Editing Module file (section)

== Structure ==
Module files store digitally recorded samples and several "patterns" or "pages" of music data in a form similar to that of a [[spreadsheet]].<ref name="principles">{{cite book|author1=Ranjan Parekh|title=Principles of Multimedia|date=2006|publisher=[[Tata McGraw-Hill]]|isbn=978-0-070-58833-2|pages=727|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TaNmc2IdNVwC|access-date=6 December 2014|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180226165819/https://books.google.com/books?id=TaNmc2IdNVwC&printsec=frontcover&hl=es&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0|archive-date=26 February 2018}}</ref> These patterns contain note numbers, instrument numbers, and controller messages.<ref name="principles"/> The number of notes that can be played simultaneously depends on how many "tracks" there are per pattern.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.upei.ca/~acoustic/midi.html|title=MIDI and home computer music composition and performance|publisher=[[University of Prince Edward Island]]|date=21 October 1996|access-date=23 May 2015|first1=Perry|last1=Williams|first2=Chris|last2=Vessey|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150523132452/http://www.upei.ca/~acoustic/midi.html|archive-date=23 May 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref> And the song is built of a pattern list, that tells in what order these patterns shall be played in the song.

A disadvantage of module files is that there is no real standard specification in how the modules should be played back properly, which may result in modules sounding different in different players, sometimes quite significantly so. This is mostly due to effects that can be applied to the samples in the module file and how the authors of different players choose to implement them. However, tracker music has the advantage of requiring very little CPU overhead for playback, and is executed in real-time.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Karen Collins|author2=Bill Kapralos|author3=Holly Tessler|title=The Oxford Handbook of Interactive Audio|year=2014|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|isbn=978-0-19-979722-6|pages=624|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tbsBBAAAQBAJ|access-date=2014-09-13|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180226165822/https://books.google.com/books?id=tbsBBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=es&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0|archive-date=2018-02-26}}</ref>