Interesting reading that because the trackers I used didn’t support sampling. If I recall correctly, they were just tone generators. So you had to define waveforms like you might for a VSTi in a modern (by comparison) sequencer. Albeit without the fancy UI of a VSTi, any piano roles, nor the drag-and-drop placement of bars of music.

It was kind of like writing music in hexadecimal.

I wasn’t particularly good at it though. I much preferred the workflow of a sequencer to a tracker.

Oh yeah - the tracker itself wasn't the sampler, but one would often import sampled waveforms (or borrrrrow 'em from other tracks). I seem to remember fasttracker ][ (which i spent a ridiculous amount of time with as a teenager) had some 'draw a waveform' functionality which is possibly the worst sound interface imaginable.