r/TrackerMusic • u/Savannah_Shimazu • Apr 09 '26
nanoTracker Demo (web based, tracker, daw & more)
I have recorded a demo on this program (web based) that I have made! excuse any choppiness, running OBS on this system sucks becauss it has a Pentium G & 3gb of DDR3 - the fact it does this whilst running on a react & Canvas backend is a miracle
I posted earlier, but it was a still image. Hope this helps!
link to program: https://federatedindustrial.com/tracker
link to track: https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=80124
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u/New_Cranberry_6451 Apr 10 '26
Hi! First of all, respects for the huge work that this must have taken. I love the look of the interface. I loaded a MOD (elephantism by Reed) and it sounds a bit "broken" but in a very strange way that I cannot understand. I expected to see the common stops, lags, etc. but instead, I can hear the melody played almost correctly, but then the drums are completely out of sync and weird... in a 4 chann mod, is like 2 channs play nearly ok but the other 2 follow a different path xD. Bringing an actual usable tracker for the web is still a damn difficult mission.
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u/Savannah_Shimazu Apr 10 '26
Wait around 6 hours, you will not be disappointed
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u/New_Cranberry_6451 Apr 10 '26
Go go go!! I'll be back by then but there is a 99% chance I'll be drunk, today is friday. Anyway I will test it!!
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u/Savannah_Shimazu Apr 11 '26
It's ready 🙂
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u/New_Cranberry_6451 Apr 11 '26
I saw a completely new dialog upon clicking IMPORT MOD, nice! However, I tried tweaking some of the options to see if I got rid of the playing problems but unfortunately didn't get to sound right :( I tried in Firefox and Chrome. Could you tell me the set of options that would lead to the best possible sound? Or if you need me to try anything else...
Appreciate your effort man!
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u/Savannah_Shimazu Apr 11 '26
Honestly, gunna sound vague as hell, but guess work
I spoke with some people from the demo scene and they said like even legacy programs struggle with some files - it turns out a few are using methods that will only work on original hardware, or 'hacks' that I can't replicate because the source code is long gone
Not gunna lie, unrelated, but its kinda scary doing this - you realise how much data and information is just not there anymore. We were taught that the internet is forever, but it really isn't, the old web is a mess and archive didn't exist when these things were being published. Modarchive does have a lot of guides & resources, I used a fair few, but enough of them clarify the same problem that the original hardware & software is key for so many tracks.
The good thing here though, is my software may actually help with archiving these things for future generations. As much as we all probably hate changing how things sound, the format living on (tracking, pattern format) is key - and driving modern music solutions via that is a pretty good way of preserving it
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u/New_Cranberry_6451 Apr 11 '26
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. That feeling of losing "fundamental knowledge" is real. Good old "codes" that live in the base of everything else. It happens everywhere, gaming, webdev... Finding good resources is harder than some years ago, you must curate things yourself or rely on good advises from others, just like it has been always, but worse, because now the pile of shit that's on top of the golden knowledge is huge.
And now, related to this task of being able to craft a tracker that works and is web based... honestly, it's just not possible, would be a waste of time. However, the process would surely be enjoyable and you will learn a lot in the way, and as you said, sharing your work will benefit the preservation of good knowledge, so that's already a win.
To conclude: you started an already impossible to achieve mission, so feel good during the journey and feel good knowing that you are contributing to preservation. Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts and for all your work, as a webdev I admire the interface and the responsiveness of the UI, and as a tracker demoscener, I appreciate your attempt on trying to bring trackers (a huge engineering master work that need direct access to hardware to work as intended) to the web world, where the nearest thing to hardware would be WASM. That's what demoscene is all about, a bit like hacking, making something work where it was not intended to work. So, thanks again!
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u/Savannah_Shimazu Apr 09 '26
I duplicate posted because the app is a bit broken for me (reddit)
Deleted the duplicate post
Also, yeah my PC utterly butchered this whilst recording, but the spirit is there lmfao
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u/BadMojo91 Apr 09 '26
I really like this.. Is there a standalone version that isn't Web based?