I composed a small number of Amiga tracker modules at around the turn of the 1990s, one of which even enjoyed some popularity. These were made first and foremost for my personal amusement — for exploring music creation and sequencing on a computer — but they also ended up being used in some demoscene productions.

My tools of choice for sequencing them were, at first, Oktalyzer (see here as well), and later ProTracker (see here as well).

For the very first experiments, I used whatever was available to me — instrument samples borrowed from tracker modules made by other people or originating from the famous ST-## instrument sample disks, which were originally meant to be used with Karsten Obarski’s Soundtracker, the forefather of ProTracker.

Then I saw this computer magazine ad for a sound digitizer device for the Amiga. It was a black nondescript plastic box — a bit larger than a pack of cigarettes — which plugged into the printer (parallel) port on the back of the Amiga. It had a single mono RCA input and a trimmer knob for adjusting the input level. There was also a cable going to the joystick port which it used for powering itself. That’s about it.

See this video showing it in use. I never utilized this tool’s built-in sequencing capability, though, but only used it for acquisition and preprocessing the instrument samples for the tracker programs.

I also did some sampling and instrument sample processing in the internal audio editors built into some trackers, but I tended to use AudioMaster the most.

The digitizer was 8-bit, and mono only, but it was a perfect match for the Amiga capabilities since the Amiga sound hardware had four 8-bit sound channels. (Of course, I would later learn that oversampling and better-than-8-bit dynamics during acquisition would yield better results when downsampled to the target format. But at the time, the Amiga hardware was all that I had for working with sound.)

So, with the hardware and software in order, I then started digitizing instrument samples from commercial music, usually C cassettes and popular songs. Many songs had e.g. intro sequences or breaks from where you could get great, clean drum or bass samples. I also got some pads and major and minor chords from some songs.

I composed a small number of Amiga tracker modules at around the turn of the 1990s, one of which even enjoyed some popularity. These songs were made, first and foremost, for my personal amusement — for exploring music creation and sequencing on a personal computer — but they also ended up being used in some demoscene productions.

My tools of choice were, at first, Oktalyzer (see here as well), and later ProTracker (see here as well).

For the very first experiments, I used whatever sounds were available to me. The instrument samples were borrowed from tracker modules made by other people or originated from the famous ST-## instrument sample disks, originally meant to be used with Karsten Obarski’s Soundtracker, the forefather of ProTracker.

I then spotted this ad in a computer magazine for an Amiga-compatible sound digitizer device. It was a black, nondescript plastic box — a bit larger than a pack of cigarettes — which plugged into the printer (parallel) port on the back of the Amiga. It had a single mono RCA input and a trimmer knob for adjusting the input level. There was also a DE-9 cable for a connection to the joystick port which it used for powering itself. That’s about it.

See this video showing the AudioMaster in action. I never utilized this tool’s built-in sequencing capability, though, but only used it for acquisition and for cleaning up the instrument samples. The actual songs were composed in the tracker programs.

I also used the internal samplers and audio editors built into some trackers, but I tended to use AudioMaster (an external tool) the most.

The audio digitizer device was 8-bit, and only supported monophonic sound, but it was a perfect match for the Amiga capabilities since the Amiga sound hardware had four 8-bit sound channels. (Of course, I would later learn that oversampling and better-than-8-bit dynamics during acquisition would yield better results when downsampled to the target format. But at the time, the Amiga hardware was all that I had for working with sound.)

With the hardware and software in order, I then started digitizing instrument samples from commercially-published songs. These tended to be contemporary (late 1980s, early 1990s) pop and rock music published on C cassettes. Many songs had intro sequences or breaks from where you could get great, clean drum or bass samples. I also sourced some nice strings or pads with usable major and minor and other chords.

I composed a small number of Amiga tracker modules at around the turn of the 1990s, one of which even enjoyed some popularity. These were done first and foremost for my personal amusement — for exploring music creation and sequencing on a computer — but they also ended up being used in some demoscene productions.

I composed a small number of Amiga tracker modules at around the turn of the 1990s, one of which even enjoyed some popularity. These were made first and foremost for my personal amusement — for exploring music creation and sequencing on a computer — but they also ended up being used in some demoscene productions.