Table of Contents
The Soundtrakker
The Soundtrakker, as the name suggests, is a tracker-like music program (it uses a scrolling list of notes to play, rather akin to an old-fashioned piano roll, instead of a musical score) programmed by BSC (Oliver Mayer) and distributed by New Age Software (aka NAS), Sentinel Software (in the UK) and Weeske (a well known Amstrad reseller in Germany) in 1992.
This software quickly became the most popular music tool in the CPC demoscene back then. It was much more powerful and yet easier to use than any other CPC music program at that time (and it remained so until, a decade later, STarKos appeared in 2004. What? Of course this is an Arkos propaganda! :). Released as a commercial software, it didn't sell very well. The CPC in 1992 was dying (commercially speaking) and it also suffered alot of piracy in the scene (Hello POW!). It finally ended up as freeware.
We had the cpc-game-music-rip-in-demos era and then we had the soundtrakker-everywhere music era :)
Soundtrakker 1.x
Downloads
Manuals |
Soundtrakker 128
Downloads
ManualWANTED: Manual? |
The Soundtrakker v1.0 is said to be quite bugged and was quickly updated to a much better v1.1.
The Soundtrakker 128 is a real update of the program, featuring new effect-commands and improvements. It's not just a 128K RAM extended version! Unless you intend to compose music on your rusty 464, it should be your prefered version of the Soundtrakker.
Various Soundtrakker stuff (stk1.1 manual, songs, 3rd party software) provided by CPCManiaco (thanks!).
Compatibility
The soundtrakker 128 can read the
.SNG created with the Soundtrakker 1.x, but they can be messed up if they are using very short patterns.
Soundtrakker 1.x can not read the .128 song files created with the Soundtrakker 128.
ParaDOS (or any similar extended DOS) users, be careful: the disc operations of the Soundtrakker only support up to 64 files per directory. If there's more than 64 files on the disc (eg. using extended disc formats or hard-drive) then an overflow of the directory buffer will crash the program.
Video / Screenshots
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(If Flash is installed JavaScript is activated, you can watch a video inside this web page.)
The Soundtrakker 128 playing “Space Debris” by BSC,
Video recorded with WinAPE. |
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Developpers
Programming
Third party software
Several tools dedicated or providing features related to the Soundtrakker exist. Here are a few of them.
The Soundtrakker Player
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ST-Crime
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X-Convert
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Convert Soundtrakker to YM
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Soundtrak Ripper 2.0b
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SoundHakker Professionnal 3.0
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Song Repository
I'm still searching/gathering music files at the moment, but instead of locking what I already have in my hard-drive until I sort them all (which might take a while), here they are! So you can help me sorting them now! :)
If you have any .SNG or .128 files, please, send them to me and I will update this repository! (I'm especially looking for the Megablaster tunes by Crittersoap, I can't find the disc where I have them… arg!).
Soundtrakker 1.x |
Soundtrakker 128 |