The Power of Twitter (or, how it never hurts to ask)

Transport Tycoon

Open TTD Title ScreenTransport Tycoon Deluxe had a profound impact on my life when I was in high school. A friend an I found it in a nested-away folder on one of those pirate-rich, home-burned CDs that contained ripped games and were passed around between classes. At the start, we had no idea what a great game Transport Tycoon was but the graphics were really impressive and the game ran swell on our hardware (a 486SX at 33MHz and a Cyrix MediaGX at 180MHz). Not only were the graphics great, but the music was really catchy, as well. All of us (friends who later became enamoured themselves with the game) found ourselves humming it for months and years after.

I play the music now and again, even years later. It’s classic 16-bit MIDI is music to my ears. Still, I have always wondered what a live band adaptation would sound like.

Enter Twitter

Conversation on Twitter with John BroomhallSome people wonder what the point of Twitter is. I, myself, was one of those people until I realized about two months after joining that A) your experience is directly related to the quality of the people you follow, and B) it gives you direct access to famous people you would have no other way of contacting.

Hey wait! Why not contact John Broomhall about him doing a live band version of the Transport Tycoon!

Gamasutra

Game developers and artists in the game development industry frequently guest post on Gamasutra, a blog dedicated to the art of game development. Guess what? John Broomhall wrote a guest post centred about his 20+ year experience in the game soundtrack field and included a little nugget which interested yours truly: a live band adaptation of Transport Tycoon’s soundtrack!

I’d just like to thank Mr. Broomhall for doing this and giving me such enjoyable music to listen to all these years. Also to Twitter for making it possible for us to directly speak to people who have made direct impacts on our lives!

Make Music With Schism Tracker

There exists an obscure music format that an entire generation of kids grew up with, most without ever realizing the sub-culture and community that had grown up around them. The file format is called Music Modules, or Mods for short. There are many different kinds of Mod formats, each with their own unique set of features, but they all work using the same basic principles: The Mod file contains the “patterns” (digital sheet music) as well as the “samples” (instruments) that play according to the patterns. In this way it is somewhat of a cross between a MIDI and an MP3 file. Because each Mod includes the instruments with the file, each Mod can have a unique sound.

Mods were frequently used in videogames and PC games during the 1990s. If you had a Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, or Atari Jaguar, chances are you have listened to Mod music and never even knew it.

The Mod community has been around for a long time and includes some of the best Demoscene musicians in the world. Making your own mods is free and easy and when you’re finished with your masterpiece you can unleash it on the world for comment and rating via websites like The Mod Archive.

Schism Tracker Screenshot
Schism Tracker Screenshot

In order to make music modules you will need a computer with a sound card (if you bought a computer after about 1993 you should be okay :D) and a Tracker. The Tracker I use most frequently to make Mods is Schism Tracker. Schism Tracker is a remake of a classic DOS-based Mod Tracker known as Impulse Tracker. Schism Tracker will run on Windows, Linux, and Mac and is free to download.

If you’re interested in getting started with making music on your computer, check out this tutorial for Impulse / Schism Tracker and have fun!