[HN Gopher] Amiga Music Preservation
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Amiga Music Preservation
Author : codetrotter
Score : 168 points
Date : 2021-08-14 21:33 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (amp.dascene.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (amp.dascene.net)
| melbourne_mat wrote:
| As someone who was involved in the Amiga scene I know how all
| this stuff works. Without that knowledge the site is very hard to
| use. It wouldn't be difficult to make an MP3 version of this site
| with an embedded player but I think the hosting costs might be
| difficult to pay for.
| sitkack wrote:
| There are inbrowser tracker file players, esp with Wasm
| rendering could be done client side. That said, with super low
| bitrate codecs from Xiph it might be much much simpler to
| encode once and ship the compressed song. Sending the tracker
| files means that it can be much easier to visualize and slow
| down playback.
| rasz wrote:
| MOD trackers worked fine on 8MHz systems, there is no need
| for WASM here. https://warpdesign.github.io/modplayer-js/
| codetrotter wrote:
| A properly written WASM MOD player could probably be a lot
| nicer on the battery than one implemented in JS. Then
| again, JS does have some quite advanced audio specific APIs
| available in browsers these days. So profiling would be
| necessary in order to tell if a good implementation in WASM
| beats a good implementation in JS on power consumption.
| sitkack wrote:
| I was thinking more like your could run a m68k emulator
| in Wasm to run the original Amiga tracking software so it
| would sound just like the machine it was written on.
| montag wrote:
| Here's mine: https://mmontag.github.io/chip-player-js/browse
| gregsadetsky wrote:
| I found a few great JS-based trackers (and successfully tried
| a few mod files):
|
| https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/?file=demomods%2Fspacedeb.
| ..
|
| https://mod.haxor.fi/Groo/mod.electrification (many songs
| available in the 'load' interface)
|
| I also did find a wrapper around an emscripten-JS'ified
| version of libopenmpt (a popular MOD player library..?):
|
| https://github.com/deskjet/chiptune2.js/
| codetrotter wrote:
| For anyone that just wants to listen to the music in the
| collection I recommend installing the iOS app 4champ
|
| https://4champ.net/
|
| https://apps.apple.com/app/4champ/id578311010
|
| And going to radio mode and toggling it to Radio ON.
|
| This immediately starts streaming music from Amiga Music
| Preservation and playing it.
|
| The iOS app also runs on macOS, although its UI is not ideal
| for use on a computer as it is more geared towards touch
| screens. I mainly use it on my iPhone for this reason, much
| more than I use it on my MacBook Pro M1.
|
| One final note about the music player 4champ: It's generally a
| good player and I listen a lot using it, but it sorely lacks a
| "previous song" function in Radio mode. So if it plays a good
| tune and you don't favorite the tune while is playing, or make
| note of the name of it and its artist, you will have
| effectively no way of finding that song again. But other than
| this it's a solid player.
| backspace_ wrote:
| No android program?
| crtasm wrote:
| The list of stations Radiodroid uses has at least a couple
| playing Amiga tracker music, I don't know how they compare
| to the one discussed here.
| ekianjo wrote:
| vlc maybe?
| rkok wrote:
| Great to see that the preservation effort is still alive.
|
| Though having missed the glory years of tracker music, since a
| young age I have had a strong affection for its sound.
|
| Another treasure trove for tracker music is The Mod Archive:
| https://modarchive.org/
|
| Some of my favorite tracker music:
|
| - Purple Motion - Starshine
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3xHPIuX3s4
|
| - Robert Allen - Epic Pinball Theme
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqC9yS9oLCY
|
| - Dr. Awesome - Space Deliria
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g60hfiO1WY
|
| - 4mat - Chipmusic is dead
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfSoqzkWhF8
|
| - 4mat - Eternity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHzG7OJ76t8
|
| For those who like ambient:
|
| - Jazz Jackrabbit 2: Water
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyHJ7IWBpRs
|
| - Deus Ex: Naval Base https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aj4jfiqiLw
| danwills wrote:
| Mod Archive has an in-browser player! Another comment somewhere
| in here links https://modtu.be which seems to be a fairly
| awesome in-browser player too!
|
| Blurry lines between amiga and PC tracker scenes hey? there was
| a lot of back-and-forth. Impossible not to have Purple Motion
| on any classic-mods list though, I absolutely agree!
| nickt wrote:
| Bassoon tracker is another good in-browser tracker, with a
| nice Amiga-like feel to it.
|
| https://www.stef.be/bassoontracker/
| [deleted]
| layer8 wrote:
| - Purple Motion - SSI Intro https://modtu.be/?m=384106
|
| It's a slow burn... favorite parts at 4:52 and 8:51.
| Sosh101 wrote:
| - 4mat - Starworx https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pke0cannA3w
| cjdell wrote:
| I first discovered music MOD files on the CD-ROM of the magazine
| "What PC?" in 1995. I was only 10 years old at the time so hadn't
| even heard of the Amiga but I was instantly hooked on the music
| style.
|
| I would record the MODs from the family computer on to my
| cassette player so I could listen to them without hogging the
| computer. Listening to these again is such a nostagia trip.
|
| "Space Debris" was one of my favourite songs...
| freediver wrote:
| Not to forget Barry Leitch of Lotus 2 fame:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQSsq7HCNHw
|
| Jon Hare & Richard Joseph with Cannon Fodder:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc2fulUF64w
|
| And probably my favorite of all time, Chris Glaister's Lost
| Patrol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b47CRLL0kjE
| avnigo wrote:
| This album [0], Tracked (1991-2000) by Purple Motion is
| excellent. Got all the nostalgia.
|
| [0]: https://purplemotion.bandcamp.com/album/tracked-1991-2000
| Sharlin wrote:
| And it's on Spotify!! I was excited to find it a while ago,
| though I do have most of the songs as original mods somewhere
| on my disk too...
| codetrotter wrote:
| Seems that a HN filter intended for Google AMP is triggered by
| the URL and changes it. But amp in this URL has nothing to do
| with Google AMP.
|
| The url is supposed to be http://amp.dascene.net/home.php
|
| @dang, can you override the change of the url so it's correct?
| squarefoot wrote:
| Direct address in the meantime:
|
| http://109.190.61.142/home.php
| codetrotter wrote:
| Clever :)
|
| I am too used to many sites sharing a single IP address that
| I didn't even think about doing it that way.
| shric wrote:
| Also won't work for https
| codetrotter wrote:
| Depends on how it's configured. It could still serve
| plain HTTP and redirect (HTTP 300 family) to the domain
| name and TLS.
| quadcore wrote:
| One I particularly love is the soundtrack of the game Utopia
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7RGtHOj8pM
| subbz wrote:
| Check out modtu.be, the most advanced mod archive player around.
|
| https://modtu.be/
| danwills wrote:
| Thanks for the link! Great stuff!
|
| I was slightly surprised to find the site at the article link
| doesn't seem to have playback built-in, but this looks like a
| really awesome web-player!
|
| ModArchive also has in-browser playback available too.
| S_A_P wrote:
| For the folks that want to make music in that amiga tracker
| style- check out the Polyend Tracker. It's a usb(a phone charger
| battery will run this thing for hours) powered self contained
| groovebox/synth/sampler with an 8 track tracker style sequencer.
| I just got mine a week ago and it's already one of my favorite
| pieces of kit. I can go outside, lay in bed/on the couch and make
| music that I would have to be at a desk with my other gear and
| Mac to make otherwise. It's small enough to throw in your laptop
| bag but large enough to feel like real gear. Highly recommend!!
| gregsadetsky wrote:
| Main product URL:
|
| https://polyend.com/tracker/
|
| (it's out of stock directly from Polyend, but check with music
| stores, local and otherwise)
|
| Just got one too and still learning about it (and really really
| like it). Have you seen this great video? It's a good high
| level tutorial of most features (it's a tiny bit dated when
| compared to the latest firmware, but it's still mostly the same
| UI)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQufJBVvAtY
|
| Also... the Tracker supports .mod files..!
|
| https://help.polyend.com/944600-Is-the-Tracker-able-to-impor...
| S_A_P wrote:
| The Loopop video definitely had me interested at the time but
| I think I kind of just got busy and forgot about it. Then
| happened to have a conversation with one of the guys at Sound
| on sound and he sold me on it. Right now there is great kit
| out there for samplers. Also check out the Isla s2400 if a
| more 1980s sp-12/1200 workflow interests you. Both are
| essential gear for me now.
| gregsadetsky wrote:
| Thanks for pointing me to the Isla S2400! Just wanted to
| make sure, when you say "Right now there is great kit out
| there for samplers", I'm not sure what you mean? Are you
| referring to the Tracker, the S2400, or something else?
| S_A_P wrote:
| Both the Tracker and the 2400. :) They do things
| differently, but each is great and produce results that
| the other would not.
|
| And honestly the new MPCs are pretty good too, just not
| my preferred way of working.
| skrebbel wrote:
| I bought one a few weeks ago and I really like it as well.
|
| That said, if there's one beef then for me it's the hard limit
| of 8 channels. That limit makes it very hard to do anything
| with chords, somewhat limiting the kinds of genres it's
| suitable for. Growing up with FastTracker 2, it feels a bit
| like a needless limitation. If my 486DX computer could do 32
| channels why can't a modern piece of kit?
|
| Even with that, though, it's a very well thought out piece of
| gear. I'm impressed with the software UX, they clearly spent a
| _lot_ of man-hours iterating on that. Once you figure out the
| button combos and shortcuts it 's really quite productive.
| bmdavi3 wrote:
| If this is the time to offer our personal chiptune favorites,
| Loonie - Biohazard really does it for me
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiMHDHwsEQA
| raffraffraff wrote:
| One of my favourite pieces of computer game music is from
| Speedball II, released on the Amiga
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GrM0hHzM4to
|
| There's a guy who remixes old computer game music on a modern
| DAW, so you're not actually listening to music producer by the
| Amiga any more. However, his remix of the Speedball II music is
| worth listening to...
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kyeAX27GDC4
|
| I love the fact that he took in-game sounds and mixed them into
| the music (like the injured player being carted off, and the ice-
| cream seller in the crowd)
| mnw21cam wrote:
| I remember back in the early 2000s, I built a whole set of
| scripts to automatically download the next set of files from
| aminet, unarchive them, play them, let me give each a rating (0
| to 9), and store that away so I could later tell it to play
| tracks with a rating of X+ in random order. I think I made it
| about 1/3 the way through all of aminet. The vast majority of
| tracks were awful, but there was a decent number of absolute gems
| in there.
| l33tman wrote:
| Fun fact: the tracker songs recorded from real amigas (or
| faithful emulations) have a certain nuance to the samples which
| you learn to recognize, due to that everybody disabled the D/A
| low-pass filter back in the day, which is normally really
| required after a D/A to reproduce the actual analog samples.
|
| So you got a higher pass-through of some of the higher
| frequencies contained in the played samples (as the original
| filters were too wide and cut into the real data), but also you
| got higher aliasing harmonics, that shouldn't be there but kind
| of make it sound better in total. Actually, in music production
| you often add filters in the chain that artificially create
| harmonics to "excite" the audio and make it more interesting for
| the ear. This was kind of an unintentional exciter :)
|
| On the Amiga 500, the D/A filter was switchable by software, by
| toggling the power LED. I'm pretty sure some engineer thought it
| was crippling to have the filter there permanently online, and
| sneaked in a toggle feature but couldn't find any free GPIO :)
|
| More in depth description of the D/A reconstruction filter and
| mod-player emulation issues arising from it:
|
| https://bel.fi/alankila/modguide/interpolate.txt
| markwrobel wrote:
| Turning the filter off is quite noticeable. I did a sample
| test, with and without the filter. Not by turning off the power
| LED in assembler, but using a setting in WinUAE.
|
| The samples are on my site:
| https://www.markwrobel.dk/post/amiga-machine-code-letter8-wa...
| Jare wrote:
| I recall some tracker format used that power LED as an actual
| effect, or 5th channel?
| arrakeen wrote:
| highly recommend the works of radix, especially FIRE&ICE2
| danwills wrote:
| I completely second that (we are moving well beyond the Amiga
| tracking scene now but hey, it's all AWESOME!!)
|
| Some of Radix/Mosaik's later work I think is absolutely
| stunningly beautiful too: Leandi, Aerials (On bandcamp) etc.
| Well worth a listen!
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| radix is one my favorite artists, "tpolmgirl" and "ma petite
| fleur" are also great. The first was actually played during the
| art scene part of the BBS documentary which is where I first
| heard it.
| bullen wrote:
| For some reason stereo just makes me nauseus.
|
| Maybe the mono 8-bit generation will never like stereo 16-bit.
|
| http://csdb.dk
| hansjorg wrote:
| The Amiga was stereo, but only 8-bit. There were just two
| hardware channels per stereo channel though, with no mixing
| between them, so it doesn't sound very nice with headphones.
| bullen wrote:
| Aha, that explains alot, thx!
| pan69 wrote:
| Hoffman, still one of my favorite ones. Still active today.
|
| http://109.190.61.142/detail.php?detail=modules&view=3357
| danwills wrote:
| Massive tracker music fan (and quiet author, hardly anything
| released) here, my main exposure was as the PC-scene arose (from
| ScreamTracker onwards).
|
| I'd like to recommend some mostly-pc tracker-music authors that
| are perhaps not necessarily the 'Pop-Stars' of the tracker scene,
| but I still think they made really absolutely awesome, different
| and interesting music in this format:
|
| Dune aka Brothomstates (https://modtu.be/?m=26492)
|
| Shad (https://modtu.be/?m=337401)
|
| Croaker (https://modtu.be/?m=89553)
|
| Yolk (https://modtu.be/?m=55561)
|
| Sulphur (https://modtu.be/?m=385511)
|
| Xhale (https://modtu.be/?m=55280)
|
| Groo (https://modtu.be/?m=30096)
| Jare wrote:
| That is a magnificent list of musicians. Note that some links
| may show only tracks in one particular format, and they likely
| have a much larger list of contributions in other formats.
|
| May I add Jesper Kyd (https://modtu.be/?m=313332)
| dylan604 wrote:
| While not exactly tracker music, if this "sound" is appealing to
| you, here's a channel that might be of interest:
| https://www.di.fm/playlists/outrun
| empressplay wrote:
| wow, there are files of mine on there I thought I lost decades
| ago lol
| codetrotter wrote:
| That's pretty cool :) I often value digital archival because it
| lets me find old stuff that others made. But finding old stuff
| that was made by oneself, carefully saved by someone else, that
| must be even nicer!
| tluyben2 wrote:
| I have been looking for the past 10 years for one particular
| 'cracked game' intro music with a starfield that pulsated to the
| music (the song was over 10 minutes I think and took up a few k;
| I cannot for the life of me remember the cracker group name, let
| alone anything else): it was waveforms instead of samples. Jungle
| Command did a lot without traditional sound tracker like tools
| but it is not from them. I will just enjoy listening to 1000s of
| Amiga songs in search for this one.
|
| My normal goto music was from Romeo Knight or Uncle Tom by the
| way.
|
| Stupid factoid: I was jean Michel Jarre fan begin 80s and this
| song [0] by Romeo Knight got me into guitar playing (it was the
| first song I could play on a friend's guitar, well, sort of). And
| that got me into metal which I definitely do not regret.
|
| Favorite Uncle Tom one [1].
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/i0bvhWs810g [1] https://youtu.be/zR9a4vTuuoo
| exogeny wrote:
| Here are some recommendations for those on HN new to the tracker
| scene:
|
| Jester - Elysium
|
| Jester - Stardust Memories
|
| Tip and Firefox - Enigma
|
| Greg - Odyssey Pt. 2
|
| Firefox - Galaxy 2
|
| Mantronix - Act Of Impulse
|
| Dr. Awesome - 12th Warrior
|
| NHP + BKH - Enigma Year
|
| Captain - Space Debris
|
| Captain - Beyond Music
|
| Uncle Tom - Occ-San-Geen
|
| Romeo Knight - Beat To The Pulp
|
| What a crazy and beautiful era for creativity! A German, Swedes,
| a Swiss, a Norwegian, two Frenchmen, two Finns..all with four
| channels and about 200k of space. Not to mention they were
| probably all teenagers at the time too!
|
| The demoscene is such a great deep dive -- I'm only referencing
| about three years of productions here, there's so much more that
| came after on the PC side and even lots before too if you dig
| into the C64 and Atari scenes. So much goodness!
|
| Wrong continent and era for me unfortunately. :)
| kristiandupont wrote:
| >Wrong continent and era for me unfortunately. :)
|
| As someone who was in the midst of it here in Denmark, I can
| tell you that, as a teenager who was used to anything cool
| always coming from the US, I assumed that there were much
| cooler demos being made in the states that we simply didn't
| have access to.
| exogeny wrote:
| That's so wild. I was lucky to grow up in a relatively large
| city in the era of BBSes and then IRC, so I was able to find
| a decent community of fellow nerds. If there was one thing
| that consistently blew us away, it was the demoscene --
| everything about it seemed so amazing and creative and we
| were all just so bummed that we were on the wrong continent
| to ever attend Assembly or TheParty.
|
| Apart from maaaaybe Renaissance on the PC I'm hard-pressed to
| really name a significant American demogroup whereas I get a
| huge smile thinking about a party where you had Silents
| sitting next to Phenomena sitting next to Sanity sitting next
| to Scoopex.
|
| In a way I give a lot of credit to the scene for my eventual
| career as a tech entrepreneur. What I loved so much to do
| with my computer was create: draw ANSI, make music, build
| websites from scratch. Eventually that became starting
| companies, but so much of that spirit was generated from my
| marvel at what some European teenagers were able to do with
| computer 1% as powerful as mine.
| gregsadetsky wrote:
| Here's a playlist with all of these songs! Thanks for the great
| recommendations
|
| https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnRRE4-idfADx_BgudiHYizK7...
| de6u99er wrote:
| Thank you. If you like tracker music you might like this one
| too
|
| Binaerpilot: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mPZ2Am
| FjEVSeZjnW7O...
| the-golden-one wrote:
| .. also Deadlock by Elwood. Or in fact, anything by Elwood...
| danwills wrote:
| I would have to agree and I love Elwood too (so much!).
|
| I think we should note though, that Elwood's main
| contributions were during the PC-tracker-scene 'era'
| (FastTracker2) and not so much an Amiga thing.
| exogeny wrote:
| Yes, this -- I didn't want to be too pedantic :) If we
| were getting into the PC scene, Elwood would have made an
| appearance with Purple Motion and loads of others.
| exogeny wrote:
| My pleasure! Let me know which one is your favorite :)
| Underphil wrote:
| Enigma has been my ringtone for the best part of 15 years
| now so I already know :)
| Nr7 wrote:
| There's a modern remix of Space Debris on the soundtrack of the
| 2011 game Rochard by Recoil Games. It was made by the original
| artist Markus "Captain" Kaarlonen.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsapsOqc7UI
| EarlKing wrote:
| LizardKing - Desert Dawn
|
| Moby - Elekfunk
|
| Also shouts to Sklathill, whose stuff I can't find in Mod
| Archive otherwise I'd recommend him too.
| nxtbl wrote:
| Stone Oakvalley's work on these and Commodore 64 sids hasn't been
| mentioned yet?
|
| He has gone through and recorded all of the Amiga modules and C64
| sid tunes as mp3. C64 tunes are even recorded separately for
| three/four different sid chip variations. New releases of HVSC
| collection have also been recorded promptly.
|
| https://www.paula8364.com/ for Amiga, 484GB x2
|
| https://www.6581-8580.com/ for C64, 159GB x3
| ridaj wrote:
| It's amazing to find some music there that I composed about 30
| years ago. I'd shared it via diskette with a friend who slapped
| it into a demo, then he mailed the demo on another diskette to
| someone else who would duplicate and send out more copies, one of
| which made it maybe to a demo party that ended up feeding the
| archive. All of this by snail mail, there was no consumer
| internet back then. Pretty unexpected survival of these
| artifacts!
| exogeny wrote:
| That is an amazing story.
|
| I had a few nice conversations with some of my favorite
| musicians (Firefox, Uncle Tom, Jester, etc.) and many of them
| are shocked and overjoyed that things they worked on for fun a
| lifetime ago are being enjoyed by new waves of people every
| day.
| ErneX wrote:
| Echoing by Banana
|
| https://youtu.be/3CRYkFAlgvo
| bitwize wrote:
| I'm composing the music to my video game in Protracker on
| (emulated) Amiga -- just to add a little 90s cyberpunk
| authenticity to go with the theme of the game. It may not come
| out nearly as good as some of these masters' work, but if it
| turns out to give the feel of the era it'll be past the threshold
| of "good enough".
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(page generated 2021-08-15 23:02 UTC)