Under construction
History
Mod music was originally conceived on the Amiga computer platform as a small music file format to be played along with games and other software. The files basically consisted of digital samples (sounds) being played in a sequenced order and at various pitches (notes). This format allowed for much smaller files than if it were to be an entire sound recording. The reason for this is because each song consisted of a number of sampled sounds that together consisted of no less than a few seconds of audio. Each sound was then played at a certain time determined by the c file information. A bass drum sample for instance, would be triggered to play a beat pattern. This sound would be triggered to repeat over and over in repeating patterns while other sounds played along in the same way. Think of it like a player piano, the kind that play on their own using a spool of paper that tells each piano key when to play. Mods are like hi-tech player pianos. The mod file contains the sampled sounds and the information that tells the samples when to play and at what level and pitch.
SIZE is Everything
When the internet came to be, mod music exploded. Musicians were able to create songs and post them to bulletin boards and newsgroups, allowing for anyone with a phone connection to download and listen to the mod music. This explosion of communication created a competitive as well as a cooperative edge to mod music. The files were small enough and easy to send across the internet. People shared songs and samples. Groups formed and competed with each other. Musicians would create music together without even meeting eye to eye.
Before recent compression technology like mpeg compression (Mp3) a 5 minute audio file could be as much as 50 megabytes where as mods can be as little as a few kilobytes, hundreds of times smaller. Even with recent breakthroughs in compression technology, mods can still be significantly smaller than a full audio recording. This is because mods are composed of short samples and sequencing data, as opposed to a full recording.
Software
The creation of any file is dependant on software. Images, sounds, web pages, word documents all have to be created and viewed with software. The software to create the music has evolved immensely and continues to grow with added sound quality, sound effects, the number of samples and many more features that have been added by programmers around the world.
Freeware
The real beauty of mod music is the fact that it is free. The software and the music is created and maintained by musicians and programmers around the world who want to contribute and be a part of this phenomenon. With the price of some music software as high as $500, mod music is a breath of (very) fresh air. Mod songs consist of simple wav sounds that can be found anywhere. Any sound that comes out of your computer can be put into a mod. My first mod was created when I searched my hard drive for sound files (like the windows start-up sound) and picked out which ones to put into it. Musicians share and create sound files constantly and there is a wealth of sound samples that can be purchased or if you search a little, are totally free to be downloaded from the internet.
The Infinite Underground
THE INFINITE UNDERGROUND
If you want to hear a song I am working on click here.
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Page created by MarKo
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