I'm trying to get a basic education on mod players, for .mod or .med music files. I think they're from back in the Amiga days? Does anyone have good intel on what they're still used for? Are they used in games?

The MOD files are rarely used nowadays (although it's quite common on the GBA), more advanced tracker formats such as XM or IT are still used on more powerful platforms however (not very often though).
And, yes, the MOD format originates from the Amiga in the late 80's (in fact it's highly adapted for that specific machine).

thanks.

do you know of a repository of free mod files? for example for testing a new player

Quote: Original post by staigerman
do you know of a repository of free mod files? for example for testing a new player

The only one I can think of off hand is Maktone's (a chip mod composer) collection (clicky), a quick google session should turn up a few libraries. Oh, and Aminet has a section with them too..

I actually wrote a half-finnished MOD player once myself (it mostly worked but some effects were 'buggy'). It's quite an interesting thing to code but can also be somewhat frustrating when things don't sound right since it's hard to debug and documentation is scarce.

Beware that there's a *big* difference between handling the relatively simple MOD files and the advanced formats (ITs in particular are said to be nightmarish to handle fully).

Here is my favorite group.
Maniacs of Noise
I particularly like the songs composed by Wave (Jeroen Tel).

Shawn

Quote: Original post by ShawnO
Here is my favorite group.
Maniacs of Noise
I particularly like the songs composed by Wave (Jeroen Tel).

Those are pretty much only XMs, and besides I still think they're pretty mediocre compared to his SID work (if only due to my appreciation of the technical difficulties).

Quote: Original post by staigerman
do you know of a repository of free mod files? for example for testing a new player

There's ModLand and Mod Archive. And for Med files you could always look at the Med SoundStudio home page.

-edit- And the proper link to the Aminet nowadays is here.

Quote: Original post by samuraicrow

Quote: Original post by staigerman
do you know of a repository of free mod files? for example for testing a new player

There's ModLand and Mod Archive. And for Med files you could always look at the Med SoundStudio home page.

-edit- And the proper link to the Aminet nowadays is here.

Thanks, I'll check these out.

We actually use the MedStudio runtime dll for our player.

-Philip

As for use in games, Unreal Engine 1 games used them (Unreal, UT, DeusEx, etc). Those games had some beautiful music too.