Radium

any way to chop up samples using track commands or automation, like in traditional trackers?

haven't found anything myself

Not sure what you mean. Are you talking about where inside the sample to start playing from? In case, that's the "Start position" effect in the sample player, which you can automate. (Radium can play normal MOD files correctly, so I guess it should be possible if you count protracker as being a traditional tracker.)

yeah, that's what i was thinking of!

one question (i can't test this myself rn): do you have to manually retrigger the sample whenever you change the starting point, or does it automatically retrigger when you set the value?

You have to manually play a new note after setting a new start position. Radiums automations are being defined by continuous functions (by default), while in trackers, effects are defined by discrete functions. Therefore it probably makes most sense that you have to retrigger manually.

(You can get discrete functions by switching "glide" for the automation nodes in Radium though)