Introduction - Lesson 1 - Lesson 2 - Lesson 3 - Lesson 4 - Lesson 5 - Credits
sYnCHAoZ' Skale Tracker Drumming Tutorial
Lesson 3 - Tracking

We have our instruments loaded, organized and edited to suit our drumtrack, and now comes the big step - start tracking.

Make sure that no buttons in the General Options menu is activated, and that your assembly tracks (patterns) are visible. You will see that you have 7 different channels visible currently, ranging from channel 0 to 7. Each of these tracks function as an independant stereo channel which are all played simultaneously. You can add up to a maximum of 64 of these tracks. Each track has several different elements, they are as follows:
1 - The first string is the track position string, showing the 'ticks' in the track rhythm.
KNOWLEDGE: A 'tick' in a rhythm is the number of notes that are present. In a 4/4 rhythm there are a total of 64 ticks, however if the rhythm is counted in 4th notes, there is only 4 of the 64 ticks in the rhythm that are counted as 'valid', these are tick 00, tick 16, tick 32 and tick 48 - which in terms means that only 4 of those 64 ticks are played. If the rhythm is counted in 8th, there are 8 of the 64 ticks that are counted, they are tick 00, tick 08, tick 16, tick 24, tick 32, tick 40, tick 48 and tick 56. Next comes a 16th rhythm, then 32th rhythm and finaly a 64th rhythm, where all of the 64 ticks are counted as active, which means that if it was played on a guitar, you would have to hit the string 64 times within the speed of a 4/4 rhythm, which is almost humanly impossible.
2 - The second string is the instrument string where you place each instrument-note to be played.
3 - The third string is the instrument bank number. Whenever you type in an instrument in the instrument string, the bank string will automatically apply the number corresponding to the instrument used. You can manually edit this string and point it to another instrument bank, upon which that instrument will be played instead.
4 - The fourth string is the volume string where you can manually type in the volume (from 01 to FF) at which the instrument is played in that particular line. But you must note that typing in a volume value in this string, only applies the volume change while the line is active, after which the volume changes back to default volume unless you apply another volume value immediately after.
NOTE: When working with the volume string, the value 00 equals to non-active, meaning that there will be no volume change, and the instrument will simply play at its default volume.
HINT: Advanced users can also define volume values in the effects string, with the command C00-CFF, where C00 equals to complete mute, the instrument will not play at all, and CFF is the maximum volume defined by the Mixer section of the respective instrument. This will not be covered in this tutorial.
5 - The fifth and last string is the effects string, in which you can really utilize some of Skale Trackers powerfeatures. We will be using this string only very little, and I will certainly not cover all of the advanced values and possibilities this string holds.

I'm sure that you by now are pretty eager about getting started with actually making some drumbeats, there are still a few very important things that needs to be covered, but we can do this as we go. So with no further delay, let's start tracking!
We will now create a basic and simple 4/4 drum rhythm with bassdrum, snaredrum, two crash cymbals and open hihat. Follow these steps closely.
1. Select the Tut kickdrum in bank 01.
2. Take a look at track 0. You will notice that there is a bright greyish line all across the tracks on track position string 00. This is your edit- and playbackline, with which you edit the tracks. When you start playing a song, the tracks will begin rolling downwards, and each time an instrument note passes the playback line it is played. Try clicking the "Play song" button in the General Options.
HINT: Play Pattern and Play Song buttons are also by default bound to the ALT GR and the right CTRL keys respectively.
As you can see the pattern starts moving, and the edit- and playbackline remains stationary in the middle. This line will always remain at its current position, only the track itself moves. There is of corse no sound since we have not yet tracked anything into the pattern. We will do this in just a minute. Stay with me a little longer, just a few more things.
3. Stop the song by pressing the "Stop" button in General Options. If you are now somewhere in the middle of the pattern, which you most likely are, you need to scroll back to the beginning of the pattern (track position string 00). Now is a good time to learn how to navigate in your track. To move up and down in the track you can use the key arrows on your keyboard. Try pressing the UP and DOWN key, and you will see that the track moves one step each time you press the key. You can also use the Page Up and Page Down to make large jumps of 16 lines, and the HOME and END keys will instantly bring you to the begging and end of the track respectively. Press HOME now to return to line position 00.
4. You now need to learn how to move your Edit Marker around. Your Edit Marker is the blank rectangle within the Edit Line.
It is with this rectangle that you type your instrument notes into the track itself. You can move it up and down with the keys we covered in step #3. However up untill now now it has only been positioned in track 0, you can move it sideways by pressing the LEFT and RIGHT keys on your keyboard. Try pressing the RIGHT key now. You will notice how it moves to the right and become smaller. It is now positioned in the first part of the Instrument Bank String.
Press the RIGHT key again twice, and it will move into the Volume String. Press it twice once more, and it will be in the first of the three Effect Strings. Now press three times more, and it will have moved to the next track, resting in the Instrument String of track 1. If you press the TAB key, it will jump directly into the Instrument String of channel 2. Press tab again and you will be in the Instrument String of track 3, and so forth.
5. Move your Edit Marker back to the Instrument String of channel 0. The easiest way of doing this is to press TAB. If you accidently TAB it too far, just TAB it again untill you are in the right track or you can tab it backwards by holding the SHIFT key while pressing TAB.
6. Notice that you currently have 10 tracks open (counting from 0 to 9). You can see this by looking at the Track Monitors.
We do not wish to have 10 channels open for our drumtrack, so we will now remove 2 of them by clicking the "Remove" button in the bottom left of the General Options. You will see channel 8 and 9 disapearing from the Track Monitor. These two buttons "Add CHN." and "Remove" are used to either add or subtract active tracks from your project. Try clicking the "Add CHN." as many times as possible, and notice how the ammount of tracks increass up to a maximum of 64 (counting 0 to 63). You can, if you so wish, use all of these 64 tracks simultaneously as you see fit. But for our tutorial, 8 channels will suffice. Remove the tracks untill you have only 8 active left (counting from 0 to 7).
7. Now begins the fun. Make sure that your Edit Marker is in the Instrument String of channel 0, and that you have the kickdrum instrument highlighted in bank 01. Now press the key "Q" on your keyboard, and you will hear the instrument play.
KNOWLEDGE: Most instruments have their natural pitch of sound defaulted to the key "Q" on the keyboard. When creating drumtracks, you will usually want the drumsounds to play in their natural pitch at which they were originally recorded.
Nothing happens other than the instrument plays in your speakers. This is because we have not yet activated the Record Mode. We will now activate the Record Mode and start tracking our kickdrum.
8. Press the SPACE button on your keyboard and notice how the top and bottom edges of the entire Skale Tracker interface changes to a red color. This now means that Record Mode is active, and everytime you press an active key on the keyboard, it is recorded into the current active track.
9. With Record Mode active, press the Q key. Notice how the Instrument String in track 0 on line position 00 now changed into
00C-501--000
This shows that C-5 is the accord which has been programmed into that track, and the "01" indicates that it is the instrument in bank 01.
10. With Record Mode still active, scroll your Edit Marker down to line 08 with the DOWN key and press Q again. Now scroll down to line 16 and press Q again, scroll down to line 24, press Q, scroll down to line 32, press Q, scroll down to line 40, press Q, scroll down to line 48, press Q, scroll down to line 56 and press Q for the last time.
NOTE: In case you accidently type in a wrong note, or a note in the wrong line, you can always delete that note by moving your edit marker over the note and pressing the "DELETE" key on the keyboard. This will clear the entry on that current line in the current track.
WARNING: When deleting a note, do NOT use the BACKSPACE key to delete an entry in a channel. Pressing BACKSPACE instead of DELETE will delete the current entry, but it will also 'drag' all of the other notes in that track one setp upwards, possibly causing serious mayhem in your track, setting the instrument notations slightly out of 'sync' with the others. Only use BACKSPACE if you know what you're doing!
11. Press the Play Song button (right CTRL) and see how the pattern begins moving, playing the kickdrum each time the Playback Marker passes the active lines. Also notice how the pattern loops itself and plays again from the beginning everytime it reaches the end of the pattern.
12. Stop the playback. Go to the beginning of the pattern (HOME). Now press TAB once, moving your Edit Marker to the Instrument String of track 1.
NOTE: Whenever you start a Playback of the song, Record Mode will automatically be disabled.
13. Select the Snaredrum in instrument bank 02.
14. Press SPACE to activate Record Mode, scroll down to line 04 and press Q. Scroll down to line 12 and press Q, do the same with lines 20, 28, 36, 44, 52 and 60.
15. Play the pattern again and notice how we now have a very simple drum rhythm.
16. Stop playback and go to the start of the pattern again (line 00).
17. Select the Crash Cymbal L instrument in bank 03, go to the beginning of the pattern (line 00, press HOME) and jump to the Instrument String of channel 2 (TAB).
18. Activate Record Mode and press Q.
19. Again make sure that you are in line 00 by pressing HOME. Select the Crash Cymbal R in instrument bank 05 and then jump to the Instrument String of track 4 and press Q.
20. Play the pattern. We've now added the left and right channel crash cymbals to the start of the drumtrack. Stop the playback again.
21. Jump back to line 00, select the Hihat Open in instrument bank 04 and SHIFT-TAB your way back to track 3 (or use the arrow key LEFT to skip back).
22. Activate Record Mode and press Q in line 00, scroll to line 04 and press Q, scroll to line 08 and press Q again, continue doing so in lines 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, 56 and 60.
23. Press Play and check out your new drumtrack!
The final step, and variably the most important, is to save our new drumtrack as a Skale Tracker Song Module (.skm) so that we can load it again some other time and enjoy the horrifying simplicity of it all.
24. Click the "Disk Options" button in our General Options.
25. In the "Items to load" menu on the far left side, make sure that you have the "Module" button activated.
26. Use the harddrive browser to browse to your "Songs" folder.
27. In the "Filename" box, left click once and give your drumtrack the filename "Tutorial Drum 1" and then click the "Save" button in the top.
A new window pops up asking you which format you wish to save your song in.
You can chose between Skale Tracker Module (.skm), Windows Audio Wave File (.wav), Fast Tracker II Module (.xm) and Protracker Module (.mod). We will save our song as a Skale Tracker Module (.skm) since this is the native format of Skale Tracker, and also provides the best overall sound- and samplequality. Make sure that "SKM" is active, and then hit the "save" button. Your song is now saved and you can load it again any time you wish!
KNOWLEDGE: When you save your song as a Skale Tracker Module (.skm file), it will save everything currently loaded and applied to the song. This means that all the instruments you have loaded, and all the modifications you have done to them, will be saved in the file itself. You do not need to save and load each instrument manually again at a later point. This however also means that the more, bigger and better quality samples you use in your song will dramatically increase the filesize on your harddrive when it is saved!
HINT: The "Filename" is the name with which the file will be saved on your harddrive. In the "Song Title" box on the right side of the interface you can give your song a title, which will be shown whenever you open the song in Skale Tracker or any other audio program supporting playback of Skale Tracker module files (.skm files).
WARNING: When saving your song you MUST make sure that you have "Module" highlighted in the "Items to load" menu. If you have for example "instrument" selected, it will save only the current highlighted instrument in the instrument bank, thus it will NOT save your song. Should you then exit the program you will lose your entire song with no means of undoing!
Ok, so our drumtrack is a bit boring and perhaps too simple. Well, let's spice it up a bit then. Continue onwards to Lesson 4.

Onwards to Lesson 4
Introduction - Lesson 1 - Lesson 2 - Lesson 3 - Lesson 4 - Lesson 5 - Credits