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The Amiga MOD sound is quite distinctive because it uses very low-res instrument samples (typically 8-bit, 8 kHz) played back at different sample rates. Only f

by pavlov 3y ago

The Amiga MOD sound is quite distinctive because it uses very low-res instrument samples (typically 8-bit, 8 kHz) played back at different sample rates. Only four channels were available, so each of those crunchy samples gets to be heard in the mix too. It was amazing at the time and still sounds unique in its way. A few PC games used Amiga MOD soundtracks too. Star Control II (1992) comes to mind because it was a very early example of Internet crowdsourcing: the music was created by MOD composers around the world.

kreddor 3y ago
I remember several PC games with "amiga music". Settlers (the original), SuperFrog, Pinball Fantasies, and so on. Most likely because they were amiga ports. They didn't necessarily use the MOD format all of them, but still. I remember ripping the music from SuperFrog and Settlers at least.
- jl6 3y ago
  A little later, Unreal, Unreal Tournament, and Deus Ex all used tracker music, to enduring acclaim.
  - badpun 3y ago
    Interesting that UT decided not to just play back an MP3, as that would be too heavy on CPU's time budget, and settled on mods instead. IIRC, Quake's music (by Trent Reznor) was just played back from the game's CD, which means that most people never got to experience it (as most people played the pirated copy of the game, without the audio CD tracks).
- snvzz 3y ago
  >Settlers (the original) Was written in 68k assembly. The port either implemented an emulator or translated the code ahead of time.
rob74 3y ago
I think Lemmings used MODs too (or at least the music was easily converted to MOD format, because there are MODs of the soundtrack available which sound exactly the same as the in-game music) - https://www.camanis.net/lemmings/music.php https://www.camanis.net/lemmings/music.php. Anyway, the original soundtrackers were very much built around the Amiga sound hardware's capabilities, which was pretty good for the time - there was a custom chip that could play 4 channels of 8-bit samples where you only had to supply the memory offset, the frequency, volume etc. and then the actual playing and mixing of the channels would be done automatically. So this was of course ideal for game music, because it used very little CPU time. Later trackers were able to offer up to 8 channels by mixing 2 channels into 1 hardware channel (the first of them being OctaMED - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OctaMED https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OctaMED), but these couldn't be used in games on the original Amiga.
- selcuka 3y ago
  > I think Lemmings used MODs too Lemmings was originally published for Amiga, so that decision makes sense.
- amiga386 3y ago
  Lemmings and its expansion packs used a custom format called "SoundPlayer", written by Scott Johnson of DMA Design. I believe the name comes from a string seen inside the replayer code. * The music as found on Amiga Lemmings disks: https://www.exotica.org.uk/wiki/SoundPlayer https://www.exotica.org.uk/wiki/SoundPlayer * Source of replayer code: http://wt.exotica.org.uk/players.html http://wt.exotica.org.uk/players.html Lemmings 2 and the All New World of Lemmings used MED by Teijo Kinnunen, as did most later DMA Design titles (Walker, Hired Guns) The port of Lemmings to the Acorn Archimedes actually used a MOD file, presumably because Protracker is not native to the Acorn, but it was a popular format at the time and several people had written replayers for the Acorn While you say "the music was easily converted"... that's not always true. The SoundPlayer format, based on reading its replayer code, supports 38 sound samples. Protracker supports 31 samples at most. Had the Lemmings music _used_ 38 samples, converting to Protracker would've come undone. Similarly, while MED can be converted to Protracker, Protracker doesn't support all MED's commands, timings, synthetic instruments, and it actually does sound different and worse... provided the music made any use of those extra capabilities. Quite a few games did have CPU-intensive mixing for multiple sound channels, but only as title-screen music, not in-game. Famously there is TFMX 7V format used by Chris Huelsbeck (Turrican 2, Turrican 3, Apidya, Metal Law) but also Hippel 7V used by Jochen Hippel (Amberstar, Ghost Battle, Lethal Xcess) and Oktalyzer. Furthermore, Super Stardust used the increased CPU capabilities of the A1200/A4000 to have its title music in ScreamTracker 3 (S3M) format.
sillywalk 3y ago
I believe that Crusader: No Remorse and No Regret used MODs for music.
- Aleklart 3y ago
  Terminal Velocity was a native PC game with MOD soundtrack.

by pavlov 3y ago

kreddor 3y ago

I remember several PC games with "amiga music". Settlers (the original), SuperFrog, Pinball Fantasies, and so on. Most likely because they were amiga ports. They didn't necessarily use the MOD format all of them, but still. I remember ripping the music from SuperFrog and Settlers at least.

jl6 3y ago
A little later, Unreal, Unreal Tournament, and Deus Ex all used tracker music, to enduring acclaim.
- badpun 3y ago
  Interesting that UT decided not to just play back an MP3, as that would be too heavy on CPU's time budget, and settled on mods instead. IIRC, Quake's music (by Trent Reznor) was just played back from the game's CD, which means that most people never got to experience it (as most people played the pirated copy of the game, without the audio CD tracks).
snvzz 3y ago
>Settlers (the original) Was written in 68k assembly. The port either implemented an emulator or translated the code ahead of time.

rob74 3y ago

I think Lemmings used MODs too (or at least the music was easily converted to MOD format, because there are MODs of the soundtrack available which sound exactly the same as the in-game music) - https://www.camanis.net/lemmings/music.php https://www.camanis.net/lemmings/music.php. Anyway, the original soundtrackers were very much built around the Amiga sound hardware's capabilities, which was pretty good for the time - there was a custom chip that could play 4 channels of 8-bit samples where you only had to supply the memory offset, the frequency, volume etc. and then the actual playing and mixing of the channels would be done automatically. So this was of course ideal for game music, because it used very little CPU time. Later trackers were able to offer up to 8 channels by mixing 2 channels into 1 hardware channel (the first of them being OctaMED - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OctaMED https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OctaMED), but these couldn't be used in games on the original Amiga.

selcuka 3y ago
> I think Lemmings used MODs too Lemmings was originally published for Amiga, so that decision makes sense.
amiga386 3y ago
Lemmings and its expansion packs used a custom format called "SoundPlayer", written by Scott Johnson of DMA Design. I believe the name comes from a string seen inside the replayer code. * The music as found on Amiga Lemmings disks: https://www.exotica.org.uk/wiki/SoundPlayer https://www.exotica.org.uk/wiki/SoundPlayer * Source of replayer code: http://wt.exotica.org.uk/players.html http://wt.exotica.org.uk/players.html Lemmings 2 and the All New World of Lemmings used MED by Teijo Kinnunen, as did most later DMA Design titles (Walker, Hired Guns) The port of Lemmings to the Acorn Archimedes actually used a MOD file, presumably because Protracker is not native to the Acorn, but it was a popular format at the time and several people had written replayers for the Acorn While you say "the music was easily converted"... that's not always true. The SoundPlayer format, based on reading its replayer code, supports 38 sound samples. Protracker supports 31 samples at most. Had the Lemmings music _used_ 38 samples, converting to Protracker would've come undone. Similarly, while MED can be converted to Protracker, Protracker doesn't support all MED's commands, timings, synthetic instruments, and it actually does sound different and worse... provided the music made any use of those extra capabilities. Quite a few games did have CPU-intensive mixing for multiple sound channels, but only as title-screen music, not in-game. Famously there is TFMX 7V format used by Chris Huelsbeck (Turrican 2, Turrican 3, Apidya, Metal Law) but also Hippel 7V used by Jochen Hippel (Amberstar, Ghost Battle, Lethal Xcess) and Oktalyzer. Furthermore, Super Stardust used the increased CPU capabilities of the A1200/A4000 to have its title music in ScreamTracker 3 (S3M) format.

sillywalk 3y ago

I believe that Crusader: No Remorse and No Regret used MODs for music.

Aleklart 3y ago
Terminal Velocity was a native PC game with MOD soundtrack.