Ho to sound like old tracker ?

You could also build yourself one of the projects at Midibox.org.
Looks like the forums are down at the moment but I built myself a SammichSID after I was able to source the SID-chips.
About €300 in materials and then it’s the build time.

Wasn’t too long ago that I built it so I haven’t used it much.
The SammichSID comes with prefab boards, the whole component kit except the SID-chips.
The guides are pretty good so it’s more or less a straight forward process.

Have the whole HVSC library, so if anyone want to hear an example through the SammichSID from that library let me know.
There are also demo vidoes on youtube with the various midiboxsid-projects.

I have a broken C-128D (and a working one) and i have for a long time considered to use the chip to some synth project. I haven’t really done any digital electronics, so i’ll probably make a simple analog monosynth. I have an old pedal keyboard i salvaged from an old organ that would be perfect for it. How cool wouldn’t it be playing the electric guitar while also making awesome SID sounds with your feet. :guitar:

i think all replies are somewhat helpful, but it’s surprising nobody mentioned the all-mighty arpeggio command (which i think you’re after in the 1st place)

  • start renoise
  • enter note triggering very SHORT sample (no matter what) with forward loop
    → if any doubt, create a new, self-drawn sample with a length of 128
  • apply effect 0Axy, whereas x and y represent the half-tone steps to arpeggiate between.

try for example:

C-4 01 … -A47
— 00 … -A47
— 00 … -A47
— 00 … -A47
C-4 01 … -A37
— 00 … -A37
— 00 … -A37
— 00 … -A37


… and you’ll get the idea.

Yes, but it will be no more than just an idea. I personally (as a sid composer) considered the old arpeggio command the most poorest arpeggio feature that got implemented into trackers. Loads of music composing applications on the C64 have always been much richer in that concept.
And every other tracker developer simply kept forking this same limited idea into his own design, even when there no longer was a reason to be such limited. Finally we now have phrases in Renoise where you can have a very big influence on arpeggio design. Using the arpeggio for chord effects is just plain silly to refer to and always has been. No doubt the arpeggio command is still useful to create various nifty effects, but for creating arpeggio chords i would really advise to use the phrase editor instead.

@vV
i can’t even comment such a quality contribution to the actual topic.

Phrases is like ornaments…i agree with vV
Take a look at Vortex http://bulba.untergrund.net/vortex_e.htm

I have a smoke of renoise chiptune here XRNS Song

you can’t agree on something which has never been stated by the person you refer to.

posting on the renoise forum, the OP probably wants to achieve the “oldskool sound” in renoise, rather than vortex.

you’re using the arpeggio command in this, just incase you didn’t notice.

@Vincent
to complement what i said above:
nothing of what you wrote is related to the topic or helpful for the OP with his request for achieving that “oldskool sound“ with renoise.
even when presuming that he is a registered user having access to the current beta, phrases are so totally different in their handling that you cant be serious about recommending them as a substitute for the arpeggio command, used in chiptune-esque music ever since the release of the first sample based soundtracker on the amiga decades ago.

here as an old 4ch .mod made on protracker, converted to xrns.
http://www.keith303.i24.cc/temp/tro15.xrns
can you can get identically sounding results (track 03) with phrases in the same, simple manner or in any way at all?
i doubt it !

There is also always something special with having limitations, well, does the music really sound much better with all the features and fancy equipment?
All you really need is a C64…and some serious skills:

Okay, you got your point: I apologize about the phrases…
I have been messing with those but not that thoroughly.
I could however achieve something similar without requiring the arpeggio command though
http://ge.tt/7ggNFsJ1/v/0

The phrase not being able to take over the epic arpeggiator pitch arpeggiation feature is a pity though. (its gonna take me quite some time before i have that specific part updated to work in Renoise 3.0)

But still regarding old-skool chiptune mods:They exactly prove why the arpeggio command in trackers suck:they have no speed versatility, you cannot extent to have arpeggios containing more than three notes. Besides the fact you could not apply filter effects and pulse width effects on the sound, but that is something i can’t blame the tracker developers for but Commodore to leave those features out of the Paula chip. (Yeah, the paula had simply a filter “on” and “off” mode but nothing else to control the variation of it.)

I tried and it sounds pretty much identical actually. All you really need is 6 3-note phrases (2 of them duplicates) at 12lpb in each of the two arpeggio instruments and in the pattern change the note of the odd values to the key where you mapped the corresponding phrase. It’s another way to work and it’s great, but i think it would be very sad if the arps disappeared from Renoise.

Thank you a lot everyone iy will dig this and and keith303 u got very nice skills there as soon as i got time i will try some of those nice tricks u got in that tune !

Yes, you can create the same effect with the Phrases, however in live situations, these kind of phrases don’t work out well once the note-off kicks in. (the phrase stops playing)
I suspect the desired behavior is that the phrase keeps playing while the sound is still playing (perhaps this could be finetuned).

The arp effect imho does not need to vanish. It is being used to create other kind of effects as well.

It sure is.

Smart you brought that up since a dsp ringmod is be able to do this (and i bet the renoise one is as well, but analog not so much). It will actually work as well controlled ‘tremolo’ at audio rate. I’ve used this for pwm sounds and if you only have a 4 or 5 note riff it isn’t much work.

If there is some self tracking (more or less approach as amp mod in particular scenario of pitch tracking with frequency offset but ringmod excludes the original signal which is a benefit for making pwm from it). At very high speed if it is tracking the pitch, you just have to move frequency off a bit and it will cut the square into smaller ‘pulses’, as if well timed tremolo chopping up square waves with another square wave. In renoise, someone just has to poke in all the values via an lfo which seems very boring. It wouldn’t be the same as simply copying Dblue pitch device stuff. But, it would be like copying that and adjust each note for correct frequency offset. If one did do that (119 or 127 times?), at that point you could adjust the lfo amount and offset. But the offset is too course for alot of free adjustment with such high speed modulations. You would still get alot of variations, though.

So, renosie may have such an ‘option’ but the effort is possibly so massive vs. benefit that, well, you’re still right.

Reattempt with B6 now with phrases and this time i took it to a level that you cannot do with the arp command at all
http://ge.tt/5HVwKPK1/v/0

This may be of interest to you… I found this recently: http://sourceforge.net/projects/protracker/

It’s a Protracker for PC! :) Looks, works and sounds exactly the same as original Protracker on Amiga :) I highly recommend to take a look.
For those of you who used Protracker on original Amiga, it’s a cool way to get back in time and see how… crappy the interface was comparing to Renoise :) Just load up some module and try to play around with it. Very evocative of old times.

Thanks for this :drummer: , if only I had a way to have my laptop read Amiga disks :( . Recently bought an external usb diskdrive for this, but unfortunately, pc architecture wont let you read an amiga formatted disk.

Getting back to LSDJ on my DMG-01 (gameboy).

That combination amazes me still, after not having tracked with it for years.

The workflow is fast, there is balance of limitation and perceived freedom.

The link is a 50 minute disection of LSDJ.

YT: EXPLORING CHIP TUNES : Episode #001

Wow, this is really interesting video. It’s the first time I see this software, and didn’t even know it existed. Thanks for sharing this!