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[Novus]

(Posting this in a few different places...)

If I were to put together a list of the top 100 tracker-musicians of all time, do write-ups for each of them one at a time, and posted them to my website, would anyone be interested? Would anyone care? Or would I just risk pissing off what's left of the tracking scene Novus-Revolution-style?

Reason I ask is that about a year ago, I started up a pretty ambitious personal project... I put together a list of every tracker who had at least 1 song in my playlist, augmented that list with a whole bunch of other trackers whose music I'd always been curious to hear but I'd just never gotten around to, and then started downloading *ALL* of their songs from the Modland FTP site. I'm about halfway through my artist list, I've listened to at least part of tens of thousands of tracks, and I've kept over a thousand new tracks for my collection.

It got me wondering about if there was any way to share some of the songs I've found with a wider audience, the way I used to do more regularly with my website, and that's when I came up with the top-100 trackers idea. But I could also see it coming across as more of my trademark Novus arrogance, so I figured I'd bounce it off of you guys first.

If I do it, it'll be my list for sure (hey, my time, my work, my website, so it's my list!), but I'd certainly solicit feedback from other fans of tracker music first to make sure I'm not missing anyone good.

So, what do you guys think?

[Axxy]

Heya, been awhile since I visited your site and the compo's you ran back in the day...

If I were to put together a list of the top 100 tracker-musicians of all time, do write-ups for each of them one at a time, and posted them to my website, would anyone be interested? Would anyone care? Or would I just risk pissing off what's left of the tracking scene Novus-Revolution-style?

To be honest, like, how many sites nowadays still have anything to do with tracked music?

Besides ModArchive, Modland, AMP and Scene.org, I can't think of many other sites worth visiting for tracked music anymore. The mod scene literally died many years ago with the introduction of mp3 etc. and the general drop in interest in the demoscene.

From a retro/nostalgic point of view, I don't see any problem with what your proposing, bearing in mind that it's all subjective in who you like as a tracker and won't be to everyone's cup of tea.  I should imagine your tastes will probably be on par with my own, judging from what's on your site already, and besides I already have the modules anyway. 

The hard part I would imagine is getting people to your website, apart from the people who visit scene related sites and the three main tracked music sites. Besides, people stil have to download the mods in the first place to listen to them, so not much difference than anywhere else really, and will any new people to mods even know how to play them?  Now, if you could search and play direct off the website from your playlists, that would be great.

But I just click whatever playlist I want to from 70,000+ modules.  It sounds like you have become a collector like some of us, so make sure you look at the other sites and upload any missing ones!   hehe...

[Novus]

Heya, been awhile since I visited your site and the compo's you ran back in the day...

Cool, glad you remember me. Did you go by a different name back then, or am I just drawing a mental blank on the name Axxy?

From a retro/nostalgic point of view, I don't see any problem with what your proposing, bearing in mind that it's all subjective in who you like as a tracker and won't be to everyone's cup of tea.  I should imagine your tastes will probably be on par with my own, judging from what's on your site already, and besides I already have the modules anyway. 

Yeah, this wouldn't be intended for a wide audience, more of a "Hey, if there's anyone still left, come check this out" sort of thing. Definitely more aimed at people who are already aware of and interested in the old tracking scene.

Now, if you could search and play direct off the website from your playlists, that would be great.

Eh, I'm not doing anything THAT complicated. Just write-ups and song links, maybe some "where are they now" info like someone on another site suggested.

But I just click whatever playlist I want to from 70,000+ modules. It sounds like you have become a collector like some of us, so make sure you look at the other sites and upload any missing ones!   hehe...

Oh, yeah, I already trawled through Modland a couple of years ago to see if I had any songs that they didn't have. I was surprised by how many I found, so I made sure to upload them. Their collection really is incredible though.

Sounds like you like the idea though. I think I'm gonna do this.

[Axxy]

Cool, glad you remember me. Did you go by a different name back then, or am I just drawing a mental blank on the name Axxy?

I am more a fan of the demoscene and the tracker music scene from back in the early days of the Amiga. I mainly collected the tracker music modules even from that far back!!

But there were certain places on the web that I frequented, ie. usenet module groups, hornet, scene, TiS, MA and loads of other places, including your site.

Yep, Modland, MA and AMP are great places to find tracker music, apart from here, I have uploaded quite a few to Modland and AMP over the years... 

Yeah, I do quite like the idea overall. I don't think any of the web based archives do reviews (of sorts) anymore, well, at least individual modules they don't, and I quite like the idea of "where are they now".  I wonder just how many of the well known trackers you could track down (excuse the pun!) today.

[Novus]

I am more a fan of the demoscene and the tracker music scene from back in the early days of the Amiga. I mainly collected the tracker music modules even from that far back!!

I remember a friend of mine in grade school trying to get me interested in MOD files back around 1991 or so. This was in the USA, so I'm still not sure how he got a hold of them, but he had masqrade.mod, sahara.mod, thorax.mod, and a handful of others. I thought they were neat, but they didn't hold my interest for very long, and at the time I wasn't nearly as much into computers as he was. Wasn't until 1996 that I started dialing into BBSs and found a local one that stressed how large their collection of MODs was, and that's when I finally got hooked on 'em. Then I discovered S3Ms, then XMs, then ITs, and I was all-in.

Always makes me wonder what-if, though... I know there were Americans in the MOD scene even that far back, so if things had gone different, I could've been part of that early scene. But ah well... at least I was there just in time for the second golden age in the late 90s.

And yeah, I imagine hunting some of these guys down will be tough, but it's worth a shot. I still monitor almost all of my old e-mail addresses, so you never know.

[m0d]

@Novus Its good to see you're still knocking about on the net, really pleased to hear from you!

I will come back to you on this topic later, but just wanted to say I've read it and will reply soon when i have a bit of time

[Novus]

@Novus Its good to see you're still knocking about on the net, really pleased to hear from you!

I will come back to you on this topic later, but just wanted to say I've read it and will reply soon when i have a bit of time

Cool! Looking forward to your feedback.

[Novus]

Might as well give an update... still compiling a consideration list, and still downloading, and still listening to songs whenever I get the chance. Got a lot going on in my life, but I try to at least do some downloading every week.

My goal is to wrap up my consideration list within the next week or two (it's already ridiculously long, but I want to make sure I don't miss any worthy candidates!), then steadily burn though downloading songs from Modland, and then just go on a listening binge for a while when I'm done downloading songs. If all goes well, I may even post up Tracker #100 on my website in December 2012 or January 2013 and go from there.

[ByersA]

I think it won't get huge simply because there are not so many folks that are interested in old tracking scene, but I definitely am one of these selected few and I'l  try to help you get the word out