Skaven/Future Crew - The Alchemist

One of my favorites from Skaven/FC - "The Alchemist". Great Impulse Tracker module which I've played back in MilkyTracker because Impulse is running like crap in DOSBox for some reason. It's easier to record in DOSBox due to built-in screen-video-capture functions, but I find it to be not as reliable, unfortunately.
www.futurecrew.org/skaven/
MilkyTracker is a great multi-platform tracker which runs on many platforms. More info at www.milkytracker.net/

[@ProtoFalcon07]

I LOVE the part between 1:06 and 2:38. I love the sounds used in this song! It's so nostalgic, and it reminds me of the "Past" music in Sonic CD. Skaven/Future Crew are awesome!!

[@pheidian707]

Peter always went so much more artistic and "symphony" style in his songs - loving it even though sometimes its just plain weird... Still loving it! He made like movie score level compositions.

[@gorillazzillathemeh5897]

Sounds like something out of a late 80's scifi thriller.

[@TheMuzykant]

Druaga1 played this on that 1 hour video about running Minecraft on an old version of windows!

[@simple5553]

if Peter Hajba aka Skaven will make an official album, may be it will become famous in the electro music.

[@FrostMonolith]

A GEM FINALLY FOUND

[@nicoliedolpot7213]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/d5zTeKN8abtppMU

[@energiavamp]

The entire tune, melody and the chord progression are stunning as anything else by Skaven always. One thing is still very very strange for me: the constant channel switching. I know exactly that there was the prehistoric (and challenging thus chaotic) age when only 4 channel were available, and the musician had to improvising continuously to put new samples into the holes of given patterns for the sake of making the sound of tune much colorful, and we got those typical solutions when a random quick slap bass or a short synth pluck instrument was inserted between e.g. a snare and hihat sample, you know how I mean :D But I never understand the logic behind this composing method, when there are two pattern which is next to each other in every meaning (in timeline, in musical context, both use the same samples, even the hexadecimal ordinal number of patterns are next to each other too) and the drums are placed into the first channel in the first pattern, BUT put into a totally different channel in the next one. Why? :D ..and these channel-swithing samples are do present in the latter multichannel tracks too (mostly in the 8ch .s3m modules) where there is a _little_ possibility to dedicate channels to certain instruments).. Somebody explain this to me please.

[@kokorodokoro]

_when only 4 channel were available, and the musician had to improvising continuously to put new samples into the holes of given patterns for the sake of making the sound of tune much colorful, and we got those typical solutions when a random quick slap bass or a short synth pluck instrument was inserted between e.g. a snare and hihat sample, you know how I mean :D_ I would probably recognize it if I heard it, do you have examples of tracks where this is done?

[@KimStennabbCaesar]

Interesting question.

[@viraxor1903]

It might be done for a certain effect, but it's mostly not caring about it at all.

[@pimpensteinmcchickenlegs6292]

Watching all the notes of those arpeggios trickle along the tracker gets quite scary.... especially when you see notes on the 7th octave. I'm getting the chills just thinking about it.

[@Brorrowind]

+Gimpenstein McChickenLegs (Gimpaloid) Look up black midi, that shit is insane.

[@almayik8232]

Amazing track, it sounds like a Tangerine dream song, just amazing

[@electron8262]

Yes, reminds me of Love on a Real Train

[@direktexe8436]

You know, this could be a custom chiptune for a snes castlevania game. Like a super castlevania IV hack.

[@infrdarkfire]

DiRekt X except it cant because the dude is using 7 channels. SNES I believe only had 4 or 5

[@FizzyMcSoda]

The SNES actually has up to 8 channels.

[@fuchsiebabe]

In theory, the SNES (and especially the NES) could have a lot more than the standard number of channels depending on the enhancement chips used in carts. Often these chips were developed by third parties rather than Nintendo themselves, and usually had very specific jobs for the games which used them. Some games on the NES even used FM synthesis to produce music, only reason you didn't see things like this more frequently is because of the cost vs benefit; these chips weren't cheap. One of the most well-known chips used in NES carts (notably used in Castlevania 3) was the MMC5 ASIC which added a lot of functionality, including 2 extra pulse channels and a PCM channel.

[@64bitmodels66]

@@infrdarkfire it's using 24 channels actually

[@inoyamanaka767]

This Song and World of Plastic are my two most favorite of these guys.

[@ProtoFalcon07]

I read a few months ago on that Skaven said (on his website) some people thought this was a rip-off of a song named "The Sorcerer", which was a product demo made on the Korg Trinity. He said he heard it in 2005, and was shocked when he noticed the similarities between this and the demo, let alone the name similarity. He swore it was a coincidence. I heard "The Sorcerer" for the first time a few minutes ago......This sounds far better. Inbox me if you want a link to the demo, "The Sorcerer".

[@ProtoFalcon07]

Here’s a direct link to the MP3: www.karma-lab.com/Audio/sk/pd/TheSorcerer.mp3

[@ProtoFalcon07]

Brett C That’s exactly what I thought, too! I’m surprised I was still able to share a link to it so quickly considering I posted this 7 years ago 😂

[@astraleye340]

Reminds me UT99 soundtrack! awesome!

[@ct-hv1uz]

The UT99 soundtrack was also composed in Impulse Tracker with samples from the same era.

[@Czarewich]

This really makes me want to play Deus Ex for some reason

[@zeroangelmk1]

The Deus Ex soundtrack was made with impulsetracker. So it probably uses some similar sound libraries.

[@user-pp3tl1ib1o]

This is beautiful.

[@HyborianDemonKnight]

this is sick! I love it

[@mega_noob69]

Uma das melhores músicas que eu já ouvi vindo de um Tracker 16 bits

[@jackcimino8822]

You should've run it in Open MPT or Schism Tracker. They play IT files more properly

[@lewisveasey1674]

I just tested it. I didn't notice anything differences between players.

[@alswo9628]

MilkyTracker does not support embedded channel panning, right now this song is played in mono.

[@Leo_prado]

I remember hearing this for the first time as an MC5 entry and I thought it'll win! But well, WAVE was awesome and impressive but Skaven should've been at least 2nd! If not 1st!

[@simonprecheurllarena]

This is incredible..

[@meanwhileinjapan2265]

I'm glad Max payne introduced me to this band.

[@aryyancarman705]

Hehe same

[@BigusGeekus]

Band? This is one guy. :P

[@KH0LRA]

I've deep dived so much from discovering things in the Remedy rabbithole and their various associations and inspirations for their output, that I ended up discovering what PC demos are, the future crew and finally, this Skaven guy. Not sure if your quote is in the related context, but I'm glad someone is sharing a similar sentiment!

[@KimStennabbCaesar]

@@KH0LRA The demoscene has always been strong in Scandinavia. Remedy is Finnish, so makes sense.

[@legodragon1999]

Love this piece! Is there any way to find and obtain soundfonts or instrument assets for other music softwares? I am not very familiar with tracker music and how to use their instruments in more modern software.

[@Audiojack_]

After ScreamTracker he used ModPlug Tracker and, as you mentioned, FL Studio. I don't know which site you're referring to but his newer songs are on Mikseri.net

[@MrShiffles]

Respect!

[@hedgefund1844]

Beautiful GUI

[@GuilhermeHuertaeSilva]

Druaga1's "Can the Windows98 machine handle Minecraft?" Anyone?

[@2halliom]

MeE

[@GuilhermeHuertaeSilva]

Same for me, @Sheep Flipper

[@gregoriysharapov1936]

I was wondering where I heard this song from. Yep, definitely from there!

[@bos_54]

Hi

[@newhampguy]

100k! nice!

[@Garrond]

I dont know what Im doing here, but it sounds cool

[@sfwnofficial]

Amazing!

[@Audiojack_]

@dokzero5 Yeah, I bet it was made with that since ScreamTracker was also made by Future Crew (Psi)

[@trojan606]

Alexander Brandon?

[@ScrewFearMe]

wow that was awesome

[@PeterGrillett]

so is the fact that your comment was made half a decade ago. Your welcome. See you in five more years.

[@yanis3473]

IM DETERMINED

[@tuccmann3004]

Master! thx

[@bebopkim]

oh dang good!

[@whynotlol55]

This reminds of Old School Rune Scape

[@xxBejeweledxx]

Awesome *-*

[@jmm1233]

must have taken days to program in the arp effect

[@translila]

actually you'd be wrong there

[@jlewwis1995]

Arpeggiatuon is actually a built in effect in pretty much all trackers so making arps (at least triad arps) is super easy :)

hey yo I'm 1001st damnation to klick on the Like Thumbs Up button. So sad that from eight billion people only a thousand of us recognize quality. :)

[@peterhodgkinson5095]

Can you still get trackers for composing music these days?

[@jokusekovaan]

sure. renoise. psycle if you are ok with some bugs. and as the author said, milkytracker if you want to go vanilla.

[@jackcimino8822]

DefleMask if you want to compose for different game consoles

[@Newtined]

oh god, this comment was made seven years ago... well, theres schism tracker, an open source port of impulse tracker made for windows and macOS. There exists a Protracker 2.3D portable clone for windows and mac, and the guy who made that did a similar thing with FastTracker II. no such luck for ST3 tho, still having to use an emulator.

[@JiJ1511]

When-when the boys find-find where Clan Eshin have been keep-hiding their warpstone.

[@direktexe8436]

First part part sounds like a metroid intro theme.

[@on2415]

Perfect BOSS fight song

[@zuluecho5886]

I agree

[@HowCultural]

@leonguy1 Agreed.

[@pavelperina7629]

Interesting, it reminds me FastTrackerII somehow

[@firelinkrox]

Milkytracker is the best !

[@direktexe8436]

This could be a doom soundtrack

[@eduardoavila646]

I dont know, doesnr fit well, it would fit better in a adventure and exploring 2d game i think. Or maybe a metroidvania like

[@sagamusix]

Playing IT files in an XM tracker... O_o

[@SoundKnete]

welcome to turrican. would love to live the 80 and 90 in a loop without ever entering the crappy >2000

[@hedgefund1844]

I've got some bad news for you.

[@Yeowtch]

👽

[@alexlelel]

IT modules on FT2 clone that doesn't intend to reproduce IT effects... Why? At least use OpenMPT or libopenmpt if not on Windows. About the dosbox and IT stuff make sure that you use Ultrasound.

[@Krokussify]

+Kaminishi where can i download the GUS drivers?

[@alexlelel]

Dosbox doesn't need drivers, it works out of the box. Just enable it on the config file.

[@Krokussify]

Kaminishi do you know how?

[@alexlelel]

Find DOSBox configuration (DOSBox -> Extra -> DOSBox Options), find [gus] and bellow it set enable= to true

[@Krokussify]

Kaminishi Great, thanks!

[@samatubagaming9476]

1996/1/1

[@nisselarson3227]

Greetz to Skaven. I remember he explained the Furry-phenomena to me. :)

[@gabrielrapimanchamblas4593]

tran santiago

[@12pmetu50]

1:06

[@nicholasport]

2:40

[@2halliom]

yeA

[@digitalbeat666]

good but playing routine sounds odd

[@rjmario2234]

This sounds like a Deus Ex track

[@MegaEvilToaster]

This reminds me of Japan.

[@theniski]

800th like but whatever, good song anyway

[@326vincent]

Im the visitor 1337-0 yay!

[@bunnydream3750]

Bepis

[@radrolla3406]

Hey guys I need ur attention!! I have decided to remix this in dedication to Skaven, and i'm trying to be able to show him! Plz help me out here, i need your help!

[@anonexistentthathaveconcio5319]

Tis looks so complicated

[@ZLau13]

I can never understand how musicians can use these trackers. Anything I make with them takes so much effort and still sounds like shit. Maybe i need actual musical skillz :D

[@radrolla3406]

Just keep going, man. It took months for me to make high quality tunes. Check out the most recent ones on my channel.

[@jm036]

@@radrolla3406 You're replying to a 7 year old comment. Lmao

[@Newtined]

@@jm036 and here i am replying to a 4 year old reply to a comment made 11 years ago, jesus christ

[@LJVolkov21]

Next person to give this a like, that will be the 666th like.

[@MarioKartCitySeven]

Let's do it.

[@zuluecho5886]

@@MarioKartCitySeven it has passed

[@lexcantrell6497]

aAAaaah so your an alchemist then.

[@PTMG]

LOL DOSBox