Trackers Keep Me From Being Lazy

General Discussion
1

Here are some basic thoughts about tracking versus sequencing, and a question.

  1. Repetitions of patterns are really repetitions of that pattern, if you change it in one place in the track you change it everywhere. If you make a copy of a clip in a sequencer and change the copy you don’t change the original. You need to make a copy of the original pattern first before you can make a variation. If you make copies later on in the process of composing this creates a mess in your organisation of patterns. It does get hard to keep up with all that stuff. What are variations of which pattern again?

  2. In traditional trackers the whole pattern is fixed (Buzz is not traditional in that sense). in sequencers you can have layers of clips on top of each other. Trackers are monolithic. So you have to carefully asses every instrument you’re using in every pattern. This can be seen as good because it keeps you focused on the whole.

I think that these negative things are what makes a tracker so good for me. You need to keep focused on the composing process itself without going to a more easy meta-level of clips of data (The Magix music maker effect). I think trackers keep me from being lazy.

Now my question: how do you cope with these seemingly negative issues? And would you like to see changes in these basic principles?

2

I think everybody recognize the things you mentioned. What I would like to see is a further improvement of the sequencer. I’ve noticed since 1.5 that my songs are getting longer because I do not have to fiddle with the numbers by clicking. I have a better view now how the song is ‘flowing’ and can move, copy en duplicate stuff very easy now. Maybe a layered style could improve things even more so you can play patterns stacked on top of eachother. But that may clutter things. I’m actually really happy with 1.5 the way it is now…

3

about 1, don’t forget to abuse of LCTRL+LSHIIFT+LALT+F1, which creates a new, unique copy of the current pattern (“clone pattern” function)

4

In addition to IT Aliens advises…: also don’t forget you can resort the whole pattern arrangement in the pattern arranger so all figures represent a unique pattern in a sorted order.
Also don’t forget that you can name your patterns or add hints to the pattern titles in the arranger so you don’t get lost in the arranger.

5

Ahh great man, I hadn’t noticed the sort patterns option, that’s cool! I like the make selection unique button. Great!