Poking around Twitter yesterday, I saw a post from @48kRAM about a MOD file for Thriller. I do occasionally play a few mods for old times sake at home, but thats usually the extent of my MOD listening. In this case I figured I’d grab the file then add it to my collection later.
Imagine my surprise when I double clicked the file and it started playing in Windows 10!
MOD files are music files that originated with the Commodore Amiga. They’re similar to MIDI in that they store the musical notation, but unlike MIDI that depends on hardware sound generation, MODs have instrument samples included in the file, so a MOD will almost always sound the same regardless of where its played. They’re still generally small files and I used to find and download them from various BBSes back in da day.
Turns out VLC (Videolan) can play mod files and associates to them by default. I enjoyed Thriller while working at home, then ran up to my home computer to grab a bunch more to listen to. I still have my original files from the 90s!
If you’re not familiar with VLC, its an open-source player for many formats of audio and video files, including streams.
Curiosity got the best of me and I found VLC even has an IOS app! I installed it, connected to a Dropbox account, and was able to play MODs on my phone! I guess I just never took the time to try this before lol.
Since I never had an Amiga, I used to use DOS software to play MODs, starting with MODPLAY but I settled on DMP32 (video). One thing I always liked about MODs was the players generally showed what it was doing, and if you had mod, s3m, mtm or similar file that was very complex, it was a treat to watch the computer work. In addition, you got an appreciation for the work a computer actually does, something you don’t get with modern computers (and VLC).
Finally today, after joking about building a “carputer” back in the 90s just to play MODs in my car, I found the VLC mobile app works with bluetooth, and I was able to listen to my 1990s MOD files in my car on the way to work, here in 2019. Mind blown!
The MOD scene still seems to be around, and there’s thousands of files available on the net going back to the 80s! Grab some and enjoy!
Have fun!