Keep On Trackin' - Amiga Music MODs - Exploring their Journey

[@mnemo70]

Hi, this is MnemoTroN, author of SoundTracker 2.3 - 2.6. V2.3 actually was the first SoundTracker to feature 31 instrument, but the change wasn't done by me, but by Unknown/D.O.C. He gave me the source code at CeBIT and when we met again way later he said that I wasn't supposed to release it, but I really cannot remember him saying that before. Anyway, the cat with 31 instruments was out of the bag by then. And yes, "M.K." were his initials and used to identify the 31 instrument songs.

[@RobSmithDev]

Absolute legend! Thanks for that, it solves a mystery I couldn’t figure out! I’d imagine it was a crazy time back then! Wow!

[@d_vibe-swe]

I think that after Noisetracker modules are tagged with M!K! instead? Might be my memory that fails though :D

[@philedney5381]

Thanks for your work b 👍

[@Ray.Norrish]

@mnemo70 thanks for your participation. I think I must have used every tracker that was ever made back in the day - getting a new version seemed to be every week! Always eagerly awaiting new features and usabilty. Amazing how we put up with pre-module versions with all the ridiculous UI and instability. I remember having to substitute my own samples with the hard-coded names!

[@xsm5525]

the Amiga tracker scene is very much still alive thanks to PT1210 (the mod DJing software), competitions for 4 channel tracker mods that still run & also, 8bitbubsy's new protracker for Amiga as well as the PC clone. OctaMED is also still used by many replicating the 1990s rave/hardcore/jungle scenes. Amiga trackers will never die! PS nice mini doc though, enjoyed it.

[@RobSmithDev]

Thanks - enjoyed making it! I’ll have to look up PT1210!

[@d_vibe-swe]

It's not thanks to pt1210 it's still alive although it has boosted some more life to it recently. The demoscene still uses Protracker although some bigger more memory consuming Amiga demos uses streaming music instead (like PC demos do). Often adpcm instead of mp3 or ogg is used though, since it's less cpu intensive.

[@MaverickM1]

The best era of computer industry. The miggy demo scene. Killed by companies with endless money hunger. And so now we are using computers with 6-12 cores of 4+ ghz cpus supported with 32+ gb of ram and we are waiting 30 sec for a code diff in sourcetree. What a fuckin’ shame! Switching on my 1260 miggy (or even my X5000) teleporting me back to the world where we are the USER and not being used by some os..

[@elerian9702]

Too much use of bloated high-level languages to create modern programs, even if you have powerful hardware, the extra unnecessary code will start to add up and increase latencies of everything. Unlike on early computers, programmers are not forced to code effectively today because of computational resources being so plentiful now even on laptops and phones.

[@wskinnyodden]

Musical Sheet (Aka MIDI files) + Digital Samples = Digital Sample based Synthetiser, something years ahead of everything else in the market, even when we cover what the music synth industry was doing at the time. I had to wait for the AWE32 to have something along these lines but much improved upon. I loved to have it's DSP playing MODs in the background using it's own Audio Processing DSP and dedicated RAM barely using any other computer resources. Many a mod kept me company while learning to program on my own thanks to this lovely feature set of the AWE32 and tech. with Amiga roots :)

[@wskinnyodden]

hahahaha, wrote this before the end only to find out you too did this ahhahaha

[@TheDplo]

Sweet memories... Remember the shift from chiptune to soundtrack modules was amazing!

[@ChantingInTheDark]

NoiseTracker was what made me buy an Amiga 500. I miss those days.

[@RobSmithDev]

Nothing stopping you getting back into it!

[@ChantingInTheDark]

@@RobSmithDev - I've played with Renoise a little, and before that Propellerheads Reason, I meant more the time I had on my hands!

[@RobSmithDev]

Lol I know the feeling

[@waynenewark5363]

"Take a trip from me" I have loved this mod ever since I heard it on the coverdisk.

[@RobSmithDev]

Yeah me too

[@mnemo70]

I'm mentioned in the greetings in that mod, btw. ;-) U4ia even named the mod "mnemo's night out" after me. That's when we were all hanging out in #amiga on IRC in the beginning of the 90's.

[@bazza5699]

bring back great memories of using soundtracker 2 back in 89/90/91 amiga heyday..

[@RobSmithDev]

Sure was a great time

[@8bitbubsy]

E8x is in fact used in ProTracker (but not the bundled replayer code), and it's a "Karplus-Strong" effect which runs a delta filter pass on the sample loop. The longer it runs, the more filtered the sound gets. This permanently modifies the sample data, just like EFx. And speaking of EFx, it works just fine. You need to set a value higher than EF0, then trigger a looped sample, preferably a chiptune-styled waveform. Great video btw!

[@RobSmithDev]

Wow interesting. I could. Are the EFx do something and I knew it was for small chip samples but I couldn’t describe what it was doing. Don’t like the idea of it modifying the sample though. As for E8x, interesting, hadn’t seen that documented. I did see somewhere a variant of effect 8 with panning again but this is interesting. Thanks for sharing!

[@RetroAlly]

This is the most informative tracker video I've seen, but I do have one comment to mention tho: "Trem-el-oh" (say it quick!)

[@RobSmithDev]

😀 lol - i don’t actually think I’ve ever heard anyone actually say it

[@RetroAlly]

understandable! - especially in these days. As for the rest of the vid, it is great tho, best instructional one I've seen yet!

[@RobSmithDev]

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it

[@SEGAClownboss]

Thank you for demonstrating every single one of the effects - this is a great reference.

[@jimmihenry]

18:56 yes i did that too, just plying the mods while doing stuff... I used Star Trakker on a very hard to find compilation disk named "Vouge Compackt Disk". Many of my disks do not work or have issues, however the personal stuff is stored thanks to your Arduino Floppy Disk Reader, and i red i can't be done! 🤣

[@RobSmithDev]

I wonder how many others also had a disk full of Mods for background listening. Maybe then it’s more common than I thought. If you have that ‘hard to find compilation disk’ why not upload it somewhere for preservation? Glad you managed to store all of your personal files - I never realised how useful that project was going to be when I started it.

[@jimmihenry]

​@@RobSmithDev The disk i mentioned is the "Vogue-TrackerCompilation" dated April 1991. Content are Star Tracker, Niosetracker, Moduleplayer, Cruncher, Ripper... etc. And i have no idea where or how to upload this disk anonymously. I am sure there is a copy somewhere in depths of the internet waiting to be found...

[@RobSmithDev]

😀 hope so - preserving this stuff is so important

[@Amigowiec]

Thanks for a very interesting video ... I remember as a kid discovering music making, I came across the Stratrekker program and it was my first tracker (one with eyes following the mouse). I personally love Protracker and Digibooster and use them to this day.

[@RobSmithDev]

Never used that tracker but heard of it. I wished I had a musical talent but instead I just ended up listening to everyone else’s creations!

[@RaccoonEatingCacti]

Thank you for the breakdown of the file structure. This was very helpful. I am trying to extract note data from a mod file with a script and this pretty much answered all my questions!

[@RobSmithDev]

Glad you found it useful :)

[@yogibear2k220]

I had am Amiga back in the day and was always frustrated at the 4 channel audio. The quality of the samples were amazing at the time but the 4 channels was so limiting. At the time I thought it was OK, but then you had a computer like the Archimedes which came out roughly the same time and that had 8 channel stereo sound and blew the Amiga out of the water. I wish I knew that at the time I would of definitely got and Archimedes. Now I use OpenMPT for anything tracker as I can have upto 256 channels in that! Ahhhh the wonders of modern technology! Still good video, Rob.

[@RobSmithDev]

The Archimedes, I think it was slightly later on and I think because schools started using them they got overlooked, from what I understand were very powerful (again for their time). OpenMPT is great - I use it although I can’t make any music - I guess it’s just not a skill I have. Glad you enjoyed the video

[@elerian9702]

I think 4 channel MODs were pretty amazing and with OctaMED you could have 8 channels on Amiga. One of the driving forces behind demos and tracking was how effective trackers were. Just few years later you could get PC and trackers with 16 - 32 channels. Archimedes wasn't a consumer computer and therefore there were probably no trackers made for it. At least I never heard of any.

[@Nebulous6]

The Amiga was quite a bit earlier (1985). The hardware was already demonstrated at the summer 1984 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). You can modulate one channel with another to up the resolution to 14-bit, putting it into the range of the original Ensoniq EPS. The last point is that the Amiga's audio has its own DMA and can run as a state machine (running loops without bothering the CPU and even do wavetable synthesis). That's on top of the recent optimization techniques to allow for 8 channels in-game with very little CPU overhead.

[@mkiemkie]

Thanks for this very informative Video! The explanation of the effects and the file format alone is worth watching this video.

[@RobSmithDev]

Glad it was helpful!

[@mkiemkie]

@@RobSmithDev Oh yes, it was! Especially the info about the file format. This is not so easy to find (at least I had some trouble finding something).

[@tlhIngan]

Takes me back... to when a friend showed me Soundtrecker on the Mac back in the early 90s - (it was from a German author). I don't think it ever allowed you to write your own MODs though. Of course, then you had PlayerPRO for Mac that was basically the tracker to use - being fully graphical and all that, which also had a self-playing application you could use. Of course, I didn't try it on a PC until much later because I never had a PC with a proper Sound Blaster in it (at least, the one I had that did was used by everyone else in my family, so I was limited to what I could get for a laptop). So I never did much with ImpulseTracker or ScreamTracker, though Windows had the excellent MOD4WIN program. Those were the days of cleaning out your hard drive to make room for when your favorite BBS got more MODs on it.

[@RobSmithDev]

Ah yes I remember MOD4WIN and MODPLUG! good times :)

[@gamedoutgamer]

This was great! Thank you for sharing your knowledge and putting this together. The first music tracker might be AMS by Lee Actor on the Atari 800 from 1981. It didn't use samples, nor effects but did use patterns and repeated them as described in your video. There are lots of great tunes in AMS.

[@RobSmithDev]

Cool - interesting - didn’t know about AMS! Glad you enjoyed the video

[@Foebane72]

I should point out that the Cracking scene came BEFORE the Demoscene proper.

[@RobSmithDev]

Lol yeah but it’s easier to explain

[@RetroGamingMusicCom]

What an awesome documentary. 👌

[@RobSmithDev]

Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed it

[@-IFFTI-]

A small correction: Amigas have a switchable low-pass filter (not high-pass, as it is in the video) with a cut-off frequency, depending on the model, between 3 and 5 kHz. When it is on, the sound is muffled, with no high frequencies. It is the E0x command that is responsible for its operation on/off. :)

[@RobSmithDev]

It’s weird when I was writing it up and was getting it all mixed up in my head lol thanks - makes sense as it passes the lower frequencies

[@bbtund81]

Nice! I used OpenMPT to make my own tracker modules, and posted it on the battle website! Thanks to the long lost creator Oliver and Recent creator Saga for making this software for Windows to keep the tracker scene alive! Keep on tracking!

[@paumic6366]

very informative video, thank you!!

[@IvanRodriguez-C]

I love this channel!

[@RobSmithDev]

Thank you

[@ParadiseDecay]

Nice one Rob

[@RobSmithDev]

Thanks!

[@benjaminnice]

Fantastic video mate

[@RobSmithDev]

Thank you

[@borislab8153]

Thank You Rob! Really nice Video! I spent days experimenting with the trackers back in the days. Finally I turned to Pro24, a Sequencer used to control external synthesizers 😃 This was really future back then... :)

[@RobSmithDev]

I Keep hearing about so many other interesting tools and programs! This included! Thanks for sharing. Glad you liked the video

[@leeselectronicwidgets]

Great video Rob, thanks for that. I used to create some music back in the day on Aegis Sonix, before moving onto soundtracker and protracker. Sadly none of my original floppies were kept. I did however find an adf image of one of my "album" releases on the net. Some of the mod files were standalone executables. I managed to unpack them with powerpacker but I still need to figure out extracting them back to normal mods. Thanks for reminding me!

[@RobSmithDev]

Glad you enjoyed the video.

[@robogod3000]

AMIGA F O R E V E R 💾

[@Flashback-Gamer]

Where was this video 30 years ago? fantastic insight to under the hood of the trackers series over the years and really learned a lot, I used Pro-tracker and Noise Tracker back in the day and this video would have been a godsend if it existed back then. It would have reduced a lot of headaches on what worked and made life easier using them. Kudos mate!!

[@RobSmithDev]

Thanks - it’s amazing just how many people used or just played around with these programs. I guess remembering all the commands was a pain lol thanks for watching!

[@Flashback-Gamer]

@@RobSmithDev no..thank you and gained a new sub ;)

[@pilleater]

Fantastic!

[@RobSmithDev]

Thank you

[@jeromnicoara]

Just subscribed. Looking forward to seeing the OctaMED video too :D Keep it up!

[@RobSmithDev]

Haha thanks, I’ll try!

[@geehaf]

As ever Rob - great video and for somebody like me who has always loved the Amiga / Chip tune genre, it now makes so much more sense how these pieces were created. Cheers.

[@RobSmithDev]

Thanks, i’m glad you enjoyed it! It was a lot of fun and really interesting making it too

[@JMDAmigaMusic]

Would be nice to dedicate an episode to the trackers that did not made it: soundFX, future sound, oktalyzer, Soundtracker Pro and the others

[@RobSmithDev]

I’ve only heard of one of them! I suspect there’s a lot more. Hmmm

[@ToniKoo]

Great vid! However, correction coming up: Powerpacked modules were possible to load into Protracker way before v3.0. I never used anything above 2.3d and packed all the mods I wanted to have on my HDD. There was an option to pack them when saving in Protracker. Probably a lot earlier than 2.3d too.

[@RobSmithDev]

Fair enough - there’s always something new to learn!

[@piyushkhengar]

This was awesome, Rob! I always wondered why there were so many different tracker programs that mostly looked the same as each other, and did the same job. Now I know - thank you!

[@RobSmithDev]

Thanks - I really enjoyed putting this video together and I’m glad you enjoyed it too.

[@piyushkhengar]

@@RobSmithDev And, I just signed up to be a Patreon (first time for me) because of it!

[@RobSmithDev]

Thanks, much appreciated!

[@trevor_mounts_music]

I'm on milkytracker and renoise on the daily. TRACKER GANG 4 LYFE 😤

[@rc55uk]

Another fantastic video, Rob!

[@RobSmithDev]

Thank you!

[@bengineer_the]

Ooh.. in case you haven't played with one, Polyend make a hardware tracker, the Polyend Tracker. (I'm using one to drive a modular rig, proper fun!)

[@RobSmithDev]

Yeah I got to see one a few weeks back, they’re pretty cool!

[@bengineer_the]

@@RobSmithDev Enjoy! :D

[@DanWills]

This is bloody brilliant! I learned a lot about earlier trackers - my experience started on PC at ScreamTracker then Impulse and finally the astounding Jeskola Buzz (speaking of which, why didn't Buzz get a mention in the future-trackers section?) All good though, great watch, awesome work RobSmith! (btw I'm making a tool to 'import' modules into SideFX Houdini using OpenMPT in such a way that the details of their playback can be visualised (however you please)! early results on my channel - maybe we could collaborate?)

[@RobSmithDev]

Interesting, I haven’t come across Buzz before I’ll have to check it out. If you have an idea for collaboration please message me on my discord server or contact me from my website!

[@DanWills]

@@RobSmithDev yeah awesome! I think Jeskola Buzz is definitely worth taking a look at, I watched this the other day and learnt heaps myself that I didn't previously know was possible: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nX3aiICcf7GLma8 But back to 'classic' tracker music (which I can tell you're quite into! ;) ), I think we could potentially develop some interesting new visualizations for cool old mods to go alongside the tracker-UI screen-capture (which I definitely think is still 100% valid and awesome) but there might be some fun additional things we could look into to kinda analyze the track playback and make stats or just cool note/effect visualizations? I'll look up your website and drop you a message (I'm not on discord I'm afraid.)

[@green-lean-espeon]

I don't think I can use any of these old trackers, to be honest, as their menus are very hard to navigate by modern standards. I am glad modern alternatives like Furnace Tracker exist though, because it has the modern easy menu I am familiar with navigating in. Furnace is an awesome tracker that introduced me to the wonderful world of music trackers!

[@RobSmithDev]

Protracker and OctoMED aren’t too bad, but especially for convenience the more modern ones are easier I agree

[@green-lean-espeon]

@@RobSmithDev In all honesty, I am just glad to be exposed and introduced to music trackers. Ever since trackers came into my life, I find it so much easier to use to make music compared to something like MIDI.

[@RobSmithDev]

Certantly easier for someone like me who can't read sheet music! (although I could never manage to put anything together than didnt offend my ears lol)

[@NightSprinter]

I did enjoy this journey quite a lot! Am looking forward to the last few pieces needed to get a late friend's A1200 up and running from Irish Post to the States. Plus I have an Amiga MIDI interface and some synths in FL I want to grab from my old place, and get a parallel port sampler to record custom synth patches. I think between that, and learning how to make art in something like DPaint or Brilliance 2, I'm going to be quite busy with more than just gaming on the A1200.

[@RobSmithDev]

I'm sure you'll have lots of enjoyment from the A1200, fantastic machine! Thanks for watching

[@zero0ryn]

Elwood rocks :)

[@RobSmithDev]

He does indeed!

[@howardjohnprice]

Nice video thanks. It would have been interesting to hear which was the first tracker and player to support effects. I know mod.amegas does not use any effects whatsoever so I assume the Ultimate Soundtracker or the player used in the game didn't support them. Unless the composer just chose not to use them. It would also be interesting to hear about The Player (P61A) compressed mod format and when that came into use.

[@RobSmithDev]

Hi, from what I can tell, no music ever used the original commands. (See eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=91735) P61 format was about optimising the content, trimming samples of leading/trailing silence, removing unused patterns and storing them in a more packed format. It’s slightly outside the scope of this video but an interesting format

[@howardjohnprice]

@@RobSmithDev Thanks. I wasn't aware of this earlier set of effects!

[@dreamrider7128]

Man I'm so in love with music trackers, it's a shame that I got like 0 musical aptitude (well not actually 0, I used to play guitar when I was in 7th-9th grade, but never got really good and wasn't patient enough to practice my basics)... I can grab some music theory basics without much problem, already toyed around a bit with milkytracker and famitracker my only pain points would be: 1. Percussions, literally I got no clue nor pointers on how to do ok percussions 2. Writing music itself. At least for now I'm here mirin'

[@RobSmithDev]

I wish I could make music, I know what sounds good and I know what I like but that doesn’t translate into making anything myself sound good lol, never mind and good luck

[@kenflagg]

This is awesome! And I have a question that probably only you can answer. Back in, like, 1988, I got an Amiga 2000. And the store I got it from, an actual dedicated Amiga store called Amigo Computers, had a machine with a tracker on it. This tracker, I think, had French text, and exported packed MODs that were standalone executables. I have not been able to find anyone who knows which tracker it was. I remember the interface being similar to Ultimate Sound Tracker, in terms of the gold hue. Is it possible that there was a version for the French market that somehow made it over to the US? Or am I thinking of a different tracker?

[@RobSmithDev]

I didn’t come across any French versions while I researched all of this. But it wouldn’t surprise me given the way it was hacked by so many people.

[@lubbockleft]

Very well done!

[@wskinnyodden]

Hah. I remember a module that was designed to play the patterns in reverse. It looked weird as crap to look at the patterns scrolling down instead of up.

[@RobSmithDev]

Weird I’d like to see that. I’m guessing the effect commands must have been crazy!

[@wskinnyodden]

@@CerealKiller Possible, don't remember the name, it was wayyy too long ago and, worse, I've lost my original mod collection so yeah, can't really track it.

[@wskinnyodden]

@@CerealKiller Well, I've just Googled that reference and nope. Not the right tune, and trust me when I say you only have a very small section at the start going forward, after that it's a full reverse hehe

[@saulmighty]

I remember that one too! I tried to find it in my mod archives but couldn't... My friend Bugg / Puavohard actually made his own mod player as well and I remember telling him that it was the only one that didn't work!😅

[@Hash_Boy]

dope, many thanks

[@Serpentiis]

Nice vid. First Soundtracker i got in early 1988, i had to load the samples from ST-01 (but already some samples wene name like ST-96 of something so i couldn't load them) i think the last name in info box was Unkown/DOC, it was 2.3 something. Later got (Startrekker) Noisetracker and Protracker. Never had MED sadly. -serpent

[@RobSmithDev]

Awesome times - still making music?

[@brynjarborgersen8131]

Sorry for necromancing this video. But I just discovered it and wanted to say a word or three bout trackers ;) My favourite by far is ProTracker 1.1b, hands down. With 2.3 in 2nd. Not dizzing on the 3.x ProTrackers, they are wonderful programmes in their own right, I just can't figure my way around with them (and I have tried, OH MY WORD have I tried). I have to say, given the choice between a limited 4chan 31 sample Tracker and a modern "however many you want of either and I'll make everything surround sound for you at no extra cost" trackers ..... I like the challenge of creating a listenable tune on the Amiga. The challenge of making something that will turn peoples' heads, is greater on the Amiga than with modern Trackers and computers..... And thus also the greater satisfaction when people go "how the actual did you do that on that piece of antiquated computer?" when they hear what the Amiga can do in the hands of an ejeet like me...... In the hands of a a genious it will be chart topping

[@GiabsCauws]

ah man, i still use openmpt, its so good

[@Serpentiis]

And yeah Cybernetix music was soooo good (and still is) think it was in finnish megademo (Freedom Force) before the game but not sure, author was from New Zealand iirc.

[@ejonesss]

actually complex med music could be used in games but due to the cpu demands it could be used where the user was locked out similar to what is done with today's dvd and blurays. have you ever noticed when watching a dvd you cant skip the copyright notices and even some of the previews and studio logo animations? same here there can be a part of the game like the installer or the copyright screen.

[@createprince2093]

this video is excellent!

[@RobSmithDev]

Thank you

[@thiesenf]

FL Studio is derived from the Amiga...

[@d_vibe-swe]

EF works but it's destructive to the samples, so save the tune before using it and don't save it after using it ;). Works best with short loops. It might be that newer versions of Protracker has inactivated the effect though.

[@RobSmithDev]

Could be - it doesn’t seem to be well supported or much used

[@d_vibe-swe]

@@RobSmithDev I've never used it myself for any release module :)

[@Sodaholic6502]

Hi. I've been looking everywhere for "Covertune". I finally found a disk image of the cover disks it came on, but either it's corrupted or I suck at using the Amiga. The version of OctoMED it comes with crashes upon startup and the demo tunes folder is missing. Do you mind sharing it? It's an awesome module tune and I'd love to add it to my collection. Oh, and very informative and well presented video! Kudos

[@RobSmithDev]

Sure, contact me on discord or via my website

[@Sodaholic6502]

@@RobSmithDev Thanks, dude!

[@MrSnille]

Honorable mention here: Musicline Editor, it pushes the limits in every way on the Amiga. listen here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fWKUeHadqciHiZo

[@RobSmithDev]

Yeah I haven’t heard of that one before. I suspect at the stage when this came out people were using Octamed for anything with more than 4 channels, or migrated to another platform

[@MrSnille]

@@RobSmithDev Yes, and it's a bit "technical" to use. But it mixes real time effects, chip sounds and sampels like never seen... And you can add more channels if your Amiga is fast (020+)...

[@bazza5699]

i smell a similar history of xcopy on the horizon.. lol

[@RobSmithDev]

Oooh, that's an interesting idea!

[@pete3300]

@@RobSmithDev pretty sure it's been covered before. Now if I wasn't lazy I'd do a deep dive and find it but I'd love to see Rob's take on it, so I wont. Great video looking forward to your next one.

[@coolie4u]

Yes, please do xcopy and such copiers episode ❤

[@neilfarr5727]

If you can't dig out your emulator or hardware, there is a cool little online tracker (based upon Amiga Future Tracker) here... www.neoartcr.com/neoart/futurecomposer/index.htm if you want to play along with Rob's explanation

[@RobSmithDev]

It’s good, but Bassoon Tracker is much nicer www.stef.be/bassoontracker/

[@bjornbreuer3912]

What is the program in 2:19?

[@RobSmithDev]

It’s called Deluxe Music Construction Set

[@adrianhendy]

How can you not have mentioned the C-64. SID chip was what made the Amiga what it was....

[@RobSmithDev]

It was mentioned, right at the start!

[@adrianhendy]

@RobSmithDev not like the ST or the MSX!

[@jj_and_the_jaysjays6316]

Vee-Bra-Toe

[@RobSmithDev]

vuh-braa-tow