FAMITRACKER TUTORIAL BY GORSAL -- BASIC TECHNIQUES&TIPS
(Started in 1.21.2011)
Version 6.0
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This tutorial shows you the basics of making music in Famitracker. A lot of people ask me how to make songs with it and wants me to teach them, so I thought ‘why not making a tutorial for those people?’. So here it is. I hope you read it, understand it and start making 8-bit music (or at least, understand how it works).
This will need you to have read Famitracker's help file first, as it covers all the starter knowledge (scattered with a bunch of boring technical info). This tutorial will cover the details behind them.
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PURPOSE & AUTHOR'S COMMENTS
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The purpose of this tutorial isn't to explain each niggle the NES has. I'm more interested in explaining what the program does, and how you can use the sounds in a clever way.
For example, I will not talk about NTSC/PAL or how many Kilohertz a DPCM sample can have or shit. I want just to teach how to produce sounds and use them to make music. It wouldn't be interesting for me anyway since I don't have a clue about what they do or change in the music.
Also, since music is a type of art, you got to have the inclination for this. This isn't a 2-sec job MIDI conversion, but notes written the hard way by your own hands. Bear in mind that I've been using this program for three years, and I still learn a different thing every day; I am not a professional, but rather someone interested to share the wonders of this nice program. My intention on writing this tutorial is to shorten the time of the learning curve for you. Also sorry for any mistakes on typing.
Thanks for reading,
GORSAL
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UNDERSTANDING FAMITRACKER
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"What is Famitracker?", you might be wondering. Famitracker, as the name suggests, is a music tracker made by JSF that reproduces the Famicom (aka NES)'s sound capabilities. A music tracker program works by writing lines with notes and effects to be played. You can compose music with it, save it in Famitracker Module files and even export it in WAV, NSF and NES files.
The possibility of saving your songs as a NSF/NES file proves that this tracker makes genuine NES 8-bit; this means that any song made with this program could well be played in a real NES game. This is an important point, since this doesn't use soundfonts, samples, VST or plug-ins. What you get here is the real deal.
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COMPOSING WITH FAMITRACKER
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STEP 1: FAMITRACKER'S ANATOMY
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Famitracker window has those sections:
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¦ Untitled-Famitracker [_][º][X]¦
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¦ File Edit Module Instrument Tracker View Help ¦