Mods, and other like formats of the era, was just the coolest format in music ever. Not only could you play and enjoy the song (which is all you were limited to for all music to date), but you got all the individual samples that made the entirety of the song, the notation and could see/study the techniques used. Nothing else gave you that, and likely won't ever again. I never would have gotten into digital music creation and sound design without them.
...and the samples being included also made sure that mods sounded more or less the same no matter where you played them, whereas MIDI files (the alternative at the time) sounded wildly different depending on the capabilities of the sound card.
Sometimes you can, because the music was composed for a specific synthesizer. One notable example is the Roland MT-32, which was used for the soundtracks of many early PC games.
They don't include everything needed to recreate the song within the format. All of the plugins and fx dont transfer with the daw file - just the data used in them. You have to have them already installed in your system. They're also not distributed to the public, generally.
Comments
Mods, and other like formats of the era, was just the coolest format in music ever. Not only could you play and enjoy the song (which is all you were limited to for all music to date), but you got all the individual samples that made the entirety of the song, the notation and could see/study the techniques used. Nothing else gave you that, and likely won't ever again. I never would have gotten into digital music creation and sound design without them.
...and the samples being included also made sure that mods sounded more or less the same no matter where you played them, whereas MIDI files (the alternative at the time) sounded wildly different depending on the capabilities of the sound card.
Always wondered if you could ever know with Midi what the original music creators ever intended since it varied wildly based on hardware.
Sometimes you can, because the music was composed for a specific synthesizer. One notable example is the Roland MT-32, which was used for the soundtracks of many early PC games.
Historic retrospective:
Ahoy - "Trackers: The Sound of 16-Bit" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roBkg-iPrbw
How about DAW project files?
They don't include everything needed to recreate the song within the format. All of the plugins and fx dont transfer with the daw file - just the data used in them. You have to have them already installed in your system. They're also not distributed to the public, generally.
Ever tried to get hold of Madonnas songs as DAW project files? :-)
not naming names, but ppl might be surprised how many DAW project files are available on the underground...
Something something stems