Hackey Trackey (MIDI Tracker)

[TonE]

Originally Posted by dri_ft

This makes sense. Swapping between them sure could be useful, but... being able to accidentally close the window so easily sure is annoying.

I might take a look at the pattern sequencer later! Was never really a buzz user, though, so it's the tracker itself that's more interesting to me.

A tracker you have anywhere, but that sequence editor, only in buzz. So this is the most fun part of it, imo, mainly for quickly adding breaks here and there, putting some air/gaps into the whole composition so it does not sound so same all the time, adding some surprises. Of course you need the patterns first, as well. If you close that window accidentally, just hit enter again, assuming you have hackey patterns.

[dri_ft]

sai'ke, I sent you a pull request on github. (I've never done a pull request before, so not 100% sure whether it's right. Let me know if anything's up with it; I'm happy to do it over.)

I added a couple of commands which seem useful to me: double/halveAdvance, which seem useful given that we are often working with advances that are sized by powers of two (1, 2, 4...). And upByAdvance/downByAdvance, for moving the edit cursor by the advance without inputting a note. These are currently unassigned in the default keymaps but now they're there if anyone wants them.

I also fixed up the behaviour of inputting a chord by holding shift to be more similar to Renoise and, in my opinion, more useful. Now it returns to the original column and moves down by the advance when shift is released.

There are also a couple of inconsequential formatting commits that I did with a quick find/replace - stripping whitespace from the ends of lines and removing a handful of semicolons in order to be more consistent. Of course these don't really matter that much and it's up to you whether you accept these or not.

I haven't touched the version number or changelog, so you might wanna do that if you accept these.

Still hacking on it, so potentially more to come!

Thanks!

[TonE]

Originally Posted by dri_ft

I added a couple of commands which seem useful to me: double/halveAdvance, which seem useful given that we are often working with advances that are sized by powers of two (1, 2, 4...). And upByAdvance/downByAdvance, for moving the edit cursor by the advance without inputting a note. These are currently unassigned in the default keymaps but now they're there if anyone wants them.

control+f4/f5 is changing 'advance' here. So you wanted more? How did you map your new commands? Did you try to mimick Renoise or anything else?

Cool, to read about improvement ideas. I hope you know already you can add and map any action into hackey patterns, meaning around 3000 possible stuff to map.

I am wondering for some time if it is possible to save patterns at negative measure numbers, e.g. at bar -100, rather than +100. This would help not clashing with actions which depend on last item in arrange, e.g. for looping items until song end. Now those saved patterns cause problem, as the items are looped then until their position.

[sai'ke]

Awesome addition man! I really like the switchback thing after entering a chord. I added some minor suggestions to the PR, but in principle, I'd be super happy to include it.

Also, don't forget to add yourself to the author list, add a little line on the changelog and bump the version number by .01

[dri_ft]

Originally Posted by TonE

control+f4/f5 is changing 'advance' here. So you wanted more? How did you map your new commands? Did you try to mimick Renoise or anything else?

I have regular advance changes mapped to [] and halving/doubling to {}. I didn't really try to mimic anything - my keymap is already pretty weird.

sai'ke, a couple more commits on that pull request.

[sai'ke]

Awesome. Just pulled it. Should be available to everyone now.

[TonE]

Now we need only matilde tracker as vst.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/matilde-tracker/
https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=216775
https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=121656

[TonE]

Originally Posted by sai'ke

Awesome addition man! I really like the switchback thing after entering a chord.

Does this work only with qwerty, or also from midi keyboard? I tried quickly from qwerty, works nicely.

[dri_ft]

No idea, I haven't tested hackey-trackey with midi input at all. Try it and see. If it doesn't work I'll try and patch it up sometime (though inputting with a MIDI keyboard while holding shift on a qwerty keyboard sounds awkward...)

[TonE]

For midi there is tenfour-step anyway, and hackey trackey would display it correctly, normally, if not too hardly swinged.

For step chord input:

PHP Code:

midi:   tenfour-step     , supporting played velocity
qwerty: hackey-trackey 


[dri_ft]

I wrote a new feature, which sai'ke has now accepted, so it should be available in the latest version on Github. It's another panel which displays the note names of the current track, as set by e.g. reasamplomatic5000. This may be useful for those tracking drums. It's bound to F10 in the default keyset.

[Regisfofo]

Hey guys!
A little off topic question here, could someone explain to me why he prefers to create music in a tracker instead of piano rolls etc... ?
I get the historical / nerdy thing (all due respect, I'm pretty nerdy too...), but beside that there has to be some power in the worflow to keep so much people using them. No?

[TonE]

Originally Posted by Regisfofo

Hey guys!
A little off topic question here, could someone explain to me why he prefers to create music in a tracker instead of piano rolls etc... ?
I get the historical / nerdy thing (all due respect, I'm pretty nerdy too...), but beside that there has to be some power in the worflow to keep so much people using them. No?

Precise editing and experimentation field, especially for drums or bass for example. You can record something, those parts you like you keep, other parts, you can shift around for example, select those steps first, holding shift, then hit shft+numpad+/-, and those steps only will be shifted, playing other samples for example. Step by step you can replace sounds you do not like with more interesting ones. Or shifting steps/notes in time... Much more fun for editing. And this type of editing you have not in piano roll, it is really a different method.

Yes, dri_ft, thanks also from me! My F10 is already occupied, F9..F12 jumping to beat positions.

[sai'ke]

I'm more comfortable with a keyboard than I am with a mouse. I don't exactly know why, but I often find piano rolls tedious.

I'm just used to trackers really

Some things just click for you and some things don't. The ability to shift columns with respect to each-other is nice though. Allows for quick experimentation.

Also dri_ft, thanks again for adding more cool stuff. It's nice not being the only one looking at this code

[Regisfofo]

Ok, thanks for the explanations!

[dri_ft]

Originally Posted by Regisfofo

Hey guys!
A little off topic question here, could someone explain to me why he prefers to create music in a tracker instead of piano rolls etc... ?
I get the historical / nerdy thing (all due respect, I'm pretty nerdy too...), but beside that there has to be some power in the worflow to keep so much people using them. No?

Firstly I will say that the tracker is not much use for music with a live 'feel'. If you want that, a tracker won't really help you - in that case, just work on your keyboard chops and record yourself! I am only really writing music with a sequenced feel and it is here that I think the tracker interface excels.

For me it's not really a historical thing - I came to the tracker interface quite recently, and I still prefer it. In a nutshell, I just don't think the mouse is a good fit for musical sequencing. The keyboard feels more precise and efficient. Using all ten of your fingers to key in melodies or drum parts beats doing so by clicking and dragging with your one index finger.

And on the keyboard, each note has a well-defined key, so you can hit the right one without looking, just by feel. (Touch-typing, in other words.) Compare this to using a mouse, which involves finding the right spot on the screen for each new note, and moving the cursor to it. And there's no tactile feedback (as there is from a keyboard) so you can't feel whether it's in the right place, you have to look. Then you click and drag to the end of the note. I don't know, the whole process seems rather laborious. It's not a big deal for one note, but if you multiply it by a few hundred it becomes significant.

Step-sequencing with a MIDI keyboard into the regular MIDI editor seems like a promising alternative, and tenfour-step seems like a well-designed set of scripts for it in Reaper, but I haven't got around to trying that out yet.

Originally Posted by sai'ke

Also dri_ft, thanks again for adding more cool stuff. It's nice not being the only one looking at this code

Ah, you're welcome! And after all, you don't really need to thank me - I'm motivated at least as much by self-interest as by altruism

I have a couple more ideas for improvements which I have not yet made a start on implementing. Stay tuned...!

[TonE]

Originally Posted by dri_ft

Step-sequencing with a MIDI keyboard ... and tenfour-step ...

As any action can be triggered from inside hackey trackey, including tenfour-step, it should feel like it is part of hackey trackey, after assigning required actions to hackey key bindings. Should test this as well.

Regarding shifting, shifting values or shifting columns against each other are two great use cases. I also like, if you edit in normal editor quantize window, and e.g. do swing quantizing, those quantized notes jump to new column in hackey trackey, so you can apply above shifting techniques directly to those notes, only, if you want. Great. And keeping quantize window open/active, while playing around with swing value, will adjust all influenced notes immediately, also in hackey trackey. Also great. Add to hackey trackey Euklid vst, free, done with pure data, and you have enough rhythmical fun space. Only missing thing is then Atari ST midi timing.

[TonE]

In the past, in hackey patterns, hitting ENTER was closing hackey patterns and opening hackey trackey. Now, hackey patterns is closed, as before, but hackey trackey is not started. This part is destroyed somehow. Checked if there is any new config for this behaviour, could not find anything.

[Regisfofo]

Thanks for all the explanations, now I want to try to learn it
Does anyone can point me to good beginner tutorials/Documentation for tracker workflow, if you know any?

[dri_ft]

Originally Posted by TonE

Add to hackey trackey Euklid vst, free, done with pure data, and you have enough rhythmical fun space.

Oh, weird. I just looked this up and it's got some code I wrote in it.

Here it says:

Euklid is based off user Stutter’s Euclidean Rhythm abstraction.

That's me! There was code for generating Euclidean rhythms in pd before, but it was pretty nasty - based around recursively building up and reading out lists for what is basically a simple mathematical function. So I worked out a simpler version and posted it. It's nice to see that that little bit of code in the wild after all these years.

Originally Posted by Regisfofo

Thanks for all the explanations, now I want to try to learn it
Does anyone can point me to good beginner tutorials/Documentation for tracker workflow, if you know any?

Hmmm. I'm not sure, but I guess Reaper has decent docs, maybe a tutorial. There is a Renoise mode in Hackey Trackey which you could use if you were learning that. Maybe there are tutorials for some of the more 'classic' trackers, too, I'm not sure.

More than tutorials, though, I'd say it's just a case of spending some time with it and developing the muscle memory. There's not that much to learn, per se - all HT's commands are in the F1 sidebar, and you don't need to learn all of those. (God knows I haven't.) The main things to get your head around are probably setting the octave, setting the edit step, moving the edit cursor around, inputting note-offs (-), and inputting a 'blank'/deleting the note at position (.).

[TonE]

Cool, that Euklid vst is based on your code, some years ago? Then to make you more happy I want to share my presets for Euklid vst, once I saw somewhere a list of interesting 'famous' rhythmical patterns, I saved them as presets for Euklid vst, as a quick starting point for experimentation.

Just uploaded them: https://stash.reaper.fm/v/37847/vst-Euklid.ini

Thanks for your initial sharing dri_ft and Stutter!

[sai'ke]

Originally Posted by TonE

In the past, in hackey patterns, hitting ENTER was closing hackey patterns and opening hackey trackey. Now, hackey patterns is closed, as before, but hackey trackey is not started. This part is destroyed somehow. Checked if there is any new config for this behaviour, could not find anything.

Hm, that is odd. I don't seem to be able to reproduce this on my machine. For me it still just starts. Do you have any more hints on what may be going on on your end?

Do you perhaps have two versions in parallel or did you rename a file?

[TonE]

I had multiple versions but all with different names, removed them into a subdirectory, but still same situation. For now I disabled closing hackey trackey with ENTER, then I have no more this problem. But then I was shifting notes down, reaching note A0, hit again shift+numpad- and hackey trackey crashed/blocked. But this is another problem I guess.

[TonE]

Originally Posted by sai'ke

Hm, that is odd. I don't seem to be able to reproduce this on my machine. For me it still just starts. Do you have any more hints on what may be going on on your end?

If you want I can zip hackey trackey and patterns directories and send to you? I am using userkeys.lua, added a few commands below:

PHP Code:

    keys.startPat            = { 0,    0,  0,    13,      "Hackey Sequencer/Sequencer/HackeyPatterns_exec.lua", 1 }
    keys.brs_InsertNewTrack  = { 0,    0,  1,    26169.0, 40001 }                                       -- shift + F9, Track: Insert new track
    keys.brs_SideChain       = { 0,    0,  1,    6697264.0, "_e6358785a5eab147bda0fc823cb96ba1" }       -- shift + F10, Custom: brs SIDECHAIN LAST TOUCHED PARAMETER, doing normal sidechain 


Now I am getting also this error:
...m Files\REAPER\Scripts\Tracker tools\Tracker\tracker.lua:7344: bad argument #1 to 'char' (value out of range)

[geoffroy]

Hey there !

Former hardcore buzz user, I've just tried Hackey Trackey but the notes are messed up.
I have a French AZERTY keyboard and pressing W give me a D4 and X a D3 which is a bit weird for two adjacent keys

Thanks for all your efforts !

[geoffroy]

OK, pressing F11 and could change the keyboard layout to AZERTY.
Thanks !!

[sai'ke]

Originally Posted by Tone

Now I am getting also this error:
...m Files\REAPER\Scripts\Tracker tools\Tracker\tracker.lua:7344: bad argument #1 to 'char' (value out of range)

Hey man, ah interesting, that was a regression introduced in 2.03 I think. I've added a fix for it in 2.06. Thanks for the report.

[todd_r]

Would it be possible to update this to work with audio too, like Hackey Patterns? Or maybe update Hackey Patterns with an effects track to effect pitch etc?

[EpicSounds]

I'm new to this, not sure if this is a bug.

If I input on Channel 1 column, it's coming out CH2. All channels seem offset.

with record enabled note preview goes to channel 1 ONLY, but then a different sampler is triggered is in playback, except channel 1.

[sai'ke]

Originally Posted by EpicSounds

I'm new to this, not sure if this is a bug.

If I input on Channel 1 column, it's coming out CH2. All channels seem offset.

with record enabled note preview goes to channel 1 ONLY, but then a different sampler is triggered is in playback, except channel 1.

It's not a bug, but I fully agree that it is weird.

The plugin remaps your MIDI data to different channels (in this way it attaches the information to which column the data belongs). Data on channel 1 is assumed to not have been assigned a column yet.

By default, the tracker remaps everything back to MIDI channel 1 (or whatever you set OUT to). Setting the output channel to zero (displays as C) maps each column to a separate MIDI channel. As you found, column one equates to channel two, two to three and so forth.

[TonE]

No bug, this is by design so, I guess this topic was answered before somewhere, if not in the github page. [Oh I was too late, saike answered before.]

[EpicSounds]

well that still makes no sense to me but I guess I'll get used to it.

Has anyone ever posted an example project?



I see this on the GitHub page "options can be brought up with F11"
any other way that a mac user can bring this up? F11 shows the desktop.

[sai'ke]

I agree that it's weird and the reason is purely a technical one.

I don't want to duplicate all the note data in my own table / data structure, because there's a risk things will go out of sync. So I have to use a field to store the column name a note is assigned to (otherwise the column assignment could potentially change every time you add notes). This also means that one channel will effectively become the "hasn't been indexed" one. This designated channel was chosen to be the first, effectively removing it from the pool of channels that I have available.

As for req #2, interesting, I didn't realize F11 was taken on mac. I do not own a mac for testing, so that's why these type of issues crop up. When I get home tonight, I could add an alternate shortcut for that one. How about ctrl + o?

[sai'ke]

Added ctrl + o (on mac probably cmd + o) as secondary key to open options window.

[EpicSounds]

Originally Posted by sai'ke

Added ctrl + o (on mac probably cmd + o) as secondary key to open options window.

found the options now.

should the reascript console also pop up?

[sai'ke]

Originally Posted by EpicSounds

found the options now.

should the reascript console also pop up?

Whoops. No, definitely not. Thanks for the heads up! Fixed!

[geoffroy]

Hello !

Trying to use Trackey on a new track.
When I create a new MIDI item in Reaper timeline and then open it with Trackey, the out is set to "C". I have to change it every time to set it to channel 1.
Could we set the default to channel 1 ?

Thanks again for this tool !

Geoffroy

[geoffroy]

And BTW "Set loop on pattern switch" preference does not work here (Reaper 6.03 on Windows 10)

[sai'ke]

Originally Posted by geoffroy

Hello !

Trying to use Trackey on a new track.
When I create a new MIDI item in Reaper timeline and then open it with Trackey, the out is set to "C". I have to change it every time to set it to channel 1.
Could we set the default to channel 1 ?

Yes, channel 1 was actually the originally intended default. The problem was that storing outch = 0 was ambiguous between unseen and multi-chan. This meant that in order to not forget the multichannel state, I was forced to make it the default. I now added a text midi flag to keep track of it myself, and 1 is the default again (v2.11).

Originally Posted by geoffroy

And BTW "Set loop on pattern switch" preference does not work here (Reaper 6.03 on Windows 10)

Are you using it in conjunction with follow selection? I never implemented the loop update for that mode. The only thing it was implemented for was
But it's added now (v2.12).

[geoffroy]

Thanks a lot Sai'ke !! Gonna try this new version !! Have a great week-end