Retro game music appreciation page

[dsheinem]

Last year I showed my students this documentary, which seems right up this alley. Have you seen it? It is pretty technical, but fascinating:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beep:_A_D ... Game_Sound

[PresidentLeever]

Cool, I'm watching the O'Donell interview and it seems well done. I've also seen and can recommend Diggin' in the Carts, which focuses on JP game music, while also bringing up some of the more recent chiptune and "fakebit" artists (at least the version I saw of it).

One of the reasons I wanted to highlight the music by itself is that both music and sound design was usually more of an afterthought back then, which led to a lot of good music getting lost behind loud/grating sfx, or in some place you would quickly click away from or rarely get to, or you'd get music that didn't fit the game well, or good music in a crappy game, etc.

[PresidentLeever]

Latest update: Namco C219 Page

A variation on the C140 wich was quite powerful for the time, with twice the amount of channels on SNES and pretty good sample quality. Shame it wasn't used that much.

Next up is QSound.

[PresidentLeever]

I took a bit of a detour and made a top list of 1980s composers & arrangers based on the top picks from each sound chip page.

http://minirevver.weebly.com/top-composers-1980s.html

[PresidentLeever]

I've added a QSound page, and updated the main page with picture links to make it easier to navigate for newcomers (hover over a pic to see what system it is if you're still not sure).

http://minirevver.weebly.com/impressive ... -chip.html
http://minirevver.weebly.com/qsound-music.html

I think QSound was a pretty big leap forward in terms of sound design for Capcom in particular, most of it being on par with good SNES music or better. A lot of it also sounds very similar though, and guitars still tend to sound kinda mechanical and/or in-between guitar and synth brass. If you're into jazz rock, fusion or 90s dance, most of this stuff is worth a listen.

[PresidentLeever]

Getting back on track with a Namco C352 page. Some of their biggest games used this chip (Ridge Racer and Tekken for example), and the arcade versions tend to sound a bit different. Unlike with the C219 chip there's enough here to discern a kind of evolution in sound design as composers mastered using it, and some of the last soundtracks come close to redbook quality.

http://minirevver.weebly.com/namco-c352-music.html

[PresidentLeever]

Added a page for the Sega MultiPCM/YMW258-F sound chip and updated the yearly lists with C352, OPX and MultiPCM entries. Not a chip used in many games, but kind of iconic since it was used in Sega's early 3D arcade games, including Daytona USA. Let's go away!

http://minirevver.weebly.com/sega-multipcm-music.html

[PresidentLeever]

Finally finished up the 1998 page today:
http://minirevver.weebly.com/vgm-1998.html

It's another nice and short one - most of the DOS games listed on mobygames that I thought I would be adding were just re-releases from earlier years. Windows-based games with mod music is still early WIP, will look into them more thoroughly later on.

Next up is one of these:
ES5505 (Arcade, PC?)
YMF278B/OPL4 (Arcade, MSX2+)
Gravis Ultrasound (PC)
YMZ280B/PCMD8 (Arcade)
N64

Two other chips I'd like to cover are Konami K007232 and BSMT2000, but I can only find one OST using the former (exclusively, not with FM) and four using the latter (not counting pinball machines). It's not really enough for separate pages so they're on hold for now.

[PresidentLeever]

I've finished a page for the N64 and updated the yearly lists:
http://minirevver.weebly.com/n64-music.html

[PresidentLeever]

Finished a first draft of the 1999 page and updated the SB page accordingly:
https://minirevver.weebly.com/vgm-1999.html
https://minirevver.weebly.com/sound-bla ... music.html
1999 YT playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6UHAYE ... 7o_xrqVQzw

Also added 64DD games.