You are currently working on your latest production and need a way to compose music for it? Then the Arkos Tracker might be a good choice for you. In the latest version, Targhan, the author of it, completely rewrote it, so it is available for your favourite operating system now. Besides the obvious support for the Amstrad CPC it also supports the Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, MSX, Oric, Apple 2, Vectrex and the Sharp MZ-700 and of course you can also import various chiptune tracker formats (e.g. from Soundtrakker, Arkos Tracker 1, Starkos Tracker, Wyz Tracker, etc.) but also MIDI or MOD files for easy music conversion. Let’s not forget that it also supports extra hardware that adds multiple soundchips to your system (like the PlayCity on the Amstrad CPC).
This is an example tune playing in the Arkos Tracker 2:
You got interested in it? Great! Head over to the Arkos Tracker 2 homepage and download it.
Features:
- Cross-platform (Windows, Linux, Mac).
- Manage both standard PSG sound and samples without any distinction!
- Support of AY-3-8912 and YM2149F.
- Unlimited PSG count! You can create standard 3-channel songs, or 6, 9, 32 or more if you want!
- 4 columns of effects per channel, including Arpeggio (via a table or inline value), Pitch, slide, glide, change Arpeggio/Pitch/Instrument speed, etc.
- Import from MIDI, AKS (Arkos Tracker 1), SKS (STarKos), 128 (BSC’s Soundtrakker), WYZ (Wyz Tracker), MOD, VT2 (Vortex Tracker 2), CHP (Chip’n’sfx).
- 4 players, from versatile to extremely fast, or slower but less memory consuming.
- Support of specific hardware: PlayCity (CPC), Spectrum TurboSound, SpecNext, MSX Darky and MSX FPGA (AKY player only).
- Sound effect support, shared among songs.
- ROM players available: no more auto-modifying code, a small buffer is used.
- Exports can be assembly sources or binaries: it makes it easy to integrate the songs in your production.
- Sources can be converted to any assembler.
- Each PSG can have its own frequency (including custom ones).
- Replay rate from 12Hz to 300Hz, or custom.
- A song is composed of sub-songs, all sharing the same instruments. Helps you save even more memory!
