Why I made Modulo
There simply was no really good module player on the iPhone. What started as a little experiment grew into a real project, and along the way I found my love for mods again.
I just wanted to listen to my modules on my iPhone. MODs, XMs, S3Ms and ITs that have been sitting on my drive for years. That turned out harder than expected: there was no really good player.
The apps that existed played the files just fine. But to be honest: they were almost always ugly, or so unclear that you first had to work out where everything was. Often both. I wanted something simple. Something catchy. With beautiful tracks you can watch scroll by, like in the tracker they were made in.
And I wanted to listen on the go. With my iPhone in my pocket or in the holder in the car, simply through the iPhone’s own media player, like any other music app. Controlled with my AirPods or the buttons on my steering wheel, without looking at the screen once.
A little experiment
So I started tinkering. First just to see if I could get libopenmpt, the library behind OpenMPT that plays pretty much every module format, running on an iPhone. It worked. Then I wanted to see the pattern scroll along. After that the loops had to be right, because a song that never ends is fun for a while, but not in a playlist. And then the Amiga sound, because a MOD should sound like an Amiga.
It kept going one step further. What was an experiment became a real project. I’d got the taste for it.
Love found again
The best part happened along the way. To test the app I had to play hundreds of modules, and I kept getting stuck. Songs I hadn’t heard in years. Scene music, cracktros, game soundtracks. Seeing how someone builds something with four channels and a handful of samples that still gives you goosebumps twenty-five years later. While building it, I found my love for mods again.
That’s also why Modulo looks the way it does: the pattern scrolling big and bold, and themes that take you back to the machines of the time.
Free, because it belongs to the community
All that music was made by people who simply shared it. For the love of making it, not for the money. That’s why Modulo is free at heart: every format, your library and all the sound settings. It’s my way of giving something back.
If you’d like, you can get Modulo Plus, a one-time purchase with extras like the equalizer and the themes, or leave a tip. That helps keep the app going and growing. But listening to music costs nothing, and it stays that way.
Got an idea, a module that doesn’t sound right, or just a nice story? Feel free to mail me.