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[Bad Sector]

Some of my favourite games are Unreal, UT99 and recently Deus Ex. These games include awesome music, which is in module formats (XM and IT mostly) and has a distinct feeling to them due to the module nature. This feeling can be used in favour of the song or abused, trying to make something that modules by nature are weak for (like trying to make metal/rock music - although possible and with some very good examples, modules are best for electronic, beat-y music). Not only these games used module music, however, but also many games from the 90s (like most Epic games, almost all Amiga games, many indie games including Bud Redhead and DX-Ball, etc) and a whole scene around module music exists - although in these days i feel that mods are mostly used for chiptunes, which while being a nice music style, are only a single side of what can be done with mods.

Personally i love module music and i believe its one of the greatest formats to use for game music, especially where size does matter (you can't have a quality 7mins track in less than 1MB with MP3/OGG - and with vorbis encoding for samples, the size becomes even smaller). Because of this i made a MOD player for Flash, although this post isn't about it.

It's sad to see that not many game musicians these days make modules. I think module music is underappreciated and it is becoming something like a lost art - much like pixel art, but while currently pixel art has some commercial value given all the mobile phone and browser games, module music has not. Some modern musicians even consider module music a mundane 'programming-style' method to compose (which isn't a surprise actually since it was developed in an era when computer game musicians were also programmers - although i think it has more to do with the vertical sequential representation of the tracks and usage of letters for notes and 'effects commands', than anything else).

I don't know much about music. I've got a MIDI keyboard (a M-AUDIO Axiom 25) with the intent to learn music and write modules, although currently i pretty much suck :-P. I hope to become better over time.

I wonder however, what is your view on module files? And if you like it, which modules do you consider to be of 'awesome quality' showing off what can be done with module music?

[Lurk]

I love modules. I used to have an Amiga; Shadow of the Beast still has one of the best game soundtrack to this day. There also was a song that came with our tracker, it was called 'poseidon'; I remember playing it and just imagining a game that would use it, vast landscapes in the raging sea.
I tried getting back into tracker a while ago, but, so many things to do, so little time. I think it is a great tool for people like me who compose without any real knowledge of annotation, and are more familiar with trial and error creation.

[battlerager]

I love modules. Problem is just that I started the MIDI way, and it's basically two different mindsets.

[moi]

Some of my favourite games are Unreal, UT99 and recently Deus Ex. These games include awesome music, which is in module formats (XM and IT mostly) and has a distinct feeling to them due to the module nature.

Personally i love module music and i believe its one of the greatest formats to use for game music, especially where size does matter (you can't have a quality 7mins track in less than 1MB with MP3/OGG - and with vorbis encoding for samples, the size becomes even smaller).

Fuck yeah. Whenever I hear that it gives me the shivers.
Also.

[Annabelle Kennedy]

i love the idea of modular music.. but actually composing it is so unintuitive id PAY someone to make a tracker with a built in piano roll for channel editing..

[Tanner]

i love the idea of modular music.. but actually composing it is so unintuitive id PAY someone to make a tracker with a built in piano roll for channel editing..

this this this a thousand times this
and not pxtone
we already know about that.

[agj]

Unintuitive, eh? I found Nitrotracker to be extremely easy to use. It's what's got me making (poor) music now, for the first time.

[konjak]

Pfft, chumps. I can do module. 

Well, I recently stopped. I liked it mostly because it could seperate the instruments and thus make the music component of a game very small. Noitu 2 used it, but I'm moving into piano roll country now.

[Annabelle Kennedy]

Unintuitive, eh? I found Nitrotracker to be extremely easy to use. It's what's got me making (poor) music now, for the first time.

yeah im not saying its IMPOSSIBLE.. but i would LOVE to see anyone just add a piano roll it coulnt be hard, its just that SCENERS dont like the idea of it becuase they love filling out a SCANTRON form to make music.. when its really hard to do for all of the rest of us. haha...\:

[GregWS]

Pfft, chumps. I can do module. 

And you can do it well, no less! 

[Bad Sector]

@Annabelle Kennedy:
But then it's not a tracker, but "fruity loops" :-P

Anyway, i think most tracker musicians use a MIDI keyboard (at least most of those i know do use one, although not all).

[Annabelle Kennedy]

|:<


it doesnt have module suppporrt cant believe your one of them one of those purists. there's nothing remotely intuitive about scantrons and i dont have acess to midi keyboard to write song on so its like zero fun trying to do that.

come on if you don't want modules to die it has to adapt to the changing world!

i am spoiled with my piano roll and PXtone is windows only how am i supposed to go cross platfooormmm

[Souseiseki]

I prefer .MOD best, though no one really tracks in those anymore unless it's some chip crap or amiga-style stuffs. MOD can handle better than that

And piano rolls are stupid. I used to make music by hte piano rolls, but now I prefer the OMG SUPAR HARD SCANTRON method now as I prefer the precision of what I do against my notes.

[Jad]

I'm SO getting into tracker + low-bitrate samples to get that wonderful SNES:y sound. (sans awesome delay echo of course)

Or that's the plan. For now I'm just sketching out songs in Reason 4 > __>;; Piano roll and OMG-CREATE-YOUR-OWN-SYNTH-JUST-TURN-SOME-KNOBS-BOYSNGIRLS just makes for way too nice sounds D:

[Annabelle Kennedy]