Zde najdete stručné uvedení do toho, čemu se říká počítačová hudba - zejména do její speciání odnože - trackovaná hudba. Věříme tomu, že dnes se již mezi počítačově gramotnými lidmi vyskytuje jen minimum jedinců, kteří by angličtinu neovládali alespoň pasivně a proto jsme (když pominu naši lenost překládat) použili text Kevina Krebse, pouze doplněný několika poznámkami o situaci u nás. Neklademe si nárok na úplnost - jde jen o krátký úvod. Pro ty, kterým by to bylo málo, jsme připravili několik odkazů na další stránky:


Module Music


Kevin Krebs (aka Emit)

The MP3 audio format has become ubiquitous in recent years, receiving immense attention in public, academic and legal spheres. The recent media coverage of the battles between Napster and the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) have served only to increase interest and popular support for the MP3 format. As we eagerly await the common use of the term 'The MP3 Generation,' an alternate format for distributing music in the context of the Internet, and the entire community surrounding it, has gone almost completely unnoticed.
This alternate format is commonly known as MOD music (short for module, and in no way connected to the Mod sub-culture of 1960's Britain). Also referred to as tracker or tracked music, it is fundamentally disparate to the MP3 format of audio compression, both technically and socially. To highlight these differences, the social and technical history of the module format will be explored in significant detail so as to constellate it against the more recent and familiar history of MP3 technology. Similarly, a mildly technical exploration of both MOD and MP3 formats will be necessary. Finally, after tracing the history and movement of module music up to the current day, the future of the tradition and its wider effects will be speculated upon.

      History

Module music has a long history (at least in terms of computer history) with its earliest genesis in the first commercially successful personal computer: the near-mythic Commodore 64. First unveiled in January 1982 at the Consumer Electronics Show by Apple, its success was significantly greater than anyone had anticipated, selling over 17 million units by 1992 (MJK). Like the introduction of the television some fifty years previous, the Commodore 64 was the public's first experience with a new and profoundly different electronic medium; many new possibilities flittered through the imaginations of the newly labelled 'computer geeks.'
Amidst all the resistors and capacitors which made up the circuitry of the Commodore 64 there was microchip called the SID chip. This SID chip separated the Commodore 64 from earlier generations of computers, which were essentially over-worked calculators -- it allowed the Commodore 64 to generate sound:
The 3-voice SID (Sound Interface Device) is a real synthesizer chip with quite sophisticated features like high/low/band pass and notch filters, ring modulation and synchronization and allows [the production of] sounds which were unique back in the C64's era - and still are. (MJK)
While the music made with the Commodore 64's SID chip sounds rather dated and simplistic to our contemporary ears, computer users in the 1980's were both impressed and inspired; the ability to make music in ways previously unknown, explored only by avant-guard composers, was now open to a far larger public. Although the SID microchip is extremely limited by today's standards, it was ranked as one of the 20 most important microchips in the history of computers by Byte Magazine. The importance of the SID microchip resides not so much on its quality (or lack thereof), but rather on its sensory impact, pioneering the concept of multi-media and releasing the computer from the realm of a fundamentally visual machine.
As the Commodore 64 was first and foremost a video-game oriented system, most of the music made for it was in the context of video-game soundtracks and sound effects. As time progressed, some individuals began making music independently of video games, often as part of "demos" – programs made by one or more people to flaunt their mastery of programming. These demos were often combinations of video effects and music, usually making references to other demo groups (generally ridiculing their inability to program good demos). Importantly, the Commodore 64 also served as the origin for the cultural practice of pirating and hacking software. The groups who formed around these activities were intimately interwoven with the demo community – a demo would often be inserted by hackers into the loading sequence of pirated software to garner esteem for both their demo writing and hacking skills (a practice still common to this day).
However, the music created for games or demos rarely existed outside of them – the music data was bundled within the program and almost never distributed separately from it. However, as millions of Commodore 64s aged and became electronic curiosities, many former users extracted and archived music from both games and demos, naming the file format after the microchip which had made it all possible: SID files. Collections of SID files still exist today on the Internet, most notably The High Voltage SID Collection. Somewhat surprisingly, Winamp, one of the most commonly used MP3 playback applications, has a plug-in that allows for SID file playback.
While the Commodore 64 and the SID chip set the stage for tracking (the act of making module music), it was not until 1987 that module music as it exists today started in earnest. The event which set the foundation for module music was the creation of a program titled Ultimate Soundtracker by a 21 year-old German employee at Electronic Arts, Karsten Obarski (Tribute). But by 1987 the computer world had changed -- this software was not programmed for the Commodore 64, but for Apple's new Amiga series of computers. This program (and the multitude of clones programmed shortly after) took full advantage of the Amiga's audio capabilities and allowed musicians to play 4 simultaneous channels of sampled sound. Unfortunately, no software existed yet to sample sounds, and the sounds used were limited to what was available on a separate disk supplied with the program. Regardless of this flaw, Ultimate Soundtracker would prove to be the catalyst for a digital music revolution years before the MPEG compression scheme was even finalized (MPEG-1 FAQ).
At the beginning of the 1990's, Apple's Amiga series of computers were significantly superior to the computer systems IBM and its competitors were offering; most IBM machines could emit nothing more than an annoying beep and monochrome monitors were still common. On the other hand, Amiga systems came standard with both video and audio capabilities that were only available on extremely high-end IBM systems of the time. Furthermore, Amigas were completely graphics-based and capable of multi-tasking – the Amiga 500 ran at a furious 7.14 MHz, almost double to average IBM machine.
A sufficient number of Commodore 64 users had upgraded to Amiga systems that many of the traditions carried on, especially the creation of demos, which the Amiga system excelled at. But by the early 1990's something new was beginning to happen: people were making music independently of games or demos. Newer versions of Karsten Obarski's original Ultimate Soundtracker, as well as the large number of similar programs, now allowed for composers to sample their own sounds and so move past the rather limited palette of pre-sampled sounds available previously. Sampling, combined with the ability to play increasing numbers of instruments (some tracking programs allowed for up to 8 channels of playback) catapulted module musicians into what many trackers now regard as a golden age of module music.
Just as this golden age was beginning to shine, it was tarnishing -- within the space of several years IBM based PCs quickly caught up to Amiga systems. This was in part due to decreasing prices of IBM computers as well as their early advertising campaigns. Peripheral sound cards like the Sound Blaster and Gravis Ultrasound began appearing for IBM PCs, allowing them to perform comparably to the Amiga's audio capabilities. From approximately 1992 onwards, the tracking community, which had grown up on the Amiga platform, began to migrate to the increasingly popular, and more affordable, IBM machines.
While the amount of IBM based PC users was increasing, the demo scene, which had be so predominant on the Amiga and Commodore 64 (and an important context for module music composition), was receiving progressively less attention. Even as IBM systems began to outperform the Amiga system many users were familiar with, fundamental differences in the operating systems rendered many demos programmed in MS-DOS (the standard operating system for IBM PCs prior to 1995) unreasonably large for the era -- this was still a pre-Internet computer community, and the distribution systems were slower and more constrained.
As the demo scene grew increasingly silent, memories of programs like Ultimate Soundtracker still remained with many former Amiga users; eventually similar programs began appearing for the IBM platform. These early tracking programs included Module Editor by Daniel Goldstein (1992) and Scream Tracker by Kalle Kaivola (1994). Initially, these programs were almost complete replicas of the bygone Amiga programs, but as computing power rapidly increased, tracking programs evolved and were able to greatly outperform their distant relatives.
Eventually (and rather paradoxically) two separate tracking programs became the standard: Fast Tracker (by Fredrik Huss and Magnus Högdahl) and Impulse Tracker (by Jeffery Lim). Both functioned conceptually similarly but retained small differences, especially in the user interface. Also, while each tracking program has a different file format which is not directly interchangeable, both are based conceptually upon the older MOD format (which will be explained in the technical section of this essay). Importantly, and in-keeping with the demo and hacking traditions from which they emerged, both of these programs were (and are) freely available and fully functional; the authors ask only for a donation.
As all these tracking programs began to make their way to computer users, individual module composers began coming together and forming groups, much like the groups that had previously formed on the Commodore and Amiga platforms for creating demos. Unlike those groups, however, these module music groups composed music almost exclusively. These groups were sometimes also active in their communities, putting on or attending the proto-type rave parties in which they played their music. As a result of both this social context, a large amount of early tracked music was in the genre of rave and techno. This may also be a bias of tracking programs themselves, as they excel at repetitive, rhythm oriented music. Indeed, them module community has always centred around electronic genres, no doubt due to the close relation between these genres and the use of computers in composition.
In the early to mid-1990's, these module music groups tended to exist within a local setting. This was primarily due to the method of distribution which existed -- the Internet was still in its embryonic stages and access to it was quite limited. Telecommunications in the context of computers existed in the form of local Bulletin Board Systems (BBS's). BBS's, often also simply called 'boards,' were generally run by private individuals for their own interest. Most BBS's were freely accessible and allowed users to e-mail one another, talk in public message bases, and most importantly, download files. Module groups would often set up a BBS exclusive to host their own module files and information about themselves.
Unlike the Internet, BBS's were point-to-point networks – if you had a BBS running with one phone line (as the majority of private BBS's did), you could have one user online at a time; busy signals were common, especially for popular BBS's. There were also multi-line chat based BBS's which functioned almost identically to what has come to be known as Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Unlike the problematic Internet communities, BBS communities were almost exclusively composed of users from the local area -- it was exceedingly rare to call long distance for a BBS. Inevitably, by operating at a local level a greater sense of community existed between users of BBS's, however trivial; individual BBS's would often hold 'meets:' gatherings where users could meet one another as well as the operator (termed a sysop - 'system operator'). This clearly created a more vital and less abstract situation, reducing the cold anonymity so easily created by telecommunications technologies.
Around 1995 the Internet was just beginning to become commercially viable, mostly based on the newly available Windows 95 operating system; an increasing number of people were accessing the Internet and exploring its potential, although it was still a relatively esoteric system. Formerly local BBS-based communities of module music groups quickly took up residence on the Internet, creating web-pages and distributing their music. This represented a major shift from previous practices, where the distribution of module music was limited mainly to local areas and known communities. Quite quickly, many old and new groups were appearing on the Internet, distributing their music for free to the entire world. Not only was their music now available to a wide and unknown audience, but module groups, previously limited to local communities, could now consist of members from around the world. Similarly, due to the format of module music, two or more people on opposite sides of the planet could collaborate on a track. The previous sense of a tightly-knit community was blown open and replaced by plurality and nebulousness. But from this new and tenuous community came a new era of creativity and exploration.
Since the migration to the Internet, previously separate individuals and communities have forged into a larger community centred around tracked music. This community is perceptibly self-conscious of its existence, and often refers to itself as the 'MOD scene' or 'tracker scene'. The number of module music groups which constitute this scene on the Internet probably numbers in the hundreds, although many appear and disappear on a daily basis. Likewise, there are approximately thirty or forty groups which form the core of the community and have existed for three or four years. Apart from these organized groups, many individuals also release their module music on their own homepages or on various scene-oriented FTP servers.

      Technical issues

First and foremost it must be understood that the myriad of module music formats and the MP3 format of digital audio are completely different entities – module music gravitates more towards production whereas MP3 defines itself more through reproduction. From a completely technical standpoint comparing these two formats is like comparing proverbial apples and oranges; they are conceptually and functionally incompatible. But, like apples and oranges, both module music and MP3 music are consumed, taken in by an audience -- MP3 and module music are methods of distributing musical products via (but not limited to) telecommunications technology. To understand the technical differences between these formats aids in grasping the social implications of each.
Before examining the conceptual basis of the module file format, a brief history and synopsis of the MP3 format will help clarify comparisons. Unlike the history of the module format, which was always essentially an open-source format, developed by private individuals, MP3 is a descendant of a commercial entity. MP3, more correctly referred to as MPEG-1 layer III, is a specific incarnation of a series of compression algorithms developed for the Motion Pictures Experts Group by numerous research institutes. As the name implies, much of the research in MPEG compression was geared towards compression of visual material. However, MP3 is a specialized compression algorithm for audio storage.
This compression works by attempting to model the psycho-acoustics of human hearing, specifically the effect called 'masking.' In doing so, the MP3 compression algorithm examines the input and decides what acoustic information is irrelevant at any given time depending on the spectral content and loudness of the sound. The success of this algorithm is quite dependant on the content of the original recording being processed. Careful listeners will easily hear the artifacts created by the encoding in subtle recordings. Unlike some other types of audio compression, MP3 compression is termed 'lossy' because when compressed the audio loses some of its original data. This factor makes the use of MP3, and all lossy compression algorithms, heretical in professional audio circles.
Nevertheless, MPEG compression has been used quite extensively in many industries for some time before its migration into the public sphere. Some of the most important and prevalent implementations of MP3 and its earlier cousin MP2 are (MPEG-1 FAQ):

MP3's emergence into household vocabulary began around 1997 and its dichotomous reputation has grown exponentially ever since. Both Mp3.com and Napster have been constant targets for legal actions by the RIAA and related organizations, trumpeting the alarm that the MP3 format is essentially synonymous with audio piracy. Alternately, many independent artists, and even a handful of commercially successful artists, have used the MP3 format as a way to get themselves heard. The pitched battle over MP3 is perhaps one of its most important and vital features, opening up difficult questions about copyright, monopolization and democracy.
Whereas MP3 is a commercially copyrighted and static entity, module formats are open-source and constantly evolving. Module music was so named because of its modular nature; a module format file separates the component sounds of a musical composition from their pattern in time. Since a great amount of music consists of frequently repeated discrete sounds, module formats can prove a very efficient way of generating music. The MP3 format is intrinsically linked to the duration of a recording and is always a predictable length; at the standard "near-CD" quality of 128 kilobits/second, MP3 attains a compression ratio of roughly 12:1. This equates to a little less than one megabyte per minute of audio. Alternately, module music formats differ greatly in size and predictability, being heavily dependent on the number and size of the samples used. Even so, a vast majority of module files are significantly smaller than what they would be if transferred to the MP3 format. Generalizing greatly, module files are anywhere from 100 kilobytes to 2 megabytes in size; in a majority of cases, module music files are at least 4 or 5 times as small as a corresponding MP3 file would be.
Because the sounds are stored individually and constantly re-used they require much less space than MP3 compressed audio. MP3, since it encodes music or sound after its creation, cannot function in a modular fashion. It must encode the entire sound or song, and is not capable of dealing with redundancy in the same way as tracked music. It is in this fact that the fundamental difference between module music formats is made clear; one cannot record pre-existing music or audio into a module file – module music must be made within tracking software. And herein lies the fault line between module music and MP3 music – module formats are unavoidably productive.
For music to be in a module format it must be created in tracking software. As such, the problems of musical piracy are more-or-less nonexistent; of course, sampling of copyrighted works still exists, but these samples are used to create a new and original piece of music, not to re-create the song from where it was sampled. Because module music requires active creators to be a viable format, it is inevitable that a community should arise centred around this act of culture production.

      Community and Consumption

As mentioned previously, module music has always existed in the context of a community. Like any virtual community, it is difficult to estimate its size; United Trackers, a web-site established in 1997 to provide information for and about individuals composing module music has a total of 7253 members (as of July 22, 2000). This number only includes people who claim to compose module music and does not attempt to enumerate listeners in any way. Questions of who is listening are difficult to answer. Regardless, it is obvious that this community is minuscule in comparison with the MP3 community.
A primary difference which separates the module community from the MP3 community seems to be a mechanism whereby those who listen to module music tend to get involved with it and begin composing their own module music. This is intrinsic to the technical aspects of the file format – module music formats allow for a level of interaction with the composition unattainable in the MP3 format. A majority of the playback software used for module music is the same software used to compose it. As such, listeners can examine, in minute detail, the samples used and the composition itself. This level of transparency is obviously unattainable in the MP3 format, where only fairly abstract insights about the composition process can be made, and the only possible interaction is to push play or stop.
Even further, module music formats allow listeners to alter and edit them. This is not only important in whetting initiates into the potentials of module music, but proves central to the pedagogical aspects of the module community. Module composers can closely examine the methods and tricks used in specific songs by other module composers; a file of module music is clearly much more than music for entertainment, it is simultaneously a tool for teaching other module musicians in a decisively concrete manner. Indeed, many current composers of module music learnt primarily from examining the intricacies in the wealth of freely available module music.
Walter Benjamin's concept of the 'aura' surrounding a work of art is particularly cogent in respects to module music. For Benjamin, the term 'aura' was an attempt to put into a word the near-otherworldliness which surrounds great art. He argued in "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" that the ability to mechanically reproduce art, be it visual or aural, challenged and diminished the 'aura.' Surprisingly, Benjamin did not approach this with a conservative panic for the destruction of high culture, but with a populist leaning. The reduction of 'aura' is tied to a type of democracy, reducing artworks from unattainable masterpieces created by mythical geniuses into something less rarefied and more meaningful for the public.
Module music takes the challenge to'aura' a step further than other mediums of recorded music, such as CDs or MP3 – it allows listeners to become producers, giving them the tools to create, destroy or alter the content of the medium. Unlike MP3, which essentially duplicates a consumer paradigm with its one-way flow of information, module music allows for a more flexible two-way discourse. Co-operating on projects is easily done with module music, and re-mixing of previously released module music is common. Even listeners with no musical training can soon find themselves thinking 'if he can do it so can I.' Even if only theoretical and not acted upon, module music democratizes music production; instead of investing in countless instruments and pieces of musical equipment, only a computer is required. Instead of trade jargon and monopolies, an open community sharing knowledge and music.
Centralization has been a key issue in MP3's presence on the Internet; everyone knows that Mp3.com is where to look for original MP3 music. This has presented an overwhelming challenge for Mp3.com, which they have arguably failed to conquer: sorting and categorising the overwhelming amount of music that exists on their site. It is a herculean task to sift through the untold number of MP3 files and discover what one was looking to find – it is all too easy to become lost in a maze of links and ill-fitting genres. Mp3.com suffers from too much content.
In contrast, the module scene is plural and decentralized – module music groups tend to focus in fairly consistent musical styles, making the searching for preferred styles easier. Unlike Mp3.com which does little in the way of quality control, module music groups are organized and moderated by one or more individuals in the group who preview all the music prior to its release, to ensure its quality. Standards are typically quite rigorous, since reputations are valuable, especially in well-known and established groups.
A small number of module groups and individuals have even 'made it big,' receiving attention from record labels and other commercial ventures (especially video game sound tracks). However, a majority of the groups on the Internet are not interested in commercial offers, preferring to distribute their music for free. Many groups and module musicians often interpret the move towards the commercialization of module music as a betrayal of the community and the ethics of openness and sharing.

      The future

Many module music groups are currently feeling pressure to switch from module format music to MP3 based releases. A number of groups now have an outpost on Mp3.com where they offer MP3 encoded versions of their module music files. A least one former module group has switched to almost elusively releasing MP3 format music now -- Mono211. The simple fact is that MP3 gets more downloads; it is the format associated with music on the Internet, and programs for their playback are easy to find. This is a false dichotomy now, however, as Module files can now be easily played either through plug-ins for Winamp or with other stand-alone windows based players.
With the rapid spread of the Windows operating system, newly created Windows-based tracking programs are beginning to appear. Currently both of the main tracking programs are still intended to run under MS-DOS, and as such do not always function correctly under Microsoft Windows; Windows versions of both Impulse Tracker and Fast Tracker have been under construction for several years now, but are both currently unfinished. During the long wait, a number of programmers with tracking interests have taken the initiative and created their own Windows-based tracking programs. One of the most successful and impressive is a program called Buzz. While created basically in the same mould as older trackers, Buzz diverged from them in one major way: by taking advantage of the incredible speed and computational capabilities of modern computers, Buzz allows both the playback of samples along with real-time software-based sound generators and effects. Remaining free and open-source, Buzz has revivified the fading hopes for Windows-based tracking software while inspiring many module musicians.
Perhaps inspired by the tradition of module groups as well as the failure of Mp3.com to server as a viable community, various MP3-based musicians are grouping together. The Quebec based 'virtual label' No Type is probably one of the best examples of this crossover. Like the module groups which informed them, these MP3 groups act as a filter for styles and qualities, aiding listeners in their search for high-quality original music.

      Conclusion

As Internet based music continues to be imploded and co-opted by MP3 and other lossy stream-based formats like RealAudio, the module music community continues unabated, sometimes in direct opposition to the progress of the MP3 format. Although still relatively unknown to musical audiences, the module music community is both vibrant and viable. Its long tradition and high-quality work ensures it will remain an alternative in spite of the popularity of MP3 music. Whether it will ever receive a significant amount of attention remains open to debate. But more important than the size of the audience are the social implications of module music. By empowering listeners to become creators, to make a leap from passive consumer to active producer, module music transmutes music from an entertainment commodity into something more complex and meaningful, inseparable from the tradition and community in which it is produced. Unlike the 'aura' surrounding recorded music, which functions to draw a obvious and visible line between artist and audience, module music diffuses the 'aura' of art, going a great length in returning musical creation to a popular activity.

      Works Citied