Tracking is a way of making music with a
computer. If you're already thinking of cheesy artificial-sounding
music from Nintendo games or MIDI files, think again. Tracking programs and the people who use them
are capable of writing professional-quality realistic-sounding music. This is possible because tracking
makes use of samples. A sample is a digital recording of an instrument playing a single note. You can play
a sample at a higher frequency and make it sound like that instrument is playing a higher note, or play it
at a lower frequency to sound like a lower note. It's kind of like recording your voice on a tape, and then
speeding up the tape to make your voice sound higher. So, a tracker file is basically a collection of samples
and instructions for when to play each instrument and at what notes. To use an analogy, a tracking artist
is a composer and a conductor, and the computer is his or her symphony orchestra. I tell the computer what
to play, and it plays it.
There are two things you need to listen to a tracker file. The first is a sound card, which
pretty much every computer has nowadays. The second is the right program, such as
XMPlay,
MODPlug Player or even
WinAmp. (I'd suggest XMPlay, or at least MODPlug. WinAmp
will do in a pinch, but it doesn't play tracker files nearly as accurately as XMPlay.)
Oh, and of course, you need some songs. ;) Tracker songs come in a variety of formats,
just like all the different convenience store chains out there. Of course, just like convenience store
chains, some tracker formats are more prevalent than others. The big four formats are IT, XM, S3M and
MOD. A few rarer but more modern formats are MT2, SKM and RNS. (The MOD format was the very first tracker format, and as
such, some people refer to all tracker tunes as "MODs." It's kind of like how some people refer to every convenience
store as a "7-Eleven," even if it's actually a Circle-K or a Cumberland Farms store instead.)
