Perspectives on Demoscene Music

Hacking + Stretching Computational Limitations...as an Art Form

Stephen Mcleod Blythe · 07/15/24

Mind back in the good old days when you used to download some pirated software, and you’d have to load up keygen.exe to generate a serial number? Err, I mean. Of course you don’t. You would surely never be one to commit such an immoral act. However, if you were that sort of nefarious character, then you may also remember the distinctive graphics and music that would accompany such questionable applications. Rolling rainbow bars, barely decipherable scrolling text, and frantic chiptune that seemed like it came from an entirely different era…which is probably because it did.

The rather peculiar presentation of cracked software in this manner is associated with a particular sub-culture known as "demoscene." This concept was popularized alongside the proliferation of home computers such as the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and Atari—at a time where it was common practice for people to trade and share copies of games. I even heard tales of err, other people borrowing Amiga disks from their local library and systematically copying them, week after week. Ahem. It was a different time.

Rampant generational disregard for intellectual property aside, the general idea was that if you were skilful enough to bypass the copy protection of an application, then you naturally wanted to make sure you got the credit—especially if you were the first across the line. Doing such a thing was technically challenging after all, and it was only right that other people recognized your abilities. As a result, enterprising individuals would include splash screens in the hitherto "liberated" programs to announce their achievements, and act as some form of signature. As copies of games were passed between folks, they spread far and wide.

Beyond Piracy

As time wore on, these electronic "tags" became increasingly elaborate, and in of themselves became an opportunity to demonstrate the creativity of their creators, outside of the initial cracking activity. It wasn’t enough just to slap a logo on there and call it a day—no. No No. Instead, the coders would go to great lengths to produce the most impressive results possible, pushing the limits of the machines in question, and making them do things that may not have seemed possible under normal circumstances. If a particular computer could only display 4 different colours, then people would look to find a way to show 6. If a certain area of the screen couldn’t be edited under normal operation, that would become a target. A maximum of 8 simultaneous sprites you say? Well, howd’ya like 12!?

No longer solely about piracy, this practice understandably became something of a competitive sport amongst the community—with people pushing each other to see what they were capable of, and what could be squeezed into what was often extremely limited amounts of memory. An especially impressive example of this can be seen in "elevated," a three-and-a-half minute long video flying over a realistic looking mountainous landscape. The awe-inspiring portion here is less about the graphics themselves, and more down to the fact that the entire thing had a filesize of just 4kb, something that I still find incredibly difficult to wrap my head around.

The most technically complex and compelling demos may be put together by an individual, or as the result of collaboration with other artists, but in either case, they involve a combination of coding, visuals, and of course, audio. The exploration of the sonic limitations of machines such as the Commodore 64 with its legendary SID chip in this way helped define and immortalise what have become sought after, signature sounds. Music was often written specifically for these machines in a way that would exploit particular flaws or bugs in the hardware, meaning that certain songs don’t sound right unless they are played back on a specific setup. If you dig into forums online, you’ll find that the debates over what chip sounds best in what scenario rage on, with fiercely held opinions on all sides. Folks will go to extreme lengths to get a particular revision of a particular chip, which is exactly the kind of obsessive pursuit I can get on board with.

The most important thing though really was that the music we’re talking about here was actually good, in of its own right. We all probably have specific game soundtracks that bring back childhood memories and harken back to a particular time in our lives such as Tetris or the Pokemon theme—but demoscene took that to another level, with truly impressive creations. It wouldn’t be unusual for folks to sit and listen to the tunes from a cracktro on repeat—even if they weren’t interested in the actual game itself—and many artists became well known for their creations as a result. I know people that have built full rigs of vintage gear purely to listen to MOD files on original hardware, because of how much it meant to them growing up.

The Birth and Evolution of Trackers

Creating music on early computers initially required low-level coding, without the benefits of any kind of graphical interface, and intrepid developers soon began to come up with their own dedicated software to work with. This included the birth of a type of music sequencing software called "trackers"—which thanks to their pattern-based approach to sequencing provided a more accessible method of composition. These could be quite simple, but would often allow for complex, per-step manipulation of individual parameters, specifically designed to make the most of the particular characteristics of the machine in question—whether it had built-in sound generation capabilities, or made use of samples. With time, MIDI functionality began to be implemented, allowing control over external gear. The combination of Amiga computers and powerful Akai samplers led to the creation of entire genres such as Jungle in the '90s, and artists like Aphex Twin famously used trackers for their mind-bending sonic manipulations. Calvin Harris apparently even put together his debut album I Created Disco with an A1200... and to be fair, that makes sense, as it remains my favourite thing he’s ever done.

If you want to dive down that particular rabbit hole for yourself, check out Ultimate Soundtracker, ProTracker, and OctaMED for the Amiga, LSDJ for the Game Boy, and SIDWizard and defMON for the Commodore 64. Many of these have now been recreated in different forms to run on Windows and Mac, and there are also powerful alternatives like Renoise, if you want something more akin to the DAW experience. Be careful though: while you will either love them or hate them, trackers can be addictive.

The legacy of the demoscene lives on in modern music production outside of pure nostalgia—despite what some may have you believe—and its influence can be clearly seen in gear such as the Dirtywave M8, Polyend Tracker, and NerdSEQ. These are all dedicated hardware trackers of different flavors that nonetheless have a shared history. Even now, many musicians (including myself!) are drawn to these devices because of the raft of possibilities offered by their unique approach to sequencing, and the extent to which you can easily flip and mangle audio. Slicing and re-arranging breakbeasts, pitching samples up and down wildly like a bouncing ball, triggering complex arpeggiations…variation enabled by the multiple FX lanes is the name of the game, and modulation is a given.

All of this is compounded by the relatively small number of tracks which can be programmed concurrently—forcing composers to carefully consider their arrangements, squeezing as much as possible out of all of the available memory. In this kind of context, having a maximum of 8 tracks isn’t a problem so much as it’s a challenge, and part of the inherent beauty of the medium. You might need to mix your drum samples with melodic parts, or find gaps in between melodic notes for hi hats. Some might find this to be frustrating, but it’s also a lot of fun, and helps break out of preconceived, tired approaches to music making. One particular tactic I remember from my days with the Game Boy was that of the "ghost channel," which effectively expanded the limited number of perceivable concurrent notes from four to five through some clever trickery, and this kind of philosophical approach can still be found today.

If you ever listen to chiptune, you’ll know that it can run the risk of being a tad fatiguing on the ears, due to its density and complexity. However, even if your ultimate goal isn’t to produce something that is technically impressive for that sake alone—there is a lot that can be taken from the demoscene. Approaching composition with an open mind and ear for experimentation—to see how far you can push and transform sounds can be endlessly inspiring. There’s a lot to be said for the enduring passion of those involved in the community, as well as the outsized influence that their creations have outside of their immediate sphere, despite the lack of any real prospect of commercial gain.

The reach of the demoscene isn’t just limited to direct descendants like the aforementioned modern tracker devices either. The concept of trig locks as found in Elektron’s boxes such as the Digitakt and Octatrack harkens back to that core concept of per-step manipulation—to such an extent that it’s not unusual to find people referring to them as "horizontal trackers." I’m not quite sure I buy that description, but there is definitely something of a spiritual link present, and it’s now become a common feature in other sequencers, such as the brilliant OXI One, or Squarp Hapax.

If you are interested in the products of demoscene but don’t feel much like "making music in a spreadsheet" (as trackers have unkindly been described), then there are also a variety of ways to get the sounds that have become closely associated with its history. These include modern hardware synthesizers that use chips harvested from vintage computers, such as the Twisted Electrons TherapSID and MegaFM, or Akemie’s Castle from ALM Busy Circuits.

Getting Off Track

The demoscene illustrates a marriage of creativity and experimentation with computing technology in a pure fashion. In many respects, it is the distillation of "coding" as an art form; less about simply displaying what technology of the time is capable of, and more about the artistry in pushing that technology beyond what is expected. Something that makes you go: “Wow. How the hell did they do that?”.

Rather than acting as constraints on the expression of the artist, the limitations shape and become the defining characteristics. This is actually what got me into making electronic music originally, and something that continues to drive a lot of my ongoing interest: taking a device or implement that wasn’t necessarily designed to be used as an instrument, and creating something cool with it. I remember distinctly when I first discovered that the Game Boy could be manipulated and modified to act as a synthesizer and sequencer all in one, and all of the possibilities that it opened up. From there, I became more and more fascinated with the obscure, and was an early experimenter with HoustonTracker—a hacky tracker from irrlicht project which lets you make music with Texas Instruments calculators. Why on earth would anybody want to do such a thing in a day and age where we have endless power at our fingertips in Ableton and the like? Well, that central idea of creating something that is technically impressive as well as artistically appealing within particular limitations remains an attractive challenge for many folks to this day.

The demoscene persists, independent from its varied tendrils of influence in the music world, and there is still a global network of people actively engaged in holding competitions and parties focused on the creation and display of stunning productions. For a great example of this, I’ll leave you with "Eon" by The Black Lotus (above)—a jaw dropping music video from as recently as 2019 which was put together on an Amiga 500 of all things. The bit where the girl morphs into a polygon in particular is worth the wait.