shield tracker
by herr shield
About
Shield tracker is a tracker focused on live performances, heavily inspired by the eurorack hardware sequencer NerdSeq, running on Linux using Jack. It's functionality includes built-in samplers, sound generators, CV sequencing via a suitable dc-coupled audio interface and midi sequencing. The UI is designed to be controlled entirely with a gamepad. The current main target platform is the Valve Steam Deck, although it can run any Linux platform with a sufficiently modern GPU supporting WebGPU.
How to install shield tracker on steamdeck
Navigate to https://bleep.toys in the browser on your steamdeck and download the shield tracker binary. Using the file browser, extract the archive and run the stracker binary in the stracker folder. You can run the create_shortcuts.sh script to create desktop shortcuts for running and updating stracker.
Quitting shield tracker
The quit function has been protected to avoid accidents. Repeatedly press the left joystick until you reach the main screen. Press the right joystick to open the project settings screen. Navigate to the quit option and press the button combination X + A.This is early alpha-state software
Shield tracker is a very new project and still under heavy development. Everything is still in flux and as a result things will occassionally break between updates of stracker, requiring slight tweaks to the patterns. On the plus side, it means you get new features frequently! Always save your project before updating, and if you want to be extra safe, make a backup of your current version of stracker alongside it.Saving and Loading
Shield Tracker does not automatically save your projects!
Always make sure to frequently save your current project, especially before updating!
Shield tracker maintains a version history of the saved projects using an automatically created git repository, it is therefore possible to recover earlier state of projects. If you know what you are doing, you can edit the respective scripts in the scripts/ directory. Reminder: Shield Tracker does not automatically save your projects!
Quick start guide
Shield Tracker has 16 tracks whereas each track can have a different type, such as sequencing midi, built-in sampler, etc. Patterns are created per track and can be launched independently.
Let's get some bleeps out of shield tracker:
- Proceed to the main screen by repeatedly pressing the left joystick.
- Press and hold the left joystick and press X to open the track settings.
- Move the cursor to the type field.
- Hold the X button and use the cursor keys to change the value to Chiptune.
- Move the cursor to the update settings field and press A.
- Proceed to the main screen by pressing the left joystick.
- To make sound, a pattern needs to be created first. Press A which creates a new empty pattern
- With the new pattern under the cursor, pressing A opens the pattern editor
- Use the cursor keys to move around. When holding X, the cursor keys edit the value under the cursor. The first column is where the notes are entered.
- Holding X and pressing right shoulder (clicky button) deletes the value under the cursor. In some places, such as note columns, deleting an empty cell will create a special value. On the note column, it will insert [ ] which means note off.
- After composing a little melody, the pattern and the sequencer needs to be started. Press the left joystick to proceed back to the main screen. Press Y to queue/start the pattern. To start the sequencer, hold the left joystick and press Y.
- To stop the pattern, press B. This will play the pattern until it's end. To stop the sequencer and all playing patterns immediately, press and hold left joystick and press B.