some great electronic music. It works on low spec hardware, and opens the oldest of files. Legacy support isn't something it strives for, it's built in.
+JACK is not necessary, but Milkytracker has the option of using it, if you want to add "outboard" software gear to your humble sequencer.
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-**Professional**
+**Sample Editor**
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-No one (except Slackermedia) cares what you composed your music on, as long as the printout that you hand your musicians and conductor is easy to read and accurate. Musescore's output are both of those things, plus attractive.
+In addition to being a great sequencer of samples, Milkytracker can also create and edit sample files.
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-**Not a DAW**
+**Trackerisms**
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-Musescore is primarily a tool for composition. It isn't a fancy digital audio workstation, although since it can use JACK, it can act like one. Even so, if you are in the market for a DAW, this is probably not the tool you are looking for.
+If you have never used a music tracker, it can be difficult to get used to the workflow, and learning the interface can be tantamount to cryptography.
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 =====Install=====
-The Musescore install is simple from its [[http://slackbuilds.org|Slackbuilds.org]] install script. The installer is provided by Slackermedia maintainers, so if you encounter issues, it's perfectly acceptable to come directly to us.
+Install Milkytracker from its [[http://slackbuilds.org|Slackbuilds.org]] install script. If you want to include JACK support, prepend your build command with ''JACK=yes''. For example:
+<code>
+bash-4.2# JACK=yes ./milkytracker.SlackBuild
+</code>
-====Launching Musescore====
-You do not have to run JACK for Musescore to work. It is perfectly happy using ALSA or Portaudio drivers.
+=====Launching Milkytracker=====
-Start Musescore as ``mscore`` or ``musescore`` from the KDE menu (it's faster to just type ``mscore``, and since that's the technical name of the executable application, your system recognises that "mscore" means "musescore").
+You do not have to run JACK for Milkytracker to work.
-When you launch Musescore, it loads an example piece by default. If you want to open to an empty project, change that behaviour in the **Edit** menu -> **Preferences**.
+When you first launch Milkytracker, it is sized 640x480 with 8-point text. There's no reason for this aside from legacy defaults. To make your workspace larger, click the **Config** button in the top left cluster of controls.
-The demo piece is a good example of what's possible with Musescore, but the best way to learn it is to use it, so start a fresh project. To begin an empty project, select **File** menu → **New**. The new project wizard steps you through creation of a new project; you can start from scratch or you can use a template. All settings can be changed later, so don't feel like you have to know everything about your own project already.
+[{{ milky_config.jpg | Use the config panel to adjust window and font size. }}]
-[{{ mscore_setup.jpg | MuseScore has a setup wizard for new projects. }}]
+The control panel switches to the config panel; click the **Layouts** tab on the left to choose the size of the Milkytracker window, and the **Fonts** tab to increase the font size as needed.
-Once you've stepped through the setup screens, you're left facing blank staves. It's time to start inputting music.
+Click the **OK** button to accept your changes, and you'll be prompted to restart Milkytracker. Close the Milkytracker window an
+d re-launch; your new settings have been applied. You can switch in and out of fullscreen mode in Milkytracker with ''Alt-Enter''.
+===== Making Music =====
+As with any music software, the first thing you need to do to compose a song in Milkytracker is figure out what instruments you want to use. In Milkytracker, this takes place in two panels at the top: the **Instruments** panel and the **Samples** panel. Instruments contain samples, so assuming you're starting from scratch, build a simple instrument or two to start with.
-===== Note Entry =====
+To give your new instrument a name, double-click on the empty **01** slot in the **Instrument** panel.
-Musescore's workspace is nicely intuitive. The main work area is the sheet music; on the left are palettes providing access to special musical elements like glissando marks, articulation, dynamics, repeats, and codas.
+[{{ milky_inst.jpg | Instruments contain samples. }}]
-[{{ mscore_palette.jpg | Musescore palettes. }}]
+The actual sound that gets played is determined by the **Sample** panel. To load a sample into the currently active Instrument
+, click on an empty slot in the **Samples** panel and click the **Load** button at the top. Choose a sample from the menu that appears, and click **OK** to load the sample into place.
-If you're just starting out, you can use the mouse to input notes. It works exactly as you'd expect; select a note, point to the place on the staff that you want it to go, and click. There are toolbars and palettes and menus to give you access to every minor detail you could ever possibly want to enter into sheet music.
+Samples should be in **WAV**, **AIFF**, or **IFF** format.
+If you have no samples or just need more than what you do have, one of the best resources online is http://freesound.org.
+You can also find some samples at http://slackermedia.ml/downloads.
+In a pinch, you can also unarchive [[hydrogen|Hydrogen]] drumkits, **sfz** files, and other collections of sounds and raid them for samples.
+Use [[ffmpeg]] or ''sox'' to convert files to WAV.
-But if you're a longtime user of notation software, you'll probably use keyboard entry.
 ==== Keyboard Entry ====
-As any composer knows, the barrier to getting music down on paper is //efficiency//. It's work enough to compose a coherent piece of music, and more work still to structure it for different instruments, so if you have to add the overhead of data entry into that mix, it can be a dealbreaker.
+The most immediate way to audition or play notes into a tracker is on your keyboard (the one you type on, not the chromatic one). As long as Instrument 01 and a valid Sample are highlight in the **Instruments and Samples** panels, you should hear sound when you press any of these keys on your keyboard:
-For that reason, the most common method of editing musical scores is keyboard entry; it's the most flexible and efficient way to get data into the computer. Like playing the other kind of keyboard (the musical one), it takes practise to get all of the keyboard shortcuts down, and like Emacs or Blender, much of the entry consists of a //sequence// of key presses rather than single keys. The most common key combinations (or sequences) are intuitive and easy to remember.
+  * Keys **Z** through **<** cover C(4) through C(5), with the black keys mapped to the row immediately above (so, **S** and **D** as C# and D#, and so on).
+  * Keys **Q** through **I** cover C(5) through C(6) with the number keys acting as appropriate black keys.
-You should be in notation entry mode by default. When you're in note entry mode, the letter **N** button is highlighted in the upper left corner of the MuseScore window. You can enter or leave note entry by pressing the ``n`` key on the keyboard.
+The octaves are dynamically adjustable with the **F1** to **F8** keys.
-[{{ mscore_n.png | Notation mode toggle. }}]
+Most trackers enter notes from the keyboard. It's part of the efficiency of using a tracker. However, there's a nice virtual chromatic keyboard included in Milkytracker that isn't just useful for playing in notes, but editing envelopes and adding effects, too. Bring up the Instrument Editor with the **Ins. Ed.** button in the top left control panel (it's located just above Channel **1** column, under the **Load** button and above the **Optimize** button).
-The first value you enter is the duration. The duration of the note will be a "dead" key, like the Compose key when entering Unicode characters, or **c-x** and **m-x** in [[emacs|Emacs]]. To keep both hands busy and thereby increase efficiency, the duration is usually entered on the number pad (real life composers carry around a dedicated USB number pad, just in case the opportunity to enter note duration arises on the go). The durations start with 1 (a 64th note) and continue up to 7 (a whole note), with 8 being a double whole note, and 9 being a *longa*.
+The instrument editor provides a small virtual keyboard as well as buttons to shift the default octave of the notes you are playing.
-Pressing 5 (quarter note) and then a chromatic letter (that is, **a** through **g**) results in a quarter note entered onto the first staff on your page.
+[{{ milky_insed.jpg | The instrument edit panel. }}]
-[{{ mscore_note.jpg | This is what music looks like. }}]
+The Instrument Editor also gives you the ability to modify the sustain of your sample, add vibrato, adjust panning, and shape a
+note's volume and panning behaviour (per keypress rather than for the instrument as a whole).
-Once entered, MuseScore adjusts the rest of the measure accordingly. You yourself can adjust the note you've just entered:
+==== Navigation ====
-* **up** and **down** arrows move the note up or down the scale by half-steps
+Navigating along the tracks ("channels", in tracker terminology) can be done with the **up** and **down** arrow keys (for moving
-* **left** arrow selects the note in case you need to replace (overwrite) it with a different duration or note value
+ from tick to tick), and **left** and **right** to move along the columns within each channel.
-* **right** arrow moves your entry bar right along the staff
-Similarly, you can modify notes with a dot, select several notes with shift-arrows, tie two notes together with the **+** symbol, and so on. Rolling your mouse over the toolbar reveals the keyboard shortcuts associated with whatever you might want to enter, and once you get used to the way Musescore selects notes and either adds or replaces values, it feels like second nature.
+**Tab** moves from channel to channel.
+As you'd expect, the **Backspace** key removes the note above your current line.
+The **Return** key plays your song from the top, and **Alt-Space** stops playback.
+There are many, many more commands but those are the essentials. A full list is available in the [[http://mi
+lkytracker.org/docs/MilkyTracker.html#shortcuts|Milkytracker Manual]].
+==== Recording ====
+For a note to be recorded, you must enter recording mode.
+As is often the case with sequencers, there are two recording modes in Milkytracker: live recording and step entry.
+Both modes are activated with the same keyboard shortcut: the **Spacebar**. Alternately, click the **Rec** button in the top control panel.
+[{{ milky_rec.jpg | Recording mode. }}]
+**Live Recording**
+For live, on-the-fly recording, press the **Spacebar** to arm recording, and then press the **Play Sng** button (located just above **Channel 1** column). There's no count-in, so you may or may not want to build one in for yourself. Either way, the song loops forever until you stop recording, so if you miss a measure you can punch it in on the next pass.
+**Step Entry**
+You don't have to try to keep up with the computer when entering notes. Once you're in record mode, you can press the **Up** or **Down** arrows to move from tick to tick and then press whatever note you want to have played there. It's very common to see a tracker at work using nothing but the **Q-U** and **A-M** keys with the left hand and the arrow keys and a few extras with the right. This style of work is similar, in some ways, to the hardware drum machines and sequencers that were used before computers were commonplace in the studio.
-If you accidentally replace a note when you meant to add new ones or just modify an existing one, undo with **control-z**.
 ===== Playback =====
-Musescore is not a full-featured DAW, but it's a music notation programme and provides you with a way to listen to the music you're entering.
+To hear your composition at any time, press **Enter** (or **Return**, on some keyboards) to start playback. There are three variants of the play command but two that matter in context of this tutorial:
+  * **Enter** plays the song
+  * **Shift-Enter** plays from cursor position
+To stop playback, use **Alt-Spacebar**.
+===== MIDI Data =====
+As you enter notes into your fledgling song, you may notice that in each channel column there are several smaller columns, each represented by a dot (''.'') when empty. These columns contain the MIDI data being sent along with each tick.
+  * The first triplet is the note and octave. For example: **C-5** or **A#6**, and so.
+  * The second column represents the instrument number. If you have three instruments defined in a project, then 01 through 03 are valid entries (note that the 0 character gets replaced by a dot in single-digit numbers). The default value for this column is whatever instrument and sample is selected in the panels at the top.
+  * The third position is the volume of the note. 00 through 40 are valid (they correspond to hex values).
+  * The final triplet holds effect values (pitch bend, vibrato, portamento, and so on). A full list of effect codes is available in the [[http://milkytracker.org/docs/MilkyTracker.html#effects|Milkytracker Manual]].
-Musescore playback is, naturally, MIDI-based. The default playback mechanism is general MIDI through PortAudio or ALSA (depending on how you installed Musescore). Set the output in the **Edit** menu → **Preferences** → **IO** tab.
+===== Saving =====
-[{{ mscore_io.png | Set playback in the Preferences panel. }}]
+To save your work, in case you want to stop tracking and come back to it later, just click the **Save** or **As...** buttons in
+the top control panel.
-The General MIDI (GM) voices used are determined by the **Part List**. To access the Part List window, select **Mixer** from the **Display** menu. In the **Part List** (mixer) window, set the baseline volume for each part in your score, as well as the stereo position, reverb level, and chorus effect. You can also rename the parts, and set what GM voice.
+[{{ milky_save.jpg | Save your project. }}]
-[{{ mscore_mix.jpg | The part list, or mixer, window. }}]
-This is probably enough to give you an idea of what your composition sounds like, at least in terms of listening for dissonance, harmony, timing, and other technical aspects of what you're writing. If you want an alternative to the default [[https://www.midi.org/specifications/item/general-midi|General MIDI]] sounds included with [[fluidsynth|Fluidsynth]], download S. Christian Collins' [[http://schristiancollins.com/generaluser.php|GeneralUser]] set for Musescore or Fluidsynth.
+==== Export ====
-If you want more control of the sounds that Musescore produces, you're free to pipe it through JACK. With JACK, of course, you gain the ability to assign any MIDI instrument to each MIDI channel, meaning you can use something like [[sampler|Linux Sampler]] to trigger soundfonts or samples.
+To export your song so that not everyone has to know how to use a music tracker to listen to your work, you can have Milkytracker export to a **.wav** files. Convert to **ogg** with ``oggenc`` or ``sox``, or to **mp3** with **lame**, and so on.
-Musescore and JACK arguably forms a kind of modular DAW; you could easily use Musescore to play your composition through soft synths and samplers, and record a high-quality rendition through JACK-enabled tools like [[calf|Calf]], [[jamin|Jamin]], and [[jackapps#capture|JACK Capture]].
+To export, click the **Disk Op.** button in the control panel to open the **Disk Op.** panel.
+[{{ milky_op.jpg | Exporting your song. }}]
+In the **Song** section, put a tick in the box by **.wav** and then click **Save As**.
+In the dialogue box that appears, save your file to your home directory (or ''~/Music'', or whatever is appropriate).
-===== Exporting =====
+===== Modular Milk =====
-As of version 1.3, MuseScore's native format is the Compressed Musescore Format (.mscz). This is a suitable and open format for musical scores, but Musescore can save out to a lot more than that: you can output your scores to MusicXML files, MIDI (.mid), Lilypond, SVG, PDF, and more.
+As long as you installed it with JACK support, you're free to pipe Milkytracker through JACK. With JACK, you gain the synchronise with other MIDI instruments and tools like [[calf|Calf]] for effects and [[jamin|Jamin]] and [[jackapps#capture|JACK Capture]] for mastering.
 ===== Documentation =====
-The Musescore project has published an excellent [[https://musescore.org/en/handbook/handbook-0|handbook]] for the software.
+The official documentation for Milkytracker is located at http://milkytracker.org/docs/MilkyTracker.html. It's a useful resource, but it does tend to assume that the reader is already familiar with music trackers. There are some videos online showing how to use Milkytracker. Otherwise, this tutorial itself should have you composing with an afternoon; combine that with a in-app exploration and you should be a pro within a few weeks.
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 **See Also** \\
-[[ardour|Ardour]] \\
+schismtracker \\
-[[jack|JACK]] \\
+[[seq24]] \\
-[[rosegarden|Rosegarden]] \\
-[[qtractor|Qtractor]] \\
 [[sampler|Linux Sampler]]
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