You wouldn't prefer a piano roll like Reason uses or a staff like MuseScore? Personally, I like to have a visual indication of my notes and their lengths. I think there's a massive difference between the two approaches.AlexE wrote:FamiTracker (and trackers in general) use the computer keyboard to simulate a piano roll pretty analogously, so it comes naturally from a pianist persepctive. The rest of it is using math to place out the rhythms of each note/sample. I also use programs like Reason and MuseScore to make music.
If you look at the screen on a piano roll setup, at a quick glance, even subconsciously, you can see where the notes you've placed would fall on a keyboard. You can see the intervals between the notes immediately. You can see how long any given note is and visually observe any slides. You can read all of this from the screen, for the entire segment of the song on which you are working, in a matter of seconds, if that.
When I look at famitracker, I see code. I see something that I have to interpret to get a meaning from it. I'm not a classically trained musician, and I wouldn't call myself a musician, I suck at it, but I enjoy hitting drums and playing analog synths. (they're so cool!) Anyway, I have to know what an A#3 is, and subtract that from a C-4, to know the interval between notes. Then I have to count the spaces between notes to find the length. Are these notes sustained or staccato? How many of these spaces does it take to make a quarter note? If I want to write a song with a 7/4 verse, a 5/4 chorus, and a 3/4 break, can I get a visual indication of that? What are these effects? They're just numbers; they're not any sort of terms that describe what they are.
If I want to hire a composer for my game, should I expect a musician to take the time to learn to code in famitracker and be able to convert their musical writing style to it, or should I find someone who works exclusively in chiptunes? You can go to the hipster part of your local city and throw a rock and it just hit a musician who needs work.
That's true, but I feel like that's more of a limit of the instrument rather than for the method of conveying information to it. Anyone who's programmed a monophonic synthesizer would immediately understand that.Kasumi wrote:I think there are more problems than layout moving from a traditional musical background to chiptune. Like... you can't hit three notes at once for a chord on NES.