MML and Squirrel

[Arkhan]

Squirrel has been in existence for awhile now.  There has been some use by others.  Some general comments lean towards it being too hard to use still.

I plan to make more tutorials, in video form so you can see the whole thing being done.

Does anyone who has tried it out have any comments so I can get an idea of what kind of things to focus on when working on these tutorials?

The goal is to get it so that everyone can use Squirrel, no excuses!

(except for using Mac's)

[sunteam_paul]

Make it a tracker.

*runs away*

[Arkhan]

Make it a tracker.

*runs away*

listen.  I'll stab you with a rusty C64 power connector.

[Necromancer]

Got any tutorials on how to create musical talent?  No?

* backs away slowly *

[Arkhan]

Got any tutorials on how to create musical talent?  No?

* backs away slowly *

I could make one! 

or try to, at least!

[sunteam_paul]

A tutorial on how to convert an existing midi file would be nice for beginners.

The other thing I found with my very basic fiddling was that I couldn't get any of the pre-set notes to sound as good as you do. That might just be my fault, but maybe some sample mml files, starting very simple and gradually getting more complex, might help.

[Arkhan]

The preset notes?  You mean the waveforms?  Just apply some of the built in envelopes to the built in waveforms, and you get tons of new sounds. 

[sunteam_paul]

Actual working examples are a perfect way of showing how this works.
i.e. You can get 'cool sound A' by doing 'exactly this'. Here is a file where I made 'cool sound A' and used it in a tune.

[Arkhan]

Yeah, I could give that a whirl. 

The biggest hurdle I've noticed is people can't get over the "can't hear it immediately" aspect that you get in a tracker.

You have to fiddle and then run it to see what it sounds like.  It's only an extra couple of seconds!

[ParanoiaDragon]

A couple of seconds?!?  But I want to hear it NOOOOOOooooooooooow!

[sunteam_paul]

All that messing around in dos windows is a bit of a pain tbh.

[spenoza]

Maybe what we need is a GUI program that outputs MML but allows you to edit and play it in the GUI.

[Arkhan]

http://woolyss.com/chipmusic-mml.php

There are already a ton of options for that. 

[cabbage]

Squirrel seems perfectly usable to me. I don't see what's so difficult about testing a song... it's just as easy and simple as compiling your homebrew code (if not easier). The biggest hurdle for me while converting the nyancat tune was that I had to figure out how to read sheet music first

Hurry up and release a version with support for sound effects too, Arkhan!

[nodtveidt]

The only thing really stopping me from using Squirrel is the lack of sound effect support. A sound library is useless if it doesn't support both without workarounds or unintuitive hacks; it's merely demo fodder if it only plays music.