Executable Music

Executable music, at first sight, is very much like an audio track that you can listen to on your computer by double clicking it, except that the music you hear is not a static pre-recorded file but a real-time generated audio reproduction from pure code. Therefore, there is no sample data and nothing you could load up in an audio editor. The file size is also very tiny compared to a mp3 of the same song, usually no bigger than 32768 bytes or 32 kilobytes but sometimes even as small as 1,8 kilobytes. The majority of VST synths suitable for executable music creation that originate from the Demoscene are free to use and can be found on Demozoo, Pouet or downloaded straight from scene.org .

In the Demoscene, executable music is a popular format in competitions to showcase what sound fidelity can be achieved in the smallest possible file space. To make executable music, you need to write your track with software synthesizers suitable for executable music writing, either by directly converting your DAW's project into an .exe file or by relying on the synth's author / programmer to do it for you. The only synth I am aware of who can convert Renoise .xrns files straight to .exe - is Clinkster by Loonies. But there may be more. Because Clinkster executables are heavily compressed with the tool Crinkler, the files are often mistakenly flagged as malware by various popular virus scanners. They are of course - false positives!