The Unofficial XM File Format Specification

by Vladimir Kameñar

XM is one of the major module formats. Module files, also known as tracker modules or tracker music, are a family of music files originated in the times of the Amiga computer in the late 80s. They became an important part of the demoscene subculture. The modules are still popular among the professional musicians, demosceners and enthusiasts.

35 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 11, 2021

About the author

I started programming in the '90s, when computers were more expensive than cars and there was no Internet. Those were the times of MS-DOS, Turbo Pascal, floppy disks. In the early 2000s it was really difficult to find good technical material on programming in Spanish. There were no online translation services either. So, I started translating some articles, tutorials, books, mainly in English and Russian. That's probably the main reason why I was hired as a professor at the Faculty of Systems Engineering. I also worked for BellSouth, developing CDMA software before the smartphone era.

Currently I develop telecommunications solutions for an aerospace company, edit the CelerSMS Journal and volunteer at the Educamas Foundation.

Reviews

[Otto Ruiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Module files are like scripts containing all the information necessary to synthesize multi-channel audio. They are different from the prerecorded audio file formats. This book describes the XM format. It's one of the popular module file formats. The book is very technical. Before reading this book it is recommended to review the basic concepts like PCM, sampling, musical notes.

[Edgar Cañizales · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice. This book has an interesting concept. It's like a map with crossrefs to navigate the file format structures. There is a free pdf version available. The book doesn't describe the audio effects and the trackers used to create module files.