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[Jonsul]

Hey everyone, been out there researching a bit and wondered if anyone had any recommendations for me. I'm completely new to music creation whatsoever, just so you know. But first I'll go through some I've tried and what I'm looking for.

I'm looking for a good all around multi platform tracker that I can use on both linux64 and windows.

Madtracker: I like it alot, really the only problem I've had is that working with it is a bit stiff. Also I noticed the quality of music isn't the greatest, maybe it's cause from what I heard from somewhere else here, that the sample editor is limited. I like the VSTi stuff and the color scheme that makes it feel slightly pro and underground at the same time. I wish editing was more easy and flexible though. Lastly there's no linux port YET though the move to open source may bring that soon.

Renoise: I like it a lot. I love how it's so advanced but tries to maintain the underground dos look from older trackers. Only real problem with it is that it's costs $$$, and the demo is too limiting. Playing through some samples though made me feel that this had the best sound quality, though I couldn't compare the same song from multiple trackers to tell for sure cause it only loads it's format. See limiting. Lastly it's a bit complicated for my level, and not to mention it has issues with 64bit linux. I may get it though once I get good at this though^^

Cheesetracker: Kinda nice, reminds me a lot of Madtracker. thing is that it's output on my system was way too low. I had to crank my speakers up all the way to hear anything! This is a problem I realized when I tried to watch a movie after playing with it and had my eardrums blown in. Also I thought the window color was too bright and hard to look at, it's not my theme cause anything else open was darker. I tried to find a way to change the color but there's no option for it.

Milkytracker: So far I like this one alot. The sound output is good on my linux box, had very clear and LOUD good quality audio from it. I love how easy and flexible it is to work on tracks. I can click anywhere I want, and copy and past parts of tracks to anywhere else. Really helps when I want to repeat a beat. I would be happy with it if it weren't for a few little annoyances. My biggest tick with it is that I can't maximize the window. I would fullscreen it but if it happens to freeze, and it has a sometimes when configuring it, I can't get to my force quite app in my toolbar. I've worked around this by making a custom resolution to about the size of a maximized window, but it's still annoying. Lastly the gui is a bit confusing in how it's organized. There's a lot of clutter, could benefit from a bit of organizing.

I'm currently downloading skale to try that out now.

Thinking about it now, my ideal tracker app would probably be a mixture of Madtracker and Milkytracker together. The undergroundness, quality, tabs, copying and all-around flexible editing of Milky with the stability, organized gui, and vsti interface of Mad.

anyone have any recommendations or anything. Maybe I should hold out for a "MadMilk Tracker" to come LOL. Though I guess it wouldn't be impossible considering both are open source now :/

[fingersoup]

Welcome!

You sound like you're doing the right research.  Unfortunately, Trackers all share a similar level of complexity.  Thus, a good starter tracker is one that has the features that you need, and the interface you like.  it's a very personal choice.  Here's some more Linux Trackers that have gained a reputation.

CheeseTracker was based off of Impulse Tracker which works in Dosbox, if you have the energy to set that up...  Looking at the lastest CheeseTracker screenshots though, it seems to have modeled after Modplug Tracker a few years back...

Schism Tracker seems to be keeping in line with the IT user interface.

ProTrekkr is another open-source tracker, that is cross-platform, and worth taking a look at...  It's an open source project originally started by Arguru, who also started other projects such as Psycle, as well as several Buzz plugins. 

If you want to go next-gen though, MadTracker and Skale are your primary options, and I'd actually recommend giving Psycle a try if you know how to use WINE...  Certain versions have compatibility issues though in Linux.

[Jonsul]

Thanks for replying in such depth^^

I settle with Milky for it's simplicity but I just tried skale and like it alot. Don't quite understand it too much now though. It'll probably be skale when I start doing advanced stufff

[rompy]

Psycle Tracker has them all beat as far as freeware, VSTi support, easy to use, it's worth it even though it is just Windows.

The linux ones I've tried don't do enough.