microTracker

About

Music trackers were a common way in the 1980s and 90s of scoring music for computer games. Rather than just storing a timed stream of musical information (such as that sent over MIDI), trackers organised music into patterns that could be ordered and repeated, thus reducing the overall memory used for the music (which was at a premium in the computers of the day.)

microTracker is a music tracker built into microM8 that allows for the creation of similar music, initially for the 6-channel Mockingboard sound card on the Apple II, which microM8 supports. Music composed with microTracker can be played back inside the emulator (or on real hardware) using a companion IRQ-based playback engine, which is provided when a song is exported, or can be compiled from the source available from the Paleotronic website.

microTracker and its playback engine can also be used to create sound effects and fanfares that can be triggered during games. The engine will sit in the background, and will wait until called upon, at which point it will play back an effect and then go back to waiting. Inside microM8, you can also use microTracker songs with microBASIC and with microPAK files.

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