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
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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 / 1995pouet.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.
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
Only much later did “chiptune” become a catch-all for all old computer music
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.
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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)
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I liked seeing that someone’s computer had .nfo files associated with Notepad. You knew you had found a fellow matey.
You mean Notepad++?
You mean neo vim
I need to do that at some point…
Or crack intros all over the eighties.
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Someone out there has been collecting the best keygens with songs and they don’t even know it. And now their job is to release a compilation album on bandcamp or something.
I found this on archive.org.
Fitgirl go brrr
Since the dawn of keygens
Surely keygens are way older than BF2?
Oh man there was one that I’ll never find again, I think it was on some XP keygen that I probably still have somewhere that I’ll never run again… There was an epic walkdown at the beginning of it that I can still hear
Edit found it! It was Sony Vegas, not windows
There are whole Keygen music playlists on YouTube.
Don’t let your dreams be dreams! Find the tune of your past!!!
My nostalgic contribution:
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Warez and their .txt readmes. They would do that ASCII art by hand.
How else can it be done? Any attempt to convert images or text into ASCII art automatically looks at best uninspired and boring and at worst like trash.
I think “by hand” implies making ascii art in a text editor, rather than in a dedicated drawing tool that lets you paint characters etc.
That’s exactly what I’m saying. Using pre-made characters looks cheap. Good enough for a 13-year-old’s geocities website, not good for something pretty.
There was an app for MacOS…7? I think. It was called ASCIIPaint, and it allowed you to draw these pictures using a mouse.
.DIZ readmes, ftfy.
CORE - Power ISO. I used to leave this running for hours. My favorite of all time.
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Figma should put a banger in the login prompt given the recent news.
Fitgirl music tho 💯
I wish companies did it now too, would be so much fun
Now I remember this Pink Floyd album cover.
Link to a solid one? Mine broke and I can’t use several features anymore.
