You're welcome. I felt much the same as you...although I was into synths in the 1980s, by the time 1990 rolled around I was deep into traditional Celtic music (rather than Bebop) and actively avoided electronic music and synths, etc.
Because of this I missed out on the full potential of trackers and chipsounds, which I only came to appreciate (re-appreciate) once the Amiga was a retro-computer. I sort of feel I didn't take full advantage of the potential offered by a simple Amiga 500 and a tracker in the late 1980s and early 1990s (I thought I needed expensive external sound modules, multitrack decks and keyboards and things I couldn't afford at the time). I had the "...if only I had the (insert latest and greatest piece of gear or Amiga expansion here) I could *finally* make professional sounding music..." syndrome, instead exploring the potential of what I had on my desktop.
In my own defense, this was before the days of the web when you could help from other Amiga users, so the first time I opened a tracker (without the benefit of a user manual) it looked like an intimidating machine language hexadecimal editor of some sort. I left trackers alone for many years because of that.
I'm still seriously into traditional Celtic music, but now can appreciate both genres (and many others) and I don't mind combining sounds from the two.
I discovered the wonderful Bars & Pipes rather late (1997-ish) but I really love it and still use it all the time (it works great under emulation) for MIDI work.
By the way...your animations and great. What software you use to make them???
Seems you and I had similar timing and experience. I never really checked out a tracker before that I remember. I think I would have felt the same way as you. I'm tempted to try it now. I think it would be a great exercise both for some perspective of how the music was created then and also to gain a certain understanding of the basics of sampling. That's the thing about using technology that's a little closer to the bone... (lower level, in programming terms) since you're working with the basics, on their terms (as opposed to something more user friendly) you get a firmer grasp on those basics. Er, in theory at least. (certainly holds true with audio gear... if you've worked with the analog boxes, the modeled digital plugins are much easier to grasp.) I mean, now a days it's no big deal to know how to use a sampler, but to know something about how sampling works, that's a different thing...
Man, I loved Bars and Pipes. I was working with some pretty cheap MIDI gear, but I had fun and had no idea just how well it prepared me for what I do now...
I mostly work in Logic now, though I toy around with some other software too. I trigger Hardsid via MIDI to a PC...use audio out from there and hook it into audio inputs of the audio interface attached to my mac. That's how I'm planning on using the A500 too.
From what people are saying here, I'm gonna try to get my hands on OSS.
Thanks again for all the great information. I spent some time on YouTube last night checking out demos. Fun stuff. The music is actually much slicker sounding than a lot of the games... pretty amazing what they were able to do...
I just ordered Amiga Forever and will be going through my bins of cables to see if I've got a null modem when I get back in town. Flood gates will officially be open then...
