M8 Tracker: The Stickerbush bundle and other studies related to working on my own cover tune

Stickerbush Bundle and what I learned from it so far

This is a cover of Stickerbush Symphony from the game Donkey Kong Country 2, by Princent Vice, one of several prolific and knowledgeable members of the M8 user community.

Princent Vice also offers a bundle, which includes the project file, as well as instrument files used in the song. He says it can be used for studying basic M8 Tracker techniques like chord tables, REP bass line, and bootleg sidechain

• In Table 40, RET is used to play a repeating bass note, increasing the volume with each repeat.
• In Phrase 40, which is one of the bass phrases, the instrument table is set to 40 on the first step, then changed to 41 for the last couple of steps. Tables 40 and 41 look identical, but it was interesting to see the possibility.
• Also in Phrase 40, the first step also has LFO retrigger commands. One retrigs the LFO assigned to volume and the other retrigs the LFO assigned to filter cutoff.
• One chord technique is used in Track 2. This works with FMSynth. The technique is to use the FM1, FM2 and FM3 commands on the Phrase to set the operator pitches. The MOD parameters for teh FM Synth instrument should be mapped to PIT (pitch).
• Another chord technique is used in Track 3. This technique is to use the FM1-3 commands on a Table instead of on a Phrase. Not sure what trick was used for the rhythmic behavior.

Notes from continuing to work with the M8 Tracker

Both of the above chord techniques, as well as other techniques, are covered in Impbox's tutorial here:

SHIFT+PLAY in the phrase screen plays the song from the phrase position. This way you don't have to start from the beginning of the song all the time. This is useful for things like figuring out where to insert transitions between song sections. But what if you want just loop one row of a song, so you can hear how your changes to one Phrase in one Track sound with the other Tracks?

This is done by hitting PLAY (or in the case of inside chain or phrase, SHIFT+PLAY) while in selection mode to have the song loop the current selection. For review, selection mode is activaed by SHIFT+OPTION. Alternatively, if the rows before or after the song row you want the loop are empty, it will loop on itself. you can copy the song row you want to loop and paste it somewhere else where it is isolated, that way it'll loop if you play that row.

To add randomized variation in the loudness of FM drum hits, one technique is to go to the Table for that instrument, and enter VOL values in one column. Then in the Phrase where you want the variation to happen, enter THO00 in an FX column for the first drum hit, and for subsequent drum hits, enter RAN commands, in the same column where you put the THO command. The THO will hop to row 0 of the Table the first time the Phrase is played. I think the RAN that follows it will reset the THO so that the next time the Phrase is repeated, the hop will go to a different, randomly selected row.will, I think, Set RAN to 0F (16 in decimal) if you entered VOL values into all 16 rows, if you want the . Now I see it hitting pretty much anywhere in the whole table set a table position on one note (or in an earlier phrase) then put ran on following notes with the range of steps you want as the value on the same fx column VOL00 RAN0F HOP01
Tip from Ess (FM synthesis guru) on drum synthesis from Meetup 9 - use the highpass filter which fairly low cutoff (25) and high resonance (AF) to add some low end. The FM oscillators do not reset on new notes, but if you do want the reset, use a KIL command before the next note. May need to automate filter cutoff



A tip about managing instrument volumes

I never use the mixer. I keep everything at E0 and use individual instrument volumes (the DRY parameter) to mix. This way, my track layout can be a bit more fluid, especially if I have to squeeze other instruments into, for example, the track usually used for the snare.
Snare drum roll technique from the song SLSKERS DEMO: Use the RET command which the manual describes as: Retrigger the current row with volume ramping at a given number of ticks.

NTH command can be used for setting a drum hit to appear only on, say, the 4th repeat of the pattern. Reuse the same pattern in the same change for the NTH command to work as expected
Try assigning an LFO to volume - can use the drunk or random oscillator shapes.I use this for high-hat phrases a lot. Low amount, high frequency, with the random shape
If you need more resolution, say 24 ticks-per-step, just change the 0x06s in your groove to 0x18s. Then, in addition to finer resolution for DEL FX and the like, you can get a very subtle swing with a 0x19, 0x17groove. One thing to add though, changing the ticks per step also changes how some phrases and tables on instruments sound, e.g. when using a RET command. So going back to older projects and changing the groove tables and adjusting the bpm accordingly might play the song in the correct tempo as before, but it might still sound different because of that. The cover tune I am working on is Wow War Tonight, which was a hit in Japan in the mid-90s, and has been covered several times. My cover is inspired by the cover version which appears in D4DJ.

One of the decisions to make is what approach to use for the chordal riffs in the D4DJ cover. Also, keeping everything at E0 means I can use a MIDI controller to mute/unmute by setting buttons to toggle between 127 and 0, and scaling it in the MIDI control screen.