Tracker Basics

If you've never used a tracker before, a few conventions run through this entire manual. Ten minutes here will make everything else click faster!

Everything is hexadecimal

Trackers grew up on 8-bit computers, and ElkTracker keeps that tradition: almost every number you'll see or type is a hex byte, written as two digits 00–FF instead of decimal 0–255. The digits 0-9 count as usual, then A B C D E F continue for ten through fifteen. So one hex digit covers 0–15, and two digits cover the full byte range:

You'll see hex in row numbers (a 128-row song counts 00–7F), FX parameters, and most instrument fields. The value editor is built around it too: holding A and pressing left/right nudges a value by 1, while up/down nudges by 16, or exactly one hex digit. Scrub the low digit with left/right, the high digit with up/down.

Nibble pairs. A handful of commands (like ARP) pack two independent 4-bit values into one byte, by using the high hex digit and the low hex digit separately. ARP 37 means "high nibble 3, low nibble 7", not the number 55.

Notes

Notes are written <letter><octave>, e.g. C-4, A#3, G-9. Octave numbers follow MIDI convention starting at −1, so C-4 is MIDI note 60, or what we usually just call "middle C". The full playable range is C-1 to G9.

The song hierarchy

ElkTracker organises music in four nested layers, each one a grid of references to the layer below:

SONG    128 rows x 8 channels, each cell holds a CHAIN number
  CHAIN   16 slots, each holds a PHRASE number + transpose
    PHRASE  up to 16 steps, each holds a NOTE + INSTRUMENT + FX
      INSTRUMENT  the actual sound engine and its parameters

A phrase is the melodic/rhythmic pattern: a single drum pattern, a melody or chord sequence, a bassline. A chain arranges phrases into a longer part: verse, chorus, whatever your instrument plays across a section. The song grid then arranges chains across time, one per channel, building the whole track. R (Dive) steps one layer deeper into whatever's under the cursor, and L (Back) steps back out. See Navigation for more explanation on how this works.

Timing: rows, ticks, and speed

Every phrase advances 4 rows per beat (so a 16-step phrase is one bar of 4/4). Within each row, the engine subdivides further into ticks. This is what the Project screen's SPEED field controls (1–16 ticks per row, default 16). Ticks are the resolution that per-row effects like RTG (retrigger), KIL (delayed release), and ARP operate at. For example, an RTG 04 means "retrigger every 4 ticks within this row," which only makes sense relative to however many ticks the row actually has.

The two FX lanes

Every phrase step has two independent FX slots, each a command (three letters, e.g. VOL) plus a hex parameter (xx). Both slots can be used simultaneously and stack, so a step with OFS 40 in FX1 and RTG 02 in FX2 both apply on that row. See Phrase FX Commands for the full command list.

Reading this manual

• A+D-pad means hold the A button and press a direction.
• Select+X means hold Select and press X.
• Field names are written as they appear on screen, e.g. CUTOFF, SLCMOD.
• Hex bytes always appear as two digits (00, 4A, FF); anything else (frame counts, percentages, semitones) is written as plain decimal.

With that all in place, the Quick Start walks through building an actual beat!