A couple of months ago I bought a synth, and have spent some time trying to learn to play it. I can tell you: the whole process is much more efficient if you have fun and the right motivation — pick a music genre you like, something (preferably not too difficult) you’d like to hear yourself playing, and… play it. I chose old Amiga tracker music.
Protracker modules have a special place in my memories, from the countless hours debugging a player that was the first application I wrote for Linux and Unix. Recent work with Takashi Iwai, who I met back in the mod player days, prompted me to publish this story. Distant Call by Ronny Nordeide (a.k.a. Mr. Man/Andromeda) was one of my favorite four-channel mods back then, and now I found it’s also an easy and enjoyable piece to play — don’t be fooled, the somewhat uninspired and unrehearsed video above doesn’t make justice to its beautiful, evocative atmosphere.
The patch I used is a modified “Nice Piano” from Roland’s XV Collection, with a higher cutoff frequency for brightness, increased release to work around the lack of a sustain pedal and transposed down one octave. It is built around a bright, chorused JD-style piano sound similar to the one used on the original track (which is possibly from a JV-80). Not a flawless performance — any modplayer does better — but overall I’m satisfied with the result. What should I try to play next?
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