2020-04-02 - Space debris
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I've always liked listening to tracker modules. Back somewhere in
the 90's, i found myself totally in awe with hearing awesome music
come out of a PC running Fasttracker2. All the things happening
while the module was playing, the scopes, the tracks scrolling over
the screen, the music, it was magic.
By some weird fluke, i've completely missed out on the C64 and
Amiga era, and the only computers i had access to were old
handed-down XT machines, which were at the time much less capable
in doing the 'impressive' things the homecomputers did. But somehow
i've completely missed the whole homecomputer scene. I remember a
friend having a C64, playing Giana Sisters. But i wasn't so
impressed with it, as it seemed less cool than the NES at the time.
So, by the time i saw a friend-of-a-friend's 486 computer playing
some mods i was naturally very impressed. And some more years later
i finally had access to a powerful enough computer to play my own
modules in Fasttracker.
Now the really nice thing about these .mod and .xm songs, is that
they are essentially open source. These single files contain
everything needed to play themselves, and when opening them in
tracker software, you can see exactly how everything is made. So
you can see what the samples looked like, how the instruments were
made, how the patterns were build and what kind of effects were
used.
All of this was of course very inviting to start composing music by
myself as well. So that's something i did for years. Of course when
starting out, you'd simply borrow (rip) cool samples from other
mods you could get your hands on via friends of friends (mind you,
it was pre-internet). And you'd just mess about making stupid
little songs, writing stupid little stories in the instrument
lists. Nothing serious ever came from it, but you were having a
good time, being creative, sitting in wonder behind your desktop,
completely in bliss while watching FT2 do its magic.
And after making a bunch of songs, you'd listen to more songs from
others, trying to figure out how these mythical tracker musicians
did things completely right. And of course, these musicians also
remained mythical, as you'd only know them from the couple of small
lines of info they'd put in the instrument list.
Later i found out, the song i heard for the first time was Space
Debris, by Markus "Captain" Kaarlonen. It's still my all time
favourite song, and having heard it hundreds of times, it's pretty
much completely ingrained in my system.
All-in-all a magical time. And i very much enjoy still listening to
mods, looking how they are made (using Milkytracker now) and making
my own little stupid songs. Not for serious reasons, but just for
the sake of being creative. And i find myself with the exact same
sense of wonder, listening to the music and watching the patterns
scroll by, nearly a quarter of a century later.
[1] Space Debris by Captain:
https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=57925
