STarKos/Arkos Tracker Songs

[m.a.s.k]

greets all   =)


i recently discovered the excellent Arkos Tracker and have been having fun getting to know it and experimenting with sounds


i noticed Arkos Tracker comes with a selection of STarKos tracker demo songs included;  i was wondering if anyone knows if there are any other songs available (for StarKos or Arkos trackers), as i can't seem to find anything on the internet (i was kind of hoping there would be some eg. classic game song conversions available such as Rob Hubbard or Martin Galway stuff etc, or some demo scene music perhaps)


thanks!

[keith56]

it's probably not the kind of thing you're looking for, but my little retrogame 'Chibi Akumas' was done with Arkos Tracker
I've uploaded the source aks files here if they are of any interest.
http://www.chibiakumas.com/download/Music.7z

[Targhan]

Hi,


I am the author of STarKos and Arkos Tracker. To my knowledge, Arkos Tracker songs have  not been actively shared by composers. As for the STarKos files, I asked several authors to give me some songs and put them in the Arkos Tracker folder, as you have seen.


But now that I think about it, it would be great to have some Arkos Tracker/STarKos songs available on the net. I'll do something in the following months about it.

[roudoudou]

Tom&Jerry shared some Starkos music on his website, even it's a little outdated...


http://tj.gpa.free.fr/

[m.a.s.k]

hey guys


cheers keith i checked them out and then checked out a vid of your game on youtube,  nice work  (...you can avoid ALL of the bullets? =) 


Targhan:   that's ace news and thank you for making Arkos Tracker,    i was wondering, i think sometimes i press or do something by mistake in the tracking window and then when i enter a note in a channel, it enters the note on all 3 channels instead?  when it happens i'm not sure how to turn it off again so end up quitting and reloading


roudoudou:  i went to the link and noticed they are DSK files, so wasn't sure what to do but looked around and found something called ManageDsk_V0.20e    and discovered the .sks music files can be exported from the image using 'without header' checked, and then they are exporting just fine  =)

[Targhan]

Yes exactly: use ManageDSK to extract the SKS as "ascii" file/without header and you'll be able to use them in Arkos Tracker.


>i was wondering, i think sometimes i press or do something by mistake in the tracking window and then when i enter a note in a channel, it enters the note on all 3 channels instead?  when it happens i'm not sure how to turn it off again so end up quitting and reloading

Isn't it because all the 3 tracks on the pattern are the same ? If your pattern is, for example 0, 1, 1, and you enter a note in the second channel, both the second and third channel will have the same note, as they refer to the same track (1). This is because each track is an independent piece of music, which can be reused independently of the pattern. This is both for optimizing the memory and to allow easy reuse of tracks: plus by using transpositions (the "magnifying glass" icon), you can, for example, create only one track for the bass, and up/downscale it to build your harmonic progression. The (only) .AKS demo shows how to do that.

[m.a.s.k]

aha yep Targhan, i read your reply and then had another go and realised it was as you said and i was just not doing things/understanding correctly 


makes perfect sense now, thanks!

[PulkoMandy]

You can find several examples of Starkos songs from different musicians on the Grimware page for Starkos: http://www.grimware.org/doku.php/documentations/software/starkos/start?s[]=starkos#song.repository
I should send my more recent work so it is added there...


Also here is my music for the Amstrad CPC 30 years megademo: https://github.com/pulkomandy/30years/blob/master/data/lifegrid.sks?raw=true

[m.a.s.k]

hey PulkoMandy thanks for sharing,  i like that 30 years megademo tune u made, and also enjoying the tunes you did on your musicdisk 

[m.a.s.k]

Hey Targhan, i was wondering in the Arkos Tracker Setup config, under the Audio tab, where it says 'Buffer quantity', what does that mean and what is an ideal number to put in there?

[PulkoMandy]

It is the amount of buffers where the audio is stored. Lowest means less latency, so what you hear is well synchronized with what you see. However, if the value is too low, you may end up with gaps in the audio output. In that case, you can increase the value a little, you will get clean audio again, but some more delay.

[Targhan]

Like Pulko said. Lower number means less delay, but also an increased possibility of audio drop-outs. If the default value works fine, don't touch it .