A good MOD tracker for the Mac?

Herr Schatten · Post by **Herr Schatten** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 8:46 am

Is there any?

I'd like to do some tracking, but there don't seem to be any good tracker programs available.

PlayerPro is very unstable and a chore to use, so it's not useful at all.

Renoise is excellent and pretty much exactly what I am looking for, but it only saves in its own .rns format, not in .mod, .xm or other common tracker formats, so you can play your tracks only with renoise or render them in wav format, which totally nullifies the main advantages of using a tracker program (small file size). If I wanted to produce music in wav format, I wouldn't use atracker.

Does anyone know of any other program? I can't possibly be the only one who wants to do some tracking on the Mac.

Capt. Takehiko · Post by **Capt. Takehiko** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 10:20 am

Sibelius: Trax works well but isn't worth the price.

Andi · Post by **Andi** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 1:05 pm

PlayerPRO is pretty good. I think 5.9.8 is the newest version. It's free too.

Nothing compares to Modplug Tracker for the PC though. I miss having a PC.

Herr Schatten · Post by **Herr Schatten** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 1:12 pm

Maybe I should toy around with PlayerPro a bit more.

It just seemed to be extremely annoying to edit anything. Plus the WAV import plugin in version 5.9.8 seems to be faulty, because the program crashes everytime I try to add a wav file to the instruments list. If I convert the same samples to aiff, there's no problem at all.

Accutron · Post by **Accutron** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 1:13 pm

I've been using PlayerPRO for 10 years...it is indeed a bitchwhore of a program.

Andi · Post by **Andi** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 5:39 pm

Accutron wrote:I've been using PlayerPRO for 10 years...it is indeed a bitchwhore of a program.

This may be true. However, It is the best free program I can think of - also, it has gotten less buggy in the new versions.

As for the crashing problem, yes, edit only very small .wav's or convert it to .AIFF. Also, avoid MP3's at all cost because it fucks up the sampling rate on them and crashes like a bitch.

Accutron · Post by **Accutron** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 5:54 pm

Andi wrote:It is the best free program I can think of

Yeah, that's why I've been stuck using it for so long. There are simply no good alternatives.

Andi · Post by **Andi** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 12:55 am

Accutron wrote:Yeah, that's why I've been stuck using it for so long. There are simply no good alternatives.

Bingo! It's tragic really.

Capt. Takehiko · Post by **Capt. Takehiko** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 1:04 am

Andi wrote:
Accutron wrote:I've been using PlayerPRO for 10 years...it is indeed a bitchwhore of a program.
This may be true. However, It is the best free program I can think of - also, it has gotten less buggy in the new versions.

As for the crashing problem, yes, edit only very small .wav's or convert it to .AIFF. Also, avoid MP3's at all cost because it fucks up the sampling rate on them and crashes like a bitch.

Very important warning there, I wish there was something better as well...

Herr Schatten · Post by **Herr Schatten** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 7:51 am

Thanks for the replies so far. Seems I am stuck with PlayerPRO.

Can someone point me to some decent documentation?

There's a ton of stuff that I don't seem to understand the purpose of and the documentation that came with the 5.9.8 release was very basic and not helpful at all. I found some documentation at the archived PlayerPRO lounge, but either I am too stupid to navigate the site properly or the descriptions really do all consist of the first page of a multi-page document only.

Oh yes, and one noob question you might be able to answer directly: How the hell can I turn up the volume of the thing?

Renoise, for example, plays by default everything at the volume level of my system, but PlayerPRO isn't half as loud. And when I shift the "soft"-volume slide in the mixer window, nothing seems to change at all. Same with the volume slides of the individual tracks.

~Kid Icarus~ · Post by **~Kid Icarus~** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 9:14 am

Andi wrote:PlayerPRO is pretty good. I think 5.9.8 is the newest version. It's free too.

Nothing compares to Modplug Tracker for the PC though. I miss having a PC.

Just like to say thanks Andi for recomending this program! I used to do tracker stuff on my Amiga years ago and have been looking for something similar (errr, without haveing to pay for it!) and it's just superb!

Thanks!

Accutron · Post by **Accutron** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 3:02 pm

Herr Schatten wrote:Oh yes, and one noob question you might be able to answer directly: How the hell can I turn up the volume of the thing?

Renoise, for example, plays by default everything at the volume level of my system, but PlayerPRO isn't half as loud. And when I shift the "soft"-volume slide in the mixer window, nothing seems to change at all. Same with the volume slides of the individual tracks.

PlayerPRO has some buggyness stuff going on with the volume...sometimes it will turn your system volume down for no reason, or mute it, even when your volume is all the way up in your sound control panel. I often have to hit the Volume Up button on my keyboard when I first launch the application. Just check your system volume after you've launched PlayerPRO. Other than that, adjust the volume using the mixer panel. Hard and soft volume, and the individual track sliders should be affecting things if it's working properly.

PlayerPRO is one of those programs where you have to learn all of its little bugs and inconsistencies to properly massage it into a functional state. I've never used any documentation...just years of fiddling with it.