A Tracker Interface for Ardour is coming (but I need help)

Community Ideas for Ardour
#8

Hello interested souls, I couldn’t make it last Monday, but I’m hopeful I can make it tomorrow, same time, same place

Time: Monday, 5pm UTC
Place: Jitsi Meet

See you there.

1 Like
#9

Hey, how did it go? Any updates?

Just to know that this project has some fans, even if they can’t participate directly :slight_smile:

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#10

Wow, this looks promising! List editors are always inducing this question: why is this not on a grid, like a tracker? :joy:
But you @ngeiswei actually follow through! Well done.
If I find only a little bit of time, I will try to contribute. But I can not make any promise. I just started learning C++, so not much wisdom coming from there either. In any case I will check out the fork today and try to build it.
If you need more traction for this project, I suggest posting a call for help and the video over at
[https://llllllll.co/](https://Lines forum)
There are a lot of open source and tracker enthusiasts over there.

#11

Thanks for your interests!!!

Last Monday meeting went well (except I was unintentionally muted most of the time), a good soul joined the call to cheer me up while I was hacking the code. I did not record the call (maybe I should have).

@GenGen, If you’re a C++ noob it’s perfect because then you have the added motivation to learn C++ (and you may benefit from the feedback of a veteran C++ dev). If you can you’re super welcome to join the call and I can walk you through the code. Thanks for the forum link BTW.

Next call is expected to be today

Time: Monday, 5pm UTC
Place: Jitsi Meet

BTW, if anyone that would like to participate can’t because of the time, let me know, even though this seems to be the only consistent window of availability I have these days, I’ll adapt if I can.

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#12

Sorry I couldn’t make it. Time is sparse between family and full time job. 5 pm UTC is just about dinner time in our household. I will try to make it next time though, they can do without me every now and again :wink:

#13

FYI, there is now an Arch package available in the AUR with the tracker editor branch of Ardour.

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ardour-tracker-editor-git

2 Likes
#14

Hi @ngeiswei , how are things going with the tracker interface? :slight_smile: Cheers

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#15

Hey @dspasic! Things are slowly but steadily moving. I’m still doing my weekly coding session on Jitsi Meet at 5pm UTC, and sometimes people join to cheer me up :-).

I haven’t updated the Arch package because I’m still working on my next change (support effect automations, not just instrument’s) which involves lots of refactoring. As soon as it is ready, I’ll push that on the tracker-editor-wip branch and update the Arch package.

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#16

BTW, let me use that as an opportunity to move the meeting to 6pm UTC, time that I’ll probably keep for the summer. So meeting is now

Time: Monday, 6pm UTC
Place: Ardour Tracker Jitsi Meet

See you there.

1 Like
#17

Hello, just wanted to tell you that we were discussing your work yesterday in a FLOSS audio group and that I was personally very happy to see that there are recent commits. Keep on! :slight_smile:

#18

Thanks for the encouraging words! :slight_smile:

Let me provide a little update. I’m finally done refactoring the code so that I can add the last important feature which is to be able to edit automations of effects, not just synths. I don’t know how long that is going to take me. The refactoring took me almost 8 months, and I would probably have estimated that to 2 months (the 4x rules seems to apply). So well, maybe another 8 months! That’s why I ask for help :wink:

After that I’ll update the arch package, test, test and test, and I hope you, the interested community, will do too. I want to be sure it does not crash Ardour before considering merging it upstream. Then, there will still be a massive amount of optimizing, improving, polishing and skinning to be done, but hopefully, being upstream will facilitate that.

The really nice thing, is that the midi engine of the upcoming Ardour 7 is considerably better than that of Ardour 6 (which is actually why I didn’t really care to merge it until recently, because with the Ardour 6 midi engine, the tracker editor is too much pain to use due to its explicit tick-scale precision). In other words, the two endeavors, awesome midi engine and tracker editor, are converging really nicely. :sunglasses:

7 Likes
#19

Got no creative time with computers available at the moment, so no testing any time soon. Still posting to encourage you to go on. Love the idea!

#20

FYI, I’m considering live streaming instead of having a jitsi call.

I’m gonna attempt that from my Odysee channel. I’m also moving the time back to an hour earlier as the summer is ending.

Thus the new appointment should be:

Time: Monday, 5pm UTC
Place: @ngeiswei

See you there!

3 Likes
#21

I have decided to revert back to Jitsi. The Odysee live stream didn’t go as well as I hoped. People couldn’t leave messages unless they had an Odysee account, and in the end I didn’t manage to save the live stream. I know the latter problem is my own fault but for the sake of simplicity I’m reverting back to Jitsi.

Thus, for the time being, the appointment should be:

Time: Monday, 5pm UTC
Place: Jitsi Meet

See you there!

2 Likes
#22

Hi, I am another so far silent reader, who would really love to see the tracker interface in Ardour.

Unfortunately I can’t make to the Jitsi meetings most of the time, but since you were mentioning recordings: Are these available somewhere to watch later or did I get it wrong. From skimming through the thread I found the one video from end of January, but nothing newer. I didn’t look very thoroughly though, my apologies, but I would be glad if someone could (re)post the link to past recordings in case they do exist.

Please keep up the great work @ngeiswei !

#23

Hi @jmaibaum,

thanks for the words of encouragement!

Unfortunately I did not record any call since Ardour Tracker Interface Demo (a call for help)

Also these days I am making a small break from the Tracker Editor as I (and Rob) are focusing our attentions to complete Zynayumi GitHub - zynayumi/zynayumi: VST/DSSI/LV2 plugin based on ayumi, the highly precise emulator of AY-8910 and YM2149 http://sovietov.com/app/ayumi/ayumi.html.. I will ping you here as soon as I refocus on Ardour.

6 Likes
#24

Hello, I am pleased to announce I have finally fixed the biggest remaining feature of the Tracker Editor which is the full support of automation of plugins.

I thought it would take months, it took years. The reason it took so long, beside the fact that I have little time to work on this project, is that it required a cascade of changes up to almost the very heart of the code base. The good part is that it has resulted in a nicer code. Yet, if I had known it would take so long I might have given up thinking “after a few years, an AI will probably be able to write that code in an instant, so why bother”. Well, I don’t think an AI can write that code today, let alone in an instant, so it was good to believe that it would take a few months.

So, the Ardour Tracker Editor is getting close to what I consider “The Tracker of my Dreams”, but that isn’t to say that there is nothing left to do (and that I do not need help), quite the contrary. Here is a sample of what remains to be done:

  1. Fix limitation of max 8 columns for notes and automation. This limitation has never been a problem for me because it is a per track limit, which I have never reached. Nonetheless it should be addressed, especially for those into the occult art of black MIDI magic.

  2. Add shortcut keys. Except for entering notes and automation, everything else is done with the mouse, this is not the tracker way! Changing octave, step size, etc, should have shortcut keys.

  3. Optimize! It should be as responsive as Protracker running on an Amiga, which is far from the case. Fortunately I have refactored much of the code to facilitate such optimizations.

  4. Improve stability. Well, it is stable for me but as soon as you guys use it, you are probably going to crash it.

  5. Implement and fix the unknown unknowns. That, as everyone knows, or perhaps doesn’t know, is the most consuming part.

I believe the code is getting close to be mergeable upstream. I need to do more testing and cleaning before that. In the meantime, if you wish to compile it you may follow the instructions below

I will keep you up to date on the progress. Now, go track some music!

4 Likes
#25

I’m not interessed but it’s a nice addition ! Keep it up !

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#26

Trackers are cool. It’s invaluable to have a set of different good tools to get things done. Thanks for your great work, I saw the video and really look forward to the addition!

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#27

I will be giving this a try when I have some time.

Thank you!

1 Like