Failures of MSX: slow cassettes

In the begin years of MSX  most programs were on cartridge or cassettes/tapes.
Cartridges were expensive, cassettes were (normally) cheaper.

And of course most of the time you did not have any choice, so you had to buy it on tape.
So when I bought my VG8235 MSX-2 computer with diskdrive, I had to buy a datarecorder if I wanted to buy some MSX software.
That should not be a problem, but the loading and saving speed of MSX datarecorder were
1200 or 2400 baud, still very slow.
It costs me almost 15 minutes to start up "Oh Shit" from a tape, while my nephews with a Commodore 64 had turbo loaders and play one game after another...

So sometimes I bought a original MSX game on tape and search on MSX BBSes with my MSX modem for a cracked version, so I could play it on disk.

Later on I got so sick of the loading times, I never bought any MSX game on tape and used my datarecorder only for recording Wordstrore+ samples...

Highlights of MSX: easy way to add more hardware

On almost every MSX-computer there were 2 cartridges slots.

These could be used for almost everything, interfaces for harddisks, diskdrives, slotexpanders, modems, rom-games, music-cartridges and more and more.

It is impossible to name every kind of hardware that could be inserted into 1 of the cartridge slots.
They were easy to use and you could choose from more than 1 company, if you wanted additional hardware for your MSX.

Even in these non-MSX times are still companies that sell their MSX games on cartridge.
Check out: http://www.msxcartridgeshop.com/

My Music memories : Different Corner by George Michael

It's not always uptempo songs that stays in my memories. 

Some ballads seems to be forgotten by me and then a memory pops up
and the song is back.

I heard "Different Corner" of George Michael when I was a trainee at a iron work industry (see "Sledgehammer") and I though why he left Wham and the happy uptempo songs and start his solo career with a such a sad song.

I wasnt happy as a trainee, cause it was dirty and sometimes heavy work and I had hard times to keep up with the other co-workers. 

But the radio was always on, so I heard all the latest hits, like this one.

And I felt less unhappy after hearing this song...

I found a video if George Michael performing "Different Corner" with a huge orchestra
in Paris, but it seems the whole orchestra was playbacking, cause it sounded just like somebody put the CD-player on.
Exactly the same sound, sad choice. So I chose the original video-clip.
I search on YouTube for a male or female singer who covers the song like never before,
but everybody sing (or tries to sing) it like G.M.

And remixes were hard to find, until I came across this Chill-Out version, with a beautiful video full of moving images.

George Michael released in the same periode "Careless Whisper" another sad ballad song,
this one stayed longer in my music memories.

My Music Memories: Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel

I heard this song (short version) for the first time, while I was working as a trainee in a iron work industry. It was always warm and dirty, the work too, but the radio played at high volume and when the brasses started I loved it instantly. And when I saw the video, it was the craziest video I ever saw until then (some parts were made by the people of Walles and Grummet)

When the song is so strange but yet so catchy, it's hard to create a version of the same song that's not a big fiasco.
But the Coloureds remix does a good make-over of the original "Sledgehammer".
And miss Morgan James covered the song like it was a gospel.

Fan of Yello

It all began with a commercial on MTV for the Video and CD Essential Yello (the best of).
I heard some songs I liked a lot and then I knew, it was all YELLO !!!

So I bought the CD an Video (with a different version of Jungle Bill and Who's Gone video).
I liked most of the songs even those I never had heard before...
After that I start search for more Yello music and bought New Mix 82-85 with some earlier stuff of Yello, but I liked it anyway.

I liked it because it was weird, funny, melodic, electronic and I was easy for me to sing along with Dieter Meyer, cause my voice was rather low.
Combine with the crazy video's featuring the members of Yello (Dieter Meyer and Boris Blank) I came more and more addicted.

After buying these compilations, I started collecting all Yello albums on CD.

The first was Claro Que Si and I was not sure if I wanted to buy more of Yello, cause 

the versions on New Mix were much better than on Claro Que Si and worst of all I didnt like the other songs very much.

After a while I was enough hungry for more Yello, so I bought them all.

The beste creative period of Yello was just before releasing Essential Yello, after that

Yello tried to be hip with experiments with house, dub, electro, dnb, but most of the time the remixes of these songs were much better than the Yello ones.

So after a few albums I better forget (Motion Picture and The Eye), Yello got back to its own style and managed to make it sound fresh again, it was called Touch Yello.
Not only on CD but there was a DVD as well, called: "The Virtual Concert"

For me a reason to stay being fan of Yello, until present time.

Yello always tries to go with the flow, their website looks cool and changed from time to time, they made an app for mobile-phones and tablets, made car-commercials, interactive online music-mixer and much more.

That's make me as a fan very happy, I am not looking for re-issues or remasters.

If you want to become a fan of Yello: check out on their website their Videology 
(click on the green block) and play a few videos.

DJ Riko:, Xmas mixer and Mashup DJ

There were times that I listened to Sky Radio, days before Christmas.
Every day I heard Wham, Slade, Maria Carey, Mud, Slade and of course somebody singing White Christmas.
I had made some tapes with our favorite songs from me and my wife and some weird tapes with modern xmas songs in rock, reggae, chillout styles.
But I thought maybe unknown artists can cover christmas songs better or even make new ones....
So I collected over 50 CD-Rs with christmas mp3 songs from artists I never heard of, who  shared their songs on a free to download websites like mp3.de and simulair.

While I was collecting, I found some Christmas mixes and podcasts full of new music. Great cause I like mixes and remixes. So one day I stumbled into:

who made almost every year a new X-mas mix !
Free for everyone to download on his own website djriko.com.

I liked DJ Riko very much, cause I discovered Mashups when listening to his other tunes and other mixes. He doesnt make much new stuff ( look at the New page), but his Mashup "P-Funk In Playing My House" is really great and even released on vinyl ! DJ Riko repeats himself in the longer mixes, so if you play 3 of his longer mixes, the rest dont matter.
His X-mas mixes however, are not to miss and a must have to play on every Christmas day. Here is the page, so download them all !

Last note: his ringtones are no ordinary tunes, check it out

My Music Mories: We all die young of Steel Dragon

Sometimes you hear a song in a movie and you just wanna know who sang it. I had it when watching the end of movie Rockstar with Mark Wallenberg.

It's a film about a boy who becomes the lead singer of a heavy metal band and all the stuff around it. At the end he quits, cause he wants to spend more time with his girlfriend than being famous. 

This song starts very gentle and later become the normal hardrock ballad. I liked it anyway cause the singer is great (not Mark W. himself ofcourse) and I like the way the song starts and build up the tension...

After I found the song, there were more songs, all were credited to a group named Steel Dragon (like in the movie Rockstar) . 

In fact it was a group called Steel Heart. 

Well, all songs are cliche heavy metal songs, but the singer is really good and the band performs solid. 

So here is the whole song, here some parts from the movie itself and Steel heart live

Wanna know more: see this blog

DnBuser & TnC: Strong & Delayed

Together with DnBuser, someone I recently met at the DJ collective called "DJ Station",
I created a serie of Drum 'n Bass soundscapes under the name "Strong &  Delayed".


We created these tracks live, afterwards I cut off the failed attempts (yes, I scr** up a lot) and added fade outs
at the end.

If you still reading, here is the link to the playlist at Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/audiotex-1/sets/strong-delayed

DnBuser likes to play DnB like Liquid Funk style of the mixes of DrumsoldieR, just the kind of style I like in DnB.
Less aggressive, more mellow.
But after this serie our paths go different ways, I have a lot
of other projects I want to do and so is he.

Maybe I will coop with another DJ from the "DJ station" collective, at this time I won't mention any name. Peace !

Introducing a new serie: 112 MSX Basic Games

During a Dutch heatwave, I often started up my old NMS 8280 MSX computer to copy some 1DD disks to 2 DD disks and make disk-images from these on my PC to use it in BlueMSX.
Of course there was a lot of crap I wouldnt dare to post it in any way, but I found a lot of forgotten Basic Games I typed in long ago from MSX listingbooks I bought when I started with MSX and had not a lot of programs to run, for example this one on the right...


I played a lot of these MSX Basic Games I typed in and I decided they should not be forgotten again.
A MSX diskette can hold no more than 112 files, so this serie will be 112 posts in total.
At this moment I don't have 112 Basic games in stock, but I'm pretty sure I can make at least 30 episodes.

Each post will have at least 2 screenshots and the game to download.
Remember: in most MSX Basic games the controls are a little slow so your response time are more importent than rapid fire. Have fun.

Mixmeister TnC Moonblaster mixes (total 7)

Hi, 

It's been a while since I post something new, but a Dutch heatwave, stress at work and some nasty Flash player malware, got me away from the keyboard and my blog.

So this once is some sort of retrospective of my MSX Moonblaster mixes so far.

Yes, I created 7 mixes, not 6, cause I refurbished my 1st mix and the result was more different than the original plan (the REPRISE). 

I uploaded all my mixes to mixcloud so you dont have to download anything, just listen.

Here is the link: https://www.mixcloud.com/NoiseCollector/

Will there a mix number 7 ?

I had already some pre-recorded songs, but I have some other interesting projects I workon so I leave it where it is right now.

If you looked carefull to all the playlist, you know that each mix is created from a diskette with 20 tracks or more (ordered alfabeticly).

So mix 7 will only included tracks begin with the letter K and L.

On the left side you see an example of the source of all mixes.
Of course I should include here pictures on Moonblaster, BlueMSX, Mixmeister Fusion and Audacity, but if you download a package from the link at mixcloud you get a lot more info about each mix and an interesting bonusdiskette too...