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FamiTracker
If it's not too garish of a thing to do, was wondering if we could get a convo going about musical roots. I already know a few people here but I'm always a bit curious about the musical backgrounds of other peeps around the forum. Do you play an instrument? How long? Is Lady Gaga your uncle? Other stuff? etc. I'll try and get it rolling:
([u]feel free to TL;DR, this thread is about you[/u])
My first musical anything started in 7th grade, I played alto sax and continued playing for six years. I learned how to read music(treble clef only) and sightread with it but that's about it, I never learned how to do any jazzercise with it.
In 11th grade I picked up the guitar and learned how to bang around chords and pretend I know how to play bluesy leads cos I screwed around with that for a number of years afterward without lessons of any kind.
It was a few years ago now that I discovered the whole chip community and it changed my life in a lot of unfitting ways. When I heard insert-crazygood-chipperson-here, I said, "I wanna do that!1", but soon realized that I completely sucked and thus began the big theory phase, which is well documented in these forum threads.
This also brought me into seeking a piano teacher, at the time I figured it was an instrument that would give me access to relating with music on a deeper level. I've now been taking classical and jazz lessons for two years, during which has turned my initial shallow call to the instrument into a respectful an semi-fearing one.
But essentially, the quest to find out 'how they do dat?!' has led me to meet many people who opened my mind and ears to worlds of fantastic music, drastically changing my tastes over time. At some point I decided to get 'serious' about music and do the stupid thing of trying to make a career out of it somehow.
Two weeks ago I finished my six year stint in the military(it was the darkest time of my life, I joined for college money) and will be going to a local school for a bullshit (two-year)AA music degree while I continue studying with my current piano teacher on the side, the real education. I'm really using this time to prepare for Berklee in Boston, where the real opportunity and networking and all that crap begins.
So yea, this is what chiptunes did to me, haha. Pretty retarded.
I had brief stints with crude DAW's years and years ago. Produced some awful stuff out of boredom, the creative process didn't really grab me and I didn't like what I was hearing, so I stopped.
Rock band ended up being what spawned an interest in playing an actual instrument - I have a ghetto drum kit and a cheap acoustic guitar in my bedroom. I set aside time to practice drumming techniques on a regular basis, but eventually my interest faded. I wasn't improving at a rate that I found personally satisfying, and it was easy to give up since my investment in the hardware was low and it was a silly thing that got me into it to begin with.
I never did progress beyond learning a couple basic chords with the guitar...
I got into electronic music pretty heavily in the last 5 years or so, such to the point that I wanted to make some myself. I grabbed a couple of music theory books, a copy of FL studio, put all of that shit on my laptop and brought it to work with me, the intent being that i'd read and learn the software during downtime at work.
I did a lot of reading, but the composing part was hard...I got too sucked into trying to make a cool sound. I wanted to simplify things, and wanted an excuse to throw myself into the software. Next thing I knew, I had some chip-like instruments and I was putting together a video game cover.
...it was awful. Wrestling with the interface was part of the problem, but I just wasn't skilled enough with music or the software to produce pleasing sounding results.
Around August last year, my roommate ended up with a copy of famitracker. We spent some time talking about it, and I was using it not long after. I read the manual and attempted to understand other peoples projects, with varying degrees of success.
The interface took some getting used to. But with enough work, it feels natural to me now, and I can't imagine working with a piano roll anymore. I began by making covers I wanted to hear. The bits and pieces i've learned along the way have given me some tools to compose my own music with.
In a little over a year, i've gone from being absolutely paralyzed at the thought of creative expression, to releasing my work on the internet for all to see, with confidence.
I've still got so much to learn, and so many things I want to do.
By this time next year, I think I want to release a full album of original music, and collaborate with other musicians on a more regular basis.
As for how it's affected other facets of my life; I used to play a lot of video games and watch a lot of TV. I went 25 long years assuming I didn't have a creative bone in my body, and now...music has effectively replaced my other hobbies. If i'm not making it, i'm reading about it, listening to it, studying it, or talking about it with other musicians. It's probably the first thing in my adult life that I truly feel passionate about.
tl;dr I didn't really have any background at all, I just picked it up a little over a year ago. Nobody in my family played and I didn't even listen to music all that much, something just clicked and it was something I became super passionate about.
2008
I found Mario Paint Composer, and fooled around with that.
2010
I was searching for a way to make NES music, because I wanted to.
I found FamiTracker. I made simple covers + the original edition of the song I submitted for TechEmporium's One Instrument Contest.
When the spring came, I found FL Studio and uploaded [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnqCPLWG-Gc]my first song ever in FL Studio.
Then I wanted to understand FamiTracker more, and made [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0k0wrJ531I]this.
Then I registered here.
I started to get known with sparta remixes, and made [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFWfxotcuvU]a horrible one with Audacity.
2011
Stopped taking piano lessons.
Lots of stuff followed. Most of it is never released.
I found out about TFM Music maker and MilkyTracker. Experimenting with FM Sounds and samples.
I discovered Touhou.
2012
For my confirmation my dad got me something I had wanted for a long time: a Yamaha DX7. It is the original model with no indicaton of button 8 being the MIDI channel selector. Better make something good with it.
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I hope I did this right.
Nothing. I've taught myself pretty much everything I know.
In about 2003, I picked up Game Maker and started making some cheap edits of the given tutorials and stuff, and I would use loads of MIDIs and things from vgmusic.com. It was great (awful).
It only crossed my mind to start making my own music for it around 2008, though. I initially started using Noteworthy Composer to make my own music. Its GUI was done via sheet music, so that's pretty much all the practice I've had with that (excluding the core music lessons I once did in school). Some of the games and MIDIs I made are [url=http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/54912-god-and-the-smilies]still around today.
In 2009, I wanted to make a faux 8-bit space shooter. I don't know how I found it, but that's when I picked up Famitracker. That's also about the time that I picked up composing music as a real hobby, too. I would continue making music for games that would never come to be throughout the years.
Come 2010, I wanted to make a Mega Man fan-game. I made (and actually published) a bunch of (barely) Mega Man-esque music. That's also how I met up with people like HertzDevil and Mex and so on.
In 2011, I had given up on the idea of making games for a while. Instead, I got sucked into the MLP:FiM fandom. There I met and made friends with a ton of musicians who also liked the same thing, and it was my first experience of really belonging in a musician community. Though I was the only chiptuner for miles, my musical skills improved immensely over such a short period of time.
And now it's 2012. I started integrating with the BotB community some more, which has given me a taste of how much I can't make music really fast. To this day I cannot play a single musical instrument (excluding the kazoo)
All the while, I would listen pretty much only to video game music, though recently I have started to delve into other people's works - both chiptune and not. That said, I'm still useless with pop music.
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[quote=iGotno_scope]im going to continue making this crazy stuff then after a while my style will be so sick that you will be like damn suuun that shit is so sick i dont even get it. i will be like bro its ok.. you dont have to.[/quote]
Started with trumpet when I was about 10 (2005 or '06), got into piano and percussion, left music alone for a while (and lost most of my ability to read sheet music)
About three years ago went back to piano, started reteaching myself, sadly sold my trumpet, and went on my merry way. I don't really know how I got into chip, but I guess it was because my parents are cheap, and for the longest time the only system I had in my room was an NES (and in my drawer a Gameboy), so even though I'm relatively young I can say I grew up with it... then, I found Danooct1's tutorials, and then Im_a_Track_Man happened.
Edit: I have never taken any form of musical education, though I was in 2 school bands.
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[BURNING LOVE]
[url=http://www.youtube.com/user/ImATrackMan]YouTube
[url=https://twitter.com/ImATrackMan]Twitter (Stay off my lawn, kids)
I started playing keyboard when I was around 10 and recorder when I was 8 - so I've been able to read sheet music for quite a long time. I then took professional piano lessons for a while when I was 13, but I gave that up after a few months (it cost £40 a month and I wasn't learning much).
In terms of actually making my own stuff, that came around the same time. I was dicking about in FL Studio, taking midis and replacing them with soundfonts (doesn't everyone do that though?). Eventually this tired me so I tried doodling stuff down. It didn't sound great, so I kept trying to improve my mixing and arrangement skills. It was mostly Mega Man, Sonic, all that stuff.
A year later I started actually properly working on original music, though it wasn't great (I have a few examples of this, though I don't feel comfortable sharing that) and my mixing practise had indeed helped, as it all glued (and still does, most of it anyway, I had some neat ideas I don't pull anymore). Around the late winter of 2010 I had written about 20 original pieces of music and only a handful was actually stuff I'm proud of today - in fact, one single track from that period keeps coming up, see Death Egg Zone on my SoundCloud page to find out which.
Last year I was gaining a lot of experience and learned a lot - my original content was growing into something I had nurtured myself and was proud of, and it was actually stuff a lot of people liked. Most of it was still cover work, but I was getting a lot better. Same sort of stuff - Sonic, Mega Man, but also some Ys, Thunder Force, PPGZ (though I now regret this and anything related to this) but mostly I still had the same sort of sound that I wanted to achieve.
And this spring I suddenly decided to throw that all out of the window when I started listening to heavy metal and listened to mainstream music. My mixing techniques were gone and everything I made suddenly started to sound like shit. Recently I've managed to fix that, keeping my compositional technique but with a heavier sound. I also started making house and trance music this year, which is almost a parallel opposite to thrash metal, but my mixing attempts at those have been good from the onset from my earlier experience.
That's just a brief history on my music and my influences, there's a lot I'm leaving out but you get the basic idea.
I have no musical background. I started with Famitracker about feb/march this year when my friend (Bynary Fision) showed me something he made in it. Prior to that the extent of my "musical experience" is playing stepmania for about 6 years, playing spread (qwop) and pad (stomp stomp stomp) style and getting really good and also making hundreds and hundreds of charts to different crazy songs.
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bite-sized songs inspired by rhythm game music, in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu
In my case, I started with piano at 7, electric bass at 14 & the elementary school curriculum where I'm at forces students to learn the recorder from grades 3-6. I then started FamiTracker in 2009, but as more of a casual thing honestly.
I was uncomfortable at first when I started off with FamiTracker because I'm more used to music notation than a tracker display, but I learned some stuff along the way. And only recently have I stumbled on writer's block when it comes to composing more stuff.
I basically got into chiptunes since a couple of friends & I in college started are own short-lived, locals-only crack team & I was the supplier/scrounger of the group; finding all those cracks from FFF, FHCF, DigitalInsanity & others is what got me into it.
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Technology: the one thing that's hated & cursed at by all engineers, technologists, scientists & technicians!
I had piano lessons for two years when I was 6 and 7, but I was always too embarrassed to practice in front of anyone, so eventually my parents just up-and-decided to sell our piano.
I think it gave me a pretty solid footing in basic concepts (rhythm, chords, intervals, etc.) and whether or not I realized it at the time, it changed the way I looked at music for the rest of my life. Ultimately though, it was NES games that really got me seriously interested in music. It started on a subconscious level and ate away at my brain for many a year.
I joined my school band when I was 9; I wanted to play trumpet, but they told me my lips were too big and without so much as a second chance, they handed me a trombone. Needless to say, I hated it and quit within a month.
I got into all sorts of angsty metal (Korn, Metallica, etc.) in my teens, and a friend of mine loaned me his Toys R Us brand guitar. From there it was a touch-and-go self-taught adventure for the next... uh... -many- years.
I've always had a pretty active imagination, so I've had musical ideas for quite some time, but the real magic started when I discovered FL Studio.... and that's when I started to realize that I hated performing, but loved composing.
I learned about FamiTracker through the AllGenGamers podcast, of all things, when they had Sivak on as a guest and he mentioned using FamiTracker to make the music for Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril. I picked it up that very night.... started messing around with it and making covers...
...and the rest, as they say, is history.... it all comes back around to video game music again. :D
This was a cool idea, Gyms; these are a lot of fun to read.
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The only things certain in life are death and uncertainty.
I actually have a decent history with music, but not quite as intense as some, it seems.
My first real stint was in elementary school; I joined the children's choir at church. I'll pin that to 2nd grade (1997), since I'm not entirely sure when that started up. I stayed in church choir until I graduated high school (2008), so this was a big ongoing thing for me.
In 6th grade (2001), I joined band and picked up the clarinet. I stayed in through high school. Upon starting high school, I joined the "youth orchestra" at my church, thus adding more music to my background. At some point in high school, a fellow clarinet called me a "rhythm genius", due to my ability to grasp the rhythm of the music we were playing without much effort, and without tapping my foot to keep tempo.
Between band and choir, I had a pretty good ability to read treble clef, and an okay grasp of bass clef when my voice dropped and I became a tenor.
Getting close to graduating high school, I briefly considered a music major, before discarding the idea due to my lackadaisical approach to music (I didn't practice, basically - in spite of this, I wound up making decent chair placements anyway) which I figured would get in the way in college. I opted instead for Computer Science as a major.
Rewind. In 7th grade (2002-2003, since I'm not sure when within the school year this happened), I borrowed a friend's copy of Final Fantasy 8 and fell in love. Around the same time, I gained an eye for finding and taking apart MIDI music from the internet. I found a MIDI viewer that displayed the file as sheet music, and I went to town dissecting MIDI-fied versions of pop songs and tracks from VGMusic.com. For a time, I wrote out small ditties for people on the forum I spent a lot of time on, just stupid things that have been lost to the ages. (This contributed to the thoughts toward a music major, above.) Around starting high school, I lost the program in a computer change, couldn't find it again, and forgot the matter.
My senior year in high school (2007-2008, again can't remember exactly when within the year it happened), I magically found 8bitpeoples.com and fell in love with the idea of chiptune. I grabbed a few EPs from the site and listened voraciously.
Upon starting college (2008), I kind of cut off from my previous practices. I left my religion, so I didn't want to join a church choir. I was in an engineering degree that was bound to take up all my time, and I didn't want that kind of time-sink, so I didn't join concert band in college. I never really went into choir in school, and as mentioned above, I didn't want the added sink of choir either. (I also didn't like solfege, which is why I didn't join school choir in the first place.)
Sometime in my sophomore year of college (spring 2010) I discovered FamiTracker, but all I could do for a while was make odd instruments and jam around. I found danooct1's tutorials and was finally able to make some covers. After getting a new computer I was able to screen-record my covers and put them on YouTube, where dan and psn found me and invited me to the fledgling Music Lobby, which really helped in finding FamiTracker files to study and listen to.
I've dabbled in making a couple original tracks in the past couple years, but they haven't been anything stellar. I've posted them here to little fanfare and reception. I've focused on covering more and more absurd things, anyway, to see how to map different sounds into FamiTracker. (Mighty Switch Force, anyone?) A thing I did for a bit was covering some pop songs, making the FT file a karaoke track. I'd then post it along with my singing. It didn't get too far, except when one band liked my cover enough they wanted me to put the melody into the file and [url=http://8bit.loveheyocean.com]use the track for their own purposes. I had a brief stint in BotB, and I like the two OHBs I made, but it collided with the end of my college career, so I didn't get too far into it. I've also played around in Sunvox a little, which is a bit more complicated, but a bit crazier in the things it can make. I'm not nearly as proficient with it as I am with FT, though.
After graduating college earlier this year, moving back home, and getting a "real world" job, I haven't actually touched anything new in FamiTracker in a few months, so I'm way out of practice. (Sadly, I think I'll sit out of Famicompo this year. The timing was just grand.)
[quote=InterrobangPie]Instead, I got sucked into the MLP:FiM fandom. There I met and made friends with a ton of musicians who also liked the same thing, and it was my first experience of really belonging in a musician community. Though I was the only chiptuner for miles, my musical skills improved immensely over such a short period of time.[/quote]
This reminds me, I wanted to find/get into the My Little Remix community, or whatever it is now. I found the forum a while back but I never registered or posted anything.
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[url=http://icesoldier.me]Website (includes FTM's of my covers)
I took piano lessons starting at age 4. I didn't like practicing and never got that good at piano, but it taught me how to read music, which in turn taught me how to write down compositions.
Growing up I often tried to write music. I learned to program in BASIC from library books, and working on my Atari ST I wrote several simple games and musical programs for it. In school I learned to play the trombone, and at home I continued playing the piano.
In 1997, I started high school, and my family got a pentium with an OPL3 sound card, the internet, and my knowledge of programming was suddenly very greatly expanded. This also introduced me to trackers (Scream Tracker 3, then Impulse Tracker), and I started tracking music every day after school. I also learned to program the OPL3, which was probably the first hardware I ever dealt with at a low level. I also was introduced to Nine Inch Nails, which created a musical revolution in my mind. It also inspired me to learn the guitar. Around the same time I started doing a lot of transcription, listening to stuff and writing it down, either making midis or for my band (a couple of friends) to play. This did a whole lot to train my ear.
After high school, I went to university and did a Bachelor of Music degree. I learned a lot of music history and theory. I learned a lot about 20th century music, especially. I tried to take part in every kind of ensemble I could while I was there. I wrote a lot of music, but very little of it has ever been recorded (more than half of it isn't worth digging up, anyway).
After graduating, I finished the requirements for a Computer Science degree, and then took my first job as a video game programmer. Right before leaving I discovered Famitracker, and started working on my MOON8 cover of Dark Side of the Moon. My job started, and I put that project on the shelf for about three years. During that time I didn't do much, musical.
Anyhow, I eventually came back to that project and finished it, and then I found these forums, and have been enjoying taking part in the NES community. I've also been making slow but steady progress on personal music projects since.
My parents forced me into Piano lessons about 9 or 10 years ago, and up until the last year or two I've always wanted to just quit playing it altogether. What now keeps me interested is learning and playing jazz and VGMs ([url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIVzr7qf-Ew&feature=plcp]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIVzr7qf-Ew&feature=plcp - I suppose this is kind of relevant), which I enjoy listening to very much (look up Oscar Peterson, he's a total boss).
I actually quite hate my piano lessons now since the vast majority of the curriculum that I'm required to learn for my grade 9 royal conservatory of canada piano exam is classical music (most of which is extremely boring IMHO and can't be played with your own distinct style for exams which just plain sucks), and I'm also gonna have to do some classical composer history study as well which also kind of sucks complete dick. My piano teacher tries to get me to play my jazz music exactly as written on the sheet as well, which kind of really grinds my gears to be honest :p
My piano lessons along with a few theory lessons and exams (I think) have really given me a solid understanding of musical theory, and I'd like to think that I know what sounds "right", so to speak. A lot of the stuff I've composed seems to show a very large influence from classical music despite the fact that I listen to jazz and rock music, most likely because that's the music I've unfortunately been forced to learn and study over the years. I've been trying to break the habit though and use more awesome, jazzy chord progressions in my music lately though which will be especially evident in my FCM9 entry (I hope :p)
I first started messing around with digital music quite a few years ago (at least 4 to 5), but back then I was both too immature and untalented to have neither the patience/perseverance nor musical understanding to make anything worth listening to. The first software I ever attempted to use iirc was milkytracker, and is what formed my prejudice towards piano-roll style music software. I then heard about Famitracker from who knows where, and attempted to make some stuff but I thought it was totally mediocre so I just gave up after a while.
A few months before I registered this account on the forum is when I attempted to get back into composing chiptunes, but this time I had the motivation to do something somewhat useful with my time, and so since more than a year ago now I've been regularly composing with either Famitracker or SunVox depending on whether I want to make something more advanced-90s tracker module sounding or 8-bit sounding. I learn new techniques every time I get inspired to make a new song and hope to someday be maybe almost half as good as someone like FoD, Kulor, Coda or Shnabubula etc. (the list goes on and on)
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