Trackers
Trackers are fun to use and fun, better in many aspects than modern DAWs I believe.
VGMMusic maker
This is the first tracker I ever used, it's system-specific to the master system and sega genesis
Though I only really use it for master system tracks
Look at all the knobs, they all do complicated stuff where they change the soundwave and modulate eachother and themselves,
and FM synthesis is very complicated, but for Master System tracks you only need the 4th instrument.
Which plays a square wave, or noise. Anyway the only really important knobs when you start are TL and SL.
TL is the volume, SL the length of the sound
Sunvox
Probably the "best" tracker in terms of functionality. The only thing it really lacks is it can't load VSTs
It has a pleasant design and lots of features, and you can load most sounds as samples so you're not restricted
by some kind of old hardware its based on.
Deflemask
Also a tracker for old gaming systems, but it has many options and some great example songs.
Used to be free, but now it costs 10 dollars I think. Well you can probably still find a free copy somewhere
MPT
There were a bunch of old trackers in the past, such as "Impulse Tracker" "XM tracker" etc.
What were they used for in the past? Well there was like a scene that made tunes for trackers and shared them in the 90s and early 2000s,
and its a lot of the stuff you often see described as "keygen music" since it was often used in keygens.
i don't know much about that scene, but heres an archive with a lot of tracks from there. https://modarchive.org/
Also an archive for keygentracks here http://www.keygenmusic.net/
Anyways, MPT plays all of those old formats.
Really getting to know every detail about a song you like is great, itd be cool if that was the case for every song
VGMMusic maker
This is the first tracker I ever used, it's system-specific to the master system and sega genesis
Though I only really use it for master system tracks
Look at all the knobs, they all do complicated stuff where they change the soundwave and modulate eachother and themselves,
and FM synthesis is very complicated, but for Master System tracks you only need the 4th instrument.
Which plays a square wave, or noise. Anyway the only really important knobs when you start are TL and SL.
TL is the volume, SL the length of the sound
Sunvox
Probably the "best" tracker in terms of functionality. The only thing it really lacks is it can't load VSTs
It has a pleasant design and lots of features, and you can load most sounds as samples so you're not restricted
by some kind of old hardware its based on.
Deflemask
Also a tracker for old gaming systems, but it has many options and some great example songs.
Used to be free, but now it costs 10 dollars I think. Well you can probably still find a free copy somewhere
MPT
There were a bunch of old trackers in the past, such as "Impulse Tracker" "XM tracker" etc.
What were they used for in the past? Well there was like a scene that made tunes for trackers and shared them in the 90s and early 2000s,
and its a lot of the stuff you often see described as "keygen music" since it was often used in keygens.
i don't know much about that scene, but heres an archive with a lot of tracks from there. https://modarchive.org/
Also an archive for keygentracks here http://www.keygenmusic.net/
Anyways, MPT plays all of those old formats.
Really getting to know every detail about a song you like is great, itd be cool if that was the case for every song