Why is Raiden Fighters Jet's music so terrible?

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

For me, music is an important element of a shmup. Can anyone help me understand why Raiden Fighters Jet has such horrible music? It's quite possibly the worst shmup soundtrack I've ever heard. The gameplay itself is great, but everytime I play it, the music just irritates me so much. Especially the boss music, it sounds like a mess of poorly produced high pitched grating sounds that were randomly made using a crappy synthesizer. Also, some tracks don't fit in, I can't recall at the moment, but I think it's the stage where you fight the Hummingbird XB-2, I can hear random creepy laughter in the music. What's up with that? The only half decent tracks are Real Battle Phase 01, the stage with the trains you can get a DX bonus on, and maybe the true last boss music. Maybe it's because Yasuhiro Hashimoto "composed" the music instead of Go Sato?

[Udderdude]

Aw come on, it's not that bad. It kindof grows on you. Like brain cancer.

[Doctor Butler]

Jet's music is godawful. It's ironic, since the first game in the series (I mean Raiden, not Fighters) gave us one of the genre's most iconic anthems - http://tinyurl.com/pxjogdy, and yet we got this shit: http://tinyurl.com/ouxyaq7

[szycag]

I like it a lot. I can't think about the game without those plonking repetitive keyboard sounds sped way up. It gives it character

[casualcoder]

As a music producer myself this one always perplexed me. It sound like it was an attempt at late 90's drum n' bass but so much of it is so poorly sequenced that the only conclusion is the producer had no clue how to properly work with time signatures and measures or else there was some sort of issue when porting over using whatever tracking software the game was running. In any event its as close as it gets to an objective fail as I can point to in any game soundtrack I've heard.

[Pretas]

RFJ has the sort of OST that's very effective at building intensity inside the game, but you don't want to listen to outside of it.

[Aleksei]

First off,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0YvV9vt ... re&index=8

There are good tracks on RFJ.

Secondly, you didn't need to start a new thread to continue discussing what died in this thread;

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=49540

[Doctor Butler]

First off,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0YvV9vt ... re&index=8

There are good tracks on RFJ.

Secondly, you didn't need to start a new thread to continue discussing what died in this thread;

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=49540

No thank you.

RFJ is easily among my favorite games ever, but no. Terrible soundtrack.

[cave hermit]

RFJ has the sort of OST that's very effective at building intensity inside the game, but you don't want to listen to outside of it.

I have to agree: it's good video game music, but just not good on its own unlike most shmup osts.

[KAI]

Bad Techno, that's the answer.
Here's a transcription of the music:
PTPRPTRPTPRTPRPPPPTPPRRRRTPTPRTPPRTPPRTPRPTPRPPPPTPRPTR♪

[nash87]

glad i'm not the only one that hears weird creepy laughter on stage 35. that track has always bothered me to no end

[trap15]

RFJ has a great OST. Not nearly as good as RF2 and RF1, mind you, but it's far from "godawful".

[OdiousTrident]

Techno got experimental in the late 90's and a lot of horrific stuff barely made it out of clubs into the greater populace. Does this stuff qualify as "speedcore?"

[shmuppyLove]

Techno got experimental in the late 90's and a lot of horrific stuff barely made it out of clubs into the greater populace. Does this stuff qualify as "speedcore?"

Not fast or brutal enough for speedcore.

NEEDS MOAR DISTORTION

[BPzeBanshee]

Different composer didn't help, but neither did the hardware. The chip isn't great - don't be expecting Raiden II-like results from the YMF271 because it's not the same at all.

I also have strong reason to believe that aside from the shit emulation (do not even bother comparing what you hear in MAME plz) even the Aces soundtrack isn't truly accurate: it doesn't sound anything like what I recall hearing from the actual cabinet for it, which I notice the most with the boss theme and Sim stage 10. Cherry-picking some better examples of composition accuracy issues notwithstanding: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zowdkoJffTU || http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEDaWBGxpfk

Now with this in mind I do also blame its hit-and-miss nature on the composer. It's not the greatest stuff in the world but I'd rather listen to this than the nonexistant soundtrack in Sine Mora for instance.

[trap15]

The chip isn't great - don't be expecting Raiden II-like results from the YMF271 because it's not the same at all.

What's your reasoning for this? It's a pretty powerful chip last I checked; good FM capability and PCM re-sampler. Lots of channels. Not sure what's bad about it.

I do want to blame bad emulation and stuff for people's perception of it though.

[silvergunner]

RFJ has a great OST. Not nearly as good as RF2 and RF1, mind you, but it's far from "godawful".

this!

My favourite track(RFJ) is on Real Battle Phase 2

[amdiggywhut]

All the Raiden Fighters games have terrible music. It is known.

[Kollision]

All the Raiden Fighters games have terrible music. It is known.

[Doctor Butler]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eChq9mTnZFU

Best track in RFJ

[louisg]

All the Raiden Fighters games have terrible music. It is known.

Yep, this. I mean, in a loud arcade where you just hear THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! and a vague 303ish baseline, it's cool, but you listen to it solo and it's gouging out your eardrums with terrible by-the-numbers 90s acid soundtrack

[Cee]

Love plenty from the series ost tbh highlights being the final boss fight in rfj , the massive tank stage in rf2 and most of rf1.

[Crafty+Mech]

RFJ has a great OST. Not nearly as good as RF2 and RF1, mind you, but it's far from "godawful".

This ^. I like the music in RFJ, the thumping intensity works for me.

[Jaimers]

The music makes you completely pumped for the stage or boss and I think that's the only thing that really matters.

[DMC]

I agree with Jaimers.

RFJ soundtrack kinda reminds of some rave music. We should host a RFJ party like this (that lineup of characters the first 60s will be hard to beat though).

[Cee]

I agree with Jaimers.

RFJ soundtrack kinda reminds of some rave music. We should host a RFJ party like this (that lineup of characters the first 60s will be hard to beat though).

Every Rave needs this guy having an mdmamazing time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4yNz7LIugM#t=124

[DMC]

Yes, he got it perfectly right!

[Limbrooke]

It's not terrible, but it is different. It's fast and at times unrelenting, much like the game itself when played at a high level.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMond8G-6gk
Personally, that's my favourite track from the game. It really does whip the llamas ass. Simulation Level 40 works too.
RIP twiddle

[ShamefurDispray]

I almost feel like the menu music in RJF is a troll. RF has this intense techno, RFII has a bassier sound and builds it up to get your adrenaline going as you scroll to the next menu anticipating some climaxing bass drop...and then you hear elevator bossa nova. Lol.

I'm kind of indifferent to the soundtrack. It "works" in the game but is definitely not something I'd listen to on its own. To me it sounds nostalgic. Almost like a shitty NES soundtrack. When you were a little kid and you had like 3 games and you put up with shit like that even though your ears bled and the games were hard as hell since you had nothing better to do on a Sunday. The games and their soundtracks just fucked you till you loved them.

It's kinda like that. You get used to it.

[BPzeBanshee]

The chip isn't great - don't be expecting Raiden II-like results from the YMF271 because it's not the same at all.

What's your reasoning for this? It's a pretty powerful chip last I checked; good FM capability and PCM re-sampler. Lots of channels. Not sure what's bad about it.

I do want to blame bad emulation and stuff for people's perception of it though.

I thought so as well, but I had a conversation with an audiophile on the subject of the chip quite some time ago who claimed the FM capability was rather crude compared to most other chips within its range, and he's not usually wrong. I'll ping the man again when he's online next and see if it's a matter of "I think I know what I'm talking about but I really don't" or if he's got some documentation to back up his view.

Regardless I don't see why there was a need to change to the YMF271 from what they had before. Was it really cheaper than just reproducing the original hardware?

EDIT: He got nothing. What a useless audiophile, I guess that was a hate rant I remember him having.