Recommended Players

Introduction

Generally speaking, in order to play a module you're going to need a tool to play it in. Most commercial media players do not support module formats (e.g. iTunes), and the ones that do that are in widespread use as MP3/OGG and other streaming formats generally don't do a very good job on their own (e.g. Winamp)... This is where this list may come in handy.

It's important to note that 100% module replay accuracy is not guaranteed by the majority of players.

Why?

• Poorly written code, well.. it's going to happen.
  
• Mishandling of the module standards.
  
• Implementation of routines without taking into consideration the flaws that were present in the original module composition tools. These flaws were sometimes inventively abused by the musicians to create new and interesting sounds. Lack of support for these bugs means some modules break, fail, or just sound wrong.
  

So, here is a simple selection of a few players that have been tested by the community. It is in no way a complete list, but at least a good starting point.

XMPlay.

This is Windows based, and is probably the most accurate module replayer available for this platform. The availability of plugins means you can download and drop these .dll files directly into the directory of the program to enable support for a huge range of formats. Out of the box (standard package) will only support a select few formats, if you want to replay AHX and HVL formats, then you will need to download the corresponding plugin.

• The Mod Archive utilizes zipped modules, you will need the ZIP Archive plugin if you want to utilize the Direct Play integration.
  
  
• Under the XMPlay options, there is a tab named integration. Via this you can enable Monitor clipboard for URLs, this is very handy if you have the ZIP Archive plugin installed, as then you can simply copy the link of your favourite module on The Mod Archive, and it will automatically download and play it.
  
  
• XMPlay supports streaming audio media, also opening of modules directly from web links is possible.
  
  
• XMPlay is also a very good MP3/OGG replayer.
  
  
• XMPlay supports skins.
  
  
• XMPlay's website is here.
  
  
• Plugins exist for formats like (this is only a small example): AHX, HivelyTracker, C64 SID + many console formats.
  

Modplug Player.

This is another windows based module player. Very widely used and is fairly accurate in most cases concerning modules. The downside is that it's no longer in active development and as such the formats it supports are limited to the formats that it handles nativly. There is no plugin support.

• Modplug can play zipped modules directly out-of-the-box (standard package).
  
  
• Modplug's website: here.
  

Deliplayer.

This is a multi platform replayer with the newset versions Windows, and the older versions (available on Aminet, I believe) for Amiga. It has similar features to XMPlay in that is supports Deliplayer plugins, and offers a reasonably accurate playback of all but a few formats. This player is almost a jack-of-all-trades as it supports a HUGE array of formats out-of-the-box (standard package), including AHX (although a buggy implementation). The user interface is split from the replaying engine, meaning that you can customize the front end with skins and different features.

• Deliplayer's website: here.
  

HippoPlayer.

This is for the Amiga. If you own an Amiga then you should have come across HippoPlayer at some stage, this player is definitely one of the better ones available for the Amiga platform, with a huge selection of formats supported (I don't think it supports the newer PC-format trackers though). It supports MED/AHX/MOD/S3M and a bunch of other formats. If you have an Amiga, this is highly recommended.

• Hippo Player is available on Aminet, as well as here
  
  
• Hippo Player used to be shareware, however the author has now made a free key available on the same website above.
  

Winamp WITH BASS plugin.

The BASS plugin is not, as the name might suggest, to do with bass in audio, it is in fact a plugin for Winamp that takes over the majority of module replaying responsibility for Winamp. This is a very good thing - because Winamp out-of-the-box (standard package) does a terrible job of replaying many modules. If you are going to use Winamp, we will only recommend it if you install the BASS plugin. This plugin is built on the BASS engine, which is written by the same folks responsible for XMPlay, and therefore you can be more or less guaranteed that when using this plugin you get 99% accurate replay of the supported modules. The plugin itself doesn't support vast amounts of modules though, but it does do quality-over-quantity.

• Winamp with BASS plugin supports: XM, IT, S3M, MOD, MTM, UMX module formats.
  
  
• Further formats can be added by means of BASS-addons.
  
  
• Winamp is best known for MP3 playback.
  
  
• Winamp without the plugin supports some module formats but does not do a very good job in the accuracy department.
  
  
• Winamp's website is: here
  
  
• The BASS plugin website is: here