.Markku Reunanen.

Tracker Paper Errata

August 7th, 2024

In 2019 I published a paper called Trackerit: paradigman synty, kukoistus ja myöhemmät vaiheet in Finnish. After an unfortunate editorial process I pulled the extended English version out from a journal, even if it had already passed peer review, and decided to simply republish a translated version of the original as Trackers: The Rise, Bloom and Later Developments of a Paradigm in WiderScreen. Even if I tried to check my facts, a couple of inaccuries had slipped in, as kindly pointed out by Saga Musix.

• The “M.K.” tag found in mods is often attributed to Mahoney & Kaktus of NoiseTracker fame, but more likely it refers to Michael Kleps who introduced it in a later version of Soundtracker.
• The Scream Tracker 3 file format can accommodate 32 channels, but the publicly available versions of the original program only let you edit 16 sample and 9 FM channels.
• While it’s true that the CIA-based tempo command was introduced in later ProTracker versions, Obarski’s Soundtracker already had tempo as part of its file format. You couldn’t initially change it within the editor, though.

The moral of the story: don’t repeat common “knowledge” without checking the details once more 🙂

Filed under: demoskene,retro,softat,tutkimus