While a good attempt at defining mods can be found on our Terms page, we thought we'd go one better for newbies and babble on for a while. There is also a little practical demonstration at the bottom of this page, but if you want to try it, please do it at home, because your boss is probably suspicious of you already.

When you read history or general comments about computer-generated audio, there is rarely any mention of mod files. You are usually pointed at MP3 files, MIDI files (they end with a .mid), or wave files (most commonly end with .wav). Despite the amazing longevity and planet-wide proliferation of mod files in the 20th Century (as evidenced by our own 5600 + online library), this diverse and undeniable cross-platform (multi-operating system) format is almost universally ignored by The Powers That Think They Be (TPTTTB).

If you are already a mod collector, you know why: any sound that can be captured digitally can be put into a mod file and used to create new music. We're not just talkin' copying a tune off a CD and stuffing it into an MP3 here: mod files can be music created from hundreds of sound samples, original or "ripped" from dozens of CDs, TV, radio, movies, or just about anything. Many of the files in our collection prove this point to the extreme. This, of course, horrifies TPTTTB because TPTTTB are worried about Rights and Money.

Music For Free

Mod authors, on the other hand, usually don't care much about such things (although creators of wholly original mods probably should), because they are doing their music for the fun of it and to entertain their peers. And because they have been basically forced into an Outlaw Life due to that very same lack of recognition by TPTTTB.

Imagine! Music for the fun of it! Not for money or big cars or residual payments - just for entertainment! This is a concept quite unthinkable to the billion dollar music industry, (a central faction of TPTTTB), fat and bloated as they have become on the dollars everyone has been paying for something that could quite easily be free.

And so new computer users never even hear about mods,  unique digital art form for over two decades due to  talented and relentless trackers (mod authors).

X-Files Mod Versus MIDI Test

Here's our demonstration: if you are new to mods and you need proof that they are cool, download the two files below and compare.

I chose the X-Files Theme for this because I happen to have personally released the first known mod version back in 1994. It has been highly collected, but it sucks by modern standards (pun intended) so I have decided to include my favorite X-Files Theme mod version instead, namely "The truth is out there" (x-philes.xm) created by Russian tracker DEFT (a.k.a. KiRiLL V. SEMENiKHiN) in 1997.

For comparison purposes, I have also included a pretty good MIDI file of the X-Files Theme (with apologies to the midi arranger, who is unknown). I personally tweaked this MIDI a few years back for inclusion on fLAtDiSk's Mods In The Key of X site. It sounds pretty good on both old Sound Blaster cards and the newer generation wave table cards, but, as you'll see, it is a straight-forward rendition of the theme with none of the originality, wit, or even musical content of KiRiLL's. Not to mention Scully and Mulder.

Enjoy, and I do hope you get the point!

:o)>FLAtRich
Hollywood, Year 2003