I'm by no means an expert on this, but if you're talking about extensions like .xm or .it, those are modules... from like the Mod Archive or whatever.

They are not recorded sound, and are similar to midis -- the difference being that the instruments are all samples. In other words, you might use flute.wav as your "flute" sound, and your favorite module-making program will allow you to use it as an instrument with automatically adjusting pitch/tempo depending on your music sheet. Benefits include better sounding music, and music that sounds the same on all machines.

I think you could compose it similar to how you would a midi if you wanted to, but from what I've seen, that's not the convention -- and probably for a reason.

I don't know which is the best for making this sort of stuff. I haven't downloaded anything since ITTracker some 5 years ago.

...and if you already knew all this and were talking about something else, I suck.

HERE WE GO.

The modern click games use songs composed in "trackers" such as "Modplug Tracker" Its composed of a bunch of samples in .wav or .mp3 format which can be played at different frequencies, thus producing the different pitches and notes and what not.

See TRACKERS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracker

That page is pretty much EVERYTHING you want to know. And just so you know MMF2 can now naturally play this files as samples, and thats what the bonesaw game does, no need for external files. However, I think the quality ends up being better when using the modex extension (or whatever exists for playing tracker songs now) and calling external files, as MMF2 tends to mess up the sound of some songs.

Thank you, gentlemen.

I used to have a huge collection of MODs and XM files, but I never ended up using them. Mod Archive has thousands of tracks, and tons of samples to start with; some of the files are public domain/creative commons/similar, so you can probably find some if you want to use them in a game.

I used Ogg Vorbis in Two Sorcerers (=mp3, but free)... bigger files though.

I hope the ones in the bonesaw game are like that.. ha ha ha ha-- HA?

Thanks Brett, but I want to make my own, actually.

That's cool then. As I said, there are free samples (mostly drum machines) that are good for starting out. I played with some tracker software called Psycle a while back; making songs was fun, but it took a lot of effort to get going.

I'll probably end up sampling my own drum kit and synthesizer, if I do decide to make some of these.

I suggest using modplug tracker, as it seems to be the most windows user friendly version out there. A lot of them go for the whole "look at me I'm all DOS and stuff" look and it kinda sucks for usability.

You should download some SNES and NES soundfonts to use, those are the best =D

Yeah, I've been playing around with that. It's pretty easy to use once you get the hang of it.