Fasttracker II clone in C using SDL 2
8bitbubsy has released a portable clone of the classic tracker Fasttracker II, written in C and using SDL 2. The latest version, v2.22, is available for Windows, macOS (universal binary), and Linux, with source code on GitHub. The author notes potential issues with multiple monitors of different refresh rates and provides platform-specific instructions for keybindings and running the app on macOS.
If you have more than one monitor connected to your PC, and they use different refresh rates, you might get some program issues!
- cmicali
Very cool - can’t wait to try it. I made an impulse tracker clone for MIDI years ago that also uses SDL, though a mix of C and C++. It has been picked back up for dev again recently and we’re making good progress.
https://github.com/m6502/ztrackerprime
The world could use more trackers. I’m really hoping the upcoming ableton live extension api will allow for direct access to the piano roll. I suspect many people include myself will use it to make tracker interfaces for ableton.
- tomduncalf
This rocks. Such nostalgia.
FT2 was how I discovered anything about music making - I loved the euro dance music I heard on the radio as a 12 year old but had no idea about the scene or how electronic music was was made.
PC Format had FT2 plus hundreds of modules on its cover CD one month, I used to love exploring all the random stuff on there and opened it up and my mind was blown when I realised that there was music like I heard on the radio, but you could see all the individual bits that made it up.
It took a loooot of messing around to figure out how to do anything of value with it, pretty sure this was before we had internet at home, but it was the start of a life long fascination with electronic music making.
So thank you to the author for resurrecting this amazing and somewhat esoteric bit of software!
- wartywhoa23
To slightly rephrase Gary Fisher: Anyone who has fond memories of FT2 is a friend of mine!
Kudos to everyone sharing a wealth of information about FT2 and other trackers and audio hardware of that time in this discussion :)
This is the HN I adore.
- eps
How does FT2 relate to the ScreamTracker?
The latter had a printer port output option that, combined with 10 resistors and 5 minutes of soldering, yielded proper sound on any standalone speaker. In the era of chip tunes and inaccessible SoundBlaster cards, it was nothing short of magic.
* The adapter was a DIY version of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covox_Speech_Thing
- omoikane
I am glad they also cloned the snake game.
https://github.com/8bitbubsy/ft2-clone/blob/master/src/ft2_n...