The History Page (1997-2003)

10th Anniversary of music by Westis (Sept. 14th 2007)!

There’s a saying “you don’t know who you are unless you know where you come from”.

I still can’t believe it’s so long ago when i started composing. Luckily, one day i was listening to my old tracker songs and found out that soon it’ll be ten years since i composed those songs. Immediately i decided to create a web page including these old songs and some history behind those. These songs haven’t been online since the year 2002 or so!

My music creation can be divided into different eras based on the techniques and styles behind the songs.

1997-1999. Eurodance made with Fast Tracker

“Tracker is the generic term for a class of software music sequencers which, in their purest form, allow the user to arrange sound samples stepwise on a timeline across several monophonic channels. A tracker’s interface is primarily numeric; notes are entered via the keyboard, while parameters, effects and so forth are entered in hexadecimal. A complete song consists of several small multi-channel patterns chained together via a master list.” Quote from Wikipedia.

One day in 1996 or 1997 i got a copy of the famous tracker Scream Tracker and some songs from a classmate in a floppy disk. I started studying and just playing stuff with Scream Tracker. It was in the time of those “pre-internet” BBS systems which were run by individuals around the country and one day i found out about a tracker software called Fast Tracker – of course i had to get it. So i dialled into many BBS’s to find the FT and finally i got lucky. The Fast Tracker seemed promising and i started studying it with help of songs released by other artists (thanks!).

I finally released my first track “Dancing through the night” in 14. september 1997 by uploading it into some local BBS’s around the province of Oulu in Finland. Nowadays the song sounds quite funny but hey, it’s the nineties – the golden era of eurodance!

After few song releases i got contacted by Dj Spoiler who asked me to join his new demogroup, the Dct2 (Draction – the 2nd generation) and i agreed to join. The group has not been releasing anything since 1999 but some of us still gather up to meet each other few times in a year by having parties in Nivala. Cheers, mates!

Tracks composed with Fast Tracker

14.9.1997 Dancing through the night (clip)

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25.10.1997 Ecuador remix
8.12.1997 Far from home
28.2.1998 Alone in the universe (clip)

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16.3.1998 Highest frequency (clip)

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1.4.1998 Increase the power (clip)

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25.4.1998 Invisibility
8.5.1998 Experiences, part 1
6.8.1998 Extreme life (clip)

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22.10.1998 Extermination

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1.12.1998 Experiences, part 2

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13.1.1999 Light-minded people (Elevator ‘99 multitrack music compo edition)

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18.5.1999 Alternative reality

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x.x.1999 Light-minded people (remake)

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29.9.1999 Colors of melody (clip)

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3.12.1999 Information overflow

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Remixes

18.3.1999 Spoiler – Stairs to emptiness (Westis’ dream edit)

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x.x.1999 Antinontoxic – Time progressive (Westis remix)

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How to listen to tracker songs?

You can download the original Fast Tracker XM modules compressed in a zip file here. You’ll need a player that supports the *.xm file type and Winamp should handle them just fine. If not, you can also download the Modplug Player which will play them as well. And if you want to go even further in experiencing the old school tracker world, download Skale Tracker and see the original patterns gliding in front of your eyes (see the screenshot on the top of this article)!
You’ll find lots of other tracker songs from the web and The Mod Archive is a good place to start.

2000 The trance era

I was introduced into various software synths and Acid Pro audio multitracker which i used to compose some trance tracks in the year 2000. The songs are not real dancefloor killer hits but they have nice synth sounds and some chillout elements.
5.2.2000 The star 2000

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22.2.2000 Unstable inquisition

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x.x.2000 Garden of life

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2001-2002 The ‘Modern // Inhazers’ era

In 2001 and 2002 I was in a house music project called “Modern // Inhazers” with Spoiler/Andy State from Nivala. The project started as an attempt to do many kinds of styles of music and it did – in the very beginning. At that time, “filter house” or “french house” was quite popular in the nightclubs around the world and since filter house was quite easy to compose, we had to try it as well! The idea behind filter house is to clip very short parts other songs (usually some 1970’s disco hits) and apply different filters and equalization with a lot of cut’n’paste to achieve some cool retro sound with a modern touch. Some of our tracks were quite popular in the (now dead) mp3.com at that time. We didn’t do much tracks together so almost all of the songs are made by either one of us. The following tracks are some of the ones i made.

our turn

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6 days left

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Looping sensation

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A feeling to share

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It feels

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09:50 (Westis cuts da loop mix)

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Blue Avenue

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Alive

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2003-present

After Modern Inhazers i started releasing stuff under my own nickname again and the results can be found in my music page.