pouët.net

as initiated here...



can i quote you on that, out of context?

regardless of who i am and what i've done, isn't it a bit risky to claim to anyone that their music "can't beat even old Amiga MODs"? then again, if you really do think old amiga mods just are better because they're mods and not made using "modern technologies", it's not only risky, it's narrow-minded and depicts the lack of perspective that quite a few sceners share.

now, look, i'm not saying tracker music is stupid. i'm saying it's stupid to appreciate musicians only if they do tracker music. like dizzy wouldn't be worth anything now that he's an established jazz keyboardist and not a tracker musician. (by the way, as for competing, guess who's still topping the amiga charts, foo :)

tracker music became so popular because it was pretty much the only reasonable way to make music on a popular home computer. sure, the interface was rough and needed some learning, but as a whole it was much more straight-forward and robust than, say, deluxe music. aspiring musicians could achieve what they want without the need for external equipment (e.g. midi synthesizers). it was a phenomenon born out of necessity. the downside is, the method used to create music easily moved your focus from the actual composing to tweaking tracker effects and such shit. i should know, i spent years learning. and at the end of the day, what's the use? trackers mean nothing but limitations to real musicians.

this is why the vast, vast majority of those tracker musicians with actual talent have moved on to either real instruments, bands, etc (like e.g. dizzy and groo did), or more convenient computer-based environments (such as sequencers, vst instruments, etc). people whose style in tracked music resembled 'live' music (such as dizzy) might've preferred the first one, people more into the electronic and technical side of things might've chosen the latter one. the latter being possible these days - it's not like you always had an option.

dizzy, being one of the most versatile artists i've known, having been involved in projects ranging from esoteric jazz through scandinavian folk and ambient soundscapes to straight-forward rock, could well be insulted by your fucking purism about some fucking file format. this applies to a lot of people. groo, for instance, has seriously said that the scene is the worst thing that happened to him musically. the total lack of perspective of these things just goes beyond my understanding, it's not like musicians die when they quit making scene music.

i assume at this point you took the time to actually see who you're replying to :)

man, seriously... first, you can't compare tracker music with softsynth music, or tracker music with live music, or whatever. that's what music competitions restricted to a certain music format are about, taking the limitations of the format into account. i never tried to "beat myself" with softsynth music, i tried to beat the competition we faced. second, i'm 100% certain that if i ever took the time to re-do any of my tunes without any limitations, it would absolutely be better (as in "this piece of music just sounds better", not in "this has clearly required a lot of geeky tweaking, and i can see it by staring at the xmplay pattern view while i'm listening to the tune and jacking off") than any of my "classic tracker modules".

so you did miss the point after all. good. i wasn't ticked off by the fact that xerxes made a musicdisk with tracker modules on it. it's a good production. i was ticked off by the fact that based on your original comment, you seem to value good handling of an originally 19-year-old music format higher than actual musical creativity or composing skills.

Great reply, Reed. And I really mean that!



Well, who uses a sign instead of a handle, anyway? Who do you think you are? Prince? ;)

there is new type of zealotism. A TRACK ZEALOT :)

About the only thing there I agree with is that, given two songs of identical quality (one done in a tracker, one done with something more modern) I'd count the tracked version and its author as more creative simply on account of all the wrestling they had to do to browbeat the tracker into submission on top of the music creation.

Extending that to say that tracked mods are better than real music in general because they're tracked is stupid.

I dunno, given my own experience trying to get all these wonderful* melodies in my head into a tracker has revealed that a.) I'm suffering from never having taken music theory classes or piano lessons; b.) I just can't wrap my head around the FT2 interface; c.) I suck at transcribing; d.) finding and setting up good samples is really, really hard.

* or not

Crusader: This is one of the times where, despite personal convictions, when someone with an authorotative voice (i.e. a musician) gets to override everything. I love tracker music, cuz it allowed folks with talent to be creative and make their own music, but numerous musicians have explained that it is simply NOT condusive to their creative process.

Nutman: All the cool kids do that.

Reed: holy fuck dude, that's a boatload of reality for folks to handle on a Monday (:

I can only wholeheartedly agree with Reed.

I mean, nothing against artificial limitations. There's nothing wrong with making demos for the C64, doing 64k/4k intros, tracking a tune for a 2-channel music compo etc...

... but seriously, IF you do so, be at least aware that there's no reason at all beyond "just for the fuck of it". Traditions have its place, but saying "we have always done it this way and it's the only way to do it" just plain sucks. Trackers have been a great tool for young aspiring nerd musicians to live their creativity without having to buy tons of expensive gear or learn playing an actual instrument - but that was it. Period. Clinging to it and saying that it's the holy grail and that everything else doesn't belong in the scene just shows that you've fucking stuck. Nothing more.

And even if - now what exactly is the best, most scenish way to do music? Soundtracker? Protracker? Oktalyzer? Screamtracker? FT2? IT? Buzz? Renoise? And do i have to own an actual Amiga or an old DOS PC with a GUS in it? and come on, doesn't all that modern crap suck when compared to real music like SIDs?

that's not about appreciating a musiciant because of his tool. so, reed, ur message upstairs about has sense, but it's unclear, who u are replying to.

personally i got that old "geeky tweaking" scene feeling (which i need to feel sometime, and which is really kicks my creativity) with trackers only, dunno why. playing/composing with live instruments/using synths is the very another thing for me, tho i used to both ways. but limitations still rock, and if not, why u were chopping guitars for 64ks and tweaking bleeps for c64 demos, instead of recording some another blaxploitation movie soundtrack? it for sure would sound better.

no limitations==not so interesting to compete==no (eww) scene spirit. so, the quotation has sense for me.

The mind fucking BOGGLES, man.

tone for fuck sake read the post, instead of jumping from words to words.

And yeah, great reply, reed. Precisely the issue I had with manwe's comment as well.

Reed, word.

Anyone remember the MP3 will kill the scene discussion in old diskmags and CSIPD? Or discussion about hardware acceleration killing creativity and demoscene since anyone can now do rotating things on the screen?

sigh.

Fuckings to Reed for being an enemy of scene spirit!

Can't really comment cos i can't use anything but trackers (well, somehow), heheh :)

So i guess it's only me (Dj Joge too, i know ;)) who gives maybe even more respect (or something) to all those composers who are using all the fancy new stuff, because i don't have a clue about them (amongs other things).

So, keep composing, whatever the soft/hardware. One thing though: NO SINGING!!!

knos, thank u for ur meaningful post. for fuck sake may be u could just take off for a while this boring "openminded" crap i'm wholeheartedly agree with, and try to hear what i really meant.

I SAW BORAT THE MOVIE.

there's always buzz and renoise...

personally i'm damn happy i've gotten away almost 100% from using trackers

just happy with renoise. People like Venetian Snares also use it, so it's not just 'for beginning nerds'

Hello people ;) So...


Of course, not. I told about concrete authors, which used a lot of equipment besides the tracker, making their MODs. That MODs are great as a music as well. But more important (for me), they gave an example to other people: what can be done in tracker, on home computer. They gave a motivation to the people. Sure, almost everyone can agree with it.


Very well. On my side, I'm not saying MP3s are stupid. I just saying every thing looks better on their native place. Correct me if I'm wrong, but why we have a C64-like sound in almost every music compo on demoparties? How such music can pass a preselect (Assembly MP3 compo, for example)? May be sceners just love it, even if the World is full of a "better" things?
Honestly, I'm not a fan of SID, AY, etc., but I'll never say to chiptune lovers "get your head out of your ass and welcome it to 2006" - it's just not very clever.


Every musical instrument makes limitations: drums, bass, guitar, violin, even piano. The way of musician is a way of fighting with limitations (of course, if he wants to reach the Enlightenment :)


True. But it is not a demoscene already, right? There is no reason to release such things on pouet.net, for example. But tracker music (and realtime softsynth-based music as well), especially with code and graphics is always welcome, isn't it? Even in 2006.


It's dependent on what you mean saying "perspective". Personally, I can not think about "perspective", while playing a guitar with a band of my friends - we just playing the fuckin' music!.. Another summer day, when I hanging in the village with a notebook, why can't I run a tracker and compose a few patterns, if I have an inspiration? What the hell - "perspective"?


Sure. Now look what I said in the first post: "live on the scene". Not "live at all". No problem, everybody can do what they want, but not everything they did is the Scene, got it? ;) That' what I said.

Yeah, that's what we're talking about. If a scene musician decides eg. to release a musicdisk in mp3/ogg format with guitars and vocals, why shouldn't he? What on earth makes that less "demoscene" than an .xm based musicdisk?

I guess it all comes to who decides what is the scene or not. Some seem to believe there are rules ;)

manwe: nobody is saying there's anything wrong with using a tracker, the point reed was making is that it's stupid to claim that music made in a tracker is somehow better than music made in other ways. see?

Haha, manwe is just still living in the 80s, which is sad for him becauses he misses like two decades worth of awesomeness :)

Um, but that is EXACTLY the "scene attitude". Damn, everything in the scene is done based on tradition, because "that's the way it should be". Forget music for a second, If 64k isn't a "tradition", what is it? By your mark everything "just plain sucks" because it's the same old platform/size/resolution/whatever limitations etc. Wild demos are the only things that step outside these boundaries.

Come see the scene, where nothing has changed for 20 years!

some people take it just too hard. it's an almost autistic thing concerning people who are enclosed in their world; it's just like with some amiga-people who can't agree to the fact that there's actually musick that is being done in more than 4 channels, and if it is - it can't be good or is a waste of resources or is generally just bad because of random reasons that were probably making sense in 1984. good thing the c64 scene is more open minded and less agressive concerning that matter, even tho there's one channel less to brag about. =)

i remember someone ragging on me for knowing only my chiptunes and calling me wannabe oldschool, until i led him to the big and wonderful plastic world of the non-scene musick i did.

did i miss the point here by being self-centered? i hope i did. :D

def: erm, i think you missed the point. 64k is a competition - but people don't go around claiming that a 64k is better than a tv advert by psyop because one of them is a 64k and one of them is rendered, do they?

(some geeks in this world probably do, actually.)