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My only quibble is he left out how trackers are what basically led to the invention of jungle, trance, and hardcore
Citation needed for trance? Trance has long pads, the supersaw, not sure how you do those on a tracker.
In my younger days, I used to spend hours and hours playing with trackers on the Commodore Amiga. Over the years, I've always toyed with the idea of firing one up again but the one thing that's keeping me from doing that is the lack of sample banks. Admittedly, I've never spent too much time looking into it, so I might be wrong (I actually kind of hope it), but it seems to me that getting hold of a tracker program is…
In my younger days, I used to spend hours and hours playing with trackers on the Commodore Amiga. Over the years, I've always toyed with the idea of firing one up again but the one thing that's keeping me from doing that is the lack of sample banks. Admittedly, I've never spent too much time looking into it, so I might be wrong (I actually kind of hope it), but it seems to me that getting hold of a tracker program is…
Isn't Ableton Live what trackers grew up to be as an adult?
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 "feeding MIDIs through per-game custom soundbanks" was more common in video games, and AFAIK the GUS had more MIDI-based composing tools than trackers. Note that I don't know much about the CMS and GUS, and I have more experience with how Adlib music is composed/played today than in the 1990s.
Modern production tools have mostly settled on the combination of pianoroll, automation curves, and visual placement of samples on the project timeline. That's great for some types of music, but becomes really awkward in other cases. As a basic example, making a breakbeat sequence makes pretty much no sense with the above interface, but is perfectly represented by the "series of commands" approach of a tracker. I frequently go back to Buzz for that kind of thing (and was happy to see it mentioned in the video).
My only quibble is he left out how trackers are what basically led to the invention of jungle, trance, and hardcore
Citation needed for trance? Trance has long pads, the supersaw, not sure how you do those on a tracker.
2nd we need to establish what tracker music sounds like - especially how it's limited.
Here's a 1991 trance track, Komakino - Frogs In Space (Trance Mix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjFBs_30uKU
Or a 1992 track, Cosmic Baby - Magic Cubes - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMCl9tIfje8
I wasn't in the studio and I don't personally know the artists, but it really sounds like tracker music to me.
Now I know that's probably not convincing enough so let's get into demo disks, such as Breathtaker (1994) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-QUFFcxVjc or Day of Reckoning (1992) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfxDTgK3grg - go to 1:45 to hear those long pads you claim are impossible (they aren't). Or what about Wildfire's demos in 1992? (https://youtube.com/watch?v=0bk-qbbsgog)
And here's what's termed "Tiesto-Style" trance showing the actual tracker. https://youtu.be/6tNizdyx-DE?t=231
Different people used different tools, that's absolutely true. My claim is that trackers played a major role as an instrument in the development of that contemporary style.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Citation needed for trance? Trance has long pads, the supersaw, not sure how you do those on a tracker.
1st we have to establish what we mean by "trance". I'm referring to an era between about 1991-1994. 2nd we need to establish what tracker music sounds like - especially how it's limited. Here's a 1991 trance track, Komakino - Frogs In Space (Trance Mix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjFBs_30uKU Or a 1992 track, Cosmic Baby - Magic Cubes - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMCl9tIfje8 I wasn't in the studio and I don'…
Could those be samples? Sure, but it's much easier to use the real thing than try to record those modulations.
Maybe they also used a tracker on that song.
You know you are epic if you can name the cracked software for each :)
Joking aside, the background speedball music… oh man… good times.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1st we have to establish what we mean by "trance". I'm referring to an era between about 1991-1994. 2nd we need to establish what tracker music sounds like - especially how it's limited. Here's a 1991 trance track, Komakino - Frogs In Space (Trance Mix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjFBs_30uKU Or a 1992 track, Cosmic Baby - Magic Cubes - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMCl9tIfje8 I wasn't in the studio and I don'…
On your first link, the 1991 one, you can hear the very distinctive TB-303. Could those be samples? Sure, but it's much easier to use the real thing than try to record those modulations. Maybe they also used a tracker on that song.
Unless we can track down interviews with the people, I think all we have are educated guesses. It is true to say however, that these days, Amigas sell for thousands of dollars (such as https://ebay.com/itm/224602338650) because modern musicians want to use vintage tracker software in music production.
People are still putting out hardware on it. Here's something from 2020 https://cdm.link/2020/08/amiga-just-got-a-new-open-8-bit-har...