Compo is back, baby

Every Sunday evening, a couple of music-making nerds join the IRC channel #mod_shrine, download a ZIP file of ~20-30 samples, and spend the next hour using only those samples to make a song. Then they listen to all the songs people made, vote on their favorites, and find out who got 1st place.¹

I'm one of those nerds. You could join us, too!

Wait, a whole song in 1 hour?

Okay, lower your expectations a bit. Most of these audio files are between 0:30 and 2:00 long, and are perhaps more accurately described as ideas than full-fledged songs. I'll call them "entries" from now on.

You can listen to the most recent one-hour compos at s3m.it. You may need VLC Media Player to play back some of the entries.

Despite the ranked outcome, compo is a very low-pressure environment. Musicians at all parts of their respective journeys are welcome, and the threat of last place pales in comparison to the joy of making something in 1 hour and then calling it done. This was a huge part of my development as a musician for awhile!

This sounds fun! How can I join?

First, pick an IRC client.² If you don't want to download a program, you can create a free account on IRCCloud instead. I would advise against using open-access web clients as they are often banned by major IRC servers due to abuse.

Your client might have a dropdown that includes EsperNet, but if not, use the host irc.esper.net and port 6697 with SSL enabled. Once you're connected, type /join #mod_shrine and marvel at the lack of chat history. (You should see a non-empty list of connected users, though!)

In its current iteration, we're doing compo on Sundays at 19:00 Pacific time; any deviations from this should be mentioned in the channel topic.

A history I'm not qualified to tell

Compo is a long-running IRC tradition, dating back to at least 1998 per the #mod_shrine wiki. I was invited to join during the height of COVID quarantine in 2020, long after this wiki's last update.

Originally, compo was exclusively for tracker users, who would upload their entries as modfiles (.mod / .xm / .s3m / .it) — extremely compact formats that are closer in function to MIDI than MP3 files. Ever since I joined, #mod_shrine has been "allgear", meaning all DAWs are allowed, and .mp3 uploads are permitted. Entrants are still expected to use the provided samples, though.

I hear the tracker purists still run their own compo in #modulez. I hope they're having fun!

Interest in #mod_shrine's 2020 iteration waned sometime in 2022, but we're bringing it back for 2026. By "we" I mostly mean my friend Dylan, who's done all the heavy lifting of assembling sample packs, hosting sessions, and recruiting oldheads & new blood to join.

Some curated entries of mine

I've been inconsistently uploading my compo entries to my alt SoundCloud profile. Here are some of the better ones:

• "infiniteupscale" was my first real winning entry.
• "de(i)fy" was one of my longest entries (1:48), and a strong contender for my corniest title.
• My very next entry "upupupup" had some of the best mixing I've managed within the hour.
• "shadows" was a rare case where I managed to convey an emotion with my entry. That's pretty neat!
• "empty dares and chunky snares" and "community milk" were two of my most fun & chaotic entries.
• "laser goes pew" holds the honorable distinction of coming in 2nd to my favorite Frums entry.
• "halftime halfstep" was probably my most competent 1-hour attempt at straight-up dubstep.
• My actual song "relentless future" started as a compo tune! Now you know what "greets to #mod_shrine" in the description meant all that time.
• I got lazy about uploading my entries in 2022, but I remember logging back into my alt account just to post "last hope".

Anyway, 10 examples is way more than enough. I've participated in over a hundred of these songwriting rituals, and almost all of the results are slop — organic, handmade slop, but nevertheless. That's not a dig at myself, it's just the nature of the task at hand.

Don't bother listening to my 2026 uploads, by the way. I'm using compo as an excuse to dive head-first into Bitwig Studio. Anyone who did compo with me in my FL era can tell how much catching up I have left to do. Again, not self-deprecation, just the facts.

Anyway, that's it! That's the blog post! Come compo with us and you, too, will learn to love the General MIDI pan flute.