0. Introduction
And some people are aware that there was also an underground beneath it, with labels that were lesser known, but often had more extreme and experimental output... Napalm, Fischkopf, Bloody Fist, Anticore, etc...
But wait! There's more. What if I told you... that there was *another* scene?
A whole world of producers, groups, musicians, that were connected with each other? A very lively and active scene - that had even more tracks and sonic output than both the "big" and "underground" labels mentioned above?
A scene that ran parallel to the 'official' Hardcore Techno realm - but has been almost forgotten by now?
1. What is / was Tracker music?
2. Now let's get back on track (pun intended)
You might say: "okay, so there were these programs called trackers. but there were also other rudimentary, early programs for creating music. I'm sure some hobbyists and amateurs had some hours of fun with them.
But what is the big fuzz around it now?"
Well, the difference is: this was not just a "plaything" for amateurs who play around with a few sounds, and then leave that thing aside.
The tracker scene was dead serious about their music. They did not see themselves as hobbyists. but as real producers, producing real music.
often, the tracks were spread "around the world". "Crews" were set up, made up of producers who did the music, people who designed visuals, wrote promotion texts, and "couriers" who uploaded all this to as many Bulletin Board Systems* as possible. Networks, communities were created.
Many people involved spend several hours a day working on the music and everything related to it. they spent their youth on this scene!
All this is hard to explain to someone *who was not there*.
So let's use this analogy:
When "mp3" and the internet got a big boost at the end of the 90s / beginning of the 2000s, many people began to spread their music digitally and online, netlabels were set up, etc.
the "real" serious producers laughed at this; the "mp3 producers" and labels were seen as amateurs, lofi trash; and it was assumed that "real producers" would do real music on physical formats and they would be distributed physically to tangible record shops, and that would be were the important stuff happened, and the whole "online" thing would fade away eventually.
But noone is laughing now, and almost any producer is online now and spreads their music digitally.
So, in a sense, the whole tracker / bbs scene can be seen as a very early early attempt to create a "digital and online" form and distribution of music; a form that went really, really big, but that even at its high point was snubbed at by the "real, physical" producers. But, unlike "mp3 and the internet", an attempt that flunked and failed, has almost faded into obscurity now, and this history has been mostly forgotten.
3. So, what has this to do with the Gabber and Hardcore scene?
Because, after the advent of Acid, Techno, Hardcore and Gabber, these new sounds took the tracker scene by storm - and a lot of producers started to write music like that, too.
There was some huge, huge output of hardcore tracker modules in the 90s, tracks that were self released, or shipped by crews around the world.
And I would say the output of the tracker scene was much higher than that of the "official" hardcore artists and labels that existed at the same time.
the tracker scene had its own hardcore heroes, legends, favorite tracks, fans, supporters, cults... everything, really.
the stuff by the trackers was so huge and so good, that there eventually had to be a fallout - a spill over from the "online and digital" world of the trackers to the very physical gabber scene and parties.
5. okay, but now back to - the forgotten 90s hardcore tracker scene
I said that the output was huge; there was also a lot of variety to it. because of this, there are many similarities between both "worlds" of music. for example, "sub-genres" of hardcore like speedcore, acidcore, breakcore etc. existed in the tracker scene, too.
Yet, there are some notable differences:
1. more lofi
a lot of tracker productions were much more lofi when compared to "physical" gabber releases.
this was due to the limited sampling capabilities / equipment of early computers, lack of disk space (see above!), sometimes the program itself, and because, yes, some producers were more on the "amateur" side of things after all.
there *are* some high quality tracker productions, too, though.
2. straight to your brain
a lot of tracker hardcore is more direct, "forward", zero to 60 (in 3.5) than physical gabber. tracks that give a quick and fast adrenaline rush. it's not exactly "prog rock" with lots of big build ups and intellectual musings (again: tracks like this exist, too, though).
this is likely due to the more lofi production, too. more of a punk thing
3. early extremism and innovation
the tracker scene was "light-years" ahead in many things that became commonplace in physical hardcore only at a much later date (or never!).
for example, "speedcore and high bpms"; the tracker producers already did stuff that had 500, 600, or 800 bpm when the "real" gabber world did not go faster than 250.
same goes for experiments with extreme noise, metal riffs, etc.
4.more novelty
physical gabber had its share of novelty tracks like "alles naar de klote" or "poing", but most of the music was not like that.
in the tracker world, a lot of people really seemed to have a sweeet tooth for novelty tracks - so there are many, many tracks that are silly pop remixes, contain "funny" sounds or are otherwise strange.
5. different experimentalism
as i said, tracker hardcore was often "straight to the point". Introspective, slow-burn, cerebral hardcore, like some of the releases on fischkopf, were rather rare.
yet, there was a lot of experimentalism going on. but when that happened, it usually went - extremely strange. like complicated deconstructed rhythms, sounds, and drones.
we're not complaining - a lot of that stuff is swell!
"epic" tracks with really complicated structure and progression were rare in both worlds (in my opinion) - but the tracker scene had some of that, too!
6. the final word
so, there is this huge, hidden, lost, invisible treasure chest of 1990s hardcore and gabber in tracker module format.
Your question now is probably: how / where / when / why do i get to it?
Well, that's the hard part.
the good news first: even though it was digital, a large part of it has been kept, saved and restored!
there are various archives dedicated to the history of tracker music online.
the bad news:
it's still a hugely unexplored territory. so, in these archives, the tracks are sorted by artists, crew, format, maybe.
but because many producers did multiple styles, and many producers are "unknown", it can be hard to find the actual *hardcore* related to this cornucopia of music.
using search queries for tags like "hardcore", "acidcore", and so on, can help, but only to a degree.
lots of searching, re-searching and digging might be necessary.
maybe a future tasks for bold explorers?
Links: some good places to start digging into the world of .mods
A whole "invisible" world of Hardcore and Gabber!
To reveal this "secret" right away - I'm talking about the Tracker, BBS, DemoScene and its Hardcore contingent.
To reveal this "secret" right away - I'm talking about the Tracker, BBS, DemoScene and its Hardcore contingent.
"Hard Effects" by famous tracker musician Daxx
1. What is / was Tracker music?
I will just give a short overview, because the topic has already been extensively covered elsewhere.
"Trackers" were programs for creating music on home and personal computers, such as Amiga, C64, Atari ST, IBM-PCs, etc etc.
They came around in the mid 80s, the first Tracker program being the Ultimate Soundtracker by Karsten Obarski; and clones and new evolutions of this concept spawning up quickly.
To this day, Trackers have a few notable differences to "normal" music software.
-The sound is almost entirely created by using and manipulating samples (even the drums and synth sounds).
-the music runs vertically, not horizontally
-the finished track is not saved as a .wav or mp3 or similar format, but as a "module" that can be played back on the Tracker
These modules essentially contain the music data (i.e. the patterns, sequences, notes and so on) and the samples.
Because of this, a module usually takes up much less disk-space than a wav file would (unless you use really big samples).
"Trackers" were programs for creating music on home and personal computers, such as Amiga, C64, Atari ST, IBM-PCs, etc etc.
They came around in the mid 80s, the first Tracker program being the Ultimate Soundtracker by Karsten Obarski; and clones and new evolutions of this concept spawning up quickly.
To this day, Trackers have a few notable differences to "normal" music software.
-The sound is almost entirely created by using and manipulating samples (even the drums and synth sounds).
-the music runs vertically, not horizontally
-the finished track is not saved as a .wav or mp3 or similar format, but as a "module" that can be played back on the Tracker
These modules essentially contain the music data (i.e. the patterns, sequences, notes and so on) and the samples.
Because of this, a module usually takes up much less disk-space than a wav file would (unless you use really big samples).
And this was very crucial in a time when space was scarce and "online transmission" speed was slow.
a normal amiga diskette had a bit less than a megabyte of space. that means you could have stored something like the first 30 seconds of a track in a wav file on it.
or 10 modules that run for 30 minutes in total (just an example).
uploading a 60 megabyte wav would have taken half a day (or more?) back in those days. while modules could be uploaded rather quickly.
a normal amiga diskette had a bit less than a megabyte of space. that means you could have stored something like the first 30 seconds of a track in a wav file on it.
or 10 modules that run for 30 minutes in total (just an example).
uploading a 60 megabyte wav would have taken half a day (or more?) back in those days. while modules could be uploaded rather quickly.
Cybermouse - Overreacting
This track was originally released as a .mod, included on the amiga diskette distributed magazine "neurowaver".
And later released on vinyl by Fischkopf.
2. Now let's get back on track (pun intended)
You might say: "okay, so there were these programs called trackers. but there were also other rudimentary, early programs for creating music. I'm sure some hobbyists and amateurs had some hours of fun with them.
But what is the big fuzz around it now?"
Well, the difference is: this was not just a "plaything" for amateurs who play around with a few sounds, and then leave that thing aside.
The tracker scene was dead serious about their music. They did not see themselves as hobbyists. but as real producers, producing real music.
often, the tracks were spread "around the world". "Crews" were set up, made up of producers who did the music, people who designed visuals, wrote promotion texts, and "couriers" who uploaded all this to as many Bulletin Board Systems* as possible. Networks, communities were created.
Many people involved spend several hours a day working on the music and everything related to it. they spent their youth on this scene!
[*BBS aka Bulletin Board System - a pre-internet method of chatting, reading news, exchanging files, and doing other stuff online]
On a side note, all of this was also highly connected to the demoscene, and many track releases were supplied in the form of demos.
It was not *quite* as global as the internet is today; a lot of music stayed in the continent(!), country, or even hometown of the respective crew, but the big hits and big crews could reach global fame of course.
Hardsequencer - Sequencer Killer
Hardsequencer released in the .mod scene before he became famous on low spirit and thunderdome
All this is hard to explain to someone *who was not there*.
So let's use this analogy:
When "mp3" and the internet got a big boost at the end of the 90s / beginning of the 2000s, many people began to spread their music digitally and online, netlabels were set up, etc.
the "real" serious producers laughed at this; the "mp3 producers" and labels were seen as amateurs, lofi trash; and it was assumed that "real producers" would do real music on physical formats and they would be distributed physically to tangible record shops, and that would be were the important stuff happened, and the whole "online" thing would fade away eventually.
But noone is laughing now, and almost any producer is online now and spreads their music digitally.
So, in a sense, the whole tracker / bbs scene can be seen as a very early early attempt to create a "digital and online" form and distribution of music; a form that went really, really big, but that even at its high point was snubbed at by the "real, physical" producers. But, unlike "mp3 and the internet", an attempt that flunked and failed, has almost faded into obscurity now, and this history has been mostly forgotten.
Bomb20 - TEKKKNO`S MOST HAtED!
Early Breakcore by Bomb 20, released in the .mod scene.
3. So, what has this to do with the Gabber and Hardcore scene?
Because, after the advent of Acid, Techno, Hardcore and Gabber, these new sounds took the tracker scene by storm - and a lot of producers started to write music like that, too.
There was some huge, huge output of hardcore tracker modules in the 90s, tracks that were self released, or shipped by crews around the world.
And I would say the output of the tracker scene was much higher than that of the "official" hardcore artists and labels that existed at the same time.
the tracker scene had its own hardcore heroes, legends, favorite tracks, fans, supporters, cults... everything, really.
the stuff by the trackers was so huge and so good, that there eventually had to be a fallout - a spill over from the "online and digital" world of the trackers to the very physical gabber scene and parties.
Nasenbluten - Machete
Nasenbluten is a well-known Tracker Hardcore act.
4. And thus the tracker scene ended up shaping the actual hardcore scene to a large degree.
This happened in a multitude of ways:
1. "tracker heroes" joining the world of "physical" music:
many artists in the early hardcore scene did their first steps and had their first "success" in the tracker world.
artists like Hardsequencer or Bomb 20, for example.
There is also probably a huge number of "undisclosed" 90s gabber artists that started in this scene.
2. the tracker thing itself
many hardcore legends used or still use tracker software to write their tracks.
artists like nasenbluten, ec8or, amiga shock force, cybermouse, neophyte...
3. both of the above things influencing the scene
the sound of artists like hardsequencer of labels like bloody fist became a huge influence on the scene as a whole, even on those producers not connected to the tracker scene.
This happened in a multitude of ways:
1. "tracker heroes" joining the world of "physical" music:
many artists in the early hardcore scene did their first steps and had their first "success" in the tracker world.
artists like Hardsequencer or Bomb 20, for example.
There is also probably a huge number of "undisclosed" 90s gabber artists that started in this scene.
2. the tracker thing itself
many hardcore legends used or still use tracker software to write their tracks.
artists like nasenbluten, ec8or, amiga shock force, cybermouse, neophyte...
3. both of the above things influencing the scene
the sound of artists like hardsequencer of labels like bloody fist became a huge influence on the scene as a whole, even on those producers not connected to the tracker scene.
Ec8or - Think About
Ec8or was another well known amiga hardcore tracker act.
5. okay, but now back to - the forgotten 90s hardcore tracker scene
I said that the output was huge; there was also a lot of variety to it. because of this, there are many similarities between both "worlds" of music. for example, "sub-genres" of hardcore like speedcore, acidcore, breakcore etc. existed in the tracker scene, too.
Yet, there are some notable differences:
1. more lofi
a lot of tracker productions were much more lofi when compared to "physical" gabber releases.
this was due to the limited sampling capabilities / equipment of early computers, lack of disk space (see above!), sometimes the program itself, and because, yes, some producers were more on the "amateur" side of things after all.
there *are* some high quality tracker productions, too, though.
2. straight to your brain
a lot of tracker hardcore is more direct, "forward", zero to 60 (in 3.5) than physical gabber. tracks that give a quick and fast adrenaline rush. it's not exactly "prog rock" with lots of big build ups and intellectual musings (again: tracks like this exist, too, though).
this is likely due to the more lofi production, too. more of a punk thing
3. early extremism and innovation
the tracker scene was "light-years" ahead in many things that became commonplace in physical hardcore only at a much later date (or never!).
for example, "speedcore and high bpms"; the tracker producers already did stuff that had 500, 600, or 800 bpm when the "real" gabber world did not go faster than 250.
same goes for experiments with extreme noise, metal riffs, etc.
4.more novelty
physical gabber had its share of novelty tracks like "alles naar de klote" or "poing", but most of the music was not like that.
in the tracker world, a lot of people really seemed to have a sweeet tooth for novelty tracks - so there are many, many tracks that are silly pop remixes, contain "funny" sounds or are otherwise strange.
5. different experimentalism
as i said, tracker hardcore was often "straight to the point". Introspective, slow-burn, cerebral hardcore, like some of the releases on fischkopf, were rather rare.
yet, there was a lot of experimentalism going on. but when that happened, it usually went - extremely strange. like complicated deconstructed rhythms, sounds, and drones.
we're not complaining - a lot of that stuff is swell!
"epic" tracks with really complicated structure and progression were rare in both worlds (in my opinion) - but the tracker scene had some of that, too!
Rage Reset - Unknown Structure
Rage Reset showed that you can do Tracker music with high quality production values
6. the final word
so, there is this huge, hidden, lost, invisible treasure chest of 1990s hardcore and gabber in tracker module format.
Your question now is probably: how / where / when / why do i get to it?
Well, that's the hard part.
the good news first: even though it was digital, a large part of it has been kept, saved and restored!
there are various archives dedicated to the history of tracker music online.
the bad news:
it's still a hugely unexplored territory. so, in these archives, the tracks are sorted by artists, crew, format, maybe.
but because many producers did multiple styles, and many producers are "unknown", it can be hard to find the actual *hardcore* related to this cornucopia of music.
using search queries for tags like "hardcore", "acidcore", and so on, can help, but only to a degree.
lots of searching, re-searching and digging might be necessary.
maybe a future tasks for bold explorers?
Starfox - feel the music
A Ravecore track with quite complex structure and production
7. this concludes this feature about an exciting, hidden world of hardcore techno.
we hope you might have become interested in the world of tracker hardcore, and that you maybe start digging for the good stuff, too!
we hope you might have become interested in the world of tracker hardcore, and that you maybe start digging for the good stuff, too!
Amiga Shock Force - 24h Connection
A good example of the possibilities of Amiga Tracker Hardcore.
Links: some good places to start digging into the world of .mods
