I wish companies did it now too, would be so much fun
My nostalgic contribution:
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
It’s called “tracker music”. A “tracker” is a type of music composing software that dates back to the very dawn of digital music.
Ahoy has a fantastic video about how they work and their history.
This is probably my favorite tracker track: Strobe(.it)
If you wanna be pedantic, it’s chiptune. You use trackers to make chiptune. And scene music is a niche within a niche.
No. Tracker music is 16-bit, within tracker music the term chiptune refers to a specific sub-genre which emulates 8-bit music.
Only much later did “chiptune” become a catch-all for all old computer music, and in that context it can refer to music not made with a tracker.
Yeah, trackers are what we had on the Amiga, and it was mostly just sound samples played at varying pitches. It’s definitely got an old school sound to it, but it’s only a low track limit that makes it different to what we have now.
Real chip tunes are where you torture an AY-3-8912 chip until it sings for its master.
My intro to chip tune was a guy I met in the mid aughts whose hobby was using old electronics to make music, so yeah, I always thought chip tune was like ripping apart old toys and torturing them to hear their screams
Only much later did “chiptune” become a catch-all for all old computer music
It’s much later now m8
And?
This whole discussion is within the context of trackers specifically, not the mainstream definition of “chiptune” which can refer to any music, made using whatever, that have some bleeps and bloops mixed in.
The mainstream definition also includes music that isn’t tracker music, which isn’t what we’re talking about, and hence, it’s not the right term to be using.
Bringing up the word in its general meaning within a discussion about tracker music, is even more confusing and unhelpful, because in the context of trackers, the word chiptune refers to a specific type of tracker music.
Chiptune only “specifically” means music produced the same way as retro games, which necessitates a tracker. If they’re using a standard DAW, then it’s basically “cheating” lmao.
That “lmao” is really doing some heavy lifting for your credibility there…
Which definition are you even using when saying that a tracker is necessary? In the age of trackers “chiptune” referred to a music style from before trackers. If chiptunes existed before trackers, then someone obviously made that music without one.
To consider same sound produced with newer tools “cheating” or “fake” is an stupid distinction. Would not using trackers to create chiptunes then be cheating, too, since chiptune referred to tracker music that was emulating the even older style of 8-bit computer music? (Since again, trackers are a 16-bit era thing)
I’m starting to think you don’t even know what a tracker is, because while trackers could be used to make other styles of music from their time, plenty of retro games used other ways to produce music, such as MIDI sound cards or direct instruction of synth voice chips. All of which would be called “chiptunes” by most people today, not just trackers.
Trackers are direct replications of the software used to make retro game music; specifically NES and SNES.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Damn that was an awesome watch. Came for the meme, stayed for the 40 minute documentary.
Seriously I’m 15 minutes into the history of computer generated sound and am still wondering wtf this has to do with cracking music. This is some next level autistic shit. 10/10.
Hearing those three notes of “Foregone Destruction” for the first time in umpteen years fired off a neuron that’d been hoarding the good chemicals.
Since the dawn of keygens
Fitgirl go brrr
I liked seeing that someone’s computer had .nfo files associated with Notepad. You knew you had found a fellow matey.
You mean Notepad++?
You mean neo vim
Now I remember this Pink Floyd album cover.
Figma should put a banger in the login prompt given the recent news.
Oh man there was one that I’ll never find again, I think it was on some XP keygen that I probably still have somewhere that I’ll never run again… There was an epic walkdown at the beginning of it that I can still hear
Edit found it! It was Sony Vegas, not windows
Anyone looking for a good bunch of noises should check out Dubmood’s Mighty Pirate Sessions
Warez and their .txt readmes. They would do that ASCII art by hand.
How else can it be done? Any attempt to convert images or text into ASCII art automatically looks at best uninspired and boring and at worst like trash.
