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Sam_Bass , in Biden admits to taking drugs before the debate.

If it does what he showed tonight it needs to go back to r&d

CPMSP ,

Cold, Jack.

prime_number_314159 , in Scraping scraping scraping.

There’s a lot of answers here, but I don’t think anyone said the magic words. To reseason cast iron, you need an oil high in poly-unsaturated fatty acids. Those are the kind that can chain together, and form a good polymer coating.

The thing that trips me up most about this subject is that 140 years ago, pork fat was very good for seasoning cast iron. Today, it isn’t, because the composition of the fat has changed significantly.

The best seasoning coats will be thin, not appear or feel oily, give the pan a dark color slightly more glossy than an eggshell, and resist mild detergents, metal spatulas, and heat high enough to sear a steak on. If you have a layer of loose stuff in the pan, that’s just a layer of gunk, and is probably adding some weird flavors to anything you cook.

dojan ,
@dojan@lemmy.world avatar

The thing that trips me up most about this subject is that 140 years ago, pork fat was very good for seasoning cast iron. Today, it isn’t, because the composition of the fat has changed significantly.

That sounds very interesting! Is it because of the way pigs are raised now compared to back then? They eat way fewer babies now, I bet.

prime_number_314159 ,

I don’t know what causes the difference, I just compared the first nutrition breakdown of rendered pork fat I could find to a recent USDA publication. I’m under the impression that we mostly grow different breeds of pork, on bigger farms, using a more consistent food blend, so pretty much everything has changed in that time.

menemen ,

Don’t know of the given info about the pans is correct. But animals nowadays are defintly way more “optimized” than they used to be. Both genetically and the stuff they eat.

barsoap ,

To reseason cast iron, you need an oil high in poly-unsaturated fatty acids.

In other words: Linseed.

Though I wouldn’t go so far as to say “need”. Linseed works much better, builds a nicer patina very quickly, but pretty much any fat works. In practice mine is getting seasoned with olive oil because that’s what I have standing around in the kitchen.

Proper technique is much more important in practice: First and foremost heat empty, then add oil and fry, then clean, ideally without degreasing (boiling water and a spatula do wonders), then (if necessary) add a drop of oil and try to rub it off with kitchen tissue, then put back on the stove to dry and maybe polymerise a little. Always have that thin layer of oil otherwise the pan is going to rust.

You can have a perfect patina, if you don’t heat up the pan before putting stuff in there things are still going to stick. You can have practically no patina, if you bring up just a single thin layer of any fat up to its smoke point and after that add oil (so the thing isn’t completely dry) things aren’t going to stick.

llama ,
@llama@midwest.social avatar

Be careful with linseed oil as it spontaneously combusts! My friend used it on something and left the rag in the garage, and it literally burnt their house down.

barsoap ,

Not an issue once on the pan: Linseed oil oxidises quite quickly when exposed to air which is where the heat is coming from and it’s certainly exposed to air on a pan, however, the pan is also an excellent heatsink and not flammable. Rags are a combination of even more exposure to oxygen (because the oil soaks into fibres and then has lots of surface area) combined with the rag being flammable, those are very specific circumstances. Bottles of the stuff also don’t spontaneously combust in the fridge, they only spoil within a week or so (for culinary use, that is, it’s still perfectly fine to season pans with it, and is still food-safe. Just starts to taste like ass quite quickly but that doesn’t matter when you burn the stuff anyway)

But yes I should probably have mentioned that I flush my kitchen tissues when working with linseed oil.

laurelraven ,

Linseed has an awfully low smoke point though, wouldn’t seasoning built with it burn off when trying to cook at higher temperatures?

barsoap ,

A good patina will contain a good chunk of burnt oil, it’s not that the stuff vanishes when smoke gets produced linseed oil in fact produces very little smoke compared to say canola. Never getting to the smoke point of whatever you have on there will result in a non-black and not entirely unlikely also gooey patina.

It’s not a good idea to go miles beyond the smoke point but hovering around it is pretty much optimal. You use oils with higher smoke points if you want a more aggressive sear without ruining the taste of whatever it is you’re searing, the thin layer you smoke off when heating the pan, or that smokes off while the pan is cooling off quickly after adding oil+ingredients, is generally so miniscule that it doesn’t really affect taste short of giving some wok hei which is generally a good thing. If the smoke alarm goes off or you need to open a window you’re overdoing it.

Blackrook7 ,

What changed about pork fat?

Strawberry ,

i would also like to know

flamingo_pinyata , in Colombus was a Bastard Man.

Preempting all the “he was a man of his time” apologists:

Columbus was arrested during his lifetime because his actions were considered awful by his contemporaries.

bumphot ,

Worst part is, he wouldn’t be arrested for genocide in 2024. He would probably be seen as lesser of two evils or something stupid like that.

Zehzin ,
@Zehzin@lemmy.world avatar

Something savages something something terrorism

Rhynoplaz ,

He’d probably be Trump’s running mate.

ChickenLadyLovesLife ,

Specifically, Columbus was the first transatlantic slaver - although he went in the nontraditional West-to-East direction. And was imprisoned by Queen Isabel for that shit.

ImplyingImplications , in The three faces of the fediverse

I could see the old man making his account
“Breeding college? I’m a big supporter of American agriculture.”

Mastengwe , in I do not condone violence against political opponents

I used to be the type that would argue for nuance in such accusations. That blanket statements are foolish, and that not all of a thing can be blamed for the actions of just some of a thing-

But yeah. If you’re a conservative/republican….

You’re a fascist.

franklin ,
@franklin@lemmy.world avatar

I think the biggest red flag for me lately has been libertarian because what I’ve learned that actually means is you’re the insane flavor Republican but don’t want the bad PR

Hextubewontallowme , (edited )
@Hextubewontallowme@lemmy.ml avatar

Modern right-libertarians are just the right-wing of liberalism taken to their most extreme, specifically in their propertarianism, especially in a settler colonial society like U.S, Australia, Northern Ireland, and Israel…

I call them right libertarians because the term “libertarian” has been co-opted to hell by them

“One gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence is that, for the first time in my memory, we, ‘our side,’ had captured a crucial word from the enemy . . . ‘Libertarians’ . . . had long been simply a polite word for left-wing anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety. But now we had taken it over…”

  • Murray Rothbard
franklin ,
@franklin@lemmy.world avatar

Absolutely I understand that the broader political definition of libertarian is not what it’s been co-opted to be in North America.

Here it is inextricably linked to the most insane rhetoric, used only the brainwash people into voting against their interest.

DragonTypeWyvern ,

I sometimes like to read Rothbard’s The Betrayal of the American Right just to laugh at him.

What did you think would happen, you slavery-defending doofus? All the real libertarians warned you.

ZombieMantis ,
@ZombieMantis@lemmy.world avatar

It depends. I’ve known some people who use it to say they’re the crazy type or Republican too, but I’ve also heard it used by more moderate Republicans and conservatives, who don’t want to associate with Trump and the other authoritarians in the right-wing of the party. I’ve also seen it used by non-aligned voters, who don’t have another label for themselve, so just default to “libertarian”, because they’ve heard it before.

billgamesh ,

this essay by Huey P Newton is pretty good about anarchism being good theory, but typically counterproductive in caste societies like US

Masterblaster420 ,

glad you finally caught up. it’s depressing to see how many good people are just catching up. it makes sensible solutions seem impossible.

jackpot ,
@jackpot@lemmy.ml avatar

firstly, american-centric. secondly, theyre not all MAGA

franklin ,
@franklin@lemmy.world avatar

The post is American centric and if you wanted some more diverse content just make it instead of complaining and making the place worse overall

Masterblaster420 ,

fuck off. if we can fix america first, the rest of the world is easy.

DragonTypeWyvern ,

American Exceptionalism at work, but not entirely wrong. The American political and cultural impact is simply massive. A true left shift in American domestic politics has profound impacts for the globe.

As does a further rightward shift. Particularly when it means the two nations with MAD capability are both fascist.

xor ,

if you tolerate fascists and hang out with fascists, then you’re all fascists

TheOriginalGregToo ,

What is your definition of “fascist”?

Phegan ,

I would rather spend time fighting fascists than being pedantic

Masterblaster420 ,

exactly.

InputZero ,
AngryCommieKender ,

The only good fascist is a dead fascist. All four of my grandparents that fought in WWII, and one of them fought in WWII, taught me that, while they taught me how to shoot.

Facebones ,

It’s weird how we fought a war against fascism less than 100 years ago and now like 75% of Americans (even those who aren’t faschie) think the real fascists are those who oppose platforming fascists.

Facebones ,

There was a time I wouldn’t automatically judge a Republican voter.

Those times are long gone.

Masterblaster420 ,

I got downvoted into oblivion yesterday for suggesting that an easy solution to the world’s problems easily begins in America with a Rwandan style genocide of conservatives.

Facebones ,

My morals say that solution is bad.

Their morals dictate that I not take it off the table. If somebody only speaks French, you won’t get anywhere speaking Japanese.

Masterblaster420 ,

exactly.

TheOriginalGregToo ,

As well you should have been. If you can’t see how this is problematic then I truly think you should sell professional help. You are not the morally justified party in this scenario.

Masterblaster420 ,

lol. who is morally justified? please explain.

mriormro ,
@mriormro@lemmy.world avatar

This is an incredibly fucked up thing to want and if you can’t see that then you’re already lost.

Masterblaster420 ,

not really. want to elaborate on your thinking here? i promise i can have a nuanced talk about it.

mriormro ,
@mriormro@lemmy.world avatar

You’re literally calling for a genocide. There is no position or nuanced take that you can have to arrive at anything rational. Seek help.

Masterblaster420 ,

no. i’m not going to seek help. this is a simple trolley dilemma, and if you don’t understand that soon, you’re dooming billions.

mriormro ,
@mriormro@lemmy.world avatar

A trolley dilemma does not represent real life. It’s meant as a simple thought exercise. Genuinely, you’re a fucking idiot and a real part of the problem.

Masterblaster420 ,

why does a trolley dilemma not represent real life? why is the problem not a simple thought exercise? genuinely, GFY.

Facebones ,

It’s pretty telling how yall are cool with it from the party whose entire thing is eradication of everyone but cishet white men from society, but as soon as somebody wants to stop them from doing so it’s “mental illness.”

feedum_sneedson ,

They are utterly lost.

reverendsteveii ,

https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/bd0135af-bf02-4cd1-a8a5-ab97b1e9fd89.png

Why judge when you can just believe what they tell you with their own mouths?

Facebones ,

I showed my friend a PragerU the other day, this woman going on about how she had a 6 figure job at a “major entertainment company” but always felt empty and alone until she found a man to push her to quit and pump out babies, and ended with a title card with DOMESTIC EXTREMISM in big bold letters and a tagline along the lines of “will save us all” or whatever.

She thought it was parody, oh you sweet summer child.

pingveno ,

I always felt empty and alone until I had a nice strong man to pump me full of babies! Ugh.

Masterblaster420 ,

and the easiest way to fix the world is to remove all of them from it. Can I get an amen?

Estt ,

Out of curiosity, what’s your definition of fascist? What are the fascist characteristics that you see in the Republican voters?

lolcatnip ,

Go down this list any tell me how many traits don’t apply to Republicans. openculture.com/…/umberto-eco-makes-a-list-of-the…

KillingTimeItself , in Chat Apps

i really fucking hate discord.

Why does EVERYTHING have to be proprietary. Fucking capitalism.

MxM111 ,

Don’t like it - don’t use it. It’s a free (capitalist) country.

KillingTimeItself ,

that’s the cool thing, i dont, but you know who does? You, and you know how i would need to contact you? Through discord! Uh oh!

MxM111 ,

I don’t use discord

KillingTimeItself ,

damn didn’t know you weren’t all of my other friends.

JohnDoe ,

I think they wanted to be, they were advertising themselves!

someguy3 ,

I don’t get why people like it either. It’s a mess of chats.

Jarix ,

Gamers using it for gaming. In game Voice communication is trash

deathbird ,

And that’s fine, but why do gamers use it over any other VoIP option? And why the infinity chat channels over infinity servers?

Resonosity ,

Content creator branding, and “community”

ZoeyBear ,

Because it’s the standard for gaming. I use it and would drop it in a heartbeat if it wasn’t standard for every mmo out there.

Jarix ,

Its pretty amazing for voice communication in gaming.

As a messenging app? Meh

KillingTimeItself ,

dude discord has been one of the worst experiences for voip in gaming IME. I started using mumble SOLELY because discord was actually just disappointing. Though tbf maybe if i paid out the ass for nitro it’s better? I ain’t paying for that though.

Though yeah, for messaging, it’s dogshit, It’s a mess.

TheAnonymouseJoker ,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

A funny advice I will give is recommending you and your friends use noise cancelling audio gear. It will help regardless of the platform.

KillingTimeItself ,

this is honestly the only good thing about discord, the krisp noise reduction is actually kind of good. It only took them like 3 years to implement it on the linux client. And we’ve only had system wide noise filtering since the dawn of time.

Although since we’re on the topic, discord manages input/output in the single most inconceivably stupid manner possible.

kate ,

On Linux I use an app called NoiseTorch that creates a virtual mic to cut out background noise in any application

KillingTimeItself ,

i messed with noisetorch for a bit, it seemed interesting, and worked pretty well. Nothing beats push to talk though tbh.

0x2d ,

i get much better call quality in telegram

Xttweaponttx ,

I really wanted to keep faith in it after the ui overhaul recently - VoIP performance was SO much better on Xbox, latency specifically. But good GOD the mobile app is just a pile of garbage nowdays. I have so many friends stuck on that platform, I still end up sharing links there to Lemmy memes and like 60% of the time when I share to the app it permenantly sticks on the splash screen??? 🙄 notifications are fucked these days too, myself & my friend group regularly miss messages entirely, even with direct @ mentions?!

Worse, I dropped a crap review and complained that function has dropped horribly since the update and the devs INSTANTLY replied like “Have you tried pretending you’re a beta tester for us? Do you mind doing a buncha troubleshooting you definitely haven’t already done?” (They wanted me to reinstall the app… Smh)

Anyway - fuck discord. I’m planning to shift to Revolt, but if anyone has better suggestions I’d be happy to try some!

KillingTimeItself ,

im genuinely surprised discord even tries testing things on the two test branches they have. Yes, you heard me correctly, they have TWO separate testing branches. Bugs literally should not exist on the stable branch.

also when it comes to voip, i’ve enjoyed mumble, it’s pretty solid, minimal, configurable (highly integrated into games already, it’s old af though so maybe not new games) and works pretty well. Revolt seems alright, but it’s plagued with bugs, and weird issues, plus it’s self hosting is just, jank.

We could use a self hosted discord replacement tbh.

TheDarksteel94 ,

Reject Discord, go back to Teamspeak

KillingTimeItself ,

i would fuck with ts if they would release ts5 and have an actual feature release, until then mumble it is. Shit slaps, and is minimal.

lowleveldata , in The Extra Mile

The real payment is all the traumas we got along the overtimes

Track_Shovel OP ,

Hah! You got overtime? I just got trama and toxic managers.

In a better spot now, though

Gork ,

At my previous job they had a special term for unpaid overtime: “Professional time”

So glad I’m no longer working there.

FuglyDuck ,
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

“Professional time” sounds like a euphemism for wanking off on the clock.

Bene7rddso ,

Unpaid overtime probably (which would be a hard no from me)

Track_Shovel OP ,

We got straight banked time off in-lieu. It was bullshit.

goferking0 ,

True, but better than the places that expect it for nothing in return

g8phcon2 ,
@g8phcon2@kbin.social avatar

Yeah, that's a crock. My first corporates job did that to us, and then never approved the paid vacation requests, let-a-lone the banked time-off we were promised for being such good cubicle slaves working above and beyond, and it is all legal because "exempt salary employee"

Track_Shovel OP ,

Hah, cubicle. Not to shit on you, but that would have been much preferable to my situation. Seasonal environmental field work - 300ish hrs a month from May to November

arymandias , in yea

100% right. Individuals know best what their own gender is. If you have an ideology prescribing acceptable gender expression for others, you are a danger to society.

pingveno , in Schrödinger's USB-C, you only know if it supports what you want after you plug it in

On the plus side, no USB-A quantum mechanics.

KyuubiNoKitsune ,

I thought it was a 4th dimension thing?

pingveno ,
Pazuzu ,

lies, sometimes I still need to flip usb-c to get it in. there’s still a hidden dimension there, it’s just better hidden than before

Steveanonymous , in Let's see them Lemmy.
@Steveanonymous@lemmy.world avatar
dditty ,

Big yawn 🥱

Steveanonymous ,
@Steveanonymous@lemmy.world avatar

The squanker man is always tired 🥱

018118055 , in Pseudo-history lecture

I sometimes listen to Russian radio and run it through Google translate. It’s endless pseudo-philosophy that just goes on for hours and hours. Feels like it’s a trope in the Russian world.

SilentStorms ,

Can you share your process for doing that? I’ve been trying to figure out how to live (or close to live) translate TV and radio, but a lot of the tools I’ve come across seem to be geared towards cross-language conversations.

Num10ck ,
018118055 ,

Google translate app (at least in Android) has a Transcribe button after you click the microphone. It works in some languages but not all.

uis ,
@uis@lemmy.world avatar

TV

For your own sanity don’t watch anything other than science and tech channels and cartoons channels.

uis ,
@uis@lemmy.world avatar

Not all of them. youtu.be/N9eW-QRiamA

On blackboard you can see “ war”/“ war”.

018118055 ,

Yeah I’m referring to medium wave radio I can receive here in Helsinki. I don’t expect licenses are granted for dissenting voices even if they exist.

uis ,
@uis@lemmy.world avatar

It had license until 2022. But its editor is known for pushing and protecting Moscow’s ДЭГ where protocols are made up by Sobyanin.

Don’t know what you can receive in Helsinki. Probably something from SPb.

Barbarian , (edited ) in Key to success (Bill gates hates this trick)
@Barbarian@sh.itjust.works avatar
Th4tGuyII ,
@Th4tGuyII@kbin.social avatar

Exactly, who do they think holds up all their gambles.
They keep the working class fighting each other, because if they ever stopped, this wouldn't work anymore

Leviathan , in Yeah, well...

I try real hard to not only change my mind but vocally (typographically) acknowledge when I was wrong because it’s so goddamnit rare and infuriating.

aStonedSanta ,

Same here. I work in tech and you’d be amazed how many people are so much less on guard around me because of this.

Incandemon ,

It’s a movie but CPT Jack was right, you cant trust an honest person, but people do anyways.

shneancy ,

same here, even when someone hasn’t changed my mind 100% I’ll often acknowledge if any of their arguments made me want to delve deeper into a topic and think more about my opinion on it

Steve , in Playing an unsupported file

Uninstall that shit and use VLC

comrade_pibb ,
@comrade_pibb@hexbear.net avatar

this is the correct answer

Octopus1348 ,
@Octopus1348@lemy.lol avatar

And if you want to play on a TV that doesn’t support the format, convert it with FFMpeg.

kuberoot ,

I’ve had good experience using mkvtoolnix to mux video into an mkv with subtitles included. Not sure if mkv support is widespread, but as janky as the TV was with other formats, mkv worked great every time.

Magnetar ,

VLC could play a polaroid image of the Voyager records.

deranger ,

MPC-HC also a very good choice

Da_Boom ,
@Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

VLC works most of the time. That said some videos VLC can’t seem to decode correctly - I never get VLC complaining about unsupported file formats, but I do get weird artifacts and glitched rendering when I try to play certain ones.

It’s then that I usually try MPV or MPlayer. One of those will usually play the video correctly.

MentalEdge , (edited ) in Never jammed out to an Adobe Pro patcher harder
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

It’s called “tracker music”. A “tracker” is a type of music composing software that dates back to the very dawn of digital music.

Ahoy has a fantastic video about how they work and their history.

thanks_shakey_snake ,

Damn that was an awesome watch. Came for the meme, stayed for the 40 minute documentary.

jballs ,
@jballs@sh.itjust.works avatar

Seriously I’m 15 minutes into the history of computer generated sound and am still wondering wtf this has to do with cracking music. This is some next level autistic shit. 10/10.

YoorWeb ,

I smell demoscene.

Anyway, here’s a nice track for y’all: youtu.be/qMEDyse-u_U

MentalEdge ,
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

Thank you, another for the “actually good tracks” playlist.

rdri ,

I smell the same and can’t help but to mention just a few off the top of my head.

rgba / elevated
Conspiracy / Chaos Theory
Bran Control / Memories from the MCP
Andromeda Software Development / Lifeforce
Farbrausch / fr-041
mfx / 1995

pouet.net - go there, download and watch it yourself. Youtube is cool but real stuff is so much better, especially when you check the file size. Though be aware, some of these old ones don’t play well at non-96 dpi display settings.

This is art and I’m not even joking. This shit should have replaced wars.

khannie ,
@khannie@lemmy.world avatar

Well that was a fascinating little trip down memory lane. Thanks for the link.

irmoz ,

If you wanna be pedantic, it’s chiptune. You use trackers to make chiptune. And scene music is a niche within a niche.

MentalEdge , (edited )
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

No. Tracker music is 16-bit, within tracker music the term chiptune refers to a specific sub-genre which emulates 8-bit music.

Only much later did “chiptune” become a catch-all for all old computer music, and in that context it can refer to music not made with a tracker.

irmoz ,

Only much later did “chiptune” become a catch-all for all old computer music

It’s much later now m8

MentalEdge ,
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

And?

This whole discussion is within the context of trackers specifically, not the mainstream definition of “chiptune” which can refer to any music, made using whatever, that have some bleeps and bloops mixed in.

The mainstream definition also includes music that isn’t tracker music, which isn’t what we’re talking about, and hence, it’s not the right term to be using.

Bringing up the word in its general meaning within a discussion about tracker music, is even more confusing and unhelpful, because in the context of trackers, the word chiptune refers to a specific type of tracker music.

irmoz ,

Chiptune only “specifically” means music produced the same way as retro games, which necessitates a tracker. If they’re using a standard DAW, then it’s basically “cheating” lmao.

MentalEdge , (edited )
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

That “lmao” is really doing some heavy lifting for your credibility there…

Which definition are you even using when saying that a tracker is necessary? In the age of trackers “chiptune” referred to a music style from before trackers. If chiptunes existed before trackers, then someone obviously made that music without one.

To consider same sound produced with newer tools “cheating” or “fake” is an stupid distinction. Would not using trackers to create chiptunes then be cheating, too, since chiptune referred to tracker music that was emulating the even older style of 8-bit computer music? (Since again, trackers are a 16-bit era thing)

I’m starting to think you don’t even know what a tracker is, because while trackers could be used to make other styles of music from their time, plenty of retro games used other ways to produce music, such as MIDI sound cards or direct instruction of synth voice chips. All of which would be called “chiptunes” by most people today, not just trackers.

irmoz ,

Trackers are direct replications of the software used to make retro game music.

MentalEdge , (edited )
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

Trackers were created to take advantage of the new and unique audio hardware available in the Amiga.

Trackers use sample-banks, while both the NES and SNES heavily relied on voice chips.

The NES only had 5 voice channels, and they were each stuck with their initial synth-type, and while SNES could reproduce samples, they were used sparingly due to the space audio samples would take up on the cartridge.

Trackers could create music using actual audio samples. While the samples couldn’t be long or high quality due to RAM and CPU constraints, the way they functioned from the audio systems of the NES and SNES is fundamentally different, and more capable.

While it is possible to re-create the style of music produced by the NES and SNES with a tracker, that’s hardly what they were developed for. Trackers had far fewer technical limitations and could do so much more.

irmoz ,

You’re telling me shit I already know and trying to twist the facts. Whether the NES and SNES used synth or samples is immaterial to how the music was programmed. Trackers are literally made for programming MIDI instructions, just as those old games had their music programmed.

The number of voices and voice type changes nothing. You’re just trying to add in immaterial facts to add false weight to your assertion.

MentalEdge , (edited )
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

You’re telling me shit I already know and trying to twist the facts

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 ,

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

MentalEdge ,
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

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 ,

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 ,
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

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.

Blackmist ,

Yeah, trackers are what we had on the Amiga, and it was mostly just sound samples played at varying pitches. It’s definitely got an old school sound to it, but it’s only a low track limit that makes it different to what we have now.

Real chip tunes are where you torture an AY-3-8912 chip until it sings for its master.

DashboTreeFrog ,

My intro to chip tune was a guy I met in the mid aughts whose hobby was using old electronics to make music, so yeah, I always thought chip tune was like ripping apart old toys and torturing them to hear their screams

tpyo ,

I had no idea what I was getting into clicking that link. Saw another comment about it being 40some minutes long but I watched the whole video, it was very interesting! I was tickled by all the things that I can remember from growing up that were referenced

An aside, do you have first hand knowledge of tinkering with trackers?

MentalEdge ,
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

They were before my time. I only learned about them because of Ahoy. I’ve been on the lookout for music made with them since.

lud ,

I highly recommend his other videos.

Especially the longer ones like “POLYBIUS - The Video Game That Doesn’t Exist”, “Nuclear Fruit: How the Cold War Shaped Video Games”, and “The First Video Game”. His iconic arms series is also, well, iconic.

He is amazing at graphics.

lud ,

This is probably my favorite tracker track: Strobe(.it)

mindbleach ,

Hearing those three notes of “Foregone Destruction” for the first time in umpteen years fired off a neuron that’d been hoarding the good chemicals.

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