That's a negative. Modules are a fast and simple way of making music, but definitely not the best one. That's like saying that eJay is the ultimate composing application.

They provide high quality sound only if the samples are high quality (read: large). If the samples are high quality, the modules grow.

I currently have ~200Mb of samples mapped over my MIDI playback.

My previous defense for MIDI: http://www.allegro.cc/forums/view_thread.php?_id=189857

That's exactly what you did, and what started this.:

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Yes, I've admitted that all along, but midi data in that sense is not comparable to notation, it's more like a recording. It serves a different purpose. What we were comparing was the notation. As you put it "I can store text in a gif file, but it still won't describe the file properly". A human can still read that text, and so it can serve it's purpose. After all, a book is nothing more than pictures of letters. Traditional notation is meant to be read by humans, not computers. If a computer is to perform the music it may need something else, but what I'm arguing is that for humans, the traditional notation works very well.

Of course, if you think that human musicians are a thing of the past, then you are correct that traditional notation also is a thing of the past(unless the notation is an aid to the composer), so I think I see where you are coming from now. But that is an idea I oppose even stronger. Not in this thread, though. One subject at the time, please.

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None of those quotes were mine and I hope I haven't said anything that would qualify on that list either. The purpose of my participation has not been to flame anyone or force my opinions on anyone. (Unless it counts as an opinion that music notation still is useful.) I have also tried to understand why Funklord made that inital statement, since I find that interesting as a music teacher.

Have something to back this up?

It shouldn't be, and I'll be damned if it'll ever cease to exist because of uninnovative cut'n'paste techno music.

Why? I'll just map 60Gb of samples. No need for synths.

Did you mean MIDI by the way? If so, I'm not arguing this one. If you meant modules, I'll just say "haw".

By the term "techno" I meant an umbrella term which gathers all these Britney Spearii and other one-song miracle bands under it. Check out MTV and you know what I mean.

You know little of the method I'm using then.

There is one thing of Funklord's that I would like to reply to:

This wasn't idle speculation on a potential large project. This wasn't thowing out the possibility of a large-scale project. No, this was information about a real project for use by the real world that I am currently involved in. Not only is our game that huge, in terms of code size, it would be hard to imagine many PC or console games these days being too much smaller than that. Maybe half that size would be the lower bound I'd imagine.

Even at that, you've still got 1-2K on average file line size with 250 or so separate .cpp files. And, yes, we do all our compiling and so forth on Windows boxes. We have no need (and the majority of us would revolt if forced) to use UNIX or Linux machines.

As far as the various .mod formats is concerned: I like MODs. Well, I like the concept of MODs, anyway. The core design idea (I know that the original MOD format was not really designed, but bear with me) is that a MOD should sound the same on whatever system it is played on. I just don't get that with MIDI's.

For that reason, I would go with a MOD format. One of the problems with using MOD formats, however, is the trackers themselves. And I'm not talking about the interface; I'm refering to their age.

I can't use Impulse Tracker on my WinXP box. It's a DOS program, and XP just doesn't like them. Also, my sound card (an Audigy) doesn't seem to come with DOS drivers. Win2000 will probably exhibit the same problems. FastTracker 2 will, almost certainly, exhibit these problems. Impulse Tracker is the only program that creates .it files, which is one of the better MOD formats. The FastTracker2 format, .xm (right?), is only exported by FastTracker2.

It's really annoying that the two most popular and advanced MOD formats can't actually be created on modern Windows OS's.

There are a few Windows MOD editors out there. Mad Tracker 2, for example, can load .it and .xm files. Unfortunately, it cannot save them; instead, it uses it's own propriatery format, .mt2. Granted, they say on their page that they can save to .xm, but I haven't found a way to make it do so. I don't know of a stand-alone (or WinAMP plugin) player for .mt2 files, thus making them somewhat useless. Unless, of course, Bruce is going to add .mt2 support into DUMB.

Ahm... while it's not a tracker... have a look at:
[url http://www.steinke.net/download/beatbox.zip]
it's the WIP of a small (and fun) utility I'm working on

Yes I am aware of big companies going this path.
Why else is microsoft making so much money?
Their own statistics prove that their main income is not from OS sales, it's from contracted tech support for companies.

Your company is free to do whatever they please, if they are developing MS games then I guess there is no other option.

But for me the idea of 10-20% of desktops constantly being "repaired" or waiting for troubleshooters, is not an option, nor is server downtime.
The tech support bills and 1 employee per 10 machine ratio required when operating MS products are simply not feasible.

nice proggie spellcaster!
but... the random function makes better sound than me!

Spellcaster: I think I already congratulated you on the nice drum machine proggie

I made a drum&bass ringtone for my cellular with it =)

miran: no idea what this is
If I click play, all I get is random noise? And it's almost not audible, even if I turn my speakers to max...

Eskimoo, Funklord: Thanks
The funny thing is that it took my really long to get the export function to work
I coded the main proggy in a couple of hours, then added the gui... but the export (and related stuff, like alogg and dumb, and me being to stupid to mix) took 4-5 times as long

Hm... I'll add loading / saving, wav exporting and some other stuff in the next release.

Maybe even some new drum sets
(Which would then force me add drum set selection)

Does anybody know some nice (and free) percussion samples?

Ok... how do I use it?
There was no readme, and I tried clicking buttons and stuff.. but with no real result.
And the button labels didn't tell me much (I've no bg in music, maybe that's the problem)

I CANNOT BELIEVE I JUST HEARD THAT

ModPlug Tracker attempts to support all the popular formats, but it gets a few things wrong. Ever tried creating an IT file and putting portamento and arpeggio together? (You can put portamento in the volume column.) It creates a cool effect in IT; ModPlug doesn't have a clue about this, or it didn't last time I tried. (DUMB gets it right ) ModPlug also plays things at a much lower level than IT (usually), meaning people write music that sounds fine in ModPlug but then distorts badly in IT. Grr.

As for the interface: yes, ModPlug Tracker is more approachable, but many people prefer IT's interface. I use both, depending on how I feel; but I always remember that IT is the authority on playback.

Also, I recommend you don't use ModPlug's extra effect plug-in thingies, unless you intend to export to OGG or something. ModPlug's effect plug-ins are very Windows-specific ("DirectX Media Audio Effects"); good luck getting any of them to work on Linux (without using Wine or similar). So don't use that as a reason why ModPlug Tracker might be better than Impulse Tracker In my opinion, ModPlug Tracker should be using its own file format for this stuff.

And don't get me started on the quality of ModPlug Tracker's filters compared with IT's.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying ModPlug doesn't have its uses. It's actually very useful, for those of us who for whatever reason can't get the DOS stuff to work. I just think people should be aware of its flaws. No offence, but disregarding the "old DOS stuff" is just uninformed

IT is available here by the way.

Also ModPlug gets sample vibrato completely wrong. Something I noticed just recently...

BTW, Impulse Tracker is one of the reasons I still primarily boot into Win98...

EDIT:
@jhuuskonen: You're probably thinking of this. They are two S3Ms written by Firelight (author of FMOD) with the sole purpose of phucking up as many players and trackers as possible. MPT or MPP doesn't play them at all!