One thing I really wanted to try with my PC98 hardware was composing FM tunes for the OPN/OPNA soundchip, and I was curious to see what kind of sequencer software was available on the system so I could write chiptune the old-fashioned way. Unfortunately, I found out that the most common way to do this for hobbyist composers wasn't an actual program with a GUI and all those bells and whistles, but a scripting language known as MML and its variations therein.

Honestly, I was going to write here about how impenetrable MML is, but while writing this article my curiosity got the better of me and I started looking into tutorials, eventually landing on this excellent beginner's guide and downloading mml2vgm, which has a nice interface for scripting and conveniences like hotkeys to preview how your song will sound. After some time with it, I think its bark is worse than its bite... When you get down to it, it's basically sheet music with weird notation! It seems scary now, but the low barrier of entry for anyone who'd written sheet music before was exactly what made it so popular among amateur composers back in the day. Kinda reminds me how I thought trackers were something only computer whizzes could use until I realized they're just a piano roll turned sideways once you get down to it. I'm a long way from making a whole song in it, but it's a challenge I'd definitely like to take up and I hope to write more about here once I've had a little more time to experiment with it.

But I digress -- at the time I bought my PC98, MML seemed like indecipherable wizardry for super geniuses, leaving me stuck without a way to make music for my fancy new hardware. Man, it's so weird that no one's made a tracker that can do this yet!

Well, in 2018, someone actually did exactly that in the form of BambooTracker.

My favorite thing about it is that the layout, keyboard shortcuts, and effects codes are all almost identical to Famitracker, which is great, since that means there's zero learning curve if you're already familiar with that program. (Speaking as someone who's used to FT and had couldn't make the jump to other trackers for FM, like Deflemask...) Programming instruments is obviously a bigger hurdle -- FM is infamously difficult to work with in that regard -- but there are some premade instrument packs included with it if you're unable or unwilling to make your own.

The other great thing is that it exports to .s98, which can play on actual hardware with the help of a custom driver. It's not perfect -- playback can be extremely glitchy, especially where the rhythm channel is involved (I usually use SSG drums to circumvent this) plus it doesn't have a visualizer, which is a bit of a bummer. But it works, and it's easier than writing out a song in MML!

I've put all the covers and originals I've made in BambooTracker here as .s98 files if you want to try listening to them on an emulator or actual hardware setup, just for funsies. Some of them require an OPNA soundboard, others don't, but I've made a note of which is which. To get started, just download the program below...

...then put it onto a disk or hard drive image, go to the folder it's in, and type s98play [filename] in the DOS prompt.

(Foobar2000 also has an s98 plugin if you wanna listen to 'em that way.)

Fire Emblem:

Together, We Ride! (OPNA)
Advance (OPN)
Liberation (OPN)
Lady of Spirit Forest (OPN)
Inheritors of Light (OPN)

Mega Man:

Robot Museum (OPNA)
Ground Man (OPNA)
Tengu Man (OPNA)

Original:

Ire (OPNA)
Starship (OPNA)
Desolate (OPNA)

Next time I'm motivated to try composing chiptune again, I'd like to give MML a more serious try, both for easier hardware playback as well as just for the authentic experience of composing as one would back in the day. Furnace Tracker is another tracker that's come out recently which supports OPNA and a lot of people seem to like it, so I'd like to give that a shot too, although I don't think it exports in any formats that can play on hardware. But BambooTracker was a great way to take my first steps with the soundchip!

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