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Powerbook Making Music - 1987 edition....

Dronecatcher

Dronecatcher

macrumors 603
Original poster
Jun 17, 2014
5,254
7,898
Lincolnshire, UK
My recent project is finally complete and now uploaded to Bandcamp, The Protracker EP - built entirely on my Powerbook G4 12" :)

As I revealed here and here, I'm using the modern clone of Protracker which, alas, the author abandoned for PowerPC a few years ago - although as I've shown, it is still totally usable (and bear in mind my Powerbook is running in Reduced mode at half speed.)

As this is a faithful copy of the original Protracker for the Commodore Amiga, it is entirely low resolution, 8 bit sample based software and can only run 4 tracks at once - this presents a real back to basics technique and allows you to focus instead of fiddling!

Each completed track (or tracker mod) is very compact - under a megabyte, small enough to fit on a floppy - and fully compatible to even play on an Amiga 500 from 1987!

For Bandcamp all tracks are output from Protracker as wav files, edited to aiff in Audacity, then finally mastered in SonicWorx on OS9 (iBook G3.)

I make no apologies for my schizophrenic taste of mixing and mashing up samples - I'm sure @TheShortTimer and @B S Magnet might have some fun trainspotting my sources ;)

1000.png
 
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Dronecatcher said:
My recent project is finally complete and now uploaded to Bandcamp, The Protracker EP - built entirely on my Powerbook G4 12" :)

As I revealed here and here, I'm using the modern clone of Protracker which, alas, the author abandoned for PowerPC a few years ago - although as I've shown, it is still totally usable (and bear in mind my Powerbook is running in Reduced mode at half speed.)

As this is a faithful copy of the original Protracker for the Commodore Amiga, it is entirely low resolution, 8 bit sample based software and can only run 4 tracks at once - this presents a real back to basics technique and allows you to focus instead of fiddling!

Each completed track (or tracker mod) is very compact - under a megabyte, small enough to fit on a floppy - and fully compatible to even play on an Amiga 500 from 1987!

For Bandcamp all tracks are output from Protracker as wav files, edited to aiff in Audacity, then finally mastered in SonicWorx on OS9 (iBook G3.)

I make no apologies for my schizophrenic taste of mixing and mashing up samples - I'm sure @TheShortTimer and @B S Magnet might have some fun trainspotting my sources ;)

View attachment 2181878
Click to expand...

At least three in track 1;
at least four on track 2 (special shoutout for the pyrite open);
only two on track 3 (but recognized a vox in there);
at least five on track 4;
at least three (on what ought to be titled “DePainter (DeParr)” on track 5; and
at least (an obvious) one on track 6 (which, oddly, the gtx sample didn’t ring a bell).

So, I’m pretty sure I picked up at least eighteen of them. :)

You know, this could have bben released as a CD EP on, say, One Little Indian Records, or Debut Edge Records, circa May 1991, and no one then would have been the wiser that it didn’t get sent to them straight out of the Terminator-age future. :D

(Incidentally, is there a way you’ve found to make Bandcamp playback work on legacy browsers, in-browser? It seems to use js/xhr calls which leaves controls unresponsive on older browsers.)
 
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B S Magnet said:
Incidentally, is there a way you’ve found to make Bandcamp playback work on legacy browsers, in-browser?
Click to expand...
It works on InterWebPPC - I have it in a dedicated InTheBox instance...although Bandcamp can break at the drop of a hat!

Thanks for the comments - had such great fun throwing unlikely samples together and getting to grips with Protracker...if only I hadn't sold my Amigas ;)
 
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ahoi! Dronecatcher,

Fanx, f..kin´ genious.
Elvis Costello meets every one´s a winner meets owner of a lonely heart
played by The Buzzcocks...i guess ;-)...
Waybackmachine !!!, just like when i started "Digital Punkrock" back in 19xx with PlayerPro,
(I completly forgot that one, damn´, just downloaded from the garden).
This "mod" survived the millennium:
jehovatapperwer.bandcamp.com

Tanz die Kompaktanlage, by Jehova Tapperwer

from the album The Pest of Jehova Tapperwer
jehovatapperwer.bandcamp.com jehovatapperwer.bandcamp.com

Best regards
Don´t give me ****, give me 8 bit !!!

PowerPC Punk
 
Dronecatcher said:
It works on InterWebPPC - I have it in a dedicated InTheBox instance...although Bandcamp can break at the drop of a hat!

Thanks for the comments - had such great fun throwing unlikely samples together and getting to grips with Protracker...if only I hadn't sold my Amigas ;)
Click to expand...

Don't be too hard on yourself. From the mid 90s, I was one of the few people that I knew of that still used an Amiga on a regular basis. Many people either sold or just retired them to a closet after the PC developed to the stage where it outpaced the best Amiga that Commodore had to offer - the A4000, let alone the A1200 or A500 etc.

I actually regret not buying the A1200 that I saw for £15 some years back at a local flea market. It was there for ages, unsold! In very poor judgement, I dismissed it as not worth bothering with and that was a silly decision, admittedly.

On the subject of the Amiga and music production, here's a video that I shared in a thread which unfortunately was nuked due to the usual heated disagreements. :D


Similar to Pete, I got a copy of OctaMED from the cover of the Amiga Format December 1991 issue and used it to play back samples which I'd found on various game disks and other places.

af029b.jpg


(Contrary to the label, it worked on my A500+ and Kickstart 2.0! I only needed to run it via Workbench instead of a cold boot.)

I also regret not buying of one these before the prices went insane due to the Liam Howlett/The Prodigy association and general retro greed. Ah well, you can't have everything. :)

 
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...Throw everything in the blender...
ahoi!
Blendering is the "new wave" of sampling.
This one has lots of blenderstuff:

Have a nice sunday.

PowerPC Punk
 
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TheShortTimer said:
On the subject of the Amiga and music production, here's a video that I shared in a thread which unfortunately was nuked due to the usual heated disagreements.
Click to expand...
Yes, I'm familiar with Pete and the whole bunch of Youtube junglist revivalists/survivors (sadly some of their old videos are no longer around) - I'm in awe of their expertise (and the speed they can slice those beats up!)

I came to the Amiga in the late 90s as at the time me and my friends were busy trying to be a cross between The Stranglers and The Jesus & Mary Chain - computers were for eggheads ;)

I had quite a pile of hardware but precious little time to devote to it - work consumed my life and it all got sold for pennies.

I rebought 600s and 1200s a decade later but by then I'd been spoilt by PowerPCs running Reason and making music on an Amiga by comparison was incredibly clunky - although I really should have captured my A1200/MIDIinterface/Yamaha SHS-200 budget Jan Hammer moment for Youtube posterity ;)
 
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ahoi! Dronecatcher,

--- mashing up samples ---
ja, get it on, PPC making-music-2023.
You may listen to this:
kleinstadtgrab.bandcamp.com

Die Maschine des jüngsten Gerichts - Phase 1, by Kleinstadtgrab

4 track album
kleinstadtgrab.bandcamp.com kleinstadtgrab.bandcamp.com
Made with a G5 (Late 2005), Reaper 475 and my "allmighty" Alesis iO 26 Firewire.
This is a daily driver, if you know how to handle it...;-)
At least, it´s a little bit faster than my first mac (Performa 6200).
I remember, it lasted about 5 minutes to add a 10 second Reverb with SoundStudio,
just to hear it´s bad.
But that´s the way we learned it.

...No need to unravel my sample-sources...

Wasser + Brot
Borrowed from this ingenious, forgotten, underated Band:

Die grosse Zerschwörung
Borrowed from the Queen and her Kings, the Masters of PowerPunkPop:

Sincerly yours,

Church of PPC Punk

PS.
"trying to be a cross between The Stranglers and The Jesus & Mary Chain"
I´m awaiting for the bandcamp mixdown Release...;_/ in 2033.
 
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--- I'd have never guessed - I was thinking borrowed from Stereolab? ---

ahoi! Dronecatcher,

No, but yes, "yeah", Stereolab - Mars Audiac Quintet (one of my all time favourites).
R.I.P. Mary Hansen !
- I hate (fast) cars - anyway.
Just another band that went down the drain, when the english music industry
decided that "BritPop" is the next big thing to make money,
and Stereolab was not that compatible...

By the way:
A "funny" (?) little story about borrowed stuff.
Years ago i made a sample from a Throbbing Gristle song,
and in my "stupid german correctness" i wrote a mail to Mute.
That´s were TG were sold to/out. I thought Mute, o.k.,
good old independent record-label...
After lots of mails and a "sample use request questionnaire",
which i had to send as a letter, they wrote:
----------
I am afraid that we will need to deny this sample use request and must insist
that the track not be made public or released in any way.
Best wishes,
Simon
----------
O.K. Simon, ever heard about Throbbing Gristle anyway ?
Oh Lord, forgive e´m, cause they don´t know what they do...
After some research, i noticed that most of the
so called "independent record-labels" are owned by
the big rulers, UMG, BMG, etc.
What did i learn again ?:
“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway
where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.
There's also a negative side.”
- Hunter S. Thompson -

And yes, be creative, but only if they can make money.
---
Do they owe us a living, cause they f..king do.
---
Who said that ?

P.S. i´ve attached a "photo statement", may be you like it. ;-),
but please don´t abuse it.

Best wishes,

PowerPC Punk
-----
 

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Dronecatcher said:
My recent project is finally complete and now uploaded to Bandcamp, The Protracker EP - built entirely on my Powerbook G4 12" :)
Click to expand...
Dude! I don't know how I missed this thread, but this is awesome. Kudos to you for keeping the spirit of the 90s alive in your PowerPC projects with some sweet tracks. I'm a complete Amiga novice having never used anything Amiga related until MorphOS on a Mac; this program looks like it is not easy to use unless you know all the shortcuts and are a pro. What is the quadrascope showing exactly? How did you learn how to use this program?

That 8-bit-i-ness has a vibe to it, like an old MP3 collection from the era that needs to be relistened to (on a Powerbook, of course).

Keep up the good work!
 
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PowerPC Punk said:
Wasser + Brot
Borrowed from this ingenious, forgotten, underated Band:

PS.
"trying to be a cross between The Stranglers and The Jesus & Mary Chain"
I´m awaiting for the bandcamp mixdown Release...;_/ in 2033.
Click to expand...
You're the second person I've ever encountered in my life who knows about Doves. Firesuite was my absolute jam back in the early 2000s (and most of Lost Souls for that matter).

Love what you're doing here. JMC would be proud.
 
---You're the second person I've ever encountered in my life who knows about Doves---
ahoi! doctor_dog
Who was the first... ? ;-)
Ja,
that´s the "poor" artist destiny.
Nobody knows you, until you are dead.
Dance the Vincent Mondrian...
- TV Personalities -
They Could Have Been Bigger than the Beatles.
televisionpersonalities.bandcamp.com

They Could Have Been Bigger Than The Beatles, by Television Personalities

16 track album
televisionpersonalities.bandcamp.com televisionpersonalities.bandcamp.com

Greetings, PowerPC Punk
 
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Dronecatcher said:
No surprise about the sample rights from the people you'd least expect to enforce them!
Click to expand...

Do you remember when the KLF burned copies of their debut album at the behest of the MCPS because of an uncleared Abba sample?

the-justified-ancients-of-mu-mu-klf-communications-ab.jpg


I couldn't believe that the MCPS even demanded that Drummond and Cauty surrender the master tape for destruction. That warranted a reply of two words, starting with F and ending with f. :D
 
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doctor_dog said:
Kudos to you for keeping the spirit of the 90s alive in your PowerPC projects with some sweet tracks.
Click to expand...
Thank you :)
Yes, using a tracker is difficult if you've spent your life as a musician recording things in a linear/analogue type way - they were designed by and used by programmers initially and it shows.

But once learned, the inbuilt limitations keep you focused instead of wasting too much time wondering about plugins and soft synths etc

The oscilloscopes show the sound levels from each track and are integral to the tracker aesthetic but do have a real value when checking the timing on synchronised sounds.
 
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TheShortTimer said:
Do you remember when the KLF burned copies of their debut album at the behest of the MCPS because of an uncleared Abba sample?
Click to expand...
I don't remember that...I remember them burning a £million though and handing out an award for the worst artist of the year - it was fun watching the art establishment get wound up and hypocritical about it :)

What a great era...
 
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ahoi! TheShortTimer,

reminds me of the "good" (?) old german custom,
we had from 1933 - 1945, called "Bücherverbrennung".
in english, Book Burning. i guess (?), could not find an english comparative...
Destroy anything you don´t want or understand.

...Dance the the Ku Klux Klan...

Greetings, PowerPC Punk
 
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