ModPile

A tracker music organizer and player for Linux.

Collects MOD/XM/IT/S3M and related tracker module files into a local SQLite database, plays them via libxmp and OpenAL Soft with EBU R128 loudness normalization, and provides a Dear ImGui GUI with docking support.

See Known issues for limitations on particular OpenAL implementations.

License

GNU General Public License v2.0 or later

Screenshot

Features

• Library management — import files or whole directory trees; SHA-1 content-addressed database avoids duplicates
• Modland integration — browse and download from the Modland FTP archive; cross-reference via MD5
• Playback — libxmp engine, stereo 48 kHz, OpenAL Soft output, EBU R128 loudness normalization, shuffle and loop modes
• Super Stereo — adjustable stereo separation via mid/side processing; continuously variable from mono to widened stereo
• 4-band equalizer — low, low-mid, high-mid, and high shelf/peak filters with per-band gain control
• Playlists — static playlists with drag-and-drop ordering; dynamic playlists (Top Rated, Most Played)
• Full-text search — FTS5-powered async search across title, artist, album and filename fields
• Visualizer — real-time FFT spectrum display rendered with OpenGL 3.2:
  • Bars — 256-band frequency spectrum with fast-rise/slow-fall smoothing
  • 3D Spectrogram — rolling perspective heightmap; newest frame at front, older frames recede to the horizon with thermal colour mapping
• MPRIS2 — D-Bus media player interface (play/pause/seek/metadata)
• System tray — tray icon with basic playback controls
• USB numpad control — dedicate a numpad as a physical playback remote
• Metadata analysis — per-track loudness, duration, channel count

Building from source

Requires CMake 3.28+ and a C++20 compiler (GCC 12+ or Clang 16+). libebur128 is included in the source tree and built automatically.

CMake options

Option	Default	Description
MODPILE_ENABLE_MPRIS	ON	Enable MPRIS2 D-Bus support (requires libsystemd); set OFF to build without it
MODPILE_SANITIZE	none	Enable a sanitizer: address, thread, or undefined
MODPILE_IPO	OFF	Enable link-time optimization (IPO/LTO)
MODPILE_USE_SYSTEM_LIBARCHIVE	ON	Use system libarchive; set OFF to fetch and build from source
MODPILE_USE_SYSTEM_LIBXMP	ON	Use system libxmp; set OFF to fetch and build from source
MODPILE_USE_SYSTEM_ZSTD	ON	Use system zstd; set OFF to fetch and build from source
MODPILE_USE_SYSTEM_SDL	ON	Use system SDL3/SDL3_image; set OFF to fetch and build from source
MODPILE_USE_SYSTEM_KISSFFT	ON	Use system kissfft; set OFF to fetch and build from source
MODPILE_USE_SYSTEM_GLM	ON	Use system GLM; set OFF to fetch and build from source
MODPILE_USE_SYSTEM_OPENAL	ON	Use system OpenAL Soft; set OFF to fetch and build from source (1.25.1)
MODPILE_USE_SYSTEM_CATCH2	ON	Use system Catch2 (requires v3); set OFF to fetch and build from source

Debian / Ubuntu / Mint / Pop

sudo apt install \
    build-essential \
    cmake \
    catch2 \
    libsqlite3-dev \
    libopenal-dev \
    libcurl4-openssl-dev \
    libarchive-dev \
    libxmp-dev \
    libsystemd-dev \
    libzstd-dev \
    libkissfft-dev \
    libglm-dev \
    libsdl3-dev \
    libsdl3-image-dev

cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo

cmake --build build
ctest --test-dir build

Arch / Manjaro / CachyOS

Note: kissfft is not in the official repos. Use the flag below to fetch it automatically, or install it from the AUR.

sudo pacman -S --needed \
    base-devel \
    cmake \
    catch2 \
    sqlite \
    openal \
    curl \
    libarchive \
    libxmp \
    libsystemd \
    zstd \
    glm \
    sdl3 \
    sdl3_image

cmake -B build \
    -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo \
    -DMODPILE_USE_SYSTEM_KISSFFT=OFF

cmake --build build
ctest --test-dir build

Fedora / Bazzite

Note: kissfft, zstd, and catch2 (v3) are not available in the official repos. Use the flags below to fetch them automatically.

sudo dnf install \
    gcc-c++ \
    cmake \
    sqlite-devel \
    openal-soft-devel \
    libcurl-devel \
    libarchive-devel \
    libxmp-devel \
    systemd-devel \
    glm-devel \
    SDL3-devel \
    SDL3_image-devel

cmake -B build \
    -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo \
    -DMODPILE_USE_SYSTEM_KISSFFT=OFF \
    -DMODPILE_USE_SYSTEM_ZSTD=OFF \
    -DMODPILE_USE_SYSTEM_CATCH2=OFF

cmake --build build
ctest --test-dir build

Installing the udev rule for the numblock

1. Find out the vendor and product id of your numblock via lsusb
2. If they differ from the defaults (1a2c:2124), update system/10-modpile.rules and set the matching VID/PID in ~/.config/ModPile/ModPile.cfg under [numblock]
3. Install and reload the udev rule:

sudo cp ./system/10-modpile.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/10-modpile.rules
sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
sudo udevadm trigger --subsystem-match=hidraw

4. Replug the numblock if it was already connected when the rule was applied