Let me try to analyze the issue from an outside perspective. And since I'm looking at it, again, from an outside perspective, I will be swearing in church.
Let's say you're new to this whole business and want to get started. You are statistically likely to end up buying a Gameboy (or use the one of the literally 100 million units sold that ou own since childhood) and a flash cartridge. Why? Well, let's
I totally appreciate this is a very broad topic based on little to no hard research but MOD/XM seems to have quite a few inherent advantages
- You own the hardware
It's true that you own the hardware, but the same hardware can also be used to do so much more. What reason do you have (again, from an outside perspective) to use a program that requires samples, but imposes other limitations, such as no synthesis and no effects? You could just as well use another software (even Renoise) and voluntarily confine yourself to the same limits.
- The software is free
- Easy to install / Multiplatform
With software piracy being as ubiquitous as it is, price is not an issue for most people. And Win and Mac are the only platforms that matter for a wide audience, and most commercial vendors have those covered.
- Easy to share
- Easy to back up
I'd venture to say that no music documents are difficult to back up or share, given how big hard drives are and how easy it is to share even hundreds of MB of data today. As for sharing in particular, I think, rather, that anything that requires the other end to install new software, will be a nuisance. I.e., it's easy to share for what you and your friends are already using.
- High profile community MOD/XM composers / performers (syhpus/4mat/ctrix etc)
...which are unfortunately unknown for most n00bs today.
- Infinite range of sounds available.
Not as infinite as with added realtime DSP capabilities. What about chip consoles then? Aren't they even more limited? Well yes, but the premise there is that while you don't have DSP, you do have some sort of subjective charm or something like that. With MODs/XMs you constrain yourself to "just samples" while getting none of that presumed charm or whatever you want to call those subjective qualities.
- Huge number of resources for new people to learn from
Maybe. But call me crazy, but I think part of LSDj's success is the fact that the commands names are not numbers. Instead of 5 for slide to note, you have L, which you can use to create a mnemonic, like Legato or sLide. (S was taken, so...)
But it would seem the number of people new to the scene (by new I mean within the last few years or so), at least in our neck of the woods, who choose MOD/XM to compose / perform live seems vanishingly small.
Anyone have any thoughts as to why? The only thing I can think of is there aren't THAT many exciting options of things to do live with mods.
That's another big one, when comparing to LSDj in particular. The live manipulation capabilities are just about zero. But there's also something much more subjective. I think Beck's album art summarizes this nicely:
To the outsider, the Gameboy is something you (can) hold in your hands. It's something that gives the impression of being tactile. It's easy to imagine a close analogy to a "real" instrument. You just can't do that with a laptop or even an AMIGAAAAAAH!