More Underrated 90s Tracker Music

[@Dr.Quarex]

As someone of the era and the scene, I particularly love two things about this video: 1) It has already been watched by 100x more people than ever would have heard any of our songs at the time and 2) Despite spending 3-8 hours a day hanging out with other Demoscene trackers throughout most of the 1990s I only know like 1/3 of these musicians, haha. The scene was bigger than any of us knew even then, truly.

[@zonefrost]

I'm from '91, I know nothing about any of this kind of music other than it hits a nostalgia nerve, like I've heard it from somewhere I don't remember.

[@hoidoei941]

Because many of those attic room kids like me where producing their very first music with this but never uploaded any tracks. I remember seeing a Lenny Dee commercial and thought wooooah I need to make this music like this as I was always analizing house music in my head. So I ran to the store wanting to buy 100,- music maker software and the guy working there said nooo kid just take this and he gave me a floppy with scream tracker. I was so confused but I was glad he didnt exploit me. I was very confused with this tracker stuff at first but I remember hitting my keyboard and it made noise so I eventually learned to reverse engineer from existing mod files.
Later came Impulse and fast tracker, then cubase, reason, FL studio and eventually ableton and I learned to play the guitar and the piano and it all started with a fucking floppy lol

[@rambozo_fpv176]

@@hoidoei941 That was the way, man! So cool the dude gave you scream tracker on a floppy.

[@Imperial_Lizardgirl]

​@@zonefrost games? It's literally remind me of video game music. Especially Funky stars remind me Elite 1984, (Nice year of release tbh).

[@Imperial_Lizardgirl]

​@@hoidoei941 so do you have your music on TH-cam? Or anywhere else? I listen.

[@CZpersi]

Back in the early 1990s, my father somehow hooked-up a radio receiver to our 286 PC via serial port to play tracker music without the need for a sound card (which were extremely rare back then). Until today, I do not know, how he did it exactly, but I remember listening to this fascinating music for hours, hypnotized by the tracker data running on screen.

[@Domarius64]

Man that sounds like some serious Doc Brown stuff there...

[@JohnTitor_0]

he probably made a lpt dac

[@Domarius64]

@@JohnTitor_0 but what software would output sound out of the LPT?

[@gengraded]

@@JohnTitor_0 The John Titor from the future?

[@JohnTitor_0]

@@Domarius64 fast tracker 2 and several other dos trackers, there were tons of older pc's without sound cards afterall. some dos games supported lpt dacs for sound as well, nowadays there's even things like adlib over lpt, with opl2lpt. windows 3 even had a driver to playback wave audio over pc speaker, horribly though.

[@nerdsbain8019]

it's crazy that the tunes these dudes made are still inspiring new music, they were pioneers

[@Hidden_Egg]

Please release more of these. These artists need more recognition.

[@JurekOK]

sadly, there can only be so many "best of the best" pieces.
The rest of them . . . may be "somewhat OK"

[@douggale5962]

Brings back good memories of implementing a MOD player on my 80286. I made a TSR in assembly language that played MOD files in the background,, spaming the CPU to death with timer IRQs to send PWM samples to the PC speaker. It sounded a bit awful by today's standards, but was amazing coming from a VIC 20, to PC XT, then AT. IRQ latency was incredibly good back then. Sluggishly printing "dir" output while mixing digital music was heartwarming. Multitasking!!!

[@alexna6129]

You speaking in black magic..

[@ellenorbjornsdottir1166]

That's utter madness. I wonder if someone ever managed to bridge a Commodore PAULA to the ISA bus, and save having to do all that kerfuffle.

[@jamescpalmer]

This software was how the entirety of the Unreal Tournament and Deus Ex soundtracks (Same engine) were made. Anything in Unreal Engine back in the day, it was more efficient to run the music through this stuff. I remember downloading a Winamp plugin that enabled me to drag and drop the unreal tournament music into Winamp, I use to zone to that shit while doing design work when I was about 13-14 years old. There was nothing in the world like that soundtrack back in the day. Amazing stuff.

[@Olus_Cerberon]

I just imagine some of these tracks to be the ost to another Unreal adventure. Would be awesome

[@Eye_Exist]

as someone who grew up playing early 90's games this type of music grew to my music taste. music can also be of how much you can say with how little. 3 tracks into this and i'm loving it.

[@davidm4677]

It's so Amiga music would fit in to video games perfectly.

[@PootisMayo]

Narfy did quite a sweet job with Jellyfish, I wasn't expecting the tempo change of that song towards the end.

[@AshleyKampta2]

Sounds like something that would have fit quite nicely in Unreal Tournament 99 if the lead instrument quality were a little better... it sounds like it was inspired by Michiel van den Bos or Alex Brandon's work.

[@PootisMayo]

@@AshleyKampta2 Couldn't agree more.

[@whoopitydo-da9530]

This part makes the song come together so well, I love it!

[@LordsofMedia]

Prodigy song.

[@FlexoShootFlexo]

Before mp3s were a thing, there was tracker music. And it was glorious - no copyrights, no "stealing" no accusations - just amazing music that could fit on a floppy with a bunch more amazing music. For those who knew, s3ms were mp3s before mp3s were mp3s.

[@b.e.e.k.e.r9812]

😃 - well I'd say, thats half the truth - .MODs (later s3ms) were technically totally different from MP3s - MP3 format was later invented - in order to compress the too large digital data from audio CDs. MODs in contrast, were files which contained a whole musical composition, including the instruments and were played back in realtime by the computers back in the day...those computers back then didn't even have the capability/power to even decode an MP3 in realtime,not to mention doing anything additional at the same time...good old days of pioneering 😋 - just my 2 cents
HAVE A HEALTHY 2024 y'all from back then ;-)

[@FlexoShootFlexo]

@@b.e.e.k.e.r9812 hence how they fit in a smaller amount of space, of course. instead of all-digital audio, they contained notes, samples and other metadata. the players would vary pitch and other characteristics, overlay the different tracks, and play the final product. to oversimplify, mods were MIDI files with sample data.

[@SnarkyComments]

Yeah provided you had all the sample disks.....

[@b.e.e.k.e.r9812]

​@@SnarkyComments - well the mods included the samples needed 😇

[@awii.neocities]

not really. S3Ms were MIDIs but actually good.

[@el10leo]

Cosmic Eclipse - Southern Aurora is clearly influenced by Twin Peaks intro and I love it for that!!

[@BadBoyBird]

This sounds like an album I would love to own and play when I'm driving at night time to go to a far place.

[@captainotto]

Reminds me of the old Sega game, Road Rash.
Just keep officer Omalley out of my way or I'll take that stick and beat him again.

[@BadBoyBird]

@@captainottoI think a relaistic vr road rash remaster would be cool man

[@BrentlyTV]

to bury the bodies

[@mr_b_hhc]

a high, faraway place, certainly.

[@mr_b_hhc]

@@BrentlyTV separations of ID and ego can get you like that, just bury the correct one.

[@shaneverwey4447]

The Matrix has you

[@reality2728]

It has you, too. Don't forget that...

[@nummer333]

I vividly remember hearing ‚clone it‘ back in the day and it blew me away ☺️ still does today 👍🏼

[@bluekai9577]

Wow. Yeah there’s something special about that one.

[@blackshard641]

Cyclone Panacea gave me serious flashbacks. I totally remember playing that one back in the late 90's.

[@markishome359]

Oh my god I'm hearing it for the first time right now and it's SO GOOD

[@DaemionBlackFire]

I remember downloading midi tracks just to expand my music taste back in the 80s and 90s and help me get more creative with my Korg. This is the stuff that got me into industrial music, which I still listen to.

[@djr3verse]

Very nice stuff. The Schism Tracker in the bg really sets the retro mood. Also, pozdrowienia dla Wrocławia :]

[@MickGardner-vc4us]

you are from Scorpik's hometown? thats awesome!

[@djr3verse]

@@MickGardner-vc4us Not really but i live close to Wrocław

[@MickGardner-vc4us]

@@djr3verse That's awesome! Wish you good health and success in your endeavours!

[@saulmighty]

Just watching the note visualizations was so hypnotic and awesome. You could learn music by actually seeing all the notes. Can you imagine if nowadays, when someone was releasing a new track, they exported their whole Protools project for everyone to download? That's how it was back then, when the whole project took less space than the compressed mp3.

[@NeuroTattoo]

ооооооох ностальгияяяя!!!! 97-98 года, мои первые шаги в цифровой музыке))))) Импульс Трекер)))

[@elecdool]

These songs are... just... so refreshing.

[@orangeracoon4081]

The Tracker Music will always be a legendary music for me truly

[@Racistobama]

I wore out Cubic Player and later on Modplug Player. I remember stuff from legends like Necros, all that demo music...man, what a time. Pretty sure I'd give the rest of my days for one year back then. And I would so a *lot* differently.

[@TR-707]

looking back and looking at this now (after becoming a pro electronic musician hah) this still feels like the most efficient and interesting format and idea for music sharing/music creation.
ok maybe maybe the music creation part isn't for everyone but you can even hook up outboard midi gear and whatever and make it a bit more hands on and easier. Not everyone sat there punching in numbers.
but yeah, so cool to have tiny files that you can easily remix and play back in parts, different speed, etc. Total clusterf with vsts, max4live devices, etc nowadays

[@RedCLR]

Where could I find your music?

[@Rocksaplenty]

This video you made changed the whole mood of my evening! If you like putting these together, please keep doing it!

[@rxmoutonmouton5595]

I had forgotten about .mod files.
Thank you for this memory.

[@Matt.Walker]

omg i remember making my first tunes like this for unreal tournament back in the day. everyone that joined our server would have received them but i doubt many copies have survived to this day i dont even have copies myself which is a shame , . i had forgot all about trackers must be over 20 years since i used one great vid

[@Jakim_]

Scorpik - Field-day is an instant mood-changer.

[@udance4ever]

this first track is a banger! love watching the L/R surround pan visual w headphones on 🎧

[@majmage]

Great playlist! I wish TH-cam surfaced public playlists, because I'd love to be recommended full public playlists like this but then have the option of adding individual songs to my own custom playlist. One video per song would also mean you could copy/paste the Instruments list into the description of the video (since that's usually where all the credits/thanks were put by the musician).
Also interesting that it's all artists I haven't heard before (with the exception of Virt).

[@trackermusicforever]

I agree, I would like to show the sample/instrument text, but then I would have to navigate away from the visuals. Maybe I'll make individual videos for them

[@Symmetriad]

O HAI
Always love seeing old tracker stuff around. Thanks for the upload!

[@trackermusicforever]

Oh hai!!! Thanks for checking it out!

[@Domarius64]

Thank you for this, we're at the point where it was sorely needed - to many "best of" lists and you keep hearing the same songs, but there is so much awesome stuff out there and I'm glad you dug it up!

[@trackermusicforever]

There really is! Glad you enjoyed it!

[@Dr.Quarex]

I have not really explored TH-cam Demoscene playlists but yeah I imagine there are 100 great tracks for every 1 properly represented here

[@jeremywhetzel3273]

Oh man! That Opinash track brings back memories! I had the "Tears Run Down" version on repeat back around 1998 or 1999, which is the one that has voice samples through it.

[@ellenorbjornsdottir1166]

This primarily reminds me that I should get an ADC for my big 8-core 64-bit PC and sample my Yamaha PSS-580 piano while playing some chords. Then downsample to 8-bit linear PCM at the appropriate sample rate (or maybe double or half of it, for octave transposing instruments) and see what I can put together working within the limits of ProTracker's file format.

[@Dishs]

Thank u demo scene for giving me these type of beats as a kid while installing cracked games ! The hype was very real :D

[@Mordi]

Excellent. I'm always looking for tracker music gems.
More recommendations of more or less underrated ones:
Radix & Scorpik - True (xm)
Radix & Loonie - Saskatchewan (xm)
Beat - Mind of a Dreamer (xm)
Beat - What's the Catch? (xm)
Disphunkt - Return of Starfleet One (xm)
Teque - JarJari (xm)
Teque - Moscow Mutation (xm)
Crystal Score - Astral Blur (it)
Virt - Flowerguy's Pool Party (it)
Virt - Nightfall over the city (it)
Anvil - Path to Nowhere (xm)
Jogeir Liljedahl - Ideana (xm)

[@sandrodellisanti1139]

Ciao, i've started to compose tracker music in 1989 on my amiga 500 with protracker, later in the early 90s with oktalyzer..many greetings from Brunswick in Germany..

[@hasko5653]

Very specific sounds of tracker music and those melodies are something I love about modules!

[@GamePlayShare]

I love tracker music.

[@untrust2033]

Blown away by that first one...

[@SMJSmoK]

Damn, Counterpoint 2.0 is pure distilled epicness!

[@nutzeeer]

this music is vibin.
With technology changing so fast its difficult to even play old digital formats without finding obscure old software first. Well actually not that old but times are changing so fast...

[@dj_enby]

Ridiculous use of sampling in here on some of these tracks. Thanks for the sick mix!

[@chiffmonkey]

Nice! Captain got me into this stuff, cool to hear some lesser known gems.

[@shaqm0bile]

Jellyfish had strong Unreal vibes and Cosmic Compressor could have been a missing Deus Ex track.
I cant seem to find much more from Narfy. Is he still making music?

[@unfunf22]

i had the same thought and thought damn this sounds like an unreal soundtrack.

[@shaqm0bile]

@@unfunf22 i know right? it slaps. wanted to see if i could find more. :(

[@hobbified]

I thought Jellyfish sounded like something of Skaven's. Either way it's fun.

[@alr6435]

@@user-ue1ji4du2q Yo google search "textfiles narfy" takes you straight to a page that lets you download songs (seemed safe to me) there's some really cool stuff from other artists here as well hope this finds you well brother EDIT: fear is such a tune

[@trackermusicforever]

He has another great song Lascivious Latency, can be found here among others: artscene.textfiles.com/music/mods/IT/MODLAND/Narfy/

[@DenSvartaStjarnan]

As someone born in '99 I'm really lost on how music trackers work and who used/uses them. But this gives me strong browser flash game vibes.

[@santitabnavascues8673]

Unironically, the only difference between this music and the music you may hear today is the style! Trackers work adding sound samples fragments to synthesize a wave that is fed to the sound card which plays it, that hasn't changed, the difference is the source of the samples be it prerrecorded sounds, or perhaps function waves, being these what normally produce chip tune sounds. Waves occupy less space than samples, thus this style is also caused by those limitations.

[@DenSvartaStjarnan]

@@santitabnavascues8673 So not that different from how the VSTs in Logic work!

[@MrCantStopTheRobot]

Thank you for explaining

[@alexlimi]

I highly recommend Ahoy’s short documentary on the subject: th-cam.com/video/roBkg-iPrbw/w-d-xo.html

[@Dr.Quarex]

The word "Demoscene" is the single cipher needed to unlock a thorough Google search that would help you discover who used them and how they were used :) Though yes SantiTab Navascues' explanation is pretty solid. A song was made with anywhere from 1 to dozens of sampled sounds, arranged via the module tracker to dictate the pitch, speed, and other effects for each note of the song.

[@mr_b_hhc]

Cosmic Eclipse - Southern Aurora does something very specific to my soul.

[@johnbarger3651]

I love this channel! Do you take suggestions? I have some old underrated xm files from DEE and others I would like to see you play on your channel.

[@westerncivilization]

do you remember holy ghost?

[@trackermusicforever]

Yes, I'm open to suggestions! Post 'em here if you like, or, I created a Discord server with a suggestions channel discord.gg/dhc3xApywF

[@Elburion]

that mellow-d song sounds like it would fit right into a Deus Ex combat moment

[@scrrification]

I am pretty impressed with the selection. Thanks for putting it together!

[@opalpersonal]

the guitars in field day sound incredible- i'd be very curious to learn how the sounds were created and manipulated to sound so real!

[@einokeskitalo3217]

It's sampled actual playing.

[@Andruth34]

Being born in 92, I feel like I missed out on something very special with this scene.
At least with the modern internet, nothing truly dies, and we get to be here enjoying this wonderful art together in 2023.

[@narutex216bits8]

Unreal Tournament G.O.T.Y. Music Feels!

[@Audentum]

Never heard of this genera before in my life but I love it. Reminds me of songs from an Game boy advance game. Thanks for the upload.

[@Domarius64]

27:32 "darkhalo - cosmic compressor" - this is literally Unreal engine style music :) From the Unreal / Deus Ex era.

[@mybachhertzbaud3074]

IMHO, All the very best music in the 90's was hiding online in Mods etc.
😁🎶🎹🎵 Play On

[@Radek0582]

that was the music!

[@fiilissound]

Nice! Man this brings me back in time with the trackers.

[@humanbeing_]

It would be great if you'd link the original files for all these songs. [EDIT] Or source references. I'm sure I can find them by doing a web search. But the majority of what you post in these mixes are fantastic tunes, so I prefer to download the originals myself to have for my personal collection :)

[@trackermusicforever]

Good idea, I'll get that posted in the description ASAP. Thanks

[@dchardin1]

@@trackermusicforever I completely missed out on this scene from my youth in the 90's. I can't wait to catch up now! I'm researching how I might be able to emulate some of these trackers on my modern system.

[@12q8]

Nice. This was recommended by the algorithm on my home page. Glad it did.
This is awesome.

[@jonbezeau3124]

Jellyfish! What a banger :)

[@sevinPackage]

Nice collection!
Obscure is right - the only song I heard before from this set was by hunz, and I'm surprised I hadn't heard the track from fellow FM member, mellow-d.

[@RaxoMaxo]

such a cool video! mods were amazing, i spend quite some years creating stuff with ImpulseTracker! so happy to hear Cyclone again.. havent heard his mods over 20 years!

[@Rocksaplenty]

thanks for making this lost media found!

[@MoctorDac]

ah lads I think I found my new favourite channel >:^]

[@sickleandsuckle]

Killer track to start with!!!

[@bjorns1135]

No one ever underrated virt ;)
great stuff!

[@Heike--]

Cleaning my house to this music, it's perfect

[@Dr.Quarex]

I do not think I cleaned my basement to anything else between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s. And even today I literally think "I wish I could just open up my Mod4Win playlist" when I need to spend time cleaning something.

[@yuriyvasilyev2453]

Эх, молодость, молодость...

[@nathanlewis8692]

I've never heard any of these tunes before. But don't tell that to my brain's nostalgia meter.

[@BerendvanBerkum0]

sweet collection (halfway through but neway awesome)

[@robertrijkers947]

a mixing table.. an amplifier.... a 486DX2 with fasttracker/modtracker installed and playing with samples to make music was a great way to keep me an entertained teen... ;p

[@isaiaslafon9329]

Nice!!! I tarted at my 15 to compose in Impulse Tracker v2.14 in 1998 until like 2011 on a 486 dx4 100mhz with 2mb then 16mb of ram, when I discovered to use more ram was really nice I start to use my own recorded weird samples

[@neonvoid]

Pretty good 25:15 scorpik - field-day never heard before

[@jankybit]

Oof, no mods from your pal skyline? I'm hurt! ;D Naw, I'm kidding. Nice to see you're still kicking!

[@suic86]

Thank you for showing me this music I had no idea about :)

[@GO-tq6hs]

that scorpik track is sick, love tracker stuff that is obviously tracker music but also isn't at the same time with the guitar and drums.

[@trackermusicforever]

Yeah, it's cool! there was a whole genre of people making rock/guitar stuff

[@chazt2249]

I’m having an overwhelming urge to play Snake/Nibbles now, IYKYK

[@digitalbeat666]

My music in 90s was so underground only my relatives knew it exists

[@Markfromthe80s]

"Clone It" is so funky!

[@westerncivilization]

Excellent subject matter and execution. Bravo.

[@emiln1977]

I started making music in Scream Tracker 3.21 in 1997, later move to Impulse Tracker 2.xx... It was good time :)

[@jamesread-tannock7176]

This is incredible!

[@9a8szmf79g9]

Yes. Simpler times. "This is what the internet was made for."

[@miikavihersaari3104]

Let's remember, and by remembering maybe bring back at least a tiny bit of that which was lost.

[@minapin]

youtube recommendation works well
FREAKING LOVE THIS!!

[@kagex6116]

Thank you this is awesome stuff!

[@trackermusicforever]

Glad you like it!

[@Eon119]

This Impulse tracker software was the final piece of the puzzle to convince me to switch from the Amiga 1200 to PC.

[@sgsvve]

Fantastic!

[@arthouse_music]

This is awesome. Thanks for uploading.

[@user-ot6mg1tu3e]

Some are very good I put it as playlist when I code :)

[@trevorjjacobs]

Nice. This really takes me back.

[@jaysistar2711]

SunVox is the most modern tracker. DAWs may be better, but for the old school composers it works well.

[@marcussmiler3500]

I don't know how I get there but this stuff is mesmerizing. 13:30 - what this track was released in 90s?! Perfection, majority of mainstream music nowadays can't even come close by to this track. Anyway Skorpik and next darkhalo - what a contrast!?

[@ar_xiv]

underrated as in never rated ever. good stuff!

[@hexkwondo]

I loved mods and Xmas files! I really wish those would make a comeback!

[@MoriyaMug]

WOOF. Nostalgia bomb right here.

[@largadeugnt]

Why in the heavens YT brought me here... WOW Pretty cool sound btw.

[@BennyPowers]

wow i really hope this crack works, can't wait to try these warez

[@user-fm9ke2nj1k]

Ностальгия! Спасибо!

[@el10leo]

Need a longer playlist man, at least 3hs what you waiting for, do eetttttt

[@WACkZerden]

that jellyfish outro

[@psyedk]

damn, that's a sick track from darkhalo