So, what's this all about? Stems, what's that? What's that weird name? Can this be used to create a masterful remix?

In short - yes!

If you decide to remix an old tracker module made in SoundTracker, NoiseTracker or ProTracker, this service should be able to give you the foundation you need to create a remix out of. It can also be used as a basis for a straight-up remaster. Or why don't just use it as a kickstart inspiration for a remix or a new track? The sky's the limit.

What MODgor will NOT do at this moment in time, is to render anything with a more 'exotic' format. Examples of that would be modules using custom formats such as TFMX, Future Composer, Musicline Editor and similar. It might be supported at some point, but as of now, it sadly isn't.

Technically, what will happen is that the system will go through the module, mute all instruments and then switch on every single instrument, one by one. After that it renders a full-length version of each instrument playing in each separate channel. This means that each instrument will render anything from 1 to (channels+1) versions, depending on if it is used at least once in each channel or not. The last file per instrument is one containing all channels baked into one.

The end result will be packed into a .zip containing all stems as 16-bit, 48kHz mono files, if you don't change the defaults. You can change the default FLAC output into MP3 or even WAV. Just remember that using MP3 will be creating lossy, 320kbps files, while the two other formats will give lossless. Also, MP3 will take 2-5 times longer to generate.

The actual rendering backend is using stemgen by emoon, which can handle most modules as intended. It is a wrapper around libopenmpt which supports a whole bunch of tracker formats.

You can tweak the settings even more by checking the "Customize rendering settings" checkbox. This will require your email address, to be able to send you a private download-link once the rendering is done. These settings will be stored in a cookie on your computer.

NOTE: This is in no means a perfect service. It highly depends on the abilities of the rendering engine and can and will act a bit weird at times. Most modules will render quite good. If you are running Windows and don't feel like using an online service for this, you can always use OpenMPT, which can handle basically the same modules as MODgor.

If you find a module that isn't rendered correctly for some reason, please let us know and we can take a look at it.

Oh, and what about that name? "MODgor the STEMifinator"? Well, it's just a little tribute to the most excellent episode #58 of Strong Bad's email where Trogdor the Burninator is unleashed upon the world.