I'm sorry, but if you already know all this, why can't you make sense? You're again coming in with a new claim that falls apart the second I add context:

MIDI is a digital standard for musical notation, one which trackers DID NOT USE. Lots of trackers use their own formats which can't even be opened by other trackers, let alone any MIDI compliant software. Not to mention that MIDI files don't come with samples, while tracker modules had to in order to reproduce a track correctly.

Trackers are as related to MIDI as they are to dots scribbled onto five lines on a piece of paper. All music can be represented using MIDI, because MIDI is just notes. That doesn't mean all digital music uses MIDI. Especially when MIDI doesn't store actual sound data.

Trackers, and I apparently have to say this again, USED SAMPLES. As in, NOT SYNTHS (like the NES). They played back recorded audio data from actual sound files according to a pattern input by the composer. Which yes, you could argue is equivalent to MIDI. But the samples are not, and they are a fundamental part of how trackers work. In order to even get started with using a tracker to create NES/SNES style music, you'd have to configure it with a sample-bank that contains the noises they would make.

Perhaps you are confused because MIDI sound cards did something similar. They used MIDI data to play music using the preset sample-banks that different MIDI cards came with, meaning the track would sound different depending on what sound card was used.

Tracker modules meanwhile came with their own samples, meaning they always played the same. Composers could also use whatever audio files they wanted to create their sample-banks.

"Those old games" also most certainly did not use MIDI, they either had their music produced using direct hardware instruction or whatever tools the game developers created for themselves.

But we're getting off track. You've kept making new claims about trackers, what they are related to, the terminology around them, and what they are for, each of which has been subtly off.

To recap:

Tracker music is tracker music. The word "chiptune" can either refer to a sub-genre within tracker music, or "retro" music in general, which includes lots of other music aside from tracker music. However, it cannot be used to refer to tracker music and only tracker music. Those two terms are not interchangeable. That doesn't change because "it's much later now m8".

Trackers were also not created to "replicate" or "reproduce" anything, they can, but they can also do more. They were developed specifically to take advantage of the new 16-bit sound card introduced in the Amiga, and worked by playing back recorded audio samples, while older computer music was produced by instructing synthesizers to bleep and bloop.

[–] irmoz@reddthat.com -1 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I suppose you never discovered that MIDI can trigger samples, too.

[–] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

If you had a MIDI sound-card, sure.

Of course you can use samples to play the notes in a MIDI, MIDI is just a digital standard for storing a sequence of notes. You can do whatever you want with those.

But now you're grasping at straws, trackers didn't use MIDI, and unlike MIDI, shipped the samples with the tracks, so they'd sound the same wherever they were played.

That there's a superficial similarity is inconsequential, and that you'd bring it up at all, just further crushes your previous claims that trackers were related to earlier 8-bit synth-based music.

[–] irmoz@reddthat.com -1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Mate you're not gonna convince me that "tracker music" is anything but a vague term. You might have a point in it describing music made wth a tracker, but with Renoise existing these days, that isn't exactly very specific is it? We call these pieces "scene music", or even "keygen music" if you're new to it. It's as useful as saying "DAW music". The music made in the style of old retro games is more specific than just "it was made with a tracker". That is exactly why the term "chiptune" exists; it's music that is made with those old sound chips, or emulations of them. That gets to the heart of the issue.

[–] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Is that what you think I was trying to do?

Does it need to be more than a vague term, if it, when entered into google or youtube, results in the exact thing I was talking about? Music, made using a "tracker".

Scene music or chiptune, meanwhile, both lead to far less specific results. Same for DAW.

As for retro computer music as a genre, I never claimed it should ALL be called "tracker music", you're the one who went "which necessitates a tracker".

I'm perfectly happy with chiptune as a word for any and all retro music. Tracker music can be called chiptune, but not all chiptune, is tracker music.