The 800, Pokey and Music Creation..

[Clint Thompson]

I downloaded Music Pro Tracker (I believe it was) in hopes that I could somehow learn to make some "music" on the 800. Not only do I not understand the program worth a crap but I don't know what to do.

 

I've already got many songs I've created on my Roland Fantom (no longer) saved as AIFF on my Mac but would like to make some 8bit music from it

(but not sure what program(s) to use or how to use them)

 

How does eveyrone here compose multitrack music on the 800?

Setups, examples, etc. would be great.

 

I tried getting my feet wet but I ended up drowning to death.. help!

 

(ed.,)

(wasn't there a program with a keyboard or piano on screen that let you program your notes in and times?) I would like something like that but hopefully with more flexibility to make noises and beats and such..

Edited April 30, 2005 by Clint Thompson

[Bryan]

If you have a PC, you might want to start out with RMT to get a feel for Atari tracking first.

 

-Bry

[Heaven/TQA]

and you could import MIDI files...

[Schmutzpuppe]

RMT is powerfull and quite easy to use.

Another advantage is that Eckhard Stolberg modified the player routine to work with the 7800.

You should give it a try.

[tmont]

I don't know how to program for the Atari, and I wrote the music for one of the homebrew games on this site. I used Capella, which you can download for free from here. They have other platforms if you don't have Windows, too. This program has a built in "mouse piano," that allows you to just click on the notes to transcribe them (assuming you can read music!). I've tried a lot of different notation programs, and this seems the most complete.

 

Although it's a demo version, pretty much everything you'd want to use is accessible, except you can't use the lyrics function (which you probably won't need for Atari music, as far as I know), and you also can only have up to two tracks per system (which was also not a big deal for me when writing for the Atari). There's a bunch of built-in voices, where most instrumental sounds are represented. I don't know about creating "noises" or other Atari-esque sounds, but it's nonetheless very easy to use for the most part.

 

If you want to look at a screenshot, there's a link on the download page.

 

Hope that helps!

Good luck!

[Heaven/TQA]

best is always going as much native as you can... so composing via a standard PC music creation software like cubase, etc... should be no problem but then you have to import your melodies into an atari native tracker to get the best out of it... and for guys coming from PC RMT seems the best... if you get into it how in general a tracker works (check out PC trackers f.e. as well...) then you can go native with atari specific music software like music pro tracker (MPT), Theta Music Tracker (TMC) or even CMC...

[Gury]

Which music file format is best for using inside gameplay of Atari game, also inside VBI? Ok, there is great RMT for creating music on PC and then using a player included in main program. What about files created with native trackers: Chaos Music Composer, Theta Music Composer, Music Pro Tracker or others. How much CPU power they consume inside programs? Thanks for any replies.

[samurai]

Yes, MPT has a great sound, but nothing compares with user-friendly Raster Music Tracker.