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Amiga Music Preservation

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Re: Amiga Music Preservation

#21

highly recommend the works of radix, especially FIRE&ICE2

radix is one my favorite artists, “tpolmgirl” and “ma petite fleur” are also great. The first was actually played during the art scene part of the BBS documentary which is where I first heard it.

Re: Amiga Music Preservation

#22
post #4

As someone who was involved in the Amiga scene I know how all this stuff works. Without that knowledge the site is very hard to use. It wouldn't be difficult to make an MP3 version of this site with an embedded player but I think the hosting costs might be difficult to pay for.

There are inbrowser tracker file players, esp with Wasm rendering could be done client side. That said, with super low bitrate codecs from Xiph it might be much much simpler to encode once and ship the compressed song. Sending the tracker files means that it can be much easier to visualize and slow down playback.

I found a few great JS-based trackers (and successfully tried a few mod files):

https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=demomods%2Fspacedeb...

https://mod.haxor.fi/Groo/mod.electrification (many songs available in the 'load' interface)

I also did find a wrapper around an emscripten-JS'ified version of libopenmpt (a popular MOD player library..?):

https://github.com/deskjet/chiptune2.js/

Re: Amiga Music Preservation

#23
post #15

For the folks that want to make music in that amiga tracker style- check out the Polyend Tracker. It’s a usb(a phone charger battery will run this thing for hours) powered self contained groovebox/synth/sampler with an 8 track tracker style sequencer. I just got mine a week ago and it’s already one of my favorite pieces of kit. I can go outside, lay in bed/on the couch and make music that I would have to be at a desk…

Main product URL: https://polyend.com/tracker/ (it's out of stock directly from Polyend, but check with music stores, local and otherwise) Just got one too and still learning about it (and really really like it). Have you seen this great video? It's a good high level tutorial of most features (it's a tiny bit dated when compared to the latest firmware, but it's still mostly the same UI) https://www.youtube.com/watch?…

The Loopop video definitely had me interested at the time but I think I kind of just got busy and forgot about it. Then happened to have a conversation with one of the guys at Sound on sound and he sold me on it. Right now there is great kit out there for samplers. Also check out the Isla s2400 if a more 1980s sp-12/1200 workflow interests you. Both are essential gear for me now.

Re: Amiga Music Preservation

#24
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Main product URL: https://polyend.com/tracker/ (it's out of stock directly from Polyend, but check with music stores, local and otherwise) Just got one too and still learning about it (and really really like it). Have you seen this great video? It's a good high level tutorial of most features (it's a tiny bit dated when compared to the latest firmware, but it's still mostly the same UI) https://www.youtube.com/watch?…

The Loopop video definitely had me interested at the time but I think I kind of just got busy and forgot about it. Then happened to have a conversation with one of the guys at Sound on sound and he sold me on it. Right now there is great kit out there for samplers. Also check out the Isla s2400 if a more 1980s sp-12/1200 workflow interests you. Both are essential gear for me now.

Thanks for pointing me to the Isla S2400! Just wanted to make sure, when you say "Right now there is great kit out there for samplers", I'm not sure what you mean? Are you referring to the Tracker, the S2400, or something else?

Re: Amiga Music Preservation

#25
post #4

As someone who was involved in the Amiga scene I know how all this stuff works. Without that knowledge the site is very hard to use. It wouldn't be difficult to make an MP3 version of this site with an embedded player but I think the hosting costs might be difficult to pay for.

There are inbrowser tracker file players, esp with Wasm rendering could be done client side. That said, with super low bitrate codecs from Xiph it might be much much simpler to encode once and ship the compressed song. Sending the tracker files means that it can be much easier to visualize and slow down playback.

Here’s mine: https://mmontag.github.io/chip-player-js/browse

Re: Amiga Music Preservation

#26

As someone who was involved in the Amiga scene I know how all this stuff works. Without that knowledge the site is very hard to use. It wouldn't be difficult to make an MP3 version of this site with an embedded player but I think the hosting costs might be difficult to pay for.

For anyone that just wants to listen to the music in the collection I recommend installing the iOS app 4champ https://4champ.net/ https://apps.apple.com/app/4champ/id578311010 And going to radio mode and toggling it to Radio ON. This immediately starts streaming music from Amiga Music Preservation and playing it. The iOS app also runs on macOS, although its UI is not ideal for use on a computer as it is more geared t…

No android program?

Re: Amiga Music Preservation

#27
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Loopop video definitely had me interested at the time but I think I kind of just got busy and forgot about it. Then happened to have a conversation with one of the guys at Sound on sound and he sold me on it. Right now there is great kit out there for samplers. Also check out the Isla s2400 if a more 1980s sp-12/1200 workflow interests you. Both are essential gear for me now.

Thanks for pointing me to the Isla S2400! Just wanted to make sure, when you say "Right now there is great kit out there for samplers", I'm not sure what you mean? Are you referring to the Tracker, the S2400, or something else?

Both the Tracker and the 2400. :) They do things differently, but each is great and produce results that the other would not.

And honestly the new MPCs are pretty good too, just not my preferred way of working.

Re: Amiga Music Preservation

#28
post #13

Here are some recommendations for those on HN new to the tracker scene: Jester - Elysium Jester - Stardust Memories Tip and Firefox - Enigma Greg - Odyssey Pt. 2 Firefox - Galaxy 2 Mantronix - Act Of Impulse Dr. Awesome - 12th Warrior NHP + BKH - Enigma Year Captain - Space Debris Captain - Beyond Music Uncle Tom - Occ-San-Geen Romeo Knight - Beat To The Pulp What a crazy and beautiful era for creativity! A German, S…

Here's a playlist with all of these songs! Thanks for the great recommendations https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnRRE4-idfADx_BgudiHYizK7...

My pleasure! Let me know which one is your favorite :)

Re: Amiga Music Preservation

#30
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MOD trackers worked fine on 8MHz systems, there is no need for WASM here. https://warpdesign.github.io/modplayer-js/

A properly written WASM MOD player could probably be a lot nicer on the battery than one implemented in JS. Then again, JS does have some quite advanced audio specific APIs available in browsers these days. So profiling would be necessary in order to tell if a good implementation in WASM beats a good implementation in JS on power consumption.

I was thinking more like your could run a m68k emulator in Wasm to run the original Amiga tracking software so it would sound just like the machine it was written on.
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