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FamiTracker
Maybe someone already suggested this, but I think it'd be useful.
So far, most of the things you can do in the instrument editor can also be done in the arrangement. There's 3-note arpeggiation in the pattern view, and more advanced arpeggiation in the instrument editor. You can control pitchbends via portamento/finetune, or via the pitch controls in the editor. Plus you can do a certain amount via volume changes in the pattern view, similarly to the envelope editor.
However, duty cycle changes seem to be limited to the instrument editor. I think having an effect to control duty cycle values would be really handy; it'd allow for more dynamic and precise control of that variable, and I know I'd make use of it a lot. Plus, it'd mean not having duplicate instruments just for the sake of having one be a pulse wave and another a square wave, while otherwise remaining exactly the same. It'd basically mean less redundancy between instruments. Creating loads of different arpeggios for chords with more than four steps is quite a challenge, especially if you want versions that use different duty cycles, envelopes, etc.
What do you think? Perhaps 00 for Pulse, 01 for Pulse II, 02 for Square and so on. This would work for the MMC5 too, and for the VRC6 in a similar way (just with more values). The other chips seem to work in a different way though?
That's a good idea. The same command would also be useful for setting the noise mode. Perhaps Z as it's only used for the DPCM.
But there is a way to change duty right now actually. Create an empty instrument with just the wanted duty value, and add it to the instrument column (without retriggering the note) and it'll change to the new value.
Ooh, it'll be very helpful indeed, thank you! I just tried the method you mentioned there; I hadn't thought about doing that before but it does work well.
However, it doesn't resolve the redundancy issue of course - one still has to duplicate instruments and have different duty cycle patterns in each, and it'd be much more convenient to just use one initial instrument and quickly flick between tones with the effect. The current method is pretty good, but once you throw multiple envelopes and arpeggios into the equation, you really have got your work cut out.
