Modplug Tracker

Purpose of the document

This is not a definitive reference manual, but is hopefully a guide to getting the hang of using Modplug Tracker to get pleasing, near-studio quality results out of your PC, without spending money on equipment. I should point out that you can't record live audio with Modplug, if you play in instrument and want to record your playing - you'll have to go down a different route. If you like sample or synth-based kinds of music you'll be able to achieve results you might not have thought possible on a budget of nothing. I expect a lot of people will come to trackers from being fans of Computer Game music, particularly those who have played games on the Commodore Amiga. Personally, I got into Modplug because I enjoyed the music for Unreal, and wanted to find out how it was composed and remix it myself.

Introduction

Developed by Olivier Lapicque

Windows tracker program with comprehensive set of features, allowing you to make studio-quality music on a PC with no extra equipment (theoretically - it helps to have a keyboard to aid composition if you can't think the notes up in your head)

Supports VST plug-ins, which gives unlimited production possibilities - there are also excellent free plug-ins you can get hold of quite easily.

Note on tracker programs

Tracker programs have evolved mainly from the work of programming enthusiasts who wanted to make music using their home computers, I would guess.

My knowledge of trackers comes from using them on the Commodore Amiga as a teenager. Because the Amiga provides four channels of 8-bit digital audio, it can produce music that sounds remarkably good - I was certainly blown away by it around 1990 when digital sound on computers was quite rare. Even though the Amiga has somewhat declined since Commodore went bust, there is a highly active scene of Amiga users producing new music.

For anyone unfamiliar with what trackers are, I'll move on to a short description, starting from the Amiga's point of view.

On Amigas (all of them, as far as I know) you have access to four channels of 8-bit PCM digital sound, on which only one sample can be played at a time. The tracker program allows you to sequence samples into a musical composition, by presenting you with a four-column table into which you can enter note values, the sample playback volume for each note, and a playback effect such as a pitch slide/bend or tremolo. Each table used is called a pattern, of which there can be many in order to make up a song.

Trackers obviously hold the samples in memory, otherwise there would be no sound. The number of samples you can have depends on computer memory. Any decent tracker will also have tools for setting up the samples - doing some editing or processing, and setting looping if necessary.

The general idea is simple, and has gained a great following over the years.

With the greater power of PCs these days, trackers are far more powerful in terms of playing more channels of audio, and at CD quality as well. Modplug tracker will give you up to 64 channels of audio and the opportunity to process any one of those channels with a VST plug-in - a fairly recent update. If you don't know what VST is, keep reading!

VST

VST is an abbreviation of Virtual Studio Technology, developed as part of Steinberg's Cubase VST. It is an interface for streaming digital audio through plug-in software effects processors of various types. The key point of it is that effects processing can be done digitally without anything leaving the computer, given a suitable host application. VST is open source technology, so that anyone can develop VST plug-in effects, and anyone can integrate VST into their audio applications.

Beginners…

If you're a beginner to all of this, don't worry, because until you start playing about with Modplug it's difficult to know what it actually means to you as a prospective composer or remixer - whatever you'd like to call yourself. At this point you are really only scratching the surface of possibilities with modern computer-based music-making. In fact, Modplug is not far removed from professional music audio software such as Cubase VST and Logic Audio.