Pink Parrot Studio QuadTrack: Amiga-Powered Groovebox for Mac, PC and the Real Thing
Pink Parrot Studio QuadTrack: Everything You Need to Know about the Amiga Groovebox for Mac, PC and Original Hardware
Pink Parrot Studio QuadTrack: Amiga-Powered Groovebox for Mac, PC and the Real Thing · Source: Pink Parrot Studio
Berlin-based Pink Parrot Studio has released QuadTrack, a standalone 4-track dynamic performance sequencer that runs on macOS, Windows, Linux and on the original Commodore Amiga hardware. The project comes from Dataline, aka Cenk Sayinli, who many will recognize as a longtime face of Elektron. That background explains a lot once you dig into the feature set.
Pink Parrot Studio QuadTrack: The Amiga Groovebox That Runs on Mac, PC and Original Hardware
QuadTrack: Amiga Groovebox for Old-School Hardware and Modern Computers
Some vintage gear gets remembered for nostalgia. Some gets remembered because it genuinely sounded different from everything else. The Commodore Amiga falls firmly into the second category. Where the C64 and its SID chip became a legend in its own right, the Amiga laid the foundation for a whole generation of sample-based music made with trackers. That raw, lo-fi character still carries a very specific appeal.
Pink Parrot Studio QuadTrack is built around exactly that aesthetic. The software runs natively on the Amiga, but on Mac and PC it launches inside an integrated FS-UAE Amiga emulator. No separate download, no manual emulator setup required. The Amiga sound engine comes along for the ride automatically, lo-fi artifacts and all.
A Sequencer with Some Very Smart Features
640 samples spread across ten sample sets form the raw material. The 4-track sequencer handles them with per-track length settings, Divisions, three-stage Step Probability and switchable playback direction. That alone gives you more rhythmic flexibility than most hardware grooveboxes in this price range.
The four trigger types, Step Push, Step Jump, Flip Sample and Flip Direction, are where Sayinli’s years at Elektron start showing. Anyone familiar with Elektron sequencers will feel right at home here, and anyone who isn’t will quickly appreciate what these do for live performance.
Things get genuinely interesting with the additional modules, each carrying a suitably eccentric name. Snaptron stores eight snapshots of sequences and sample sets for instant on-the-fly switching. Glitchtron is a beat repeater assignable to any of the four tracks individually. CycloTron acts as a per-track looper, TempoTron shuffles BPM in real time, and ModelTron introduces permanent randomization. MeloTron rounds things out as an 8-step sequencer for pitch and sample modulation, complete with its own Divisions, step lengths and playback direction settings.
The videos on the Pink Parrot Studio website make the practical application of all this quite clear. There’s a lot more going on here than a simple sample player.
A Proper Standalone Performance Setup
QuadTrack’s interface puts the entire workflow on a single screen, with nearly every function accessible via keyboard shortcut. Left and right mouse buttons handle separate functions throughout, which keeps navigation fast once you’ve internalized the layout. This is clearly built for live use, not just studio work.
To mark the launch, Sayinli put together a Bandcamp compilation called Quad x Quad, featuring tracks made exclusively with QuadTrack. Worth a listen if you want to hear what the sequencer sounds like in practice.
Price and Availability
Pink Parrot Studio QuadTrack is available now via itch.io for €25. The software supports macOS 10.13 or newer and Windows XP or newer. Linux users can run it via the free Universal Amiga Emulator (UAE). For anyone wanting to run it on actual Amiga hardware, you’ll need a machine with a 68040 CPU, 2 MB Chip RAM and 2 MB Fast RAM.
More Information
- Pink Parrot Studio QuadTrack on itch.io
- Pink Parrot Studio Website
- TheA1200: Full-Size Commodore Amiga 1200 Remake for Under €200
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