Wobble bass is just a big Vibrato and Smooth MIDI macro Set Filter Cutoff

There aren't many dubstep songs made in music trackers. I've been attempting to make dubstep in FL Studio and OpenMPT, but all trials have either failed or turned out to be something else. But there are many chiptunes, which use vibrato (pitch variation). All of a sudden, I realized, that with extended range (greater than speed Fh (15) depth Fh (15)), portamentos and smooth midi macros, it could be used to create wobble bass drop. How long has it taken me to finally get it? Let's imagine the virbato depth and speed are quite more coarse and make some use of it (using OpenMPT commands):

00| ... .. .. SF0 | - we have to set active macro (filter cutoff)
01| ... .. .. Z00 | - value from which the slide will be made

00| C-5 01 .. H37 | - trigger a muffled tone and vibrate a bit
01| ... .. h0 \3F | - continue vibrato and slide the macro to 3f
02| ... .. h0 \FF |
03| ... .. h0 \3F |
04| ... .. h8 \00 | - vibrato depth 8 (XM - speed change option)
05| ... .. h0 \3F |
06| ... .. h0 \FF |
07| ... .. h0 \3F |
08| E-5 .. g8 \00 | - fast portamento to note
09| ... .. h0 \3F |
0A| ... .. h0 \FF |
0B| ... .. h0 \3F |
0C| ... .. h8 \00 |
0D| ... .. h0 \3F |
0E| ... .. h0 \FF |
0F| ... .. h0 \3F |

The only disadvantage of ImpulseTracker effect set is that it has no vibrato speed and panning slide in the volume column and not even OpenMPT had them hacked in. Vanilla IT cannot into S9F - play sample backwards, therefore consuming higher amount of space and samples just for a reverse cymbal or some ambient effects made by reversing a snare drum played 1 or 2 octaves lower. It'd be nice if parameter extension (#) worked for more effects (A*, B, C, D, E*, F*, G*, H, I, J, K, L, N, P*, Q*, R, U*, W, X, Y, Z, :; * - no widespread practical use) and could be placed before the main effect, symbolizing the higher byte, so for example tremor could continue after the note on without interrupting for a row, where there's a parameter extension. Also S0x could be used to tie x rows together, instead of a more logical interpretation of A00 (division by zero returns infinity), which would be better to mark the end of a subsong, therefore stop playback note-offing or cutting any notes, not hang the sound as it now does. Shittier players may actually divide by zero and crash, still stopping the song.

Then I was like "Why did Skrillex need a $299 FL Studio for that?" and "Why hadn't too much people made a wobble bass in a music tracker?" before I considered the range of the vibrato effect, which is not extensible by parameter extension command. But that's not that bad if it's substituted with Exx and Fxx, altough this generates only the triangle vibrato waveform. Anyway, I have noticed that the speed nibble in tremolo and vibrato commands is inverse, meaning F is the fastest and 1 the slowest. Therefore I can not make it to go in sync with the beat easily, because song speed is treated actually as song slowness. Psi, why did you do this and Pulse, why did you keep it that way? I only hope F stand for song speed 1 and 1 for F to be at least a bit intelligible.

I've a don't-know-what-to-do-with-it 4kB song, that has something like this. Without interpolation, it sounds like a frog. I posted a main pattern of it on Facebook, you may have a look there, just to study it:

You can see the kick is made using the same sample (similar to some FM when using cubic interpolation) as the "frog drop" by applying a fast portamento and then fading it put with a volume slide. The drop itself is a prototype of the one in my upcoming typewriter dance song (intended to be a commercial one, let's see if some producer will spot me). On the 1st channel there's an arp with some tremolo to not seem too dull, but it might get removed, because it wastes the precious bytes. And in the 2nd one there's a quite shitty melody, which sounds like a Rhodes piano without interpolation. Not bad for using a 20 B sample made from upsampling a downsampled sine wave.

Allright, that was enough crap for this post and now I would like to see some real dubstep in trackers, not just in FL Studio or LMMS with tons of plugins and effects I have no chance to understand, because there's too many knobs and sliders, pretty much like all-analog airplane cockpit. Touch a wrong button and all your plugin configuration is dead if you don't have a manual. Golden letters and numbers. Music trackers shall rule among the DAWs, at least on netbooks, where one does not simply play a 100-plugin song.



And that song is finally done, squished into 4kB (one byte left!). Avalable here in .it (uses OpenMPT hacks) format: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1wHj-jHiGbLSnV5Zmdwd29Hb3M/edit?usp=sharing