this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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It's called "tracker music". A "tracker" is a type of music composing software that dates back to the very dawn of digital music.
Ahoy has a fantastic video about how they work and their history.
I smell demoscene.
Anyway, here's a nice track for y'all: https://youtu.be/qMEDyse-u_U
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/qMEDyse-u_U
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Thank you, another for the "actually good tracks" playlist.
I smell the same and can't help but to mention just a few off the top of my head.
rgba / elevated
Conspiracy / Chaos Theory
Bran Control / Memories from the MCP
Andromeda Software Development / Lifeforce
Farbrausch / fr-041
mfx / 1995
pouet.net - go there, download and watch it yourself. Youtube is cool but real stuff is so much better, especially when you check the file size. Though be aware, some of these old ones don't play well at non-96 dpi display settings.
This is art and I'm not even joking. This shit should have replaced wars.
Well that was a fascinating little trip down memory lane. Thanks for the link.
Damn that was an awesome watch. Came for the meme, stayed for the 40 minute documentary.
Seriously I'm 15 minutes into the history of computer generated sound and am still wondering wtf this has to do with cracking music. This is some next level autistic shit. 10/10.
If you wanna be pedantic, it's chiptune. You use trackers to make chiptune. And scene music is a niche within a niche.
No. Tracker music is 16-bit, within tracker music the term chiptune refers to a specific sub-genre which emulates 8-bit music.
Only much later did "chiptune" become a catch-all for all old computer music, and in that context it can refer to music not made with a tracker.
Yeah, trackers are what we had on the Amiga, and it was mostly just sound samples played at varying pitches. It's definitely got an old school sound to it, but it's only a low track limit that makes it different to what we have now.
Real chip tunes are where you torture an AY-3-8912 chip until it sings for its master.
My intro to chip tune was a guy I met in the mid aughts whose hobby was using old electronics to make music, so yeah, I always thought chip tune was like ripping apart old toys and torturing them to hear their screams
It's much later now m8
And?
This whole discussion is within the context of trackers specifically, not the mainstream definition of "chiptune" which can refer to any music, made using whatever, that have some bleeps and bloops mixed in.
The mainstream definition also includes music that isn't tracker music, which isn't what we're talking about, and hence, it's not the right term to be using.
Bringing up the word in its general meaning within a discussion about tracker music, is even more confusing and unhelpful, because in the context of trackers, the word chiptune refers to a specific type of tracker music.
Chiptune only "specifically" means music produced the same way as retro games, which necessitates a tracker. If they're using a standard DAW, then it's basically "cheating" lmao.
That "lmao" is really doing some heavy lifting for your credibility there...
Which definition are you even using when saying that a tracker is necessary? In the age of trackers "chiptune" referred to a music style from before trackers. If chiptunes existed before trackers, then someone obviously made that music without one.
To consider same sound produced with newer tools "cheating" or "fake" is an stupid distinction. Would not using trackers to create chiptunes then be cheating, too, since chiptune referred to tracker music that was emulating the even older style of 8-bit computer music? (Since again, trackers are a 16-bit era thing)
I'm starting to think you don't even know what a tracker is, because while trackers could be used to make other styles of music from their time, plenty of retro games used other ways to produce music, such as MIDI sound cards or direct instruction of synth voice chips. All of which would be called "chiptunes" by most people today, not just trackers.
Trackers are direct replications of the software used to make retro game music; specifically NES and SNES.
Trackers were created to take advantage of the new and unique audio hardware available in the Amiga.
Trackers use sample-banks, while both the NES and SNES heavily relied on voice chips.
The NES only had 5 voice channels, and they were each stuck with their initial synth-type, and while SNES could reproduce samples, they were used sparingly due to the space audio samples would take up on the cartridge.
Trackers could create music using actual audio samples. While the samples couldn't be long or high quality due to RAM and CPU constraints, the way they functioned from the audio systems of the NES and SNES is fundamentally different, and more capable.
While it is possible to re-create the style of music produced by the NES and SNES with a tracker, that's hardly what they were developed for. Trackers had far fewer technical limitations and could do so much more.
You're telling me shit I already know and trying to twist the facts. Whether the NES and SNES used synth or samples is immaterial to how the music was programmed. Trackers are literally made for programming MIDI instructions, just as those old games had their music programmed.
The number of voices and voice type changes nothing. You're just trying to add in immaterial facts to add false weight to your assertion.
I'm sorry, but if you already know all this, why can't you make sense? You're again coming in with a new claim that falls apart the second I add context:
MIDI is a digital standard for musical notation, one which trackers DID NOT USE. Lots of trackers use their own formats which can't even be opened by other trackers, let alone any MIDI compliant software. Not to mention that MIDI files don't come with samples, while tracker modules had to in order to reproduce a track correctly.
Trackers are as related to MIDI as they are to dots scribbled onto five lines on a piece of paper. All music can be represented using MIDI, because MIDI is just notes. That doesn't mean all digital music uses MIDI. Especially when MIDI doesn't store actual sound data.
Trackers, and I apparently have to say this again, USED SAMPLES. As in, NOT SYNTHS (like the NES). They played back recorded audio data from actual sound files according to a pattern input by the composer. Which yes, you could argue is equivalent to MIDI. But the samples are not, and they are a fundamental part of how trackers work. In order to even get started with using a tracker to create NES/SNES style music, you'd have to configure it with a sample-bank that contains the noises they would make.
Perhaps you are confused because MIDI sound cards did something similar. They used MIDI data to play music using the preset sample-banks that different MIDI cards came with, meaning the track would sound different depending on what sound card was used.
Tracker modules meanwhile came with their own samples, meaning they always played the same. Composers could also use whatever audio files they wanted to create their sample-banks.
"Those old games" also most certainly did not use MIDI, they either had their music produced using direct hardware instruction or whatever tools the game developers created for themselves.
But we're getting off track. You've kept making new claims about trackers, what they are related to, the terminology around them, and what they are for, each of which has been subtly off.
To recap:
Tracker music is tracker music. The word "chiptune" can either refer to a sub-genre within tracker music, or "retro" music in general, which includes lots of other music aside from tracker music. However, it cannot be used to refer to tracker music and only tracker music. Those two terms are not interchangeable. That doesn't change because "it's much later now m8".
Trackers were also not created to "replicate" or "reproduce" anything, they can, but they can also do more. They were developed specifically to take advantage of the new 16-bit sound card introduced in the Amiga, and worked by playing back recorded audio samples, while older computer music was produced by instructing synthesizers to bleep and bloop.
I suppose you never discovered that MIDI can trigger samples, too.
If you had a MIDI sound-card, sure.
Of course you can use samples to play the notes in a MIDI, MIDI is just a digital standard for storing a sequence of notes. You can do whatever you want with those.
But now you're grasping at straws, trackers didn't use MIDI, and unlike MIDI, shipped the samples with the tracks, so they'd sound the same wherever they were played.
That there's a superficial similarity is inconsequential, and that you'd bring it up at all, just further crushes your previous claims that trackers were related to earlier 8-bit synth-based music.
Mate you're not gonna convince me that "tracker music" is anything but a vague term. You might have a point in it describing music made wth a tracker, but with Renoise existing these days, that isn't exactly very specific is it? We call these pieces "scene music", or even "keygen music" if you're new to it. It's as useful as saying "DAW music". The music made in the style of old retro games is more specific than just "it was made with a tracker". That is exactly why the term "chiptune" exists; it's music that is made with those old sound chips, or emulations of them. That gets to the heart of the issue.
Is that what you think I was trying to do?
Does it need to be more than a vague term, if it, when entered into google or youtube, results in the exact thing I was talking about? Music, made using a "tracker".
Scene music or chiptune, meanwhile, both lead to far less specific results. Same for DAW.
As for retro computer music as a genre, I never claimed it should ALL be called "tracker music", you're the one who went "which necessitates a tracker".
I'm perfectly happy with chiptune as a word for any and all retro music. Tracker music can be called chiptune, but not all chiptune, is tracker music.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
fantastic video
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I had no idea what I was getting into clicking that link. Saw another comment about it being 40some minutes long but I watched the whole video, it was very interesting! I was tickled by all the things that I can remember from growing up that were referenced
An aside, do you have first hand knowledge of tinkering with trackers?
They were before my time. I only learned about them because of Ahoy. I've been on the lookout for music made with them since.
I highly recommend his other videos.
Especially the longer ones like "POLYBIUS - The Video Game That Doesn't Exist", "Nuclear Fruit: How the Cold War Shaped Video Games", and "The First Video Game". His iconic arms series is also, well, iconic.
He is amazing at graphics.
This is probably my favorite tracker track: Strobe(.it)
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Strobe(.it)
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Hearing those three notes of "Foregone Destruction" for the first time in umpteen years fired off a neuron that'd been hoarding the good chemicals.