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Amiga Samplers: Budget dance music in 1990
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y agoPolyend's hardware tracker, called Tracker, is on sale right now. Milky Tracker, Renoise, and Sun Vox are great software to get started with trackers on your PC
- keyle 3y agoYeah Renoise is still the Go To tracker on windows/mac today, for its general ease of use and versatility.
- awuji 3y agoAnd linux. They provide a linux version and it runs great on linux
- kubov 3y agoGroovin in G has some excellent Renoise tutorials and just started a new series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwfnvs5pIcM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwfnvs5pIcM
- ilkke 3y agoIf we're talking hardware trackers, def also worth mentioning the Dirtywave M8
- keyle 3y agoNote that they're still used today. if you want to keep going down the youtube rabbit hole... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDn7ZDcx9w0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDn7ZDcx9w0
- jamal-kumar 3y agoProbably the biggest reasons I think they still get used today: - Really good for breakbeat chopping as they essentially put samples front and centre with the tools to do that. If you check out renoise the first tutorials are about that, but we're talking about octamed etc here... - I hear a lot of people on music production chat seeking that 'bitcrushed' sampling sound and while you can definitely emulate it using other stuff it's definitely not the same as the entire damn song getting bitcrushed into an 8-bit .MOD file (Or whatever it is you're playing through it - perhaps it's controlling some crisp sounding midi synths and you're good with say bitcrushed vocals and percussion) and I think that has some appeal - they look cool I follow a few of these artists, @deatonchrisanthony on instagram has been posting some fun videos
- EmilyHughes 3y agoAnother big reason is that the limitations actually make you more creative. I learned producing EDM in the FL Studio era and in a sense it's a godsend you don't have to buy all that expensive hardware. On the other hand modern DAWs give you so much freedom its somewhat exhausting. The entry level to produce technical genres like DnB are extremely high nowadays.
- spacemadness 3y agoThis is it right here. Limitations and being able to wrap your head around every piece of the tool you’re using. It’s so easy to get lost in tools like Ableton. They can put you in a headspace that is always fiddling and not actually focused on making music. I think modular gear does this to people too. My friends that go down the modular rabbit hole sometimes don’t realize they haven’t made anything but bloops with their 10,000+ modular. And not in an awesome Autechre/Richard Devine way that has structure and a goal.
- jamal-kumar 3y agoSome modular synth producers I've seen like venetian snares use renoise to pull it all together [1] Aphex has had some things to say about it too although for 'vordhosbn' at least it sounds like he's been more happy with a program I never heard of until now called Playerpro [2] [3] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBaKOcuNTYs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBaKOcuNTYs [1] https://imgur.com/a/eofh5 https://imgur.com/a/eofh5 [3] https://forum.renoise.com/t/anyone-who-likes-aphex-twin-and-trackers/47971 https://forum.renoise.com/t/anyone-who-likes-aphex-twin-and-...
- kubov 3y agoAnd there is a niche of people using set of two Amigas as dj decks and mixing tracker tunes between them. I absolutely love it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvP08ezbicU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvP08ezbicU
- zfxfr 3y agoif you want to easily get started with tracker on your PC (windows) there is the free Modplug Tracker !
- joehogans 3y agoAwesome, here an open source complete tracker to play with. It’s fully browser optimized. https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/ https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/
- actionfromafar 3y agoWow, it has a lot of tracks to load. Some of these Amiga tracks are so damn upbeat. Love it.
- pjmlp 3y agoWorks great on the phone as well.
- blaerk 3y agoIf anyone wants to run protracker like back in the day but on current hardware, there’s this neat clone https://github.com/8bitbubsy/pt2-clone https://github.com/8bitbubsy/pt2-clone
- Annatar 3y ago[dead]
- outofpaper 3y agoN if you are looking for mods there's always the amazing modarchive. https://web.archive.org/web/20230903170856/https://modarchive.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230903170856/https://modarchiv... I'm providing the live as a webarchive cache as modarchive.org is on a sight budget and I don't know if they can handle a ton of traffic. Amazing site for spelunking through both vintage and nostalgic tracks.
- mnw21cam 3y agoThere's also Aminet: https://aminet.net/tree?path=mods https://aminet.net/tree?path=mods
- block_dagger 3y agoLoved making S3M mods in the early 90’s, fun and educational for a kid interested in making music.
- vnorilo 3y agoWhat's great about tracker music is that it's in source format, readable, editable and remixable as if you were the original author. Open source music! Great for learning.
- rob74 3y agoYeah, that was a nice side effect - but only a side effect. The real reason why the music was released in this format was space saving. If you would have wanted to release a song with all the tracks already mixed together, you would have had to store it as an uncompressed or losslessly compressed "waveform" file, and a very modest song would already have filled up an Amiga 880 KB floppy disk all by itself. Contrast this to Lemmings, which had not only ~10 songs, but also the sound effects, graphics, game code and 120 levels (although some levels were 100% identical to earlier levels, just with a tougher distribution of Lemmings skills and/or higher quota of Lemmings to save) on 2 floppies...
- _joel 3y agoObject based audio... but 30 years earlier.
- geon 3y agoI had so much fun replacing all the samples of my favorite mods.
- kristopolous 3y agoHe didn't point out but the music videos that he showed at the very beginning were also probably made on the Amiga using VideoToaster Here's a promo video from the time that also uses tracker made background music bringing it full circle https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fH3keLuj9OI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fH3keLuj9OI It's kind of a shame how commodore disappeared. A humble 1980s home computer made all that
- Annatar 3y ago[dead]
- pavlov 3y agoThe Amiga MOD sound is quite distinctive because it uses very low-res instrument samples (typically 8-bit, 8 kHz) played back at different sample rates. Only four channels were available, so each of those crunchy samples gets to be heard in the mix too. It was amazing at the time and still sounds unique in its way. A few PC games used Amiga MOD soundtracks too. Star Control II (1992) comes to mind because it was a very early example of Internet crowdsourcing: the music was created by MOD composers around the world.
- kreddor 3y agoI remember several PC games with "amiga music". Settlers (the original), SuperFrog, Pinball Fantasies, and so on. Most likely because they were amiga ports. They didn't necessarily use the MOD format all of them, but still. I remember ripping the music from SuperFrog and Settlers at least.
- jl6 3y agoA little later, Unreal, Unreal Tournament, and Deus Ex all used tracker music, to enduring acclaim.
- badpun 3y agoInteresting that UT decided not to just play back an MP3, as that would be too heavy on CPU's time budget, and settled on mods instead. IIRC, Quake's music (by Trent Reznor) was just played back from the game's CD, which means that most people never got to experience it (as most people played the pirated copy of the game, without the audio CD tracks).
- snvzz 3y ago>Settlers (the original) Was written in 68k assembly. The port either implemented an emulator or translated the code ahead of time.
- rob74 3y agoI think Lemmings used MODs too (or at least the music was easily converted to MOD format, because there are MODs of the soundtrack available which sound exactly the same as the in-game music) - https://www.camanis.net/lemmings/music.php https://www.camanis.net/lemmings/music.php. Anyway, the original soundtrackers were very much built around the Amiga sound hardware's capabilities, which was pretty good for the time - there was a custom chip that could play 4 channels of 8-bit samples where you only had to supply the memory offset, the frequency, volume etc. and then the actual playing and mixing of the channels would be done automatically. So this was of course ideal for game music, because it used very little CPU time. Later trackers were able to offer up to 8 channels by mixing 2 channels into 1 hardware channel (the first of them being OctaMED - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OctaMED https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OctaMED), but these couldn't be used in games on the original Amiga.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jahnu 3y agoI’ll never enjoy computing again as much as I did as a teenager with an Amiga 500, a CD ROM with CDs full of mod files and Fred Fish disks, and my trusty 8 bit sampler. Sampling and making extended mixes of favourite rave tunes from the era, recording them to tape and playing them on a Walkman to friends at school who had no idea computers could do such things! Making 15 minute mashups of this and dancing like loons to it in the break room. Thanks, Amiga! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yefUXmB9n6c https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yefUXmB9n6c I can credit those years to a love of programming and now being a developer of audio FX plugins!
- boffinAudio 3y agoLikewise! What sort of plugins are you making?
- jahnu 3y agoTwo of us are making spectral fx. Wouldn’t really have been possible on a 68000 :) https://gs-dsp.com/ https://gs-dsp.com/ Note we offer a completely free, midi modulation plugin (MMM) too there. Also available on iOS where it's especially super useful. Are you in Vienna too!?
- _joel 3y agoNice clean looking plugins, will give them a try tonight
- jahnu 3y agoThank you! Hope you enjoy them. And if you have any questions that aren’t answered on the site or videos just reach out. We love talking to the folks using our stuff.
- boffinAudio 3y agoNice! Just wondering if you considered using JUCE?
- dharma1 3y agoLove trackers! A lot of my friends got their start in music in the mod scene - was a magical time of free original music making and sharing on BBSs/early internet. It’s amazing what people created with 4 channels and 8 bit samples on amigas (and a couple of years later with more channels and 16bits on PCs and cheap sound cards) -dharma/mono211
- chaosprint 3y agoTrackers are amazing and they still live on, for example, https://dirtywave.com/products/m8-tracker https://dirtywave.com/products/m8-tracker although I have no background on playing trackers, I find my philosophy of designing music language very close to the idea of trackers (https://glicol.org https://glicol.org). and it also occurred to me: maybe in the future we would say Algorave is the budget dance music in 2020? This was my Algorave performance during the pandemic (I was actually tested positive 3 days before the performance streaming): https://youtu.be/atoTujbQdwI?si=qVWvJrDZ0rupPIqf&t=260 https://youtu.be/atoTujbQdwI?si=qVWvJrDZ0rupPIqf&t=260
- porkbeer 3y agoA good modern tracker is Renoise. It has modern plugin support, runs on most OSs and is still being developed.
- beardyw 3y agoI remember I had Octamed - 8 tracks! Bliss.
- johnnyworker 3y agoShow me your favorite modern 4 channel modules that blow your mind! Other than just about anything by h0ffmann, here's a fav of mine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFor3PDA8EI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFor3PDA8EI
- meindnoch 3y agoJester - Stardust Memories https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLMhBE99byM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLMhBE99byM
- mzerod 3y agoJester - Stardust Otamatonies https://youtu.be/dfFVxWEwhI0?si=r-ZtYmgF1ADp0k8e https://youtu.be/dfFVxWEwhI0?si=r-ZtYmgF1ADp0k8e
- johnnyworker 3y agoAaaaahhh, Jester. Barely understanding English but feeling that "fuck reputation!" so much, even as a little kid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew3Jd87Sg6c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew3Jd87Sg6c
- G3rn0ti 3y ago"H0ffman" is also a respectable artist still doing live gigs w/ vintage hardware: https://youtu.be/zVF-GbGHxA8?t=4046 https://youtu.be/zVF-GbGHxA8?t=4046 His tunes appear in many "Focus Design" demos.
- dm319 3y agoI've seen him live. Fantastic experience. EDIT: The last track his him.
- prmoustache 3y agoSome other interesting amiga music related stuff, made today: A bit more hardware with an Amiga 1000: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV1McEtejxo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV1McEtejxo These guys DJing mods with amigas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn9Ks6OA3iU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn9Ks6OA3iU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvP08ezbicU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvP08ezbicU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olHntLXMkCY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olHntLXMkCY
- unixhero 3y agoHere is a legendary modfile which we still listen to in 2023 [0][1] [0], 1995 Raver's Megamix by Dax, http://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=62009 http://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&que... [1], Youtube render, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtI-N0SDfUw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtI-N0SDfUw
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- johnnyworker 3y agoI'll add these two classics: Jesus On E's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MjNsNW8DvM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MjNsNW8DvM State of The Art https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89wq5EoXy-0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89wq5EoXy-0
- unixhero 3y agoRevsision 2019 Amiga Demo Compo, which is your favourite? [0], https://youtu.be/zwoyfH7TgEQ?si=WMTwvh4QliFHhE42 https://youtu.be/zwoyfH7TgEQ?si=WMTwvh4QliFHhE42
- johnnyworker 3y agoMusically, none of these are quite my cup of tea.. so instead of forcing myself to pick one regardless, here's my favorite ch00n from Revision 2020 :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyxVKZKwBmU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyxVKZKwBmU I'm just a sucker for sync, hah. 2019 was an absolutely stellar year for Amiga demos, no doubt! But in my heart of hearts, I like simple things the most.
- johnnyworker 3y agoOh, and how could I forget Technological Death! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-hUJ-v0FLE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-hUJ-v0FLE In hindsight it's amazing to me how many of these demos little me saw the year they came out, just via swapping with other little kids, in this little town with 50k residents in Germany. The good stuff spread like wildfire, and we watched it with curtains drawn and volume maxed. Then one day the local big honcho warez supplier (he was 13, so basically an adult to us 10-11 year olds) forgot his tool disk with all sorts of stuff on it at my home, I discovered ProTracker and music ripping tools on it, and have never been the same.
- janesconference 3y agoLong shot, but I remember a friend playing a beautiful digital tune made with a tracker from an Amiga demo. I remember the chorus had a sampled voice saying something like "Amphora" (which was probably the name of the demo authors' group). I've searched the internet far and wide but I never found it again. Does anyone remember it?
- ilkke 3y agoDo you recall what genre the tune was? Give us bit more to work with :)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- janesconference 3y agoI remember it was hard-core techno with heavy basses and short spoken vocals intermixed. Very good quality, more on the "real music production" than on the "videogame track" side of things. Year might have been roughly 1993 to 1996
- amiga386 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Created_Disco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Created_Disco > I Created Disco is the debut studio album by Scottish musician Calvin Harris > All recording and producing for the album took place on an Amiga computer with OctaMED https://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/interview-calvin-harris-on-software-hardware-and-hit-making-530744 https://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/interview-calvin-harris...
- Hackbraten 3y agoRecommendation for an excellent documentary by Ahoy on trackers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roBkg-iPrbw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roBkg-iPrbw
- dm319 3y agoI like to use XMP on linux to listen to folders of MODS. They are easy to get hold of these days!
- _joel 3y agoKnew this would be ctrix before clicking on the link. Awesome dude.
- ant6n 3y agoAlso shout-out to Retro Ahoy´s awesome documentary on trackers, which covers the amiga quite a bit as well: https://youtu.be/roBkg-iPrbw https://youtu.be/roBkg-iPrbw
- boboche 3y agoHad a “Perfect Sound” and audio master 3. Nothing beats that first burp recording & playback at different speeds when you are 12 :) Med and Octamed were my favorite tracking tools, Octamed still exists today on windows (never tried it but here : https://archive.org/details/med-soundstudio-v2.1 https://archive.org/details/med-soundstudio-v2.1 Amiga version https://archive.org/details/octa-med-v-5.00c https://archive.org/details/octa-med-v-5.00c
- bane 3y agoSomething kind of fun about the scene at the time, since it was mostly just kids messing around on their computers, is there are a fair number of pretty interesting remixes of popular songs from the time. Jabdah - by Lizardking - https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=102668 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... Never Ending Story - Lizardking - https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=48987 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... Take on Me - a bunch of versions - https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=search&query=take+on+me&submit=Find&search_type=filename_or_songtitle https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=search&query=take+o... Groove is in the Heart - anchoret.sae - https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=35286 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... Like a Virgin - sie - https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=48814 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... Enjoy the Silence - 4-mat - https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=160945 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... Some other stuff I liked from that time (often post-MOD file XM, S3M, or IT style tracked music) Lizardking (most of his stuff is amazing and he's credited with inventing a genre or music really only heard in trackers called "doskpop") - https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_artist_modules&query=68745 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_artist_modules... Dr. Awesome - https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_artist_modules&query=69140 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_artist_modules... I recommend 12th Warrior - https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=59601 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... elblanco (apparently still active?) - https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_artist_modules&query=88009&page=1#mods https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_artist_modules... Recommend "Living, again and again" - https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=177184 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&qu... Necros - https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_artist_modules&query=69271 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_artist_modules...
- ghomem 3y agoThis is pure gold. The Amiga was such ahead in the game... then we had 10 years of PC dark ages.
- ghomem 3y agoAnd nice vibes from the music as well. Good taste on those vinyls :-)
- tangent-man 3y agoUraban Shakedown, some justice was the one to watch. Just using 2 Amiga 500's and a Consumer sampler (pretty much) they got into the top 10 in the UK. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L36m5sobhOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L36m5sobhOE (I think maybe Aphrodite's genius with the beatz had something to do with it). I've got an Amiga 600 + Sterio Master Sampler + External Midi box etc. for sale if anyone is interested? - if the price is right..