New Protracker - your input is welcome

[SimoAmi]

Hi ruben,

Having experience with Digital Music software applications, I can recommend few things.

First, don't take PC applications as weak. You should use some of them to enjoy few features that you would think would make the best version for Protracker.

For example, I always thought that Fruity loops would be the best upgrade to protracker. they have the same philosophy and I bet anyone that almost all editing features in Protracker can be done over Fruity Loops with Mouse point, click and tweak.

The next generation trackers for Amiga (although actually existing in PC/Mac) is Object Oriented editing. Gui based editing where parameters are knobs and triggers are buttons and list of commands are dialog boxes.

Since I was using Octamed, I thought it would be nice having 2 modes:

- Pattern mode: edit singular patterns or pages (32/64/128 or any lenth of lines).

Ref:
- Song Mode: (what I would love to see) paint and drag patterns over a timeline, like on Acid Pro.

Also it's nice to have VST and VSTi plugins support.

for song import/export you could make an expandible design concept where anyone can contribute and make a native song format loader (.mid, .flp, .xm, .mod, .med...etc)

for that to work you need to design a virtual system that can support any capabilities related to a song format. (e.g: unlimited instruments, unlimited tracks, 24 bits output, sound blaster dsp support, mp3 decoding and DirectToDisk based instruments.

some visual design:

[SimoAmi]

Tickly wrote:
NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO!
DO NOT TURN IT INTO FRUITYLOOPS.

I want a tracker interface. Not all of us have MIDI keyboards you know, and fruityloops method of inputting patterns is totally horrible without one.

I'm not saying that he should turn it into Fruity Loops, I'm just trying to illustrate few concepts.

Line based editing (old-fashion trackers) is good but I prefer the new interactive way.
For instance, instead of typing 4 similar notes with different velocities to simulate an echo, I would prefer to tweak knobs avoiding the need to manually change the velocity value for each note!

Protracker has a very good engine, it's just the interaction with the user that needs enhancements.

In my own experience, I never thought any of these modern GUI based apps would replace my OctaMed, but, with time it appeared that I can do better things with these gadgets and faster. I no more have to remember the Hex code for volume, or for chorus,
and I'm no more limited to one parameter per note.

Finally, I just exposing few concepts that some may interest the developer (not all). You're to do the same and he's the one to make the last decision.

btw: (Tickly) you don't need to have a MIDI keyboard to use Fruity Loops. You can turn your pc keyboard to trigger sounds with a feature included in the application