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%% Music Modules                                     by  David Tiberio %%
%%                                      dtiberio@libserv1.ic.sunysb.edu %%
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Next time your IBM PC friends or Macintosh friends play SoundTracker music
modules on their machines, remind them that it all started with the Amiga.
Of course all platforms have made an attempt at music production, but the
Amiga is the birth platform of music modules in the same way that the Mac
is the birth of QuickTime videos. The technology has been used elsewhere,
but the Amiga popularized it... and they have been riding in our wake.

I remember when I first heard a music module... it was back in 1991, more
than a year after I got my first Amiga 500. The first music module I ever
downloaded was called "Beat dis Paula". Today, the piano effects still
sound decent. But it has gone a long way. After I learned what music
modules were all about, I remembered the "drum" software on the C64. After
showing it to a good friend of mine, he came across the Michael Jackson
tune "Smooth Instrument", which was the highest quality mod we had ever
heard. But it has come a long way.

Looking through my hard drive, I have about 100 mods that I have saved 
over the years, after having gone through at least a thousand or more. 
The ones that I have saved tend to be fairly well known, such as those 
produced by u4ia or SideWinder. While I am currently seeking out new mods,
there are some that I do not know very well by name, so I will only list 
the ones that I have had for a while.

    1989
    Beyond Music
    Bomb Jazz                   - tint of jazz, very good
    Boom
    Das Boot                    - submarines and spys
    Guitar Slinger              - sounds just like the radio, "new age"
    Native Dance                - this won a music mod contest
    Nightmare                   - crude and distorted, but good
    No Limit                    - dance music
    Open Sesame                 - great dance tune
    Power Of American Natives   - can get long and tiring, but very good
    Space Debris                - one of my oldest favorites
    Street Jungle               - another of my oldest favorites
    Tribal Dance                - good dance music
    What Is Love                - just like the radio
    XTermin8                    - dance music


I also took the time to download most of the Sidewinder modules on Aminet.
One thing I must say; this guy knows how to mix modules! His samples are
of the highest quality, and contain a variety of effects. I would suggest
that you download certain modules first, such as the following:

    HouseBeatles                - "Beatles" classic
    RainyDecember               - jazzy piano love song
    RainySeptember              - jazz
    Spanish-Armada              - Spanish RAVE


Of course, you also need a program to play most music modules. Some music
modules have the player built into them, and are referred to as "self-
playing" modules. Since you will mostly come across data modules, I would
suggest the following players:

    DeliTracker                 - one of the most flexible players
    EdPlayer 2.1                - small, compact player for MOD and MED
    JukeBox                     - controls CD ROM drives with audio CD's
    ModuleMaster                - nice interface displays


- AMINET REFERENCES -

For some reason I could not locate all of the above mentioned modules on
Aminet, so here are some of the ones which were previously in the mod
charts. Note that these may be moved to a new directory, since the chart/
directory is constantly changing!

beyond.lha           mods/chart 300K Beyond Music               Apr No. 5
boom.lha             mods/chart 200K Boom! And she cums         Feb No. 8
gslinger.lha         mods/chart 275K Guitar Slinger             Apr No. 2
opensesa.lha         mods/chart 314K Open Sesame                Feb New D
power_of.lha         mods/chart 437K Power of American Natives  Feb No. 9
tribalda.lha         mods/chart 646K Tribal Dance               Apr No. 3
whatislo.lha         mods/chart 618K What is love               Apr No. 4
HouseBeatles.lha     mods/sidew  73K+MOD/SideWinder... Beatles Classic!
RainyDecember.lha    mods/sidew 185K+SideWinder - Jazz/Piano Love Song
RainySeptember.lha   mods/sidew 181K+SideWinder - JAZZ/POP/SYNTH/SAX
Spanish-Armada.lha   mods/sidew 214K+MOD SideWinder/InfoCorner.Spanish RAVE

DeliTracker2_01.lha  mus/play   502K+very powerful music player. needs OS2.0
EdPlyr21.lha         mus/play   215K+A cool player for MODs and MEDs
jukebox.lha          mus/play   179K+CDROM audio disc player


As Edward Cayce might say, that is all for the present...

David Tiberio - dtiberio@libserv1.ic.sunysb.edu