Ok, I used to compose music for MSX on Soundtracker and Moonblaster. I recently discovered Musica and I'm quite excited about it. It's a different approach (MML) but it adds quite some possibilities.



I'm wondering.. which is your favorite music tracker on the MSX?

my fave tracker... hmm... gotta think about that... actually, it doesn't exist yet :/

Well. Moonblaster for Moonsound would be an easy answer, wouldn't it? I don't work with anything else, so it should be my favorite one. I agree with BiFi though. It misses way too many features. Meridian would be a good alternative, but that tracker at the moment is more suitable for editing MIDI data or keyboard played data than for key event inputting data manually...



So my answer is after all Fac Soundtracker Pro!! I like the horizontal steps, it fits the best the way music score is being displayed. And still, the coolest tunes have been made on this Soundtracker. Add nostalgy and there you go

I actually had some problems switching from horizontal to vertical.. it's just such a radical change.



FSTpro was the only tracker I could operate without a monitor. Years ago my minotor was temporarily broken, so just by remembering where the cursor is I created a 'blind' tune!



I dunno, up till now I might say the classic MB (pac/musmod) since I used it more than other apps, but some elements of FSTpro are still better, such as the assigning of block-functions. The Q and W definitly were faster than the MB way.



I worked with Tyfoonsoft's PRO-tracker for a while. Not a bad program for fmpac, but not in the style or class of FSTpro/MB. Since you couldn't copy a part of a long 64step channel.. it was either all or nothing. And yes, the voice-editing sucked

Interesting. I could not be the only one preferring or having preferred horizontal input. I'm curious if there are other composers who had trouble switching to vertical input....



Meridian is BACK to horizontal! Yeah!!!

do you have a midi for auf wiedersehen monty?

heheheh, a long time ago I decided to start FST again (for the MIDI stuff I think)... and after using MoonBlaster (and ProTracker before that) I couldn't get used to the horizontal stuff... it seems quite contra-intuitive, if you ask me

is meridian horizontal? I don't like that at all! I have tried once with FAC stuff but it gave me a hard time switching between vert and horz. Meridian should have both IMO.

What's wrong with horizontal? I think it has a lot to do with what was the first program you used. I started with Soundtracker Pro, and also used Moonblaster for a while when I got a MoonSound (Moonblaster was replaced rather quickly ). I liked soundtracker a lot better than moonblaster.

i started with vertical. Dont remember which tracker it was.

Well to add something new to this discussion: I started out horizontal (yes, FST Pro), after that vertical (MB, let's not mention Koustracker ^_^). If I have to choose, I'd definately say I like vertical better, however horizontal also's got a nice touch to it.



Anyways, an editor having horizontal/vertical orientation... does it really matter that much? You'll get used to it pretty quickly I would think. It's the features (and ease-of use, not so much the orientation but the shortcuts) that makes the difference I think.



But heh, Mark, you can always mail Michiel about this and make it a feature request. He can then tell you whether it can be done or not, and if he is prepared to do this (actually I give you little chance, cuz it's a pretty drastical change in the UI). But ah, you know the proverb, never shot will always be a miss.



(damn one shouldn't have to translate proverbs ^_^)





~Grauw

With only 9 channels... I prefer vertical orientation, but that's just because I got used to Moonblaster I suppose. The more channels there are, the easier horizontal orientation is. In MBWAVE I often lose the 'overview' of the songs, when I do complicated things.

When you're tracking on various platforms, you'll notice a slight bias to "vertical"-tracker layouts. Which makes me wondering, are there any PC trackers out there with a "vertical" layout? (just curious)

Depends.. Most MOD-based trackers (fasttracker etc.) are vertical. All MIDI sequencers I know are horizontal.

Quote:

Depends.. Most MOD-based trackers (fasttracker etc.) are vertical. All MIDI sequencers I know are horizontal.

That is exactly the point of difference. Most trackers are biased vertical whilst most sequencers are biased horizontal. The latter most probably because of the "link" to music on sheets, which also is (mainly) horizontally orientated. OT there was someone who introduced a vertical system which would revolutionize music as we knew it.



Vertical trackers, like FST, aren't around that much. Though I must say I regard MML as a compromise between the two "standards".