I'm telling you guys, if you are serious about tracking, just use Fruity Loops. It's fairly cheap (or less, hehe) pricewise, and it seems to have all the features you are longing for. I'm using it pretty much exclusively now. It's interface is pretty hard to beat, also. There is a free demo available on the website.

FL Studio

Yes, you have to render your music to wav or the compressed format of your choice, but honestly, with the size of the sample data you have to use nowdays to make your modules sound anywhere near mp3 quality, you might as well just render them anyway with full effects.

Basically, (and don't take this the wrong way, because I still use modules) modules are old. Very, very old. Yes, people still use them, and you can do a lot with a module. And people still use Yugos. And you can do a lot with a Yugo. But you would never, ever drive the President of the United States in one. Modules were originally made for about the same purpose they are used today: because they are usually small. The Amiga had the ability to play back recorded music just fine... the only problem is a 3 minute song is way too large to store on your average amiga if you want to have any sort of collection. So people came up with a way of storing songs in a much smaller format. The only problem was that you had to get somebody to actually remake the song by hand. However, people got the idea that "Hey, this actually will make it easy to MAKE music!". And thus, an entire industry was born.

The time of the module is over. It is dead, it has been dead, and it's not coming back. There is, and always will be, a large collection of people that make music in module format. Modarchive is a testament to that. And there is, and always will be, a large amount of people that will use emulators to relive those games in the past (I'm one of those people. :D). However, the original Nintendo is NOT the format of choice for people that want to make games nowdays. Why? Because it is inherantly limited for what people want to make. And in that same light, modules are too limited for anything but making songs in the smallest amount of space possible. Yes, it is easy to make songs with a tracker, but it is just as easy to use a piece of software like FL Studio, Acid Pro, Buzz, or any other professional tracker. And your output music sounds professional quality because it IS professional quality(assuming you are skilled musically), not because you had to make your module into a 9 megabyte monstrosity because you had to upmix your samples to some gigonormous kilohertz because it wouldn't sound good otherwise. Yes, you can make some great music in a small package if you are skilled enough. But if you are that musically talented, why not just save yourself the technical trouble and time, and just use the good stuff? The module's day was done the moment mp3 was introduced.

This wasn't intended to be the rant it became. But when I'm finished with the game I'm working on, I WILL render all of the module files I have to OGG, with full effects such as reverb and chorus. All of the personal music I've created with FL Studio will also be converted to OGG. I wouldn't punish the player of my game with having to listen to unprocessed mods. Maybe I'm just spoiled.

On a side note, will Wavs that have been encoded in 5.1 play that way in Verge assuming your system is set up correctly? I'll have to test that later.

-edit

Darn, just tried that 6 channel test wav from the microsoft site. Works fine in Winamp and Media Player, but verge doesn't even play it (doesn't crash, though). Darn, I thought the hardware decoder would be nice and play it in 6 channels regardless of what verge was doing. And FMOD doesn't like 6 channel wavs. Naughty thing.

The reason for using mods is not because they are small. Now, once the mod music is made, many people find it pointless to throw away the space by turning it into an mp3 with reverb and crap. But thats different.


The mod is a superior means of expressing some musical ideas. To declare that mods are dead is to declare that those musical ideas are dead. Don't tell me that you can express the same ideas via other methods. No one does. You can't. There is a phrase--grace under fire. The fire of prodding a mod tracker can bring out true grace from a composer.


Even from a purely tracking standpoint, what you would regard as an amateur tracker application is actually an interface designed by an expert musician with their optimal workflow in mind. Many composers share that workflow. The experience working with these applications and workflows (for composer and for listener) is more primitive and visceral. It is a different experience. And different experience and pressures will yield different music. And history has shown that, at least in my opinion, this way of doing things yields superior music.


This concept of sticking with what works is universal. People use old equipment, amplifiers, instruments, what have you--because they reject your idea that the new stuff is better. The new stuff isn't better. It's different, get that into your head, and different in this case removes whatever magic it is that I feel and you do not.


Furthermore, the great console video game soundtracks were essentially tracked. You play me something composed with your fancy studio apps that even approaches one of those songs.


Do not confuse "professional quality" with good music. For reasons I cannot readily determine, the two seem to be mostly mutually exclusive. I would rather listen to a deliciously suitable nes tune than a boring modern ambient noisy well-mixed piece of studiocraft.

The 6 channel wav test on microsoft's site does not use a codec, it's a pure wav. The only difference is that it has 6 channels recorded instead of two. The wav specification handles this in the same way that it handles 1 and 2 channels. Theoretically, I would think that FMOD would at least play the first two channels.

Also, I still stand by my argument. My argument is that the MOD and related format is dead. You can still use all of those old tracking programs if you wish to make your music, I know I still use Impulse Tracker now and then. It's the output format that counts, not what you used to make it. You can use the Winamp disk writer to create your final wav, and add effects as you desire using Sound Forge (which I love).

Of course, different people have different ways of doing things. However, I don't think I've ever heard many mods under 2 meg that sound resonable anywhere near like their rendered, touched-up counterparts.

Some of my favourite musical pieces were composed for the NES and SNES. But many times, I like their remakes and remixes on Overclocked Remix more. Is the essential song different? Not really. It's the presentation that I like more. When I'm playing games on ZSNES, of course I turn the sound options much higher than the original SNES was capable of.

I think other people probably have a different opinion about the MOD format, but I think it's completely seperable from the actual creation of the music itself. There are absolutely countless ways to compose a file resulting in an MP3, MOD is the same way. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't think that the people authoring songs with those old tracking programs are necessarily limited to using IT or XM or MOD. I just don't think that the finished result should be a MOD. But I guess everyone has their own opinion about it - especially the artists themselves. :D I did mention I'm using Modplug sometimes, didn't I?