mrpf1steron Hacker News • Recommends
On “MilkyTracker”
If anyone wants to dive into the history of trackers, I highly recommend this documentary (and all of his other ones) by Ahoy ( link to this video )
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Trackers: The Sound of 16-Bit
Ahoy
1.8M subscribers • 8 videos on Hallway
- Recommended by 7 people: 7 on Hacker News.
Beginner. No background in the topic needed.
2M views4 years ago7 recommendations
History and cultureGraphics and audioRetro computingAudio and DSPHistory of computing
Ahoy presents a detailed documentary on the history of tracker music, from early Amiga software to the demoscene and PC trackers.
Next up: RetroAhoy. Patreon: patreon.com/ahoy Introduction The Dawn of 16-Bit Computing Multimedia Powerhouse Early Amiga Music Software SoundMonitor The Ultimate Soundtracker ST-01 Samples Soundtracker’s Commercial Fate The Demoscene Early Soundtracker Clones Noisetracker Tracker Musicians Doskpop Chiptunes Protracker MED / OctaMED Trackers in the Mainstream Later Amiga Trackers PC Audio MIDI Soundcards Screamtracker Second Reality FastTracker Impulse Tracker The Advent of CD-ROM Epic MegaGames Contemporary Trackers The Sound of 16-Bit Finding Out More Credits Music featured: Kenet & Rez - Unreal Super Hero 3 Walkman - Let's Hear My Baby Bill Williams - Alley Cat Macintosh Startup Chime Stuntcopter Gameplay Audio David Whittaker - Speedball (Atari ST) POW - Wonderful Life Fred / La Marque Jaune - The Sign Of The Death Deluxe Music Construction Set - Bach Fugue in G Minor Chris Huelsbeck - Shades Karsten Obarski - Amegas Karsten Obarski - Crystal Hammer Comrade J - Fairlight Mahoney - Ghost Horace Wimp - Running Water Karsten Obarski - Telephone Diz - Unit 5 Uncle Tom - Occ San Geen Banana - Echoing Luxor - Cousin's Song Chip - Ghost of Parallax Mahoney - Sleepwalk Dr. Awesome - Moongazer Jesper Kyd - Global Trash 3 v2 Jogeir Liljedahl - Overture Jester - Stardust Memories Lizardking - LK's Doskpop Mel O Dee - Scales of Joy 4mat - L.F.F. 4mat - Anarchy Menu 1 Zap - Killing Denise Brian Johnston - Hired Guns Main Theme U4ia - Take a Trip From Me Captain - Space Debris Zak McKraken (PC Speaker Theme) George Stone - CANYON.MID Purple Motion - Future Brain Necros - Point of Depature Purple Motion - Unreal ][ Elwood - Dead Lock Chris Jarvis/Analogue - Blue Flame Robyn Miller - Myst Theme Robert A. Allen - Epic Pinball (Title) Alexander Brandon - Flight Castle Michael van den Bos - Foregone Destruction Fluidvolt - The Gusts of Aeolus X-Ceed/Scope - Voyager Hoffman - EonWhy it's here
7 people recommend this, 1 disputes itWhat people say. Highly recommended as an exceptionally well-produced documentary on the history and culture of tracker music and the demoscene.
el_nahualon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Chiptune.app”
I'm old enough to remember playing games with chiptunes, but young enough to not have known what a tracker was. This YouTube video (from the amazing Ahoy channel) is an incredible, in-depth overview of trackers, their sound and history: link to this video
bmn__on Hacker News • Recommends
On “Space Debris is an Amiga mod I composed back in 1991”
> just the coolest format in music ever Historic retrospective: Ahoy - "Trackers: The Sound of 16-Bit" link to this video
mrpf1steron Hacker News • Recommends
On “‘It was the poor man’s studio’: how Amiga computers reprogrammed modern music”
If your interested, Ahoy made a very good Youtube documentary on the rise of trackers and their impact on music: link to this video
b0afc375b5on Hacker News • Recommends
On “MusicLM: Generating Music from Text”
link to this video I think this showed up on my recommendation. I didn't know anything about tracker music, but this video explains it chronologically and very well.
alyssaxuuon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Memoirs from the old web: The KEYGEN element”
Ha, I had the same thought. I recently watched this video which you might find interesting (mostly re: demoscene): link to this video
gcron Hacker News • Recommends
On “MilkyTracker 1.04”
The original was “Ultimate Soundtracker,” and it was so influential that derivatives often named themselves ___tracker (noisetracker, screamtracker, impulsetracker) Ahoy on YouTube has a great video about tracker music, link to this video
ant6non Hacker News • Recommends
On “Amiga Samplers: Budget dance music in 1990”
Also shout-out to Retro Ahoy´s awesome documentary on trackers, which covers the amiga quite a bit as well: link to this video
nyanpasu64on Hacker News • Disputes
On “Trackers: The Sound of 16-Bit [video]”
Corrections on "MIDI Soundcards" ( link to this video ): re. "their instrument banks were effectively hard-coded", the Creative Music System was a PSG-like chip with only square waves and no sample ROM at all, the AdLib was a FM synthesizer with no ROM banks either (though some MIDI banks which sounded nothing like sample-based MIDI players like the SC-55), and the GUS had a mix of ROM and RAM (and I don't think it targeted General MIDI either). I don't see any reason why any of these chips would be incompatible with trackers, and I do know the AdLib had multiple trackers historically and today (Reality Adlib Tracker, Adlib Tracker II, ScreamTracker 3, and more recently OpenMPT), though I think "feedin…
ckozlowskion Hacker News • Mentions
On “Ask HN: What weird technical scene are you fond/part of?”
The channel Ahoy on YouTube dove into Tracker music, and has a few callouts on how this materialized in the Warez scene. link to this video
ValentinPearceon Hacker News • Mentions
On “MilkyTracker 1.04”
I think Ahoy answers the question in this video 1. I'm not sure and I'm watching it again to check EDIT : Wikipedia says the first one was called Ultimate Soundtracker so probably from that 1 Trackers: The Sound of 16-Bit : link to this video
lock1on Hacker News • Mentions
On “Online Collection of Keygen Music”
Tracker music? Pretty sure communities that develop those tools and use them to create music still exist. Relevant link: Ahoy - Trackers: The Sound of 16-Bit - link to this video
matheusmoreiraon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer”
Apparently this happens every time. A sample disk included with tracker software was used in hundreds if not thousands of modules and pretty much defined the sound of the Amiga. link to this video Few program synthesizers. Most just use presets. Infinite freedom is paralyzing. Building blocks are comfortable.
steve1977on Hacker News • Mentions
On “PC processors entered the Gigahertz era today in the year 2000 with AMD's Athlon”
Well know that you mention that, my very first steps actually were with Soundmonitor on a C64, one of the OG trackers probably (even though not called tracker yet IIRC). I kind of forgot about that, as that was still very amateurish (I mean what I made with it, not the software). link Or also at link to this video in the video already linked below. And yes, I had to type in that listing.