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FamiTracker
I have a very simple question to all of you. What makes someone absolutely hopeless at Famitracker in your opinion, and what "rate" should people improve at, if such a thing can be specified?
A "Rate of Improvement" depends on the person itself and some people take longer than others. I mean, I still have plenty of room for improvement and I've been working with this program for three years!
As far as "igotnoscope", if he truly thinks that's real effort, then THAT'S where I draw the line for hopeless...ness (says the guy that made Fezuke regret saying something about one of igotnoscope's "Famitracker Scriptures" ) .
One more thing that hits my mind: If somebody doesn't understand how music works, they have no hope with Famitracker. One can be a wizard at 8-bit OR another genre of sorts with many instrumental parts (I won't specify, but I was in Middle School Band and that's how I got my musical understanding) and they could have a shot at Famitracker. Without understanding of the needed skill or drive to make things, there is no hope for the person, nor the outcome.
This isn't Angry Birds or Candy Crush where it was made for everybody. You need to understand what you're getting into and what kind of effort you need to put yourself through.
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Smogon, Famitracker, YouTube...
So many places, so little creativity left...
[quote=Slimeball]As long as somebody lives, there's always hope![/quote]
You mean someone like igotnoscope? :P
To me, the only time someone's hopelessly bad is if they refuse to accept criticism & aren't willing to learn from any source (including their own mistakes, like igotnoscope pretending that his garbage was going to be the best music sensation since 2pac got shot).
The only time someone's hopeless is if they make themselves hopeless as a result of their own mentality. Those are the people that typically irritate everyone; the people who refuse to accept the facts or to better themselves (in anything & everything that they may do).
Rate of improvement is a different matter &, like PaulMannIV said, there's always room for improvement in all that we do, regardless of how well we do things.
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Technology: the one thing that's hated & cursed at by all engineers, technologists, scientists & technicians!
well, there are many metrics to consider here. The most striking would be one's growth as a composer. Whether or not they start making more complex, interesting and engaging pieces. I know how to use the program in and out at this point, save for a couple effects i've never really bothered with, but i'm still low tier in terms of musical growth. Better than i was when i started, but still nothing fancy. But i also spend a lot of time animating and drawing as well. The composing is a side thing that i just really enjoy doing.
Second would be one's mastery over the software. Really, this should be a no brainer. I downloaded the thing, screwed around, didn't get how to make new patterns, or why my instrument changes kept carrying over to the subsequent instrument i made. I watched danooct1's tutorial where he walks you through how to cover Kraid's theme, and from there it was just memorizing keyboard shortcuts.
Famitracker is, for all intents and purposes fairly straightforward. It's weird to come from FL's piano roll to you know...needing to know the names of the notes i want instead of clumsily dragging rectangles up and down until it sounds right. But becuase of the nature of the program i've been able to better understand the basics of music theory, and what typically makes a combination of sounds sound good beyond 'i like this'.
So, tl;dr. I think it's more about practice and mastery over composition than it is anything to do with famitracker. And i can back up that assumption with 7 years experience as an illustrator. You start out shit, study, practice, and slowly become not-shit. It would be quite a feat to try for years and still be terrible, in my experience.
What makes someone hopeless at Famitracker is someone who doesn't know how to put effort into their songs. They define "music" as slapping shit together without giving it a second thought, not thinking about what others think, nor what they think. If you're reading this and you think you're hopeless, leave this community immediately. If you're reading this and you think you aren't hopeless, like 98.9% of the people on this forum, then get back out there and make some songs! And if it's bad, that doesn't mean it can't be improved. Even the best composers can improve.
The rate at which you should improve should be rapid. The slower you go, the easier it is to give up. How can you make improvement easy? Experiment! (Reading the help file can help you with this.) And if that's too hard, the only other advice I can give is to listen to other people's FTMs, or download NSFImport (you can Google it) find a .NSF file containing the music of your favorite game(s), import one or two of the songs and study the instruments and techniques.
To close my message, writing songs takes effort. It's no Call of Duty, as igotno_scope clearly made it out to be.[quote=SoltIW]I've read of (and lurked for) great shitheads such as "igotnoscope"[/quote]Speaking of which, we don't even need to discuss that pathetic pisspuddle of garbage. igotno_scope? He should have called himself igotno_talent!
[quote=VinylScratch]What makes someone hopeless at Famitracker is someone who doesn't know how to put effort into their songs. They define "music" as slapping shit together without giving it a second thought, not thinking about what others think, nor what they think.[/quote]
It depends on what you mean by putting effort into their songs. I've known some people who have tried out Famitracker IRL, and they spent tons of time on their songs, but if I didn't know them I would probably just pass up the songs as they're very unpolished and not terribly easy to listen to. They put effort into it, but they aren't musicians and can't know how to make things sound good on day one.
I'd say what makes someone hopeless at Famitracker is an unwillingness to change or improve. I work in tech support and I see this mentality all the time, "Well I'm just no good with computers"-- people who think they can't learn new things because they're not inherently good at them won't learn anything because of the mentality. Listen to some other peoples' music, chiptune or not, and get ideas. This is how people write music, by building on what they've heard and know.
[quote=VinylScratch]If you're reading this and you think you're hopeless, leave this community immediately.[/quote]
I wouldn't go that far. [i]Thinking[/i] you're hopeless and actually [i]being[/i] hopeless are two different things. Some very talented people think everything they do is terrible, and some terrible people think everything they do is amazing. Usually the second type of person is truly hopeless because they are unwilling to change or improve. People who think they're hopeless just might be seeing the mountain that is Learning a New Program and think "I could never scale that" at the outset. Telling them to just leave could stop the next "Chibitech" from writing chiptunes for all you know.
This is kind of the situation I was in around 2002, when MCK was the only thing available. It had no real guides at the time, and I was like "well I can't do anything good with this" so I dropped it until a real guide was released. I wrote pretty much pure crap for at least a year but still got better over time after that point.
i personally think it's weird knowing that i started off doing utter shite and now like four-five years later one of the main people i looked up to most is telling me quite clearly that my sound design abilities are better than his is quite something
additionally getting told that I could easily get my stuff on the radio or EDM compilations is pretty neat
i'm still pretty awful with famitracker though, even if it's the only tracker i like and can do things with i wouldn't say they're that great bahaha
the thing really is, it doesn't matter what tool you use. what matters is experience. if you're just starting off with music (read: not famitracker) it's pretty unlikely you'll be the next bach. however if you keep at it and trying to improve you will get there.
not to toot my own horn, but i think i've done pretty well for only writing original content four years, learning sound design for nearly six and i've started a course in college that's teaching me this stuff by [url=https://soundcloud.com/jupiter-ace]professionals in the industry with success [url=www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B_4tdDxqFU]worldwide. no one gets anywhere without persistence. i started tone-deaf and, whilst i by no means consider myself the best at writing or arranging, i think my sound design skills are pretty damn good these days, and there's always more to learn.
[quote=Rushjet1]I'd say what makes someone hopeless at Famitracker is an unwillingness to change or improve.[/quote]
This.
This was igotnoscope's major malfunction in his head; his refusal to change, improve or learn what it takes to better himself. As a matter of fact, like Rushjet1 said, there are a lot of people with this exact mentality.
There's a quote I like from the movie Kingdom Of Heaven:
[quote=Kingdom Of Heaven]What man is a man who does not make the world better?[/quote]
Not that it was meant to be a quote out of Scientology, though. It was really meant as a quote on self-improvement as an individual to improve conditions around themselves. As long as there are people who don't think about improving themselves to better their conditions (regardless of what they're trying to do,) there will always be plenty of hopeless failures on this planet. In that movie's case, it was directed at people of power who prefered greed over peace; here's it's more about people who would rather have the world revolve around them, rather than adapting to conditions & improving themselves to make things easier/better.
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Technology: the one thing that's hated & cursed at by all engineers, technologists, scientists & technicians!
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