12 ms·

Amiga Music Tracker in JavaScript

385 points by baldfat 8y ago

general8bitso 8y ago
This is great. I remember listening to Axel F, and attempting to make my own mods, but basically just changed the instrument samples.
- partomniscient 8y ago
  This video is for you then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlyK_elUmIw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlyK_elUmIw Not the author - just wanted to add to your nostalgia kick.
  - general8bitso 8y ago
    Thank you. Ah, the memories...
  - ugotsta 8y ago
    Good grief, he did that with just 4 tracks! Sounds exactly like I remember it too. Thanks for sharing.
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  I did that for years, too :) On the Amiga, that's all I did music wise, rip modules (I still miss that) and listen to / look at them, first in trackers and then with EaglePlayer and DeliTracker and their visualizations. Then on the PC, I made painfully short stubs, like 10-30 seconds, for a long time, with FastTracker (painful because I just didn't know how to make them longer, they were little rhythmic or melodic figures I guess). Then I got into Renoise, and I guess for the most part sampled and looped things I liked, and added speech samples to that. If I count from the first moment I fell in love with Protracker at age 11 or so, and me making something I would call a song in my 20s, it took me over a decade to even begin sucking at music, before that it wasn't even music. And I feel I owe so much to the Amiga, and the people who made music for it, and cared about playing back music for it.
ekianjo 8y ago
Superb! The second song, Stardust, was in the demo "World of Commodore 1992" (EDITED). Excellent track. https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=demomods%2FStardustMemories.mod https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=demomods%2FStardust...
- degenerate 8y ago
  Sanity - World of Commodore 92 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u43uH-kQpzk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u43uH-kQpzk
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    Thanks! One of my favorite demos from Sanity remains Arte: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFh07lXfxTY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFh07lXfxTY
    - armitron 8y ago
      Great demo. Not as good as the best ever though :-) "Kefrens: The meaning of life is to become a legend" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jziQBWQxvok https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jziQBWQxvok
kristiandupont 8y ago
Cute! Sadly it doesn't handle my .it or .s3m files.
degenerate 8y ago
GitHub link: https://github.com/steffest/bassoontracker https://github.com/steffest/bassoontracker Everything about this makes me giddy with excitement, from the cursor to the faded out numbers in the digital display. I "miss" these times, yet I was born too late to enjoy it in real time. I hope the demoscene lives on forever and we keep seeing it pop up in future tech.
- baldfat 8y ago
  When I opened it I swear I got teary eyed. Things were so much harder that when you finally got something decent it just made you feel like you were king of the nerd hill.
  - puzzle 8y ago
    I was bummed when I clicked on "Space song" thinking "Cool, they have the demo tune by the Silents!" and got something else instead. Luckily, it took just a few clicks to get to the real thing by Jesper Kyd (who later scored Hitman and Assassin's Creed): https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.modarchive.org%2Fdownloads.php%3Fmoduleid%3D167096 https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.m... And so's 4mat's classic 28KB chiptune, aka L.F.F.: https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.modarchive.org%2Fdownloads.php%3Fmoduleid%3D36874 https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.m... Memories! All that's missing is a way to build a playlist, although, of course, a lot of MOD songs never end, technically speaking... [I wrote a MOD player back in the day, IIRC it supported most of the standard commands and it was less than 8KB of 68K code.]
  - munificent 8y ago
    > Things were so much harder that when you finally got something decent it just made you feel like you were king of the nerd hill. I first started making music using a tracker (PlayerPRO on the Mac) before later moving to Pro Tools and Reason, and I actually found it much easier to finish songs using a tracker. The quality wasn't as good, but the limitations and structure helped me get a song done. With Reason, I find myself just twiddling knobs for hours and at the end of the day all I have is a few bars of something.
harel 8y ago
I graduated from Amiga trackers to a full fledged studio, with hardware mixers, synths, effect racks etc. And then, years later, back again to just a computer. Full circle.
- bibac 8y ago
  I messed around with the Amiga trackers back in the day. When I look at the software available today, e.g. on my iPad, I have a hard time getting anything useful out of it. Which software are you using now?
  - zellyn 8y ago
    SunVox is a fantastic modern tracker that runs on pretty much anything.
    - tgvaughan 8y ago
      True, but SunVox is so much more than just a tracker. In my experience with (PC) trackers they rely mostly on modifying pre-recorded samples. SV on the other hand allows you to chain together a crazy array of synth modules to produce sounds "from scratch".
      - zellyn 8y ago
        True. I think SunVox is a superset of what normal trackers can do: you're fully able to limit yourself to samples.
      - PavlovsCat 8y ago
        Well there's Renoise, there's Jeskola's Buzz (the changelog starts at 2008 but I'm sure I used it well before that), Noise Trekker had a synth as early as 1999. Adlib Tracker? You're still right in that for the most part, for a long time, tracking on the PC meant FastTracker or ScreamTracker, and those just used samples. But we've come a long way since then in the early 2000s.
onion2k 8y ago
Modarchive and modules.pl API support under Files -> Load is brilliant.
- AceJohnny2 8y ago
  Weird, I can't find Skaven on their integration of either modarchive.org or modules.pl
  - onion2k 8y ago
    I looked and couldn't find Skaven either. Purple Motion was in there through, so it was still good.
  - a1k0n 8y ago
    Maybe it's filtering by mod/xm and he only released S3Ms?
  - amatecha 8y ago
    I think because all his modules are .it and .s3m, so they are excluded. This tracker can only play .mod and .xm
- skrebbel 8y ago
  Yep! It's an amazing trip down memory lane. Also super eerie to listen to tunes I wrote in 1999 when I was sixteen on a mobile browser 20 years later. That said, there's some things not entirely right with the XM mixing. Something with the volume or the effects is off here or there, haven't pinpointed yet. Some songs sound perfect, others sound totally wrong. Nothing a PR or two won't fix I bet :)
jcpst 8y ago
very cool, and all in vanilla ES5, impressive.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Quite true, in spite of favouring native over Web when given the option, it is demos like this that show how much we have evolved and make me reassess the current state.
snvzz 8y ago
Since it plays modules made for the Amiga, linking this is mandatory: https://bel.fi/alankila/modguide/interpolate.txt https://bel.fi/alankila/modguide/interpolate.txt
- mrob 8y ago
  This isn't just some subtle implementation detail; the aliasing noise is obvious and IMO it's an important part of the sound. I personally like it, because it adds some extra high frequency content that would otherwise be lacking in many Amiga modules because of low quality samples. libopenmpt supports Amiga-style resampling with the render.resampler.emulate_amiga option. Although it's not documented in the man page, you can enable it in openmpt123: openmpt123 --ctl render.resampler.emulate_amiga=1 amiga_module.mod
- akx 8y ago
  This bit made me go "wat" out loud. > Additionally, it is possible to engage a low-pass 12 dB/oct Butterworth filter tuned at approximately 3.2 kHz by turning the Amiga power LED brighter with a special protracker command.
  - PavlovsCat 8y ago
    That would be E00/1 for filter on/off. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8d_OInQkLc&t=8m36s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8d_OInQkLc&t=8m36s IIRC when the machine crashed while playing sound, with the well-known blinking of the Power LED, you could hear the filter going on and off, too. And most games that had polished music turned the filter off.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    This is a classic "you ran out of pins / wanted a convenient debug feature, didn't you" design indication. I'm slightly unclear on what the Paula pulse train would have looked like; is it what would normally be called a "1-bit DAC", or is it PWM at the PAL frequency?
  - egypturnash 8y ago
    This didn't happen on the earliest Amigas. It just changed the power LED brightness. I had one game (Psygnosis "Baal", otherwise fairly unmemorable) that flickered the LED with the beat of the title track just because it looked cool. It sounded awful on anything besides an A1000.
rothron 8y ago
This takes me back! But it feels kinda wrong to have that mouse cursor and have it not move perfectly smooth.
- pan69 8y ago
  > But it feels kinda wrong to have that mouse cursor and have it not move perfectly smooth. So you get the full immersive experience. :)
  - zozbot123 8y ago
    The "immersive experience" would have that cursor move at a solid 60FPS and negligible latency. Amiga had hardware sprites, and even software-managed sprites had comparable performance.
    - pan69 8y ago
      This tracker seems to resemble a PC tracker such as Fast Tracker II. Did Amiga play 16bit 32 channel XM files? Hardware mouse cursors on PC were fast, software (custom graphics cursors) were much slower.
    - rothron 8y ago
      You also need a CRT or at least some sort of strobing refresh display to eliminate smearing from persistence of vision.
JeanMarcS 8y ago
Just for information, it just crashed on the Space Debris song for me (FF on linux), had to close my browser for the sample to stop looping. Retried on chromium, no problem, and it's cool ! Bringing back memory from when I was a student :-) I'm going to open an issue if it can help
teknopurge 8y ago
this thing is gorgeous.
exogeny 8y ago
Oh man, this is amazing. I'm teary-eyed with nostalgia, too. For anyone who is unfamiliar with the demoscene and tracker music, here are some recommended old-school tunes to spin up to get a feel for the art at the time. (Someone more in touch than me will have to lead you to the new school!) Just keep in mind the technological limitations on some of these songs: 4 channels, maybe 100k all-in for such wonderful music. Truly amazing. My recommendations, running from 1986-1993ish: Karsten Obarski - Crystal Hammer Firefox - Galaxy 2 Uncle Tom - Poseidon Jester - Elysium Captain - Space Debris Tip + Firefox - Enigma Mantronix - Act Of Impulse 4-mat - Red Sector Theme Romeo Knight - Cream Of The Earth Greg - Odyssey Part 2 Jugi - Onward Ride Laxity - Desert Dream I'm sure others can add more. What amazing times!
- MentallyRetired 8y ago
  Yes! I miss the tracking scene. Some amazing music came out of that format.
- AceJohnny2 8y ago
  Added links to your titles (not BassoonTracker integrated) (at this time, modules.pl was down, I assume from HN flood) Karsten Obarski - Crystal Hammer (couldn't find module, only Youtube: https://youtu.be/FN1Km1rEbLs https://youtu.be/FN1Km1rEbLs) Firefox - Galaxy 2 https://modarchive.org/module.php?42781 https://modarchive.org/module.php?42781 Uncle Tom - Poseidon https://modarchive.org/module.php?75579 https://modarchive.org/module.php?75579 Jester - Elysium https://modarchive.org/module.php?40475 https://modarchive.org/module.php?40475 Captain - Space Debris (part of Bassoon's example tracks! Also:) https://modarchive.org/module.php?57925 https://modarchive.org/module.php?57925 Tip + Firefox - Enigma https://modarchive.org/module.php?42146 https://modarchive.org/module.php?42146 Mantronix - Act of Impulse https://modarchive.org/module.php?32865 https://modarchive.org/module.php?32865 4-mat - Red Sector Theme https://modarchive.org/module.php?56673 https://modarchive.org/module.php?56673 Romeo Knight - Cream Of The Earth https://modarchive.org/module.php?120017 https://modarchive.org/module.php?120017 Greg - Odyssey Part 2 https://modarchive.org/module.php?98947 https://modarchive.org/module.php?98947 Jugi - Onward Ride https://modarchive.org/module.php?50820 https://modarchive.org/module.php?50820 Laxity - Desert Dream (found 3 rips on ModArchive, not sure which one's the best. Here's one of them:) https://modarchive.org/module.php?36889 https://modarchive.org/module.php?36889
AceJohnny2 8y ago
Well this brings me back a few decades. Funny how music does that.
EamonnMR 8y ago
I've been trying to get into trackers for sequencing for a while, but the learning curve is very steep. Has anyone got resources to learn how to sequence one of these beasts with a keyboard? They seem to be the key to making lots and lots of intricate breakbeats.
- pan69 8y ago
  With "keyboard" you mean, a musicians keyboard, right? I assume you need a midi interface to the software but I don't know of any tracker that supports midi. My personal favourite tracker is Fast Tracker II, but it also don't support midi. However, it has some really good documentation that might help you get into working with trackers: https://milkytracker.titandemo.org/docs/FT2.pdf https://milkytracker.titandemo.org/docs/FT2.pdf
  - EamonnMR 8y ago
    Actually my understanding is that you can use a computer keyboard to very rapidly enter lots of notes quickly and precisely without relying on your own human limitations as you would with a musical keyboard. I've seen it billed as sort of like Vi for music.
    - pan69 8y ago
      Yes, I'm pretty sure you can set FT2 in a record mode and then "play" notes on your computer keyboard, but I don't think that's what OP is asking. How I understand OP's question is; you make a drum pattern in FT2 which you can trigger to play by pressing a key on a musical keyboard. I think the context of OP's question is for during a live/real-time performance.
- jcl 8y ago
  Not sure if you're already aware, but tracker keyboard shortcuts for note entry typically mimic a piano keyboard: 2 3 5 6 7 q w e r t y u, etc. I thought this was pretty slick when I first encountered it.
AndrewStephens 8y ago
I love this. Like many people here, I mucked around with modules on the Amiga using OctoMED. I could never match the great songs that came with the games and demo of the time but I had a lot of fun.
noddy1w 8y ago
Amazing project, thankyou :) Notable artists who started their careers on trackers: aphex twin, machinedrum, axwell, darude, deadmau5 +many more
zestyping 8y ago
Omg. Man, https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=demomods%2Fspacedeb.mod https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=demomods%2Fspacedeb... really brought back memories.
6c696e7578 8y ago
This brings back memories. For the life of me though, I cannot remember what the music format was that I could use to play background music in turbo pascal. Happy days.
rafaelvasco 8y ago
Wow. Respect. Amiga represent !!
batiste 8y ago
It works incredibly well even on my Android cellphone... I am surprised.
timc3 8y ago
Just amazing and brings back a lot of memories. Now I just need to find the music I did
amatecha 8y ago
I am really impressed by the responsive layout -- the UI adapts to different window sizes! Nice touch :) Some favorite modules to check out. First link is link to modarchive site, second link is direct link to Bassoon Tracker with the module pre-populated so you can listen instantly! So handy! Matrix Cubed - Fluff https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=145090 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... | https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.modarchive.org%2Fdownloads.php%3Fmoduleid%3D145090 https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.m... DeusEX - Joy https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=143186 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... | https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.modarchive.org%2Fdownloads.php%3Fmoduleid%3D143186 https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.m... Sybaris - Welcome to the Gods https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=151392 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... | https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.modarchive.org%2Fdownloads.php%3Fmoduleid%3D151392 https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.m... Mindwalker - Evoke '98 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=169456 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... | https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.modarchive.org%2Fdownloads.php%3Fmoduleid%3D169456 https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.m... xerxes - hesse's sovesang https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=62901 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... | https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.modarchive.org%2Fdownloads.php%3Fmoduleid%3D62901 https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.m... "me and kenet" (unsure of artist) - Beautiful or not? https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=139336 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... | https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.modarchive.org%2Fdownloads.php%3Fmoduleid%3D139336 https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.m... drax - repeating patterns https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=67478 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... | https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.modarchive.org%2Fdownloads.php%3Fmoduleid%3D67478 https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.m... Tim Wright - Agony (intro) original version https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=126853 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... | https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.modarchive.org%2Fdownloads.php%3Fmoduleid%3D126853 https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.m... Unfortunate some mega favorites like Skaven's "The Alchemist"[0] and Vincenzo's remix of 2nd Reality[1] are Impulse Tracker modules and won't play in Bassoon Tracker. Maybe .it support will be added? :) [0] https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=48557 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... [1] https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=49947 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu...
starlig-ht 8y ago
holy f. well done
LeoPanthera 8y ago
Load the "Lotus 2" music, and disable channels 1, 2, and 4, to hear their attempt at subliminal messaging in the first few seconds of the song.
- hmfigueiredo 8y ago
  "You will not copy this game!"
mortenjorck 8y ago
Not only has the author collected a great library of classic mod files to play back, they compiled a fantastic starter library of mod samples for composing new work. These have such a delightfully retro sound to them, I'd love to use them in other software as well, such as the sampler in my primary DAW – anyone know how to extract a WAV file from these vintage Amiga DMS archives?
scruffyherder 8y ago
I'd been using https://github.com/defrac/defrac-sample-8bitboy https://github.com/defrac/defrac-sample-8bitboy 8bitboy for a while, but alas it seems that most things block it from playing music these days.
blt 8y ago
Writing a .mod player is a fun recreational programming project. I kind of want to get an Amiga so I can hear the sound of the Paula chip doing resampling by changing the audio clock rate instead of my PC doing digital resampling to 48kHz.
gabrielflorit 8y ago
This is fantastic. I love the demo tunes. Runs pretty smooth too.
growlist 8y ago
Thanks for the trip back in time to Octamed and a £20 sampler. This is one of the best tunes produced on an Amiga IMHO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L36m5sobhOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L36m5sobhOE
pmarreck 8y ago
OMG, the memories.... .mod files, right? I used to have thousands
Dragon256 8y ago
This is really good. It takes me back to my Amiga days ! BTW: VLC can also play MOD files.

385 points by baldfat 8y ago

This is great. I remember listening to Axel F, and attempting to make my own mods, but basically just changed the instrument samples.

partomniscient 8y ago
This video is for you then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlyK_elUmIw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlyK_elUmIw Not the author - just wanted to add to your nostalgia kick.
- general8bitso 8y ago
  Thank you. Ah, the memories...
- ugotsta 8y ago
  Good grief, he did that with just 4 tracks! Sounds exactly like I remember it too. Thanks for sharing.
PavlovsCat 8y ago
I did that for years, too :) On the Amiga, that's all I did music wise, rip modules (I still miss that) and listen to / look at them, first in trackers and then with EaglePlayer and DeliTracker and their visualizations. Then on the PC, I made painfully short stubs, like 10-30 seconds, for a long time, with FastTracker (painful because I just didn't know how to make them longer, they were little rhythmic or melodic figures I guess). Then I got into Renoise, and I guess for the most part sampled and looped things I liked, and added speech samples to that. If I count from the first moment I fell in love with Protracker at age 11 or so, and me making something I would call a song in my 20s, it took me over a decade to even begin sucking at music, before that it wasn't even music. And I feel I owe so much to the Amiga, and the people who made music for it, and cared about playing back music for it.

ekianjo 8y ago

Superb! The second song, Stardust, was in the demo "World of Commodore 1992" (EDITED). Excellent track. https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=demomods%2FStardustMemories.mod https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=demomods%2FStardust...

degenerate 8y ago
Sanity - World of Commodore 92 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u43uH-kQpzk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u43uH-kQpzk
- ekianjo 8y ago
  Thanks! One of my favorite demos from Sanity remains Arte: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFh07lXfxTY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFh07lXfxTY
  - armitron 8y ago
    Great demo. Not as good as the best ever though :-) "Kefrens: The meaning of life is to become a legend" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jziQBWQxvok https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jziQBWQxvok

kristiandupont 8y ago

Cute! Sadly it doesn't handle my .it or .s3m files.

degenerate 8y ago

GitHub link: https://github.com/steffest/bassoontracker https://github.com/steffest/bassoontracker Everything about this makes me giddy with excitement, from the cursor to the faded out numbers in the digital display. I "miss" these times, yet I was born too late to enjoy it in real time. I hope the demoscene lives on forever and we keep seeing it pop up in future tech.

baldfat 8y ago
When I opened it I swear I got teary eyed. Things were so much harder that when you finally got something decent it just made you feel like you were king of the nerd hill.
- puzzle 8y ago
  I was bummed when I clicked on "Space song" thinking "Cool, they have the demo tune by the Silents!" and got something else instead. Luckily, it took just a few clicks to get to the real thing by Jesper Kyd (who later scored Hitman and Assassin's Creed): https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.modarchive.org%2Fdownloads.php%3Fmoduleid%3D167096 https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.m... And so's 4mat's classic 28KB chiptune, aka L.F.F.: https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.modarchive.org%2Fdownloads.php%3Fmoduleid%3D36874 https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.m... Memories! All that's missing is a way to build a playlist, although, of course, a lot of MOD songs never end, technically speaking... [I wrote a MOD player back in the day, IIRC it supported most of the standard commands and it was less than 8KB of 68K code.]
- munificent 8y ago
  > Things were so much harder that when you finally got something decent it just made you feel like you were king of the nerd hill. I first started making music using a tracker (PlayerPRO on the Mac) before later moving to Pro Tools and Reason, and I actually found it much easier to finish songs using a tracker. The quality wasn't as good, but the limitations and structure helped me get a song done. With Reason, I find myself just twiddling knobs for hours and at the end of the day all I have is a few bars of something.

harel 8y ago

I graduated from Amiga trackers to a full fledged studio, with hardware mixers, synths, effect racks etc. And then, years later, back again to just a computer. Full circle.

bibac 8y ago
I messed around with the Amiga trackers back in the day. When I look at the software available today, e.g. on my iPad, I have a hard time getting anything useful out of it. Which software are you using now?
- zellyn 8y ago
  SunVox is a fantastic modern tracker that runs on pretty much anything.
  - tgvaughan 8y ago
    True, but SunVox is so much more than just a tracker. In my experience with (PC) trackers they rely mostly on modifying pre-recorded samples. SV on the other hand allows you to chain together a crazy array of synth modules to produce sounds "from scratch".
    - zellyn 8y ago
      True. I think SunVox is a superset of what normal trackers can do: you're fully able to limit yourself to samples.
    - PavlovsCat 8y ago
      Well there's Renoise, there's Jeskola's Buzz (the changelog starts at 2008 but I'm sure I used it well before that), Noise Trekker had a synth as early as 1999. Adlib Tracker? You're still right in that for the most part, for a long time, tracking on the PC meant FastTracker or ScreamTracker, and those just used samples. But we've come a long way since then in the early 2000s.

onion2k 8y ago

Modarchive and modules.pl API support under Files -> Load is brilliant.

AceJohnny2 8y ago
Weird, I can't find Skaven on their integration of either modarchive.org or modules.pl
- onion2k 8y ago
  I looked and couldn't find Skaven either. Purple Motion was in there through, so it was still good.
- a1k0n 8y ago
  Maybe it's filtering by mod/xm and he only released S3Ms?
- amatecha 8y ago
  I think because all his modules are .it and .s3m, so they are excluded. This tracker can only play .mod and .xm
skrebbel 8y ago
Yep! It's an amazing trip down memory lane. Also super eerie to listen to tunes I wrote in 1999 when I was sixteen on a mobile browser 20 years later. That said, there's some things not entirely right with the XM mixing. Something with the volume or the effects is off here or there, haven't pinpointed yet. Some songs sound perfect, others sound totally wrong. Nothing a PR or two won't fix I bet :)

jcpst 8y ago

very cool, and all in vanilla ES5, impressive.

pjmlp 8y ago
Quite true, in spite of favouring native over Web when given the option, it is demos like this that show how much we have evolved and make me reassess the current state.

snvzz 8y ago

Since it plays modules made for the Amiga, linking this is mandatory: https://bel.fi/alankila/modguide/interpolate.txt https://bel.fi/alankila/modguide/interpolate.txt

mrob 8y ago
This isn't just some subtle implementation detail; the aliasing noise is obvious and IMO it's an important part of the sound. I personally like it, because it adds some extra high frequency content that would otherwise be lacking in many Amiga modules because of low quality samples. libopenmpt supports Amiga-style resampling with the render.resampler.emulate_amiga option. Although it's not documented in the man page, you can enable it in openmpt123: openmpt123 --ctl render.resampler.emulate_amiga=1 amiga_module.mod
akx 8y ago
This bit made me go "wat" out loud. > Additionally, it is possible to engage a low-pass 12 dB/oct Butterworth filter tuned at approximately 3.2 kHz by turning the Amiga power LED brighter with a special protracker command.
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  That would be E00/1 for filter on/off. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8d_OInQkLc&t=8m36s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8d_OInQkLc&t=8m36s IIRC when the machine crashed while playing sound, with the well-known blinking of the Power LED, you could hear the filter going on and off, too. And most games that had polished music turned the filter off.
- pjc50 8y ago
  This is a classic "you ran out of pins / wanted a convenient debug feature, didn't you" design indication. I'm slightly unclear on what the Paula pulse train would have looked like; is it what would normally be called a "1-bit DAC", or is it PWM at the PAL frequency?
- egypturnash 8y ago
  This didn't happen on the earliest Amigas. It just changed the power LED brightness. I had one game (Psygnosis "Baal", otherwise fairly unmemorable) that flickered the LED with the beat of the title track just because it looked cool. It sounded awful on anything besides an A1000.

rothron 8y ago

This takes me back! But it feels kinda wrong to have that mouse cursor and have it not move perfectly smooth.

pan69 8y ago
> But it feels kinda wrong to have that mouse cursor and have it not move perfectly smooth. So you get the full immersive experience. :)
- zozbot123 8y ago
  The "immersive experience" would have that cursor move at a solid 60FPS and negligible latency. Amiga had hardware sprites, and even software-managed sprites had comparable performance.
  - pan69 8y ago
    This tracker seems to resemble a PC tracker such as Fast Tracker II. Did Amiga play 16bit 32 channel XM files? Hardware mouse cursors on PC were fast, software (custom graphics cursors) were much slower.
  - rothron 8y ago
    You also need a CRT or at least some sort of strobing refresh display to eliminate smearing from persistence of vision.

JeanMarcS 8y ago

Just for information, it just crashed on the Space Debris song for me (FF on linux), had to close my browser for the sample to stop looping. Retried on chromium, no problem, and it's cool ! Bringing back memory from when I was a student :-) I'm going to open an issue if it can help

teknopurge 8y ago

this thing is gorgeous.

exogeny 8y ago

Oh man, this is amazing. I'm teary-eyed with nostalgia, too. For anyone who is unfamiliar with the demoscene and tracker music, here are some recommended old-school tunes to spin up to get a feel for the art at the time. (Someone more in touch than me will have to lead you to the new school!) Just keep in mind the technological limitations on some of these songs: 4 channels, maybe 100k all-in for such wonderful music. Truly amazing. My recommendations, running from 1986-1993ish: Karsten Obarski - Crystal Hammer Firefox - Galaxy 2 Uncle Tom - Poseidon Jester - Elysium Captain - Space Debris Tip + Firefox - Enigma Mantronix - Act Of Impulse 4-mat - Red Sector Theme Romeo Knight - Cream Of The Earth Greg - Odyssey Part 2 Jugi - Onward Ride Laxity - Desert Dream I'm sure others can add more. What amazing times!

MentallyRetired 8y ago
Yes! I miss the tracking scene. Some amazing music came out of that format.
AceJohnny2 8y ago
Added links to your titles (not BassoonTracker integrated) (at this time, modules.pl was down, I assume from HN flood) Karsten Obarski - Crystal Hammer (couldn't find module, only Youtube: https://youtu.be/FN1Km1rEbLs https://youtu.be/FN1Km1rEbLs) Firefox - Galaxy 2 https://modarchive.org/module.php?42781 https://modarchive.org/module.php?42781 Uncle Tom - Poseidon https://modarchive.org/module.php?75579 https://modarchive.org/module.php?75579 Jester - Elysium https://modarchive.org/module.php?40475 https://modarchive.org/module.php?40475 Captain - Space Debris (part of Bassoon's example tracks! Also:) https://modarchive.org/module.php?57925 https://modarchive.org/module.php?57925 Tip + Firefox - Enigma https://modarchive.org/module.php?42146 https://modarchive.org/module.php?42146 Mantronix - Act of Impulse https://modarchive.org/module.php?32865 https://modarchive.org/module.php?32865 4-mat - Red Sector Theme https://modarchive.org/module.php?56673 https://modarchive.org/module.php?56673 Romeo Knight - Cream Of The Earth https://modarchive.org/module.php?120017 https://modarchive.org/module.php?120017 Greg - Odyssey Part 2 https://modarchive.org/module.php?98947 https://modarchive.org/module.php?98947 Jugi - Onward Ride https://modarchive.org/module.php?50820 https://modarchive.org/module.php?50820 Laxity - Desert Dream (found 3 rips on ModArchive, not sure which one's the best. Here's one of them:) https://modarchive.org/module.php?36889 https://modarchive.org/module.php?36889

AceJohnny2 8y ago

Well this brings me back a few decades. Funny how music does that.

EamonnMR 8y ago

I've been trying to get into trackers for sequencing for a while, but the learning curve is very steep. Has anyone got resources to learn how to sequence one of these beasts with a keyboard? They seem to be the key to making lots and lots of intricate breakbeats.

pan69 8y ago
With "keyboard" you mean, a musicians keyboard, right? I assume you need a midi interface to the software but I don't know of any tracker that supports midi. My personal favourite tracker is Fast Tracker II, but it also don't support midi. However, it has some really good documentation that might help you get into working with trackers: https://milkytracker.titandemo.org/docs/FT2.pdf https://milkytracker.titandemo.org/docs/FT2.pdf
- EamonnMR 8y ago
  Actually my understanding is that you can use a computer keyboard to very rapidly enter lots of notes quickly and precisely without relying on your own human limitations as you would with a musical keyboard. I've seen it billed as sort of like Vi for music.
  - pan69 8y ago
    Yes, I'm pretty sure you can set FT2 in a record mode and then "play" notes on your computer keyboard, but I don't think that's what OP is asking. How I understand OP's question is; you make a drum pattern in FT2 which you can trigger to play by pressing a key on a musical keyboard. I think the context of OP's question is for during a live/real-time performance.
jcl 8y ago
Not sure if you're already aware, but tracker keyboard shortcuts for note entry typically mimic a piano keyboard: 2 3 5 6 7 q w e r t y u, etc. I thought this was pretty slick when I first encountered it.

AndrewStephens 8y ago

I love this. Like many people here, I mucked around with modules on the Amiga using OctoMED. I could never match the great songs that came with the games and demo of the time but I had a lot of fun.

noddy1w 8y ago

Amazing project, thankyou :) Notable artists who started their careers on trackers: aphex twin, machinedrum, axwell, darude, deadmau5 +many more

zestyping 8y ago

Omg. Man, https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=demomods%2Fspacedeb.mod https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=demomods%2Fspacedeb... really brought back memories.

6c696e7578 8y ago

This brings back memories. For the life of me though, I cannot remember what the music format was that I could use to play background music in turbo pascal. Happy days.

rafaelvasco 8y ago

Wow. Respect. Amiga represent !!

batiste 8y ago

It works incredibly well even on my Android cellphone... I am surprised.

timc3 8y ago

Just amazing and brings back a lot of memories. Now I just need to find the music I did

amatecha 8y ago

I am really impressed by the responsive layout -- the UI adapts to different window sizes! Nice touch :) Some favorite modules to check out. First link is link to modarchive site, second link is direct link to Bassoon Tracker with the module pre-populated so you can listen instantly! So handy! Matrix Cubed - Fluff https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=145090 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... | https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.modarchive.org%2Fdownloads.php%3Fmoduleid%3D145090 https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.m... DeusEX - Joy https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=143186 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... | https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.modarchive.org%2Fdownloads.php%3Fmoduleid%3D143186 https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.m... Sybaris - Welcome to the Gods https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=151392 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... | https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.modarchive.org%2Fdownloads.php%3Fmoduleid%3D151392 https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.m... Mindwalker - Evoke '98 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=169456 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... | https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.modarchive.org%2Fdownloads.php%3Fmoduleid%3D169456 https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.m... xerxes - hesse's sovesang https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=62901 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... | https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.modarchive.org%2Fdownloads.php%3Fmoduleid%3D62901 https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.m... "me and kenet" (unsure of artist) - Beautiful or not? https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=139336 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... | https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.modarchive.org%2Fdownloads.php%3Fmoduleid%3D139336 https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.m... drax - repeating patterns https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=67478 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... | https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.modarchive.org%2Fdownloads.php%3Fmoduleid%3D67478 https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.m... Tim Wright - Agony (intro) original version https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=126853 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... | https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.modarchive.org%2Fdownloads.php%3Fmoduleid%3D126853 https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.m... Unfortunate some mega favorites like Skaven's "The Alchemist"[0] and Vincenzo's remix of 2nd Reality[1] are Impulse Tracker modules and won't play in Bassoon Tracker. Maybe .it support will be added? :) [0] https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=48557 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... [1] https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=49947 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu...

starlig-ht 8y ago

holy f. well done

LeoPanthera 8y ago

Load the "Lotus 2" music, and disable channels 1, 2, and 4, to hear their attempt at subliminal messaging in the first few seconds of the song.

hmfigueiredo 8y ago
"You will not copy this game!"

mortenjorck 8y ago

Not only has the author collected a great library of classic mod files to play back, they compiled a fantastic starter library of mod samples for composing new work. These have such a delightfully retro sound to them, I'd love to use them in other software as well, such as the sampler in my primary DAW – anyone know how to extract a WAV file from these vintage Amiga DMS archives?

scruffyherder 8y ago

I'd been using https://github.com/defrac/defrac-sample-8bitboy https://github.com/defrac/defrac-sample-8bitboy 8bitboy for a while, but alas it seems that most things block it from playing music these days.

blt 8y ago

Writing a .mod player is a fun recreational programming project. I kind of want to get an Amiga so I can hear the sound of the Paula chip doing resampling by changing the audio clock rate instead of my PC doing digital resampling to 48kHz.

gabrielflorit 8y ago

This is fantastic. I love the demo tunes. Runs pretty smooth too.

growlist 8y ago

Thanks for the trip back in time to Octamed and a £20 sampler. This is one of the best tunes produced on an Amiga IMHO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L36m5sobhOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L36m5sobhOE

pmarreck 8y ago

OMG, the memories.... .mod files, right? I used to have thousands

Dragon256 8y ago

This is really good. It takes me back to my Amiga days ! BTW: VLC can also play MOD files.