
Amiga Samplers: Budget dance music in 1990 [video] - henning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9MXYZh1jcs
======
ilamont
I laughed out loud at this moment, which came a few seconds after starting the
sample:

"Aaaand we're out of memory."

Explains why samples tended to be really short .. and also why some artists
(or their labels) did make the investment in studio time & the professionals
who knew how to take this tech to the next level.

I worked in a 24-track studio in London in the early 90s where dance music was
recorded, mixed, and remixed by The KLF and Nomad, among others, as well as
soundtracks by Hans Zimmer, who owned the studio. There was a small army of
people who not only knew the studio hardware (the board, Moog, compressors,
gates, etc.) but also Cubase, sequencers, and other software, which was quite
expensive but utterly necessary to crank out the hits played on the radio and
the remixes that were preferred in the clubs.

~~~
ArtWomb
Am curious how you would compare the production quality back in the day. To
producers today who seem to eschew the massive studio. Doing everything in
Logic. With perhaps a single MIDI controller. Preferring that Billie Eilish in
her bedroom vibe ;)

My recollection is that even back then, the capital outlay required wasn't
egregious. I recall a friend setting up a space with second-hand pro mixing
board, amps, mics, etc all for around $10-15K in initial expense. And all
sourced on various internet forums. Of course, today the mac book pro alone
may set you back $5K+!

~~~
ilamont
That's a pretty good price if that includes a 24-track board, which cost many
multiples of that new back in the day.

Other big costs at the professional level included hardware gates,
compressors, tape machines (2 inch analog IIRC), the software (Cubase) and the
Macs with the memory and storage required to run it, and staff -- a few
engineers and manager employed by the studio and the hired guns brought in for
specific tasks.

I was just listening to "Justified & Ancient," one of The KLF's hits from
1991/1992\. I don't think it would have been possible to do a song like that
(and the remixes) with the Amiga and other low-cost home gear of that era.
It's really complex and layered, and Jimmy Cauty and the people he worked with
were really pushing the capabilities of the software and studio hardware they
had at their disposal. Check out these two mixes of that song:

[https://youtu.be/RPjggN-KByI](https://youtu.be/RPjggN-KByI)

[https://youtu.be/LWuPPMTiuRw](https://youtu.be/LWuPPMTiuRw)

They shifted key with some very complex backing harmonies to make the two
versions. It's possible they did that in the studio with singers, but I
suspect that was probably done at the console, with hardware and software
handling the shift. It would save a lot of time (and money) applying tech for
that use case.

Of course, nowadays it is like you said -- the bedroom/home studio model
followed by Billie Eilish and her brother and practically every other up-and-
coming artist.

The technology shift is very liberating, and opens up music to a much wider
range of artists, but there's something lost, as well. A really powerful
documentary about this trend was made by Dave Grohl some years back about
Sound City in L.A. and the Neve console that powered recordings by Neil Young,
RATM, Tom Petty, and more. Details:
[https://www.npr.org/2013/03/08/173823162/dave-grohl-finds-
mu...](https://www.npr.org/2013/03/08/173823162/dave-grohl-finds-musics-human-
element-in-a-machine)

~~~
danbmil99
I was a studio engineer in the late 80s and I work on music now using modern
tools.

It's a different vibe, that's for sure. I could go on for days about the
technical differences, analog 2-inch tape versus a to d converters and so on.
Analog synths, effect boxes now replaced by VST plug-ins.

But I thinkt the biggest difference is really more on the human level. It used
to be an enterprise that by its very nature required multiple people to be
working together. Now, music is a largely solitary endeavor. Back when, you
started playing with your friends in the garage, and if you move to the next
level you recorded in the studio together. Now you put together a demo on your
Mac, throw it out into the world, and if it goes viral you get to do it again.

Different times.

------
avyeed_desa
A lot of jungle artist have recently resurfaced their amigas and make and
release music completely done with Trackers.

If you are interested you should check out artists like Bizzy B
([https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOMER0TV8UG1nf5OyzsJewQ/vid...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOMER0TV8UG1nf5OyzsJewQ/videos))
or Pete Cannon
([https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM_kHAd0Q_tWH7OEyF5hcAg/vid...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM_kHAd0Q_tWH7OEyF5hcAg/videos))

~~~
avyeed_desa
ha i just realized one of the videos from Bizzy B features another producer
(DJ D-Lux) that has dusted off his amiga after 25 years and started reusing it
for that video and asking Brian how to use and do things on the tracker.
Funny.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A6FCs0Q6iI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A6FCs0Q6iI)

~~~
ahartmetz
This mix on Bizzy B's channel is a really good old schhol jungle mix, thanks
for the tip!

[https://youtu.be/Jg8r3x6lbpA](https://youtu.be/Jg8r3x6lbpA)

------
dharma1
Good memories. I used to be a part of this crew -
[https://netlabelarchive.org/netlabels/monotonik/](https://netlabelarchive.org/netlabels/monotonik/)

Mods were great. Zero cost beyond the computer, made with public domain
tracker software, the music was freely distributed on BBS's (and the web later
on). The mod file format was great - small size downloads - note information
and sampler instruments were all in one package, typically a couple of hundred
kb for the whole song.

You could see exactly how people had put the tunes together, access all the
note information/arrangements and samples, and learn from that

~~~
molotovbliss
B00MER from kfmf (kosmic free music foundation) here.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmic_Free_Music_Foundation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmic_Free_Music_Foundation)

Used to love monotonik releases. One thing I liked about tracker days was
deconstructing songs to see how it was made. Not as easy to do these days.
ReNoise is pretty much the tracker DAW these days. Now that I'm not as broke
as before. More gear just less drive to use it. My younger self would of been
in heaven with the gear I've got now. Gus was a game changer though back then.

------
EvilGrin
If you are interested in picking up some of this music from then and now check
out the Mod Archive.

[https://modarchive.org/](https://modarchive.org/)

You will need a media player that understand mod file formats to play the
majority of the music files on the site. They have recommendations per
platform in their FAQ.

~~~
jaxb
or [https://modlandplayer.net/](https://modlandplayer.net/) \-- player for a
different archive
([http://ftp.modland.com/pub/modules/](http://ftp.modland.com/pub/modules/)).

or listen to the radio --
[https://www.scenesat.com/](https://www.scenesat.com/) or
[https://scenestream.net/demovibes/](https://scenestream.net/demovibes/)

------
themodelplumber
Wow, he's done a really impressive job in the tracker, making things seem
considerably easier than I remember :-) I remember sending off hard-earned
money to a certain Norman living in Norman, to get a paid copy of ModEdit for
DOS, waiting for what seemed an eternity to receive a disk in the mail, only
to discover FT][ weeks later on a local BBS, downloadable within an afternoon
modem session. And featuring Nibbles, no less.

It seemed like time and tech were advancing so fast, and yet art was elusive.

Anyway I'm looking forward to working on another tracker tune soon. Thanks for
the link.

~~~
arexxbifs
If you're into tracked music, check out "Professional Tracker" by h0ffman and
Daytripper[0]. To clarify, the linked recording is not from an Amiga but I
have played it on my A1200 - it almost completely fills the 2 megabytes of
chip-mem so a fast-mem expansion is required to play it. Impressive stuff.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9ErmKpTcFA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9ErmKpTcFA)

~~~
crtasm
and here's the source file download:
[https://files.scene.org/view/parties/2014/revision14/music_t...](https://files.scene.org/view/parties/2014/revision14/music_tracked/hoffman_and_daytripper_professional_tracker.zip)

"Professional Tracker

written by Hoffman & Daytripper for the Revision 2014 Tracked Music Compo. Put
together in ProTracker v2.3d on Amiga.

As it was for the Revision Tracker Music Compo, it is best viewed in XMPlay on
the PC with full screen pattern visualiser. Make sure you use the following
settings.

No Interpolation. Mono. Mod Mode PT1."
[https://soundcloud.com/h0ffman/hoffman-daytripper-
profession...](https://soundcloud.com/h0ffman/hoffman-daytripper-professional-
tracker)

------
parksy
I miss the tracker scene, somehow I migrated from trackers to buzz to fruity
loops and I guess I've been on that journey ever since.

But the simplicity of being able to so swiftly move notes around in a
spreadsheet-type format is something I've never really seen since (outside of
trackers themselves at least, and I have used a few modern variants). It's
like a piano roll on steroids.

I owe my love of creating music today to the tracker and demoscene of the
early 90's, and it's great that it's still alive and well :)

~~~
unixhero
The tracker scene is not dead. [http://pouet.net](http://pouet.net)
[http://scene.org](http://scene.org)

~~~
doublerabbit
You can also listen to a large archive of modules at:
[http://modarchive.org](http://modarchive.org)

Truly free music.

------
walkingolof
The tracker scene did not die with the Amiga, it continued and people still
use programs like MilkyTracker today.

Here is an excellent overview of MilkyTracker
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2s04YYO0Wg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2s04YYO0Wg)

~~~
arexxbifs
The tracker scene continues on the Amiga to this day. :-) There's also a lot
of wonderful music being made on and/or for Commodore 64:s.

------
bane
For people who really enjoy tracking, or want to check it out, but want a very
modern environment. I'd encourage people to look at the Renoise tracker.

[https://www.renoise.com/](https://www.renoise.com/)

SunVox is also an excellent piece of software for those who like a more
modular setup
[https://www.warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/](https://www.warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/)

------
shams93
The only thing is you don't need a vintage amiga to enjoy trackers, I used
trackers with linux audio for years, the pi4 is a much more cost effective way
to enjoy trackers than trying to find and refurbish a vintage Amiga, although
it has to be fun to play with one but for those without those kind of
resources you can even do tracking on an android phone or raspberry pi.

------
mntmoss
In this era I was a pre-teen and my brother, a few years older, did make a
stab at tracking but ultimately focused on other things. I was a bit baffled
by the whole thing and we never learned how to rip samples off other sources
even though we definitely had the capability for line in and some sample
editing tools(Just record off the radio or our CDs! It seems obvious in
retrospect).

But it was very exciting to hear other people's work, regardless. Computer
music - and it sounded like the stuff I heard in malls and on TV, instead of
the synthy chiptune stuff!

Gradually I did start experimenting with composition on trackers and that
proved to be another mountain climbed only gradually. Even when I had "the
sound," it takes a lot of work to understand how to a bring a song structure
beyond a four bar loop, but I would have to say that I learned a fair amount
from studying tracker music too. A good success story for source availability.

------
72deluxe
I remember using FT ][ under Windows 95 as my friend at school introduced me
to it. Some of the more complicated songs were bigger than MP3s of the time
(that confused my tiny brain) but were playable on my garbage 486 DX2, unlike
MP3s (I was poor and using throw-off computers that others had thrown away).

Happy times.

~~~
rob74
Well yeah, the samples in the MOD files are uncompressed (or losslessly
compressed, no idea), so if you have a lot of different samples, I can imagine
you might end up with something bigger than an MP3 file. I guess none of those
were modules initially composed on an Amiga though ;)

~~~
72deluxe
Yes, I think they were modplug era files. I didn't understand how they worked
at the time so was baffled needlessly.

------
squarefoot
Anyone remembers Oktalyzer? It could do 8 tracks in realtime when all other
trackers were limited to 4 tracks. It produced a bit lower quality and lower
volume audio due to software mixing, and its higher cpu demands made it
unsuitable for games, but it was perfectly usable alone even on my A500 back
then for making more complex tunes. I miss those days! Here's some info.
[http://www.robotplanet.dk/amiga/oktalyzer/](http://www.robotplanet.dk/amiga/oktalyzer/)

------
louthy
Trackers have a mini-resurgence via the modular scene with NerdSeq [1] [2]

[1] [https://xor-electronics.com/nerdseq/](https://xor-
electronics.com/nerdseq/)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mShpux61dw0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mShpux61dw0)

------
crusty511
Not really "budget". I imagine that hardware was relatively expensive.

Venetian Snares Renoise > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGK-
EzEa45U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGK-EzEa45U)

~~~
mrspeaker
My friend's dad was into electronics. He bought one of the samplers from the
local Radio Shack, opened it up, figured out how it worked, and started making
his own. He sold them to us for about $40. Which was so much money as a kid
(and in the 90s), but damn it was awesome.

I ended up recouping the costs of the sampler many times over though: the
local radio station had a competition of "guess what this song-played-
backwards is and win $100". I'd sample the song snippet as they played it,
reverse it in a tracker (like in the video where he reverses the reverse
cymbal) and get the song... then it was just a matter of being the correct
caller - battling mostly against my other friends with our home-made samplers.
I won $500 doing that!

[Edit: oh, you mean the computer hardware, not the sampler hardware! My A500
was second-hand, no memory upgrade (grr) - and if my parents got it for me
then there's no way it was more than a couple of hundred bucks ;) ]

------
Theizestooke
What's the best tracker currently for Windows or Linux? Googling I found
OpenMPT ([https://openmpt.org/](https://openmpt.org/)), would be curious about
others.

~~~
tomduncalf
If you fancy the retro vibe, someone has ported Fast Tracker 2 to modern OS's:
[https://16-bits.org/ft2.php](https://16-bits.org/ft2.php). From what I've
heard, Renoise is the most "modern" tracker. Buzz is another interesting one,
not sure what the status of that is these days.

~~~
dharma1
> Buzz is another interesting one, not sure what the status of that is these
> days.

Buzz is great software, the modular concept was fantastic. I don't think
Oskari has worked on it since 2016 -
[http://jeskola.net/buzz/beta/files/changelog.txt](http://jeskola.net/buzz/beta/files/changelog.txt)

It still works though, and there is something of a community -
[http://forums.jeskola.net/](http://forums.jeskola.net/)

