My first setup was a beast: a Pentium II processor, Voodoo2 graphics card, and Creative's Soundblaster sound card. Oh, and let's not forget the 56k modem, where loading a single image took an eternity... dont even ask about mp3's. It was a whole new world that opened up, a world that pulled me in like a magnet. Sorry mom, dad.. the bills was heavy.

Winamp, Kazaa, MSN messanger, VBS Loveletter – these were the staples of my early internet days. To be able to talk to someone a few hours away, or stumble upon a whole universe of music you never knew existed, each song a hidden gem waiting to be unearthed. But then all of a sudden, all your mp3s and other files were renamed to .vbs and you couldn't open them or do anything about it, but reinstall Windows. Everything lost.

And then there was IRC, a chaotic realm of networks, EFnet, DALnet, Quakenet, making channels, integrating bots and encounters with Turkish hackers named Ahmed who would take over your channel and then graciously hand it back. IRCops, netsplits – it was a whirlwind of activity that left my head spinning.

In a way, it reminds me of what's happening /Onchain now – an endless expanse of different chains, use cases to discover and learn from. But if you're not careful, you can easily get lost in the maze. Just like back then, there's something about the thrill of discovery that draws me in.

One of my older skateboarding buddies showed me a remix he made of Ice MC's "It's a Rainy Day" using Fast Tracker 2. Watching the notes scroll down and transform into music was mind-blowing. He gave me the whole thing on floppy disks, and I was hooked. Music creation became my new way to unwind and express myself.

As I was doing some research for this post, I actually found the exact remix he made... and it's a banger! Många tack till Adde for showing me the way! (...if he made it, i have my doubts) ;)

Before I got into electronic music, I was mainly into skate/surfpunk bands like Millencolin, No Fun at All and NoFx. But once I started messing around with music software, I was drawn to electronic music almost instantly. It felt... natural?

Melodic trance and happy hardcore were the sounds that dominated my neighborhood. Dune, Ayla, RMB, ATB, Ferry Corsten, Members of Mayday.

One of my favorite songs from that era was "Starchild" by Starchild, a Swedish rave group. However, I didn't know that at the time. The song was mistakenly attributed to Dune, so everyone thought Dune was the one behind it. It's a shame for Starchild, who could have had a great career if they had gotten their big break. I don't know what happened to them, but I hope they're getting some royalties now.

Also worth watching

Inspired by these artists, I started creating my own music using Fast Tracker 2. It was challenging and user-unfriendly, but it was also a lot of fun, and I was eager to learn everything I could. Unfortunately, I don't have any of the songs I made back then.

But here's a track by some kind of guru:

TraxInSpace was a fantastic community that was similar to SoundCloud but also had forums and competitions. Since music was distributed in .xm/.mod formats, you could analyze how it was created, strip out everything except the samples, and create a new song from them, or even borrow certain elements and build on them.

Around 2001, I discovered Fruity Loops, and I made the switch. It offered more possibilities, better sounds, wasn't DOS, and allowed me to use VSTs. It was like a whole new world opened up again.

Here's a track I made in 2003, "Black Magic":

https://voca.ro/1kBvpLyas2m0

A track from 2010, "Well of Sendell":

https://voca.ro/1875QVayEs14

A track from 2013, "The Synapse Experience":

https://voca.ro/1bh2CR3kGpZQ

A track from 2016, "Skenvärld":

https://voca.ro/1owAztfrhIbo

And one from about now, "Bastuklubben":

https://voca.ro/1hpSPKwVcxGk

Looking back at the 2000s, it's a decade filled with musical exploration and technological advancements in music production. It feels similar to the excitement I'm experiencing with Web3 right now – the whole /onchain thing is incredibly captivating!

For the past three weeks, I've been diving headfirst into /onchain, a concept created by @raz (farcaster) of Guild.xyz. It's a world of hidden secrets and challenges where you complete tasks to earn points across various categories. Sometimes it's liking/recasting a post, other times it involves having a profile on a specific Web3 site, owning an NFT, have a specific icon somewhere or something else entirely. I have so much to discover. Need moar XP. Raz, just spill the beans!!!

This is just the beginning. Last week, "meta-guilds" have started popping up, loosely connected to /onchain. The idea is to eventually link everything together into a full-fledged metaverse as a new kind of MMORPG... but real... onchain!

So, if you're looking for something fun and useful to do, learn and to connect with other users in a genuine community built of Farcaster, check out onchain.computer.

See you there!

With friendly greetings,

The Silicon Overlord