I want to talk about tracker music, including hardcore. Tracker music was and is done on tracker programs like Soundtracker, Protracker, Fasttracker, Impulse Tracker and countless others.
What people will notice first is the abstract, “top down” view of the sequencer screen, very much unlike the layout of modern DAW programs. Trackers were, to most part, a digital form of producing. The basic sequencing was done by writing the sound to be used (the sample) and the pitch into the sequence editor. All channels were on the same screen (so for example you had to sequence hi-hats and bassdrum and bassline together and could not “add them later”).
These “patterns” were then put into a playing order in another screen. You could add “effects” to each note played such as pitchbent or vibrato, and in later trackers even filtering.
The finished result was saved as modules files, or MODs. These contained both the song and the samples that were used.
In the present day, Tracker technology has improved by a lot; programs like Renoise or Jeskola Buzz added hundreds of new functions and changes in the style and way to produce. Buzz allows you to use a variety of soft-synths written for the program, for example, so you no longer have to rely on sampling.
Before the internet, these modules were spread in the BBS scene. BBS was short for Bulletin Board System and to an internet user it’s hard to explain what exactly they were. A BBS was run on a computer and you could dial it up with your own computer and a modem – around the globe basically – and when you accessed the BBS it offered services like messaging boards, chat (where you could talk to other users that had dialed up the BBS at the same time as you), games, and download sections – were amongst other things track modules could be downloaded or uploaded.
Tracker artists often organized themselves in groups, so called crews. These crews usually were not just composed of musicians, but had also graphic artists, writers, and often programmers – “coders”; they turned the individual tracks into a release of multiple tracks with visuals and menus – kinda like a multimedia LP. Often these releases were stand-alone programs done by the coders which played so called demos while the modules played – graphic animations, often in a virtual reality and cyberspace style, sometimes even short movies, that tested the computing power of your system to its limits.
This is where the tracker scene met the demo scene; demos could be written for existing tracks, or demo coders included tracks for the demos; so sometimes the music came first, sometimes the programming.
The crews had so called couriers that dialed up BBS sytems around the country or world to spread the tracker releases. Often a crew had its own BBS or a BBS was connected to several crews.
With the rise of the internet, the world of BBS systems faded quickly; but the tracker and demo scene moved to the net and survives on it to this day.
With the rise of techno and hardcore, this sound quickly spread to the tracker scene too in the early 90s; long before speedcore really took its hold on vinyl, tracks that exceeded 300 or 400 bpm were released as modules.
Most producers and crews were not “hardcore only” though, and did a variety of techno and electronic styles.
The tracker and demo scene were the root for many techno and hardcore artists in the 90s: Nasenbluten, Neophyte, E-De Cologne, Christoph De Babalon, Amiga Shock Force all started on tracker programs and many many more did so. Hardsequencer, Cybermouse, Bomb 20 and others had releases in the BBS or Amiga scene before their sounds was put to vinyl and CD.
But the vast majority of tracker music never saw the light of day outside its scene; just the couriers and crews and users of the BBS world knew about them. But now there are some archives for this very scene on the internet. It’s a sonic treasure that’s still be to dug up.
Here are three mixes that are showcasing the early tracker hardcore scene:
