Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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Ji-L87
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

Post by Ji-L87 »

soprano1 wrote:http://bc.s3m.us/album/tree-of-knowledge
Worth the bump, some great music here.
Ahhh, I remember checking it out when it released and then forgetting about it.... :oops:
I always liked the tracks First Day of School, My Schedule and Mariko....and uh...Chie's theme. Evil Spirit is funky too.

....Why don't I own this already? :|
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

Post by soprano1 »

Ji-L87 wrote:
soprano1 wrote:http://bc.s3m.us/album/tree-of-knowledge
Worth the bump, some great music here.
Ahhh, I remember checking it out when it released and then forgetting about it.... :oops:
I always liked the tracks First Day of School, My Schedule and Mariko....and uh...Chie's theme. Evil Spirit is funky too.

....Why don't I own this already? :|
There was an awesome album in bandcamp i wanted to share here as well, but i lost the link, and now i can't find it.
Cover looks like a pixel forest, with PC98-like graphics.
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

Post by soprano1 »

https://daily.bandcamp.com/2017/11/29/h ... ese-games/
Interesting interview with the guy behind the Diggin’ in the Carts series. They released an interesting compilation album here: https://hyperdub.bandcamp.com/album/var ... game-music
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

Post by soprano1 »

https://soundcloud.com/retrogameaudio/msx-computers
A slightly technical podcast on MSX computer audio. I know it's earlier than FM, but they share some interesting songs and story on these computers. Better than making another thread for it.
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

Post by FinalBaton »

Hory shiet :O Dustin O'Dell as started recording PC games' OPL3 soundtracks from real hardware :O

Check out that monster soundtrack from Rusty, originally on PC-98 :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw-aLgCMhEw&t

That one is superb... seriously
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

Post by BIL »

Oh, nice - I still have the eminently clubby bass workout "I'll Destroy Your Mind" in my misc folder. No excuse not to finally listen to the rest now! Never got around to the game itself unfortunately, only really heard that it was heavily Castlevania-influenced.

edit: horeh fuck, "Queen in the Dark Night" is good :shock: Nonstop galloping hooks and cascading solos, all driven along with an irresistibly catchy bounce. I think this is the other tune I'd frequently see recommended from this OST... makes sense. The intro stuff was great too, a lot of it reminded me of Michiru Yamane's Vampire Killer (MD) OST.

Very chill Bloody Tears-esque :cool:

Not familiar with the sound platform, but to my layman ears it's like the YM2612 with a warmer low end; the sort only the real titans of MD composing like Sakimoto & co tended to coax out of it.
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

Post by FinalBaton »

Oh ya. Queen in the Dark Night is awesome! There are a lot of excellent tracks in that one. I'm actually blown away. Coming up with a few excellent tracks in an OST is one thig (already super-impressive), but churning out a ton of excellent tracks is... it just bows your mnd, ya know?

-Queen in the Dark Night, as you pointed out
-Mysterious Chapel indeed reminds me of Yamane-sensei's work on Bloodlines, good call. So does Earth Hole.
-Hell's Strike. amazing rocking tune.
-Red Sunset
-Tower Of Destiny's hardcore techno is awesome. I wasn't sure at first since it uses minor dissonances, but listening to it while doing something else(drawing) it totally clicked. I could see myself using it over a gameplay footage montage, where I want to showcase badass action stuff
-Castle. superb hymn to the courage of warriors past
-I'll Destroy Your Mind. Kickass boss theme that's more on the subtle side!
-Rhythm of Dark. another cracking rocking tune

I'm not too versed in OPL3 either. I'll have to listen to more OSTs using it, and going back and forth with the YM2612 to get a good grasp of how the soundchip sounds exactly. But that's a very interesting discussion. Your description does seem to fit. OPL3 seems to have more frequencies covered across the range(a bit of a fuller sound, I guess is what I'm tryna say). I might be wrong though. The YM2612 does seem colder/more sparse at first listen

THe YM2612 does sound very cold(which I like). What I like with the filtering on the Model 1 VA2 though is that the mids sound warmer compared to VA3. So in general I prefer that one (although there are some OSTs which I prefer on the VA3).
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

Post by BIL »

Never really crossed paths with the Tyrian series, but I always figured their composers must have good taste in VGM with that one T2000 song being remarkably similar to Tomomi Otani's almighty "Truth" from Thunder Force III. :mrgreen:

Truth
Gyges, Will You Please Help Me?

I've a hunch TFIV's composers dug themselves some classic Yngwie Malmsteen, but between the above two tracks and Queen in the Dark Night, I'm reminded a lot of early Deep Purple, specifically "Black Night" (which deliberately or not lent its name to the original Castlevania's final boss BGM, haha). That familiar combo of a monster guitar hook and merrily bouncing bass & drums, with the occasional breakdown for emphasis before the rhythm section kicks off again.

It's all basic rock n' roll vocabulary, of course, but with how often classic 70s/80s rock seems to pop up in 8/16bit JP gaming (and stuff like TFV's bosses IRON MAIDEN and, yep, DEEP PURPLE), I can't resist speculating a bit. :smile:
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

Post by FinalBaton »

re : Thuder Force sound team,

oh yeah, there's a YUGE proto-power metal influence there. In all of retro japanese action video game music, I might add. The famous galloping beats are plentyful, going all the way back to famicom titles like the Rock(!) Man games, and before. Them jap devs love their melodic power metal. (btw have you ever read the BASTARD! manga, even just a bit? It's hilarious, pretty much all fighters, villains and special attacks are named after hard rock/metal bands and artists, with names tweaked just a bit but come on, it's super obvious, lol. There's a fighter named Inweil von Malmsteem... for real. lol. Kinda like what the Final Fight team did with the Abigail villain that has the King makeup).

I see what you mean with the "single note hook over bouncy beat" theme in regards to those videogame songs and Deep Purple, but the rythm is very different between the two, so I wouldn't quite link DP as a straight influence (music is categorized by rythm, after all. And I always like to go for the more direct connection :3). Rather I'd say these VGM are hugely inspired by Maiden, etc, who were in turn influenced by Deep Purple.
EDIT : I was aiming this at the song you linked, "Black Night", and not DP in general. There are other Deep purple songs that have a galloping beat and are more driven, and for those, I totally see it and agree with ya. Just to make myself clear.

Funny you mention Deep Purple though, as last week end my best buds and I held our famous debate (we do that like 5 times a year, lmao) of "who's the best of these 3 bands : Led Zep, DP and Sabbath".

All of us ranked Led Zep 3rd, so it was between Sabbath and DP for 1st. Some of my buds chose DP. I'm partial to Sabbath, as I feel they still 100% sound like modern stoner rock and d00m metal, which just blows my mind. DP sound more dated for sure(which is not a bad thing by any mean), and personally I don't really dig classic rock and hard rock (although I like my punk to be rock 'n rolly, which is strange), which is why I didn't pick DP. But it was close for me. Both are excellent. I fully understand why some picked DP. And I have to give DP something though : the best record made by any of these 3 bands is Machinehead, hands down.

We ended up listening to the whole of Machinehead at full blast, drunk af. it was an awesome time!
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

Post by BIL »

FinalBaton wrote:re : Thuder Force sound team,

oh yeah, there's a YUGE proto-power metal influence there. In all of retro japanese action video game music, I might add. The famous galloping beats are plentyful, going all the way back to famicom titles like the Rock(!) Man games, and before. Them jap devs love their melodic power metal. (btw have you ever read the BASTARD! manga, even just a bit? It's hilarious, pretty much all fighters, villains and special attacks are named after hard rock/metal bands and artists, with names tweaked just a bit but come on, it's super obvious, lol. There's a fighter named Inweil von Malmsteem... for real. lol. Kinda like what the Final Fight team did with the Abigail villain that has the King makeup).
Oh yeah, I've seen bits and pieces of the Bastard!! manga - enough to know it's on par with JoJo for the music references. :mrgreen:

Image

Although it's technically not FM Synth, being on the SFC, I just had to link to the title BGM of Ankoku no Hakaishin a few pages back, when Squire asked for metal recs. The riff nails the bone-jarringly violent gearshifts of thrash like few other VG compositions I've heard. The opening stab/stomp sounds like a frothing insane rabid badger getting put down with a tire iron. Image
EDIT : I was aiming this at the song you linked, "Black Night", and not DP in general. There are other Deep purple songs that have a galloping beat and are more driven, and for those, I totally see it and agree with ya. Just to make myself clear.
True - of In Rock's stuff, "Hard Lovin' Man" is probably the better example. The opening chug always makes me think Maiden's "Killers" is coming on for a sec, as does Glover's bassline a bit further on as Blackmore's solo crashes in. ("CAN YOU STAND THE PAIN? IMMA HARD LOVIN' MAN" was my sig line for a bit, in the early days of the NG thread :lol:)
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

Post by FinalBaton »

That Bastard SFC song is nuts, lol. Heavyest chiptune trash metal rendition I've ever heard in a game.

The lyrics in Hard Lovin' Man are badass 8) Metal af. Great song too and very driven, and has that great galloping beat. For 1970 that's insane.
Thanks for bringing up Dark Night btw, haven't heard that song in ages and I had forgotten how amazing it is. It's straight up a monster song.

Since we're talking about proto-power metal and galloping beats and all, I've gotta share that pic I saw on facebook today. Enjoy ^_^

Image
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

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I have fond memories of GBA launch day 2001, mostly to do with COTM's then-mindblowing portable Metroidvania, but also finding a Priest cover in the most unlikely of places.

The resemblance is closer in some spots than others, but yo... Faster than a bullet / Terrifying scream / Enraged and full of anger, he's part man and part machine indeed - the rendition of Tipton's solo is pretty fuckin nuts. :shock:

Again technically not FM Synth but simply too \m/etal not to post. :mrgreen:
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

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There's always room for \m/etal VGM talk IMO :mrgreen:
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CzkswHHxQI
The Mega Man X soundtrack as it would (possibly) sound on the MD. Some tracks sound like the ones in Rockman Megaworld, but there's some cool stuff there too. The description has a link to a VGM pack.
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

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soprano1 wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CzkswHHxQI
The Mega Man X soundtrack as it would (possibly) sound on the MD. Some tracks sound like the ones in Rockman Megaworld, but there's some cool stuff there too. The description has a link to a VGM pack.
It was pretty good, I grabbed the VGM pack.
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

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ChurchOfSolipsism wrote:I'll make sure I'll download it illegally one day...
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

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https://pixeltunesradio.com/2018/02/28/ ... the-pc-98/
Very decent podcast with great PC-98 tunes.
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

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ChurchOfSolipsism wrote:I'll make sure I'll download it illegally one day...
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

Post by FinalBaton »

soprano1 wrote:This topic needs some YM2612 love. :P
It sure does :mrgreen:
Thanks for the links, that first collabo seems like a pretty well known release but I hadn't heard it yet.
The second one, I've just seen it being shared on soundcloud actually

Both very high-quality stuff (I personally didn't like the dubstep stuff though :mrgreen: that's not my cup of tea)
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

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These days I listen to these two classic PC-98 soundtracks a lot : Valkyrie The Power Beauties and Rusty
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

Post by MintyTheCat »

Is anyone using DX7 synths for their music work on here?

I have a DX7 and an atari STE with a very good DX7 editor but I need to get a flashdrive for the STE to really me to put the work in easily and time of course.

Edit: I have the covoted DX-Alyzer from Germany as my DX7 editor. It's not easy to find but well worth having as it makes the DX7 almost easy to use :D
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

Post by Heavy Viper »

Ah, guess that's a good excuse to cross-post this from the music thread:

https://soundcloud.com/heavyviper/sunriserk9

I wrote this yesterday while figuring out some new workflow specifics. All FM sounds are made with PX7, a DX7 emulation for Propellerhead Reason.
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

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http://vgmrips.net/packs/pack/over-drive-arcade

Rather obscure vertically oriented (!) Konami racer that still isn't functioning properly in MAME.
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

Post by Ji-L87 »

Mad Stalker sounds pretty rad on the Sharp X68000:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzQ_zN6 ... Pr&index=2

Several nice beats and bass lines in there. Although I also really like the CD audio soundtrack from the PCE and FM Towns versions, this FM synth rendition is fun.
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m--LRRQ3wQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SpNpaHoBoU

X-Men COTA on a YM2612. Sounds so much better than the Q-Sound versions.
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

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Here's some more nice ones:

Intention to Mystery - Star Trader X68000 version. Really nice feel from 1:30 and onward.

Explorers - Black Bird (PC-98). Nice soft low key beat with some fun melody on top later on.

Mission 3 - FireH Hawk (PC-88)

Spiritual Sky - FlixMix (PC98) - This is totally smooth and cool. Nice percussion.

NSFW Thumbnail Ending - Mesuneko Hishoshitsu (PC-98) - Both this one and the one below is really funky.

NSFW Thumbnail Staff Roll - Mesuneko Hishoshitsu (PC-98)

PP05 - Pitapat (X68). Again, really funky!

Flying Power Disc - Windjammers (Neo-Geo). I don't know if Neo-Geo counts for this thread, but it sounds very FM-synth to my ears. It's also a very fun track :mrgreen:

All taken from the same dudes awesome youtube channel (AccelJoe). There is tons more stuff for me to dig into there.
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Re: Pc-98/Fm Synth music recommendations?

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