Tracked in Time

Posted by Jake on January 16th, 2009 filed in General, Music Release

For anyone who’s curious: Yes, I’m still using Impulse Tracker to track “normal” songs (not just chiptunes) and yes, there’s new stuff you can listen to. Here:

BRAINSTORM: TRACKED IN TIME

Some background, for anyone who is scratching their head: I’m in a demo group called Brainstorm along with a bunch of incredible musicians, programmers, and artists. We make cool demos and enter in demo party contests and talk about boobies and human-goat relations and alcoholic beverages.

A musicdisk is essentially an album or EP of music released for free in the demo scene, often packaged as an executable file with a display / visualization program written specifically for the album. Tracked in Time (TiT for short, obviously) is one such musicdisk, with a very unique distinction.

In the late 80s and early 90s, tracking software exploded onto the scene following the release of Ultimate Soundtracker on the Commodore Amiga computer in 1987. There was an official disk of instrument / percussion samples distributed alongside it, called ST-01. We have taken that pack of samples, and nothing else, and written a collection of brand new songs.

This production is many years in the making — if you’re unfamiliar with musicdisks or demos, you’ll want to click on the “Info” button to get a scrolling text file while you listen to the songs. It will explain more about the disk and, at times, the “keyboard” will be “handed over” to each participant, myself included, to say a little something.

My tracks are “Keep Shreddin’, Little Man” (4 channel) and “Nightfall over the City” (multichannel), but do yourself a favor and listen to everything; there’s a TON of great music in there. Enjoy!


12 Responses to “Tracked in Time”

  1. TheC Says:

    Keep shredding is a masterpiece. Love it!

  2. chibi-tech Says:

    Whoa, I wish I knew of this project sooner… since there’s nothing more guiltily gratifying for me than old 4-channel Amiga MODs laden with short Yamaha DX100 and Roland D50 samples such as “pizza”, “monobass”, and “licks” recorded in 8363Hz. Seriously, this musicdisk is so freaking awesome.

  3. vim cortez Says:

    I’m discovering areas of music I had only the faintest idea existed through your website. Are there projects like this using mp3 files and/or music that is not necessarily produced with trackers? I think the music + graphics package is the way to go!

  4. icywindow Says:

    Quite amused and gratified with the music. You’re going to make me download winamp, aren’t you? It must be a conspiracy.

    Thank you!

  5. Ninomojo Says:

    “talk about boobies and human-goat relations”

    You perfectly summed up the demoscene, thumbs up! And OHMYGAWD you knew and remember ST-01!!!! True awesomeness.

    You should run a kwakfest with “horrible Amiga music” as the subject. I would totally win.

  6. deathy/brs Says:

    vim – Absolutely. Most demoscene productions these days do not restrict themselves to tracked music. The next prod we’re working on is looking to be all MP3s. A big part of the use of tracked modules is related to the challenge of it combined with the old-school nature.

  7. skyline Says:

    Wow. That’s *really* impressive music Jake. I’ve been tracking again as of late and will be studying up on all of this as per usual. Good work :D

  8. Alex Says:

    Oh My God Man! Your music is Sooooooo inspiring!! Thanks SO Much! : ) AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

  9. Saga Musix Says:

    Impulse Tracker FTW! :)

  10. Autonymous Cowherd Says:

    Virt – Please make a song about the Ostrich Hammer and sneak it into Red Faction!!! :O

    Moooo!

  11. poop Says:

    Possible to get “Keep shredding little man” in midi or mp3 format?

  12. Николай Says:

    Обалдеть просто! Почти все, блин, об этом знают, кроме меня :)

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