Back in the mid to late 90s tracker stuff was what I considered "how techno was made" (I got an A grade for a presentation in "music" subject at grammar school, mostly because tracker terminology also included "patterns", samples, bpm and such (Future Crew Demos such as Panic and 2nd Reality were my baseline back then).
Boy was it a revelation when I got my hands at a "real" 909, 303+MPC+MIDI setup..
I mean, was it? I always felt like trackers were crappy and “real” producers used real synths and drum machines, but in hindsight we now know that some of the most creative/interesting producers were trackers
It did always feel like the "real" folk had some mysterious room full of hardware
I guess it was true, but so neat that they were sometimes triggering that stuff with trackers or sampling it for use within trackers (or similarly niche software)
Boy was it a revelation when I got my hands at a "real" 909, 303+MPC+MIDI setup..