Oldschool versatility for free

First and foremost - this is a tracker. Events are represented top-to-bottom, rather than left-to-right. This is an adaptation of a popular way to sequence music, which spawned a few subgenres of its own, and inspired other programs (like FamiTracker or Renoise).

This DAW doesn't really feature a synthesizer of its own (it kinda does, but also not really - I'll clarify this in a bit), so you do need to have a pretty healthy sample library to do basically everything. That pretty much opens it to anything, but it's still enough of a limitation that it's still fun. It also supports working with some of the most popular tracker formats, both reading and exporting them - Protracker MOD files, Fasttracker XM files, Screamtracker S3M files and Impulse Tracker IT files. It also has its own format, MPTM, which has a load of features not found in some of these legacy formats, and it can also read a BUNCH of other proprietary formats (but not write to them). Depending on which format you use, you have more or less limitations.

Let's elaborate on the synthesizer part - If you're working with S3M or MPTM formats, you have access to a synthesizer of sorts - The Yamaha OPL2 if you're working with S3M, and its successor (OPL3) if you're working with MPTM. The OPL series are very cheap 2-operator FM synthesizers, you might remember those being used in countless arcade games, and of course many late 80s and 90s IBM PC's (Adlib, Soundblaster). It's not exactly the world's greatest synthesizer, but the creativity lies within the limitation it offers.

If you're just used to working in a DAW which only has one project format, you're probably confused as to why there's a DAW that supports dozens of them, and even export to a couple, well you don't have to worry at all about those other formats, and just stick with MPTM instead. The reason there's so many really is because those files embed all the samples, sequence data and settings in one file, and as such was a pretty popular way to distribute music back then - it's basically MIDI, but instead of sounds being passed through a general MIDI soundfont or box, it just references its own sounds.

If you're willing to go a bit more esoteric, there's plenty, PLENTY of conversion tools for the many formats MPT supports, that converts a tracker file to an entirely different filetype. Want to create NES music and don't care to use FamiTracker? There's a tool for that. Want to create literal 1-bit music for the obscure Channel F consoles? There's a tool for that too. All this stuff isn't tied to OpenMPT, of course - any tool that can write to the above format(s) will do the trick for those converters, however since OpenMPT can pretty much support all of them, it's probably much easier in the long run to just keep using it, and the examples listed barely scratch the surface, too.

In short - it's an excellent tool, if you have some time to set aside to learn how it all gets put together and how it works.

A great and versatile tracker

I think the title explains itself pretty well, it's a really good piece of tracker software that can support a ton of different tracker module formats. Personally, I believe tracker software should be used for electronic music or if music you make involves electronic-based sounds or (DIGITAL) instruments. It also supports VSTs, so you don't have to use other software and try using it alongside this. This might be a downside for some, but it only natively supports Windows. It's not a downside for me as I do use Windows, but if you don't you might want to look for other alternatives or use software like Wine.

Its a module tracker.

Its a simple, yet intuitive, module tracker. Brilliant, awesome, fast, and great.

I'll stop praising it for now.

Would use again.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

High quality tracker

I reallly like this tracker. It's very easy to use and it's fun to toy around with it!

Good free daw.

Although there's a bit of a learning curve to get used to everything in modplug, I find it to be one of (if not) the best free daws.

It's OK...

For being free, it's a very effective DAW, but it's rather challenging to work with, as its functions are not terribly obvious, and I can be kind of a derp, so...