MSX-2 FM-Pac Games Audio Favorites (Audio part)

When I bought my first FM-Pac (the original) from Home-Soft, a whole new MSX-world opened up.
For the first time I could create of convert my favorite MSX-Basic PSG-songs into FM-Voices, and it sounded amazingly good.
I went to a MSX-friend of mine, which had some (illegal) Japanse games with a musicnote on the label.
We listen to the intro demo's of Feedback, Aleste and Undeadline, and we were perplexed how much the gameplay improved by adding better music and soundeffects created by the FM-Pac.

Well. I sold my original FM-Pac (cause I didn't use these Pac places to store) and bought a cheaper FM-Ship of Zemina.
It has one nice feature, it had a hidden volume-turnwheel behind it's cover.
But to change the volume, I had to make a hole in the cover and a screwdriver to adjust the volume.
The original FM-Pac sounded sometimes too loud on my Philips MSX-2 computer.

I found out that a lot of MSX-2 Games had FM-Pac support, but also often a hidden musicmode.
Because I was not a good player it was for me otherwise impossible to listen to them.
After listen to a couple of musicmodes I wanted to create a cassette-tape with my favorite tunes on it.

I connected a special RGB-cable to DIN (I had it made by some MSX-er) and connected the DIN to my father's cassette-deck which had the new Dolby NR and different switches for Ferro, Ferro-Chrome and Chrome cassettes.
The Deck had no automatic record-levels, each channel had to be adjusted by hand (to the left less to the right more volume).
This made recording rather difficult, cause each game had it's own volume.

I had music for 1 and a half 60 minute tape, but when I was finished recording, I had no tape left and I had to find 30 minutes more favorite game-tunes.
So after part 1, part 2 was never released. See below...

I hope you can enjoy this (mono) musictape, the musicmodes gave me no titles of the musics, mostly numbers, so the tracklistings (see the other pics) will only show how many musics of each game there were.

Here are the links to side 1A and side 1B on mixcloud:

My first Wordstore+ demo: The LOUP demo

I'll try to explain something about the background of this LOUPDEMO and my attempts to reconstruct the remains of this early demo.

The LOUPDEMO was one of my first demo's I ever made for MSX and that was way back in 1989.
While searching for part that could fit in the reconstruction, I found out that I wrote my first MSX-Basic programs just a year earlier, now 25 years ago.

Okay, back to 1989.
At that time I had already a Philips Music Module, but to make demo's with sounds and music in MSX-Basic, you had to use PLAY and SOUND.
Phillips was forgotten to make a Basic driver/loader for their Music Module programs (Musicbox/Music Creator/Drum System).

I wonder, what would happened if you could have played Music Creator songs in MSX-Basic, should FAC Soundtracker and Moonsound still be released, or maybe just some years earlier ?

So I was not able to use the Philips Music Module to play samples or to use Music Creator songs in MSX-Basic and still wanna make demo's with music and sounds...

From a MSX-er who lived in the same city as I, I  got  the disk-version of Wordstore+ of Aackosoft. At that time we all played those Aackosoft MSX-Games with intro-samples of Ronald van Putten, like Oh Shit, The Meaning Of Life, Jetbomber and lots more.

And with Wordstore+ finally I could sample sounds and use them in MSX-Basic, a great plus for Wordstore+, cause MuSiX (to make PSG-music) couldn't.

After I record some sounds I found out that music could be recorded too, just simple music with some instruments. So, I was at that moment a great fan of The Beatles and Paul Mc Cartney & Wings and recorded a lot of intro's of songs in Wordstore+.

Music and singing was not a good combination to record, so mostly it were instrumental parts that I recorded.
One that sounds the best to loop, was LOUP, the sound you heard in the demo's.
After recording it with a Philips Datarecorder I created LOUP1.LDR, which was a screen 0 MSX-1 demo.

Then I found a picture (ARMSTRON.PIC) and created LOUP2.LDR, a MSX-2 demo with the same sounds and a screenswap.
I used Philips VIDEOGRAPHICS to create the titles.

So when I made the LOUPDEMO, only Wordstore+ could sample.
Peter van Overbeek of PTC Print (the Philips Thioscomputer Club) was figuring out how to use the Music Module in MSX-Basic and the FAC had not yet released their FM-FAC Sampler, which I later used to make a couple a sample-demo's.

I made more Wordstore+ demo's, like a Lily Was Here demo (together with
 a Music Module sample) and a Dutch demo, which tried to some Text 2 Speech Dutch.
This last attempt fails badly, cause I had to sample my own voice and Wordstore+ could only handle 25 different samples, never enough to make a good sounding TTS.
The result of all these was me saying words like "Bbu Aaa Ddd" instead of "Bad".

Ok, now back to the LOUPDEMO.

When I was busy creating a better version of my first MSX Moonblaster Housemix "2 The Limit In2 A Twisted Reality", I thought: "if I release this mix, it should be nice to give something extra than the original package. Maybe some disks with my own demo's and utils I made for MSX-1 and 2."
So I collected a lot of stuff and found the LOUPDEMO.

Earlier I mentioned the LOUPDEMO was original 2 parts,
1) MSX-1 screen 0 and 2) MSX-2 screen 8 demo.
But the screen 8 demo pics were damaged and I could not find the original picture ARMSTRON.PIC. 
I asked on MSX.ORG for the screen 8 picture and got 2 fast and good responses.
So now I could rebuild the original LOUPDEMO on screen 8.

But I thought, "why not try to create an MSX-1 version of the same
MSX-2 LOUPDEMO, I already had the necessary picture..."
And because the screen 8 demo had some Dutch language, I made the screen 2 counterpart in English, so more than just a few Dutch can enjoy it ;-)

During the programming process of the screen 2 demo. lot of ideas came up, and I created the LOUPDEMO the way it is now released.

Every demo has a loading page, And I tried to make every one of them something special.
But I haven't changed 1 thing at the LOUP1.DEM, it was good enough in it's original state.

Unfortunally the MSX-Basic loader was not programmed for use directly in the MSX-Basic listings, so you have to be a little interactive and press some  function-keys in the right order.
The demo's itself are not that interactive, you can speed up and slow down the digitized sound with the cursorkeys.

Special keys in every LOUPDEMO:
* the cursor-keys for sound-speed (already mentioned)
* CTRL + STOP to quit a demo or ESC in the text-reader

I couldn't help it, so I recorded the LOUP 2 DEMO (the MSX-2 version of LOUP).
And if you want all the MSX-stuff about the LOUPDEMO, here it is:

* Depositfiles
* Mediafire

But there is more, I created an complete package with the programs I mentioned
in the text and some videos.

* Depositfiles
* Mediafire

NB: there are more than 2 demo's on the MSX-disk...

MSX Google: week 39, 2014

Hi,
In this (weekly) part I try to find some interesting MSX stuff on the Google web.
This time I found a short story about why MSX never was a succes in the U.S.

The story made me a little sad, and strangly not a word about Philips, the company
which made a lot of MSX hardware in the Netherlands.

So I search on the wiki about the MSX standard.
Nice to read about all those different computers, which were almost MSX compatible.
And some other stuff I did not know about MSX, except the Sony MSX-2 in the Mir-station.

And last but not least another opinion about MSX in  the U.S., FAIL !!!

Mixes of friends at mix.dj: featuring DJ English

DJ English makes mixes mostly with lots of remixes of very well-known hits. He made some tribute to famous groups like The Cure or The Beatles or artists he likes.
You can book him as a DJ for almost every party and his mixes reflects that.
He know what every party needs, if it's a wedding or a birthday, he picks the right music.

He did vote for my I-Magnetics and gave me some nice comments. His mixes are good,
not excellent cause sometimes the transitions are not my cup of tea...arrrgggh...

This mix made me check out his other stuff, so you should too...

Some MSX-links: DiskManager of Lex Lechz

The DiskManager and the BlueMSX emulator made me turn back to my old MSX-disks and start playing, creating, watching, reading MSX-stuff after I think 10 years.

With this program you can convert your MSX-disks to files (with extension .dsk) and these files can be easy used on almost every MSX-emulator.
But there is more, you can also add/delete/rename/extract files on these .dsk files, so if you have some MSX-files download from somewhere, you can create a new .dsk file and add these files to use it in a MSX-emulator, or extract some files to copy them to another .dsk file
without starting up MSX-Basic  or MSX-DOS.

I had most of my double-sided (720 Kb) disks converted to .dsk files and stored on my harddisk, but most of my single-sided (360 Kb) could not be read by my floppydrive
on my PC.
But these disks were pretty old, more than 20 years at least...

Without this program, there was no Mixmeister TnC, no blog and I should be playing only Facebook games instead ;-)

So here is the link for this musthave.

There are also a couple negative things about it:
- you cannot search for files
- no sort of files and saving them
- not much support on single-sided disks


Lex Lechz has made also an very interesting MSX emulator called: RuMSX.
But that's another story...

I like uptempo PSG songs (YouTube part): FUNKY TOWN by LIPPS INC.

In every YouTube part, I mention 4 different kind of video's of the song.

So when I tried to find the original clip of the song, and I found more than 1 version.
But the one I liked the best (not because of the dancing lady) was deleted by YouTube,
just before I could post.
Now I have a TopPop clip of the single version (TopPop was a very famous musicprogram about the Dutch Top 40, sort of Top of the Pops).

The song itself is so good and has many different parts, so finding a good old
remix or 12" was easy.
Again I had to change the link, YouTube was spoiling all the fun, luckly I had
2 links so here is that other link
As long as YouTube won't delete it also.

The newer remix is from Ipaneema, it has a funny clip about finding Funky Town
travelling in a old orange BMW with beautyfull people in it of course.

And when I looked in the wikipedia about the background of the song and the group
I found a story about a cover version made by PSEUDO ECHO, and I really liked it.
Rock and disco together, well mixed.

Final note: YOUTUBE STOP DELETING MUSIC VIDEOS !!!

I like uptempo PSG songs (MSX part): FUNKY by TERJASOFT

Another song made by TERJASOFT and I found it on a MSX/Spectravideo cassette
I bought from the C.U.C, which was not a real MSX-club cause they also started off
an an Spectravideo computerclub.
Strangely Spectravideo computers were almost the same as MSX-computer
so Basic-listings could runs on both systems with some small changes.
Yeah I know better now, thanks to the internet.

Ok, I liked FUNKY very much, with the great bassline and really great PSG-drums.
It had a nice title-screen, but the was a strange part in the song when just a couple
of drumhits should be the bridge of the song....
I didn't understand that, so I made my own drumroll bridge.

When I heard the original song on YouTube I found out, it was the break before the
chorus....which wasn't included by TERJASOFT, ooooh noooooo !
The song could be so much better if TERJASOFT had finished it...

So the version I made in Soundtracker 1.0, it was based on the PSG version
of TERJASOFT with no chorus at all.
And what about the FM-version ? There is none, I tried to converted the drums
properly but failed. In Soundtracker 1.0 it was much easier to create a drumloop.

There is an TnC FUNKY MSX-disk ofcourse:

* Depositfiles
* Mediafire

I like uptempo PSG songs (YouTube part): AXEL F / Theme from Beverly Hills Cop by Harold Faltermeijer

The instrumental song was no more than the theme song of Beverly Hills Cop,
but the movie and the song was such a succes, that even today people still remember
the song (but forgot the title ;-).

Here is the original song, with the original clip, so you see a lot of Harolds,
not much Eddie Murphy (aka Alex Foley)
The clip is filmed in black and white, very stylish.

The old 12" remix I will link to, has a bit of a story.
Years ago I made a cassettetape with songs I though my older sister would like.
I asked my friend at that time if he had some songs I could record.
At the end I had some spare tape with a duration of maybe 1 minute, so I asked him:
"Have you another song for me ?"

He record a rap-version of Axel-F for me and I always thought it was Eddie Murphy
rapping.
I wanted the complete song so I search a long time for a Alex Foley/Eddie Murphy rap-version of Axel-F/Bevery Hills Cop. No luck.
Until I searched on YouTube for remixes of Axel-F, it were the Club Rappers

This is different version than I had on tape, but who cares, Axel-F is perfectly shaped
for rap-versions (as long as the rapper doesn't screw up).

When I was searching for new versions of Axel-F I know I had to include
the Crazy Frog version here. I liked the crazy clip, the crazy remix, all of it.
Hillarious is the part the he rides on a skyscraper to the top.
Even without the crazy frog sounds the remix is one of the best I ever heard.
So get existed or annoyed by the frog.

Remixes of Axel-F are countless, I heard many of them at YouTube but most of them
just change the drums and the bass and that's it.
But below you find an interesting list of my favorite remixes, each with their own style.

Breakbeat: Westbam
Cheering: Djayjay Electro mix
Euro-Dance: dance club mix
Hardstyle: dj splash 2004
Changes: DHP remix
Modern: sixgr0unds remix

I like uptempo PSG songs (MSX part): AXELF by Aackosoft's MuSiX

I think there is no computer/game/demo music-composer that doesn't made his own
version of this instrumental theme.
But on MSX I only had an not finished version of AXELF in MuSiX (a music-composing program for MSX-1 published by Aackosoft).

It started with the bassline instead of the main theme, the drums were vanished
after the main theme, and were out of sync at the end of the main theme.
I tried to finish it and after 5 versions it was good enough for me.

Because MuSiX had no MSX Basic-replayer I could use it in my own demo's.
Luckly I found recently a very rare disk-version of MuSiX (long time ago I bought
the original on tape, I still remember that it took forever to load a song from tape).

Ok, so I made no FM-version of AXELF, but A.J. Minnaard version came as a listing
in MSX Computer Magazine, I type it in and had an FM-version.
His version was close to an PSG2FM conversion, soit was  good but not perfect.

Later I found a much better version than A.J. Minnaard, but I don't know who made it.
No remarks found in the listing.

But with the listing of A.J. Minnaard I created 3 Soundtracker 1.0 files and 1 Protracker file.
The differences between the versions are no more than different drumkits and other
instruments, I think.
The Protracker version was no more than a conversion from Soundtracker 1.0.

I found Soundtracker easier to use (ST plays from left to right, PRO from above to below).

Here is the AXELF TnC MSX-disk:

* Depositfiles
* Mediafire

Just a short note: I found a textfile with a manual of MuSiX on an old disk, so it's on the AXELF TnC MSX-disk.

I like uptempo PSG songs (YouTube part): SMALLTOWN BOY by BRONSKI BEAT

Most of the time I find the original song much better than the PSG-version on my MSX,
but this time it was different.
Ofcourse the PSG-version had only 3 voices, so a lot of the original song had to be cut away by the MSX-composer.
Still the PSG-version manage to get to the heart of the song.
When I heard and saw the clip of the original song, I got the same feeling as when I first heard BRONSKI played by my MSX...
And the 12" version is more haunted than the original.
The message in the song and clip is clear, so I won't discuss it here.

The newer remix has a long title Max Rocca Prophet 08 Reedit, and has it's own version
of the original clip, very instrumental, but still it's Smalltown Boy alright.
Enjoy !

When I was searching for covers I found 3 very different versions, and I could not decide
which one should be in or out.
Listen en maybe you can decide which of these is the best cover:

The rock of Paradise Lost
The chillout of Ciguri:
The  dance of Little Boots

I like uptempo PSG songs (MSX part): BRONSKI by J.M. DE BONT

Smalltown Boy from Bronski Beat was my first up-tempo song ever heard on my MSX-2.

I liked it a lot and I found out that there was the official MSX Computer Magazine version  (MCM), but ever time I downloaded it from another source (BBS or Videotex) it was slightly different from the original.

At the end I had more than 5 different versions, so I put all the changes into one version, which I called BRONSKI.VS7.
This song had some screen 0 animation, at that moment I liked to make an intro with more than just a few PRINT commands.
Listen if you can hear the parts that had been changed by...well not by me (except the intro).
I liked the song so much I created my first 12" version, a randomizer and a mixer.
But the mixer works not as good the FREEZ mixer.
I created ofcourse an FM-version of it and made also a Soundtracker 1.0 version, so I could listen to the song in MSX-STEREO (FM-Pac + Music Module).

You can find all these versions on the TnC BRONSKI MSX-disk:
* Depositfiles
* Mediafire

And if you don't like the picture: it's converted to SCREEN 2 (16 colors), cause all these PSG-songs were created on a MSX-1 (I think so...)

I like uptempo PSG songs (YouTube part): I.O.U. by FREEEZ

Looking at the wikipedia page I found out all this time I wrote the name of the group wrongly.
It's FREEEZ with 3x E instead of 2.

Here's the original video, typical 80s with BMX bikes etc.
And here is an old remix
Yes, this song asks to be remixed.

The newer remix is from Nick Austin - Scotty version, it's very short but impressive remix
and you see how it would be if this will be played at a club.

Then I had a problem, no one seems the made a cover version of it, just remixes.
So finally I put a mashup in my links, with Into The Groove of Madonna
It's not bad, but I won't give it a lot of likes...even de video is mashed up.

Saving the best for last: DJ VICHOW made his own Techno Trance version of the song,
and oh my...he made magic (maybe because he used the same instrument on bass
as I did in my Soundtracker version ?) and used the chorus of the original song,
which made the remix even better.
So turn the volume really loud, set your equalizer on as much bass as possible and
get ready for it !

I like uptempo PSG songs (MSX part): FREEZ by GILBERT HOLLEMAN

I.O.U. from Freez was always one of my favorite uptempo songs.

The original PSG-music came from a MSX-BBS demo, which was no more
than a picture with lot of text about the phonenumbers and openinghours of
that BBS.
At that time I downloaded a lot of MSX software on MSX-BBS with my trusty
Philips NMS1205 modem.

Any way I was perplexed about the quality of the PSG song, so when I got my Panasonic FM-Pac, I created my own FM version of the song, uploaded to a BBS and got some critic from the now famous MSX-composer A.J. Minnaard to make it more than just a conversion of 3 PSG voices into 2 FM Voices and  FM-drums.

After a long tought and hard work I created FREEZRMX.FM
Just for A.J. Minnaard, he didn't like it because...well I inserted some weird stuff in the song to make it less boring...but it turned out to be...well hear for yourself.

Oh I forgot to mention I create also FREEZ.SPE, which contains a 12" version made by me (mr. Ugly), a 7" (the original from Gilbert Holleman), a randomizer and a kind of mixer,
so you could make your own 12" version of the song, just by pressing the right button at the right time.

I made also a Soundtracker (1.0) version of the song, together with BRONSKI, AXELF
and FUNKY and more stuff from EMP-Soft (a 2 member MSX-group together with
Elco Duijm).

We send a disk to MCCA Disk Magazine to be published.
And to our suprise some of the stuff was used by them...

Here are the links for the TnC MSX disk of FREEZ:

* Depositfiles
* Mediafire

I like uptempo PSG songs (YouTube part): TAKE ON ME by AHA

First you have to visited the wikipedia page to understand the history of this song.

If you listen en see the 1984 version video and then click on the famous clip we all know:
then you will agree with me that the wrong producer and the wrong video-director will
put every good song into deep trouble.

But I continue with an old remix, an 12" ofcourse.
Forget the photo's in the clip, just listen.

The newer remix is from DJ GOLLUM
To my suprise, the rock-style fits the song perfectly.

And finally the cover version, again I found in wikipedia an group that covered the song
and had some succes with it REEL BIG FISH 
I choose the long version of the clip, everybody is looking very nerdy,
but what a fun version this is, kind of SKA I hadn't heard for some time.
Check out some other song of these crazy guys at YouTube.

As long as they're not deleted already...

I like uptempo PSG songs (MSX part): TAKEON by TERJA SOFT

Take on Me of Aha was one of the very few uptempo MSX-PSG songs I ever heard.

I did like it, but in the version I got from somewhere, the timing of the drums did not match the rest of the song.

And I am not sure if the timing between the 3 voices the end of the refrein was completly in sync.
And I didn't like the way the composer tried to make the bridge sounded like in the original.

So when I bought the original FM-Pac of Panasonic I converted many of my favorite PSG-songs into a FM-Pac version.
I tried to change the drum-part into a FM-drums sequence but I failed, mainly because
of the timing problems in my PSG version.

Much later I found a better version, but at that time I didn't like to do a second attempt.
I was not so keen on this song as I was with other PSG-songs, like BRONSKI.

The composer TERJA SOFT had done more MSX-conversions of famous songs,
I bought a cassette from the C.U.C. (an Spectravideo/MSX-club)
with I think 6 or 8 MSX PSG songs on it, the listings of course...not the audio !

One of the songs was FUNKY, which I will talk about it later and I think WEALL
(We all stand together) from Paul Mc Cartney/Winny the Pooh
This song WEALL had even some animated sprites in it, which was very nice bonus
(although it was MSX-1 gfx).

Here are the links for downloading the TnC MSX-disk of TAKEON:
* Depositfiles
* Mediafire

I forgot to mention I created a special TnC version of TAKEON, it basicly the same as the original but does a random pitch of the bass and melody line with strange results.

Some MSX links: MSX Screen conversor

I know, I know, links are not forever. But this one should be mentioned again and again.

With this webtool you can convert almost every picture into a MSX format.
It supports all screens of a MSX-2 (SCREEN 5,6,7,8), but also SCREEN 12 (MSX-2+/Turbo-R) and SCREEN 2 (MSX-1).
I found the last one very special, the color-errors in SCREEN 2 made it almost impossible
to create colorfull demo's and games on a MSX-1, but this converter give great results.

That's not all, you can set some options, get a preview of how the conversion looks like, download the preview together with the converted MSX screen and grab the listing for how to display it on a MSX-computer.

If you don't believe me, here it is in BlueMSX SCREEN 2.
Wow, great job !
But jannone has more great MSX stuff, so check out http://msx.jannone.org/

I like uptempo PSG songs (YouTube part): An Introduction

This is an short introduction about the video's I found on YouTube of the songs, which will be mentioned at the MSX part.
When collecting all versions of the uptempo PSG songs on the remains of my MSX collection I thought if it was a good idea I search for the original video of the song on YouTube, cause when creating all the MSX versions of the songs I never heard the original.
But the search was not easy, I found covers, remixes, 12 inches, live versions and finally the video of the original single.

By then I heard so many good and bad versions of each song that I descided to search for:
* the original video of the single version
* an original 12 inch or old remix from the 90s
* a new remix from 2000 or sooner
* a fresh cover version by an other band
So I did, typing it was easier then finding some good stuff..


See you at the next episode of this serie !

I like uptempo PSG songs (MSX part): An Introduction

I want to start with a short introduction of the MSX part, so I don't have to explain at each song what PSG is and more of that.
So let's get started.
With PSG-songs I mean MSX-Basic programs which contains just PLAY and SOUND commands to create music through the 3 channels Programmable Sound Generator-chip 
of every MSX.
Some history.

When I bought my first MSX-2 computer I collected all MSX Basic-programs I could find.
Strangely there were only a few MSX-Basic programs with PSG music and mostly it was kind of classic tunes I didn't like.
But I keep searching and I found a couple of uptempo PSG songs completly written in MSX-Basic I really liked.
In fact I liked them so much I created more versions of the songs for different kind of MSX music add-ons, like FM-Pac/MSX-Music and Music Module/MSX-Audio.
See you at the next episode of this serie !

Mixes of friends at mix.dj: featuring N.I DJ

N.I.DJ is one of those DJs at http://www.mix.dj/ you like or hate, he's proud to be gay, but who cares.
He can do Techno, Deep House, Hip Hop, all sorts of Trance, Lounge, Dub Step, Disco whenever he likes to do.The latest mixes with Duncan are real dancefloor fillers, but on his own he is very good too.
He always finds covers/remakes/remixes of famous popsongs that nobody else heard of.
Sometimes the transitions are a bit rough, I think it's because he releases sometimes more 3 mixes a week, which is very high at mix.dj.

So here is his latest funky mix I really enjoyed: Goodlife 

Yeah, it's free to listen at mix.dj, and if you register (also free) you are part of the mix.dj family and write comments, vote for mixes, send messages to every DJ and more.

New logo, new design

I was getting bored about my logo I made on my MSX computer with the painfull colourcombination of the MSX logo and some dots forming the letters TnC.
So I asked Supmsx of MSX World if he had some ideas for me.
Earlier he had designed a nice logo for my interview-serie about MSX-music composers.

But my first interview with a MSX-composer failed because he was not happy with some questions and the way I presented the interview. I am not so good at wordprocessing,
so I asked him to help me making it better...never heard of him since.
And without his permission, I could not publish it...

Anyway Supmsx came with 8 different designs for my blog, mixcloud and profiles.
I used 3 of them and added Supmsx on the logo's.
So now you can see my new profile logo and new blog logo, both made by Supmsx.
I'm very pleased I can use them with permission.

Maybe I asked for a zooitroep logo for my YouTube channel ;-)

The best MSX music on piano! Well maybe not...

Oke, I found by accident this crazy piano player, who like to play music from videogames.
Lucky for me, he likes some famous MSX gamemusic too, mostly from Konami.
Check out his Vampire Killer/Castlevania video, I think the game you see in the video is from MSX-2 version !

Oh man, If he only had heard some the music of (less famous) MSX-2 games
like Fantasm Soldier 2, Undeadline, Aleste, Feedback and more...
Than he would play only MSX stuff on his piano.

Music Memories - Face to Face of Pete Townshend

Well, recently I was collecting my favorite rock-songs of all ages, some of AC-DC, Cliff Richard, Peter Gabriel, Status Quo, Deep Durple, Robert Palmer...
Yeah all stuff from the 60s until the 80s.
Then suddenly I remember a title, "Face the Face".
I didn't know who sang it, so I Googled and found...oh he is an ex-member of

They made some great rock-songs too.

I could easily put here the YouTube link for "a video with the official recording with an image ". But that no fun at all, so I searched and found a great live recording and video
of "Face the Face" of Pete Townshend and the Deep End...here

My memory about this song, it had a strange text "Judge the judge, face the face...etc"
and by that time the song was on the radio I was working at a sort of stockhouse, doing things I was not good at. This song maked me a little happier then.
So enjoy this link, you can see how much fun the band had while playing the song.

 

Don you every get weary in Deus Ex Machina

 Deus Ex Machina was a game made for ZX Spectrum and a couple of other homecomputers like...MSX1. It was a game without any sound, but it was sold with a separate audio-tape.
The game was more like a story with mini-games and you had to find out while playing how the mini-games work and what to do...

The music was very minimal, but at the end of the tape, when your score in % was displayed, there was a silly song I could not get it out of my mind.
The song was called (I think) "Don you every get weary"..( MediaFire / DepositFiles )

I could not help making a little videoclip of it, cause the lyrics are tragic and ironic
at the same time, so here it is:

YouTube

Hey, I know it's just another Windows Movie Player project, but on my slow
computer nothing else works...
And I had to say, I use mainly the ZX-Spectrum movies from YouTube, cause
recording the MSX-version fails, it could record no more video than 28 seconds...

On YouTube you can see and listen the whole ZX-Spectrum version,
I must say the MSX-1 is graphics not much better.

Side 1 Part 1

Side 1 Part 2

Side 1 Part 3

Side 2 Part 1

Side 2 Part 2

Side 2 Part 3

I even created an MSX package of this very original game (released in 1984 !),
with more stuff and a Spanish MSX version of the game, lucky for me the audio-tape
was still in English...
You can find the package at Depositfiles and Mediafire

One of the makers of the game: Mel Croucher is still working on Deus Ex Machina 2,
check out it's nice designed website (and lot's of stuff from the first Deus Ex Machina).

Have fun, and play the game once more...

My favorite song of the MineCraft OST: Calm3 / Sweden

All original music of MineCraft was made by  C418, a music-composer from Germany.
Check out his website, very cool, stylish and fun to read.

Even though I played MineCraft (currently version 1.6.4, cause my laptop doesn't support the openGL for versie 1.7 and higher) for more than a year, every time I hear in the game Calm3 (or Sweden as C418 calls it) I like to stop playing and just listen.
Which is, most of the time in MineCraft, very dangerous......

So hear my favorite song in Minecraft:


* The Original Sweden/Calm3: from MineCraft by C418
And every (well-known) good song has its remixes so here they are:
 
* The best remixes of Calm3/Sweden are:
Caution & Crisis Remix and dj-Jo Remixdj-Jo Remix

MSX PSG Games-Music collected

My first home-computer was a Philips VG8235 MSX2 homecomputer and I played a lot of MSX games on it, first mostly on tape, cause my first MSX friend at that time had'nt a diskdrive and most of the MSX games were only sold on tape or cartridge.

Most of the MSX games had PSG music, which was capabel of 3 channel noise, a little less than C-64 soundchip. But some had excellent music and John Hassink manage to create more than 1 hour of the best MSX PSG musics and uploaded it to YouTube.

He only made the collection with songs from MSX games produced in the Western World,
cause in Japan...well they were masters in producion fine PSG musics.
Maybe someone will create a MSX PSG Japan collection, but it was nice to hear some all time favorites tunes, like

I had to admit, I was not very good at gaming, so I have seen more GAME OVERs than
THE ENDs.
And if you want to see more MSX games, try this one.

Cartoon Music Part 3: Yosemite Sam Gaat Uit Zijn Dak

Looney Tunes Show: Merrie Melodies are all very nice songs with nice animations
One my favorites is the one with Yosemite Sam with the red beard.

If you prefer Dutch: http://youtu.be/tNtlh_4PWow
If you prefer English one: http://youtu.be/3MYiIYBzrsc












See the 3 singing girls getting older...

The Dutch translations and voices of the Looney Tunes Show are incredible good.
Even if they are singing they sound just like the English voices.

If you want more Merrie Melodies, here is Pizzarriba:http://youtu.be/Sq1VjxFxvGI

Cartoon Music Part 2: Mojo Jojo rules the world

Mojo Jojo always wants to rule the world, but the PowerPuff Girls don't let him.
So Cartoon Network made this from the famous Tears for Fears song:

And if you can't get enough, here is a full version
It sounds just like when I try to sing...

Cartoon Music Part 1: The Pink Panther Theme

Of course, everybody know the famous Pink Panther Theme from Henry Mancini.
But this the best Pink Panther Theme I know, more groove...
It came from the intro of The Revenge of the Pink Panther, and I must say the animation was the most hilarious of all Pink Panther movies.

I could post a link to all Pink Panther cartoons or movies at YouTube, but I won't.
See for yourself.

Mixmeister TnC 6th Moonblaster mix: Invasion of the I-Magnetics

I was working on this mix at the same time as my first REPRISE mix, but in november 2013 I could finally finish this one.

This time with a little help from my son, who listen and made very usefull comments what should be changed.
The hardest parts to mix where the parts the BPM didn't match at all, I had to put so samples between so the listeners won't be annoyed too much.
And I was experimenting with some filters in Audacity, you can hear one in the intro.

There is more to tell about this 6th mix, so follow the links below:

If you want to hear the 6th mix: Mixcloud
If you want to know more about the 6th mix, get it at: MediaFire or Depositfiles
If you want to download the 6th mix whole package,
get it at: MediaFire or DepositFiles

This time I even uploaded secretly the mix to Mix.dj, my favorite website for not only house-mixes but a lot of music styles like Disco, DnB etc. etc.
I will post later some links to DJs I like a lot at Mix.dj...

Last not: I made the simple GIF-animation completly with PhotoScape
It is a very easy to use picture-editor with a lot of features (like taking screenshots...)

My very first MSX demo - Dance On Banana Peels

While I was restoring my old KUN-compiler/XBasic/Turbo Basic disk with 2 flipsides (meaning: you coud store 2x112 files on a double-sided disk) I found my long forgotten first attempt to create some kind music.
It is more like rhythmic sounds than a actual song. It was called DISCOMIX.TRB, cause I changed it for use with the KUN-compiler.

While I was playing it, it reminds me of my very first MSX demo I created in, I think, 1988.
It was called - Dance On Banana Peels -, but had only a title screen and the DISCOMIX sounds.
I re-created the title screen with another program LETTERS.BAS I found earlier.
It was an improved version of the routine I stole from a basic-listing game called KLONDIKE.
The game itself is lost somewhere on my unreadable single-sided disks.

And DISCOMIX has an other story, on of my first -from scratch- homemade MSX programs was some kind of soundgenerator, called AUB, which was short for the Dutch expression "EVEN GEDULD A.U.B."

It generated soundeffects with 3 channels and if you press a key, it could display the right SOUND parameters from that sound.
Pity it worked not the way it used to be, so you only got the parameters from the sound it should be playing, instead of the sound that was already being played.
But I manage to generate 3 different soundeffects, that had some rhythm in it.
I arrange it as described below:

intro, melody, refrein, melody, refrein, melody, bridge, melody, outtro

To make the changes between the different parts smoother I added some pitch up/down effects.

So now I have re-created my first MSX demo ever. Because of the long waiting time to generate the title screen (the original demo had a BLOAD,S screen) I added some color-change in the edges of the screen and show a disclamer when starting the demo.
I also made the DISCOMIX a little shorter, less boring.

Hereby the links to get this demo - Dance on Banana Peels -, in LZH or DISK format:

DANCE-ON.LZH: Mediafire and DepositFiles
DANCE-ON.DSK: Mediafire and DepsitFiles

I forgot to say something about the title...I don't know why it is called that way.
Maybe it was a parody of the title of a popular song these days (1988).
I found this demo too simple to be uploaded to MSX.ORG, but this demo shows if you learn from other's work, you can create your own.

Abbey Road / Sgt. Pepper - The Beatles and others

Long time ago  when I was still at school I discovered The Beatles. My best friend had 3 tapes with songs of the Beatles and Wings, but not performed by the Beatles or Wings itself.
But it sounded god enough to make me curious about other Beatle music. So my older sister bought 2nd hand the LP "Abbey Road" for just 2 guilders (less than 1 Euro) and the 2-LP The Beatles: 1962-1966 (the red one) for just 4 guilders (less then...).
Not a bad way to start with Beatle music. The more Beatle albums I discovered, the more I liked "Abbey Road".

There are lot of information about "Abbey Road" album, but lately I found out that 
"Sun King" sounded a lot like "Albatros" of Fleetwood Mac. I think the Beatles just wanted to prove "hey we can do a Fleetwood Mac, if we wanted"
So I was digging into YouTube with Abbey Road songs covered by other artists and I found "Because" and after that, "Come Together"
Both tunes cames from a movie called "Sgt Pepper - the movie", with the BeeGee's,
Peter Frampton as main characters. The movie was bad, but it had some great covers.
And after seeing the movie, you are not suprised to see en hear this: "All This And World War II (Trailer) "

My music memories: Let It Run - Jeff Lynne

I always liked the movie "Electric Dreams" about the adventures of a boy with a strange computer and a beautiful girl. 
The music was ok, the interaction between the computer and the boy was funny enough. 
Personal I liked "Let It Run" the best of all songs and years I have searched for the song, 
cause I was sure it was a ELO song. 
Later somebody found the song on the net and told me it was Jeff Lynne. 
Well, all ELO ingredients are there, with a little more electronics than orchestra. 
So here is the short version from the film Electric Dreams itself Jeff Lynne - Let It Run (I always wonder how a computer could start a record player...).
And I found a (fake) movie-trailer featuring the same song of Jeff Lynne. I think it shows a little too much of the movie, but it gives a complete new meaning of the title of the song "Let It Run"
I hope you enjoy both video's.

The best (Western) MSX PSG musics

Before the FM-Pac and MSX-2+ computer where released, MSX game-music had to be made with an 3-voice soundchip (PSG), which was no that good as the one in a Commodore 64, which has it's own SID music-format.

In Japan there were a lot of great composers who made some nice PSG game-musics
for MSX-games, but there were only a few composers in the Western World.

John Hassink created a nice collection of Western MSX PSG game-musics and uploaded to YouTube. He won't be doing a second part, but Manuel Bilderbeek made a playlist
with 17 more awesome MSX PSG musics.

For the John Hassink MSX PSG mega-collection: YouTube
For Manuel Bilderbeek MSX PSG music-collection:YouTube

Mixmeister TnC first Moonblaster mix in the blender: 2 The Limit In2 A Twisted Reality REPRISE

When Mixmeister TnC was listening to his first mix, he noticed the were some parts too loud (clipping), some to silent and some were no stereo after all.

So after a very long period of editing, modifing, recording, mixing, he released his first mix again. The songs were the same, but there were a lot of changes in this REPRISE mix.

Can you hear the differences between the first mix and the REPRISE ?

If you want to hear the REPRISE mix: Mixcloud
If you want to know more about the REPRISE mix, get it at: Depositfiles
If you want to download the REPRISE mix whole package,
get it at: MediaFire or DepositFiles

Mixmeister TnC first Moonblaster mix: 2 TheLimit In2 A Twisted Reality

More than a year ago published Mixmeister TnC his first mix at Sound-/Mixcloud.
A year later he had 2 followers...how famous can he be...

Mixmeister TnC released his mix at Mixcloud, but he created a complete package for those
who want to know more about the backgrounds of his first mix.
It included en document about the making of the mix and it's songs, the songs in MP3-format, some pictures related to the document and 2 MSX disks in DSK-format.
One with the original Moonblaster musics and one Music-disk with some songs from the composer featuring in the mix.

Until now Mixmeister TnC still released a package together with publishing on Mixcloud.

If you want to hear the first mix: Mixcloud
If you want to know more about the first mix, get it at: Depositfiles
If you want to download the first mix whole package,
get it at: MediaFire or DepositFiles

My Music Memories: I Found Love - Lone Justice

Long time ago I was into reli-rock and I read about a new album of Lone Justic called "Shelter"

Well, I was interested,so I went to my favorite record-shop and to my surprise they had it.
I want to listen at first before buying it, so the lady put the record on at highest volume on my earphone.
It is what I heard: I Found Love

After that song I didn't mind the next song "Shelter" was a ballad pop song easy to forget.
So I bought the record, full to wicked country-rock and haunted ballads.
And not much later I bought their first album "Lone Justice", just as good as "Shelter" but more simple country rock. The song "Sweet Sweet Baby" was another great sing-along rock song like "I Found Love".

Maybe you remember the female singer: Maria McKee

My Music Memories: Smoke On The Water - Deep Purple

A friend on mine had an Amiga 500 and every time he let me hear some cool mod-files in stereo !
So I asked him to record some stuff on a cassette and one of the songs he recorded was
Dr Awesome - Smoke on the water of Deep Purple.

It had an amazing distortion guitar sample, so I tried to make an MSX version of it.
After all the song was quite simple...
NOT...in FAC Soundtracker 1 I used it was not possible to create your own voices and I want to make it sound just as good with FM-Pac as with Music-Module...
So this is the result of my failed attempt:  Mediafire or DepositFiles

Dutch Heroes of MSX Music (New Logo)

One of my MSX friends, SupMSX, made on my request a nice logo for use in the interview serie. He created the logo, just the way I liked it:

* something old (MSX logo)
* something new (other titles)

So here it is: 

SupMSX is proud owner of a MSX website, which has some nice GFX and some MSX-related stuff you won't find anywhere else.

So here is the link: MSX World

Top 100 Down so here is Top 220 !!!

Well, shortly after I posted this Top 100, YouTube was taking this video down, because of some copyrights.
But I found even a better one: a Top 220 Minecraft Songs 2013, almost 12 hours !!!

Here is the link: Top 220 Minecraft Songs of All Time!

And here are some favorite songs of mine:

199: Diggy Diggy Hole
145: Mr Creeper
127: Like an Enderman
78: 1.6 Minecraft Song
77: Mine With Me
39: Screw The Nether
14: Fallen Kingdom
13: Don't Mine At Night
5: I Found A Diamond