TnC house classics presents: Injected With The Poison (Free Your Body)

Praga Kahn has made more famous house tunes,
but this one is very special
for me.

It has everything an house classics should have, simpel housebeat, orchestral hits, piano pingels, heavy distored bass, some shouts and short melodic vocal singa-a-long part.

And the song Injected With The Poison always reminds me of the film "The Running Man" with Arnold Schwarzenegger,
a actionmovie with a message ( if you search for it,
just like the actionmovie
"Total Recall" ). 

I found the song on a CD with the title "Kaos Theory 2", sadly it was best track.

Here is the videoclip of the song I like (except for the cut-off intro).
Here is the original videoclip (before it was remixed
or so..).

And here are some covers...

Failures of MSX: HD diskettes

I started my MSX life with a Philips VG8235 with the single sided floppy-drive.
And I really liked it, cause it was so much easier and faster to save and load files
then with data-cassettes.
The limitation of 112 files was no problem, cause 360 Kb is not that much space.

On my NMS8245 with double-sided floppy-drive I got sometimes 112 files on a 720 Kb disk and 360 Kb free space I could not use.
That was really a waist of space, cause 720 Kb disks were not so cheap on that moment.

When everybody was exited by the new MSX-DOS 2 with the use of subsirectories and harddisk IDE-interfaces, I had my broken double-sided floppydrive replaced with a HD PC floppydrive.
I had no money for an harddisk IDE-inferface or any PC harddisk and making subdirectories on a 720 Kb floppy was not so usefully, most of the time 720 Kb was not enough space.


Then came the moment that the 720 Kb disks were hard to get.
However nobody came with the idea to make MSX ready for ready HD disks with a piece
of hardware so we could storage more on a MSX-disk.
No instead, we had to cover the extra hole with a sticker and format all the 1,2Mb disks
to 720Kb, almost half the storage.

What a joke !

Highlights of MSX: FM-Pac

I had to say it, most of the music in MSX games made by PSG, could not compete with the ones in Commodore 64 and its SID musicfiles.

Even worse, some of the greatest PSG music in MSX games were conversions of the Commodore 64 originals !
Yes, I mean those Benn conversions of Gremlin Graphics...

In MSX-Basic it was possible to create music with 2 different methodes, it was still not easy to create drumsounds or different instruments.

Then the Panasonic FM-Pac came on the Dutch market.

I bought it from Time-Soft, a computerstore in Amsterdam (who sold also lots
of imported MSX-stuff from Japan, but not cheap).

The package included the FM-Pac of course, an A4 printed (on red paper) list of
commands and some marketing "blabla", a MSX-disk full of music (and demo's )
of winners of a Time-Soft Fm-Pac contest, and a MSX-disk with the first Dutch FM-Pac demo,
with stolen music and pictures of other Japanese stuff.

After I listened to the disks I started an Japenese game I got from my MSX partner
in EMP-Soft and I was speechless by the sounds of the intro-demo.
I think it was the game Aleste I  from Compile.

I made asap an appointment with him and that afternoon we tried to find all games
that had MSX-Music (as it was called).

I think that FM-Pac finally made it possible to make and listen to great music on every
MSX computer and not only those MSX-2+ with the strange signs on the keys.
And maybe it kept the MSX scene alive for 3 or 4 years longer.

Later I sold my FM-Pac to my EMP-Soft partner and bought me a cheaper Zemina FM-Ship,
cause I didn't use the Pac part (for save games), like he did.

FM-Pac (or must I say MSX-Music) was a MSX feature, nobody wanted to miss.

Introducing Highlights Of MSX

Hereby I promise that I will show some of the good sides of the MSX system.
But I cannot promise I will make more Highlights posts than Failures...

In the end for every Failure there were always MSXers that found some kind
of solution for it.

I like the MSX because you can easy make your own programs in Basic
and the  MSX system is so flexibel you can add a lot of things to do more.
What kind of things ?
You will read it in the Highlights posts...

Introducing: Failures of an MSX

Everybody who have seen this blog, knows I still like the MSX-system more than any other computersystem.

But there are some things about MSX that made me real dissappointed in the system itself.
So here I will make some noise about these.
I promise I will make also some posts, why I like the MSX-system anyway.

While checking for some anti MSX picture, I stumbled on a anti MSX group (ofcourse with members of the CBM /Commodore/ clan)...
But do you MSX/ers know where the FAC stands for ?

TnC House Classics presents: Acid Folk

Love it. Hate it. 

There is no inbetween, when you hear the first notes of this house classic.

 

Never knew that bagpipes music really could be enjoyable. But Perplexer did it. 

I loved the song because it crazy, funny ( look at the scottish guy in the clip trying 

to follow the house beat), dancable and still not outdated.

And I am very proud owner of Acid Folk the album by Perplexer. 

Every song has it's own style and there are more songs that could have been classics, 

like House Train ?

My personal choice is...Vary Speed...the way the song speeds up, great way to start

a (old-skool) party...

Here you can listen to a small part of each song of Acid Folk The Album.

PS: The 2nd song Da Capo was also released as single, with a video featuring the same beard-guy, but less funnier.

The song itself with the famous theme from Richard Strauss Also sprach Zarathustra was not catchy enough, here is the video to see for yourself...

The AACKOSOFT Tribute (The Leftovers Mix)

When I was done editting "Popcorn" I wanted to create an stereo version of the song

( we all know an MSX has only mono sound).

So I tried some filters on the left and right channel and the result suprised me.

I liked it a lot. 

After uploading the tribute to Youtube I had so much video and pics with titles left. 

I decided to make a second video with all what was left after releasing the first tribute.

(now you know where the title came from, although I almost named it "The Doggy-bag Edition..." )

And this time with stereo music and mono speech ( the opposite of the first tribute) 

and intro-screens and -video's instead of gameplay video's. 

But I had too many intro-screens and less music, so I had to remove all intro-video's from the storyboard. 

I even added a stereo version of the intro-music of ICE at the beginning, 

cause it was a shame not using it and so I had more time to show intro-screens. 

Try listening to this "Leftovers Mix" with headphones to enjoy the stereo effect of 

the music at its best (ahum). 

Dont blame me for the strange speeches, that's all part of the tribute.
Have fun, or be annoyed !

Final last words about AACKOSOFT in general (which are not mentioned in the Tributes itself:

Some of the games AACKOSOFT made, are still MSX game classics and in general
the graphics were not bad for an MSX-1 game.
But I miss that extra that made Konami games so good, most AACKOSOFT games repeats itself after 1 level.

But I bought their Games Collections anyway,there were enough games left worth playing...

Hereby the link for that other Tribute The AACKOSOFT Tribute (The Leftovers Mix)

If you wanna play those AACOSOFT games used in the Tributes:
Mediafire
Gavitex


Do you wanna have all AACKOSOFT speeches used in the Tributes:
Mediafire
Gavitex

 

The AACKOSOFT Tribute by TnC

At the beginning of 2015 I installed my modified MSX-2 NMS8280 computer in the livingroom and start playing MSX games.

I collected over the years a lot of them, but this time to get a list of my favorites for 

future posts for my blog.

I played "Oh Shit !" again and remember the good times we had when I demonstrate 

the game at a game-party in a kantine of the korfball club I was a member of.

Well, I was the only one with a computer, so not much competition. 

It took more than 10 minutes to load the game from tape, but soon at every "game over" everybody was shouting "Oh Shit !"

Then I played "Time Curb", "Robotwars" and "ICE" (still dont know what to do with these diamonds) and an old idea popped up...let's collected all speeches in AACKOSOFT games by playing them and record at the same time.
 

In an very old schrift with handwritten MSX info, I found almost every speech of AACKOSOFT games I had to played

 But I found more than just MSX games on the disks, some forgotten musicfiles for MuSiX, including the famous MASH theme and the song from Booty/Kick It with some drums added. 

While I was playing the games I noticed that AACKOSOFT used the same music over 

and over again, so to make The AACKOSOFT Tribute ( as the project name) more enjoyable for the viewers, I decided to use 1 of the MuSiX files.

Sadly I had already used my 1st choice "Axel-F" for an other video. 

I wanted the music to be non-classsic so I had to choose between "Dremo" 

(from Booty/Kick It games), "Theme from MASH" or  "Popcorn". 

Well..."Dremo" was a very sort, boring song, "MASH" was a very bad version 

of the original, so "Popcorn" was the less worst. 

But just as most of the MuSiX files at the end of the song , they all scr... up.

I had to edit the 2nd part of "Popcorn" a lot trying to fix most of the errors. 

Lucky for me I had the original manual of MuSiX...

After a lot of time I had the song "Popcorn" ready, speeches collected and raw video's 

of the gameplay. Let's put them together! 

Nope, all my video editing programs crashed after adding music, speech, pics and video's. 

So I created first all the pics with titles, a soundscape with Popcorn and all speeches. 

At that time I noticed that "Popcorn" was a little boring too, so I added as intro the music of Time Curb and between mainpart of Popcorn and the outtro the music AACKOSOFT used in too many games (like "The Meaning Of Life").

I tried to find and record every speech in AACKOSOFT games,  so I played other games  of AACKOSOFT, but found only the "Panel Panic" speech besides the others I already found.

While I am writjng this, I remember there was some female speech in the game 

"Red Lights of Amsterdam",  but it sounded terrible and afterwards I don't regret 

I didnt using it. 

It just didnt fit in The AACKOSOFT Tribute I had in mind...
 

I collected all games with speech from my own diskcollection and from www.nitroroms.com, a website full of games of old computer systems ( like MSX ). 

It has a lousy search engine, but you can download fast and without any waiting .
Short tip: Try to search for just 1 word, more words give bad results (none).

When you watch the video of The AACKOSOFT Tribute,  try to listen with headphones 

to have more fun...

One last quote; all speeches may sound be bit strange together, that was on purpose...
Like it or hate it, I loved it, although it took me so much time to finish it.

Almost 4 months spare time...

Here is the link to: The AACKOSOFT Tribute

TnC House Classics presents: What Time Is Love ?

The KLF itself made 3 versions of this song, a boring techno song, a euro-dance version and a  dance-rock version. The links will follow at the end.
There was a time a big Dutch warehouse V&D sold a lot of house CD collections for just a couple of Euro's.
I was interested in all kind of house music, so I bought a lot of them.
On a "best of old skool" techno CD I found "What Time Is Love". I really liked it at first, but after 5 minutes I realized, the song was just a long intro for...I dont know.

But when I heard the second version (in a car on my way to get some large computer cabinets for my work together with a co-worker), with the rapper and much shorter duration, it was really hot stuff.

The last version (America) was nice, because of the rockriffs in it, but for me it was also goodbye to KLF
If you recycle your old stuff and release it as something new, you will  be soon forgotten.
Bye Bye KLF.

The links:
The Techno version (with also a boring video about sheeps)
The Euro-Dance version (with the rapper) or a video with a Psychedelic sauce
The America version (with the rockriff and rocksinger)

TnC House Classics presents: Instruments Of Darkness (All Of Us Are One People)

To start off the serie I knew I had to take this one.

Actually it's a remix (or remake) from The Prodigal of a song of The Art Of Noise.
It was the openingstrack of The Fon Mixes of the Art Of Noise and it blew me away.
The orchestral hits combined with zooming basslines, crazy ritmes and... and...

You should not drive and listen to it at the same or you will be driving twice the allowed max speed. (Watch the video if you dont believe me...)
The video is kinda wierd but at least it''s not boring and does some justice to the speedrush in the song itself.

This mix was also included in "The Best Of Art Of Noise" (7" Works).
But maybe an better mix of the same Art Of Noise song was on the 12" versions edition
of this "Best Of" 2CD pack.

It was called "Instruments Of Lightness (Life Beyond Transformation) , I always tought it was The Prodigal once again, until now.
S1000 that create the mix, using The Prodigal version combined with some more club house related stuff and samples from Art Of Noise itself.
The break and the slow speed up is crazy, until today I have never ever heard it again
in housemusic.

I could not found a video with good audio quality, so I search and found this link.
Dont know how long it will work, hopefully long enough to let others enjoy.
Sorry to say, I don't know much about S1000, but discogs never fails.

Introducing a new serie of posts:TnC House Classics

I like to do a short introduction on a new serie posts, called TnC House Classics.

There a tons of classic house music that should be mentioned here and released on uncountable "best of" releases, but to be a TnC House Classics...
It should to follow the following rules:

1) TnC has still at least one version of the song on CD.
2) TnC has some special memories about the song itself.
3) TnC still likes the song.

To my suprise there were more songs that I want to call "TnC House Classics" than I guessed at the first time.

And maybe after more than 10 posts I can try to make an long mix out of these
TnC House Classics...

MSX-2 on a Smart-TV ???

Do you know a better way to play MSX games with 2 players than playing on a full-size
Smart-TV ?

No, I don't.

And which MSX-emulator did I install on this Smart-TV ?

No, I don't.
I just connected my old Philips NMS8280 MSX-2 computer via the SCART-connector
to the Smart-TV.

Still there is 1 issue to solve...
My joystick-cables are so too short that I need at least 2m extension-cables (2 of them)
before I really enjoy playing MSX-games on this TV.
Now I can play not for long, cause I got a headache by sitting too close to the screen and sleeping legs of sitting on the floor.

To my suprise I found out on some old diskettes, that I was starting MSXing in the early months of 1987, and all the diskettes were still readable (but sometimes I had to try 20 times before they want to be read...)
So yes, some of them were 28 years old !

And YES, we have an old XBOX (1st generation) and an old Wii (I think the WIIu is a mistake, so I wont buy it)

Yearbook 2014 of MSX Resource Center by TnC (part 2)

And I shall continue:

Aug
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/sanders-msx-party
+ Tnc: Great way to origanize MSX parties, just invite a MSX friend from an other country !
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/msxemu-1519
+ TnC: another Android MSX Emulator without adds, so you have to pay for it.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/vampire-killer-and-knightmare-released-project-egg
+ TnC: Interesting that Konami is joining this project and on the other hand closing a fansite like konamito...
- http://www.msx.org/news/msx-related/en/retromaniac9-special-msx-30th-anniversary
+ TnC: Just another reason to learn myself Spanish.
- http://www.msx.org/news/msx-related/en/penguins-memory-tale-happiness-1985-anime-movie-featuring-pentaro
+ TnC: A whole movie about Pentaro, my hero in the first MSX game I ever played !
  I had to see this.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/penguin-adventure-released-wii-u
+ TnC: Mmmm, 1 more reason to buy a Wii-U
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/dskpro-651
+ TnC: How a announcement for a new version turned into a discussion about various formats for MSX-disks images...
  I better stick to the news, instead reading all comments...no use.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/sg2msx-sg-1000-game-loader-msx-dos
+ TnC: An emulator for use on MSX itself ! Never heard of SG-1000, but more software
  for MSX is always welcome, emulated or not.

Sep
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/music/en/3bit-band-plays-msx
+ TnC: Yeah, a band playing live MSX game-musics, with the original game
  playing in the background !! Not to miss...
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/ay-music-contest
+ TnC: Didnt know that old Amstrad Spectrum Apple computers had the same soundchip as MSX.
  I hope I can listen to the results some day, MSX can use a couple of good PSG songs.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/msx-fair-nijmegen-2015-announced
+ TnC: Nice to see there still is a MSX fair in Dutchland

Oct
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/46th-msx-users-metting-barcelona-ready
+ TnC: I think this is the biggest MSX fair in Europe, but Barcelona is a little too far for me
  I am sad cause cant go there.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/good-game-show-korea-2014-photo-shoot
+ TnC: MSX fair in Korea, okay. Another country with some MSX fans.
  Great, another country full of MSX. We take them one by one !
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/moonblaster-v14-basic-driver-update
+ TnC: So many years after the release of Moonblaster (1992) a new driver ?
  You got to be kiddin ! Everybody uses Moonsound or other trackers these days !
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/msx-turbo-r-technical-handbook-scanned
+ TnC: Great work, but in Japenese ? No way ! This is no news for an
  English MSX website. A waste of my time.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/book-project-about-msx-france
+ TnC: Wow, MSX info in france. What is next, MSX Siberian Technical Manuals ?
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/gauntlet-finally-available-selling-internet
+ TnC: A new MSX game that is really finished and for sale is worth to mention.
  Not all those announcements that will never be finished.
 
Nov
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/software/en/matra-games-colorful-cartridge
+ TnC: Pink coloured, so you know what kind of game it is...
  But new MSX stuff should be promoted any way you can, yes ?
-  http://www.msx.org/news/en/repro-factory-msx-shop-announced
+ TnC: A new shop for MSX software I hope it will last.
- http://www.msx.org/news/software/en/zombie-incident-cartridge-release-announced
+ TnC: msxdev game winner can now be bought. Fine, that is a hole in one !
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/gem-v121-released
+ TnC: A Gameboy emulator for MSX ! But you have al lot of additional hardware
  to run this simple looking games. Is it really worth the trouble ?
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/sinterklaas-remakes-nemesis-2-and-maze-galious
+ TnC: A Dutch parody on famous MSX Konami games ! Gotta catch them all !
  I like Sinterklaas more than Santa, so I am existed !
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/skyscraper-tenoble
+ TnC: Nice looking MSX-1 game, but where is the download link on this Japenese
 page ?
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/openmsx-0110-released
+ TnC: That other MSX emulator for Windows and other platforms. Should I
  give it a try or not ?
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/boulderdash-msx-music-remake-themysterystudios
+ TnC: Boulderdash 1 and 2 were always my favorite games, and I liked the original Boulderdash music too.
  So any remake or remix is welcome. This one is great and with the video featuring the gameplay...even more fun.
 
Dec
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/software/en/matrix-quest-deliverance
+ TnC: A new free MSX game and I like any breakout game. So I am double happy.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/sunrise-foundation-halt-all-its-activities
+ TnC: Sad news, Sunrise quits. I remember them selling MSX games like Pumpkin Adventure 2 and MSX hardware like Moonsound
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/msx-eggerland
+ TnC: A new website dedicated to 1 MSX game, that's a challenge.
  Hope the webmaster is not alone to fill it.
- http://www.msx.org/news/software/en/bombjack-available-cartridge-again
+ TnC: Re-releases are good. If you can still buy MSX games, MSX will still have fans.
-  http://www.msx.org/news/software/en/msx-image-converter-256-colors-v06b-msx-image-converter-16-colors-v10b
+ TnC: I use http://msx.jannone.org/conv/ and I am happy with the results, why invent the wheel    again...





I had to hurry to finish the list, before 23:59 today...
Finally I made it.
Happy 2015 and a Merry MSXmas to you all !

Yearbook 2014 of MSX Resource Center by TnC (part 1)

This is the yearbook 2014 of MSX.ORG acc. to TnC:

Jan
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/mrc-monthly-newsletter-01+ TnC: I want it too, so I subscribed asap.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/trilotracker-071
+ TnC: a Konami SCC Music maker, if it support in the future MSX-Music
  and make a player...I gonna try using it
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/tas-submitted-cure
+ TnC: Vampire Killer on MSX-1, yes its possible, impressive gfx,
  in the video it look so easy to finish the game The Cure
- http://www.msx.org/news/challenges/en/game-music-cover-challenge-deadline-extended
+ TnC: always nice a battle between MSX composers, next time a Game Over Music Challange ?
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/tecnobytes-announce-new-msx-v9990-and-opl4
+ TnC: every now and then somebody announce to make an MSX-3, did you see one yet ?
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/reminder-msx-nijmegen-2014-next-saturday
+ TnC: MSX fair in Dutchland, nice to know, but I wont go, too many people who know people.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/bluemsx-launcher-1135
+ TnC: A new launcher for my favorite MSX emulator, I didnt know somebody still making
  something for the BlueMSX emulator. Everbody uses openMSX nowadays ?
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/msxblog-resurrection-konamitoes
+ TnC: I like konamito website, but I always wonder why that name and when the big Konami
  found out about them... Good idea to start a blog with a new simple name to remember
  Although when I checked the blog was down and you can find them in twitter and facebook
- http://www.msx.org/news/websites/en/msx-extendido-new-spanish-blog
  TnC: another Spanish blog, in Spanish speaking countries MSX is still every alive
 
Feb
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/history-msx-dos
+ TnC: Just what I tought, ASCII just need Microsoft for a Basic and a DOS program.
  Not much of a co-op after all. I think thats why we had to wait so long for MSX-DOS 2.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/nextor-20-final-released
+ TnC: Something else then MSX-DOS...I should try it...

Mrt
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/fmsxandroid-381
+ TnC: a new version of a MSX emulator on Android with new modern features ?
  Gotta have em on my tablet
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/ascii-lists-rarest-msx-machines
+ TnC: MSX rareties are always nice to know and see. Glad that msx.org translate the Japense page.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/msx-exhibit-atlanta-vcfse-20
+ TnC: What ? MSX fair in the USA ? No way !
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/homecomputershow-announced
+ TnC: And bring enough MSX computers with you, to conquer all Commodores !
- http://www.msx.org/news/events/en/18th-bonami-retro-computer-fair-announced
+ TnC: Another Dutch fair, but is it more then a pile full of MSX-computers waiting for a new owner?


Apr
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/45th-msx-ru-barcelona-announced
+ TnC: a real MSX'er today should speak Spanish and English, otherwise he/she misses
  so much...
- http://www.msx.org/news/music/en/koichiros-mgsdrv-works-5th-update
+ TnC: the site a sort of soundcloud with lots of SCC musics of famous Japanese MSX games

May
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/msx-club-west-friesland-25-years
+ TnC: on the fairs of Zandvoort & Tilburg I always bought the newest releaes
  of music- or demodisks...
- http://www.msx.org/news/mrc/en/mrc-goes-down
+ TnC: Well, msx.org celebrates April Fools Day in May, bit late.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/symbos-21-first-beta-released
+ TnC: A GUI like Windows on your MSX-2/Turbo-R, better than what Ease had to offer
  lightyears ago. Lucky me, only for Amstrad and MSX, no Commodore 64.

Jun
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/openmsx-0101-released
+ TnC: New version of the MSX emulator I gave up installing it.
  I think an emulator should do, run MSX programs. Without having to
  copy roms to disks, tweaks to get it run without errors and without
  reading a manual (like openMSX). That way I still use BlueMSX.
- http://www.msx.org/news/software/en/auf-wiedersehen-monty-and-batman-improvements-ramones-sutchan-and-jam
+ TnC: lot of MSX-1 games were converted games from Spectrum, with often te same strange
  controls. It was terrible playing with ASWZ when my MSX had nice cursorkeys and 2 joystick-ports...
  
Jul
---
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/kai-magazine-facebook-page
+ TnC: Manga style with a very naughty twist, I know that games from reviews
  (without screenshots, until now...)
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/se-ei-kay-demo-released
+ TnC: the most famous Finish MSX NYYRIKKI has made another demo,
  released on a Finish demo party (are there still ?) Everything NYYRIKKI
  does I found interesting, funny, or just great, he is a multi-talented MSX'er.
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/msxdev-compo-2014-coliseum-clash
+ TnC: The msxdev-compo is a great way to get MSX-programmers interesting of making games
  and selling them, while MSX gameplayers have new toys to play with...
- http://www.msx.org/news/en/new-private-beta-release-ms2
+ TnC: There is not much software for Moonsound, so Moonsound Music Studio could
  be a good thing, but why it looks soo much as Moonblaster ?

Another Xmas Post (Part IV)

I think this will be the last part, cause I could not find that MSX-1 Xmas Basic demo
I was looking for.

It had at least 3 parts, the last part were best wishes in a lot of languages in animated different coloured boxes, maybe I find it some day...

But I have some more tapes for you !

After I made the 3 tapes I wanted to hear more modern Xmas songs, not only Elvis Presley with "Blue Blue Blue Blue Christmas" or Bing Crosby with "you know what I mean".

Just famous classics in a new modern music-style.

So I bought a couple of (cheap) Xmas CDs and collected the best songs on 3 tapes,
called: Modern Christmas 1, 2 and 3.
Yeah, I had to think hard for the right title...;-)

This time I even wrote what was on the tape...which CDs were used for recording.

Here is the list:
* Rockin' Christmas
* R&B Christmas Party
* Reggae Christmas
* Merry Mambo X-mas
* Rave the X-mas

* The Santa Clause (see above)
* Chill Out Christmas
* Raindance Christmas

I dare you to listen to 1 of these tapes, it's a real rollercoaster of Xmas songs
in different music-styles.
These tapes were made the same way I made those Moonblaster House Mixes
as Mixmeister TnC (at mixcloud).
So be warned !

I know it's a lot of Mbs, but every tape is 2x 45 minutes long, that's why...

Here are the links:
Modern Christmas 1: Mediafire / Gavitex
Modern Christmas 2: Mediafire / Gavitex
Modern Christmas 3: Mediafire / Gavitex

I had to confess I had not enough songs to fill 3 tapes of 90 minutes, so I fill them up
with more bits and pieces of Rave the -Xmas

If you enjoyed the rock version of Silent Night at a beginning of some tape,
that was Deliverance  on the What A Joke album.

Final note: sometimes tapes are so bad, it cannot be digitized.
Here is an example of Richard Clayderman going mad: Mediafire / Gavitex

Another Xmas Post (Part III)

Some time ago I was so bored about the songs that SkyRadio played on the radio,
that I decided with my wife to make our own Christmas Music tapes with the best songs
we had on CD.
The tapes were specially made for playing in our old VW Jetta, cause it had only radio and tape.
But we played them also at home, it saved us a lot of skipping tracks and changing CDs.

These 3 tapes I want to share with you. The sound is very loud and something out of tune,
but when I listen to them again, I hear a lot of forgotten goldies...

Some songs you always hear in every Top 100 or Skyradio, some are sang by Dutch singers and groups, some are not so famous but very enjoyable.

In other words, I have no idea what's on every side of the tapes...

Have fun with this collection:
Christmas Songs A:                     Mediafire / Gavitex
More Christmas Songs B:             Mediafire / Gavitex
Christmas Songs Once Again C:   Mediafire / Gavitex

Xmas post (part 2)

Every MSX-er who programmed some demo's, should have made one or more
Xmas demo's.
And EMP-Soft (me and Elko D.) was no exception. But we did it quick and dirty.

Elko ripped the Xmas picture out of the Philips NMS8280 demo and changed/converted
the titles, background and colours. He also composed the 2 MSX-musics.
I created the programs to put it all together to get a sort of picture-demo.
Mmmm...I must admit it's not a good demo, but the musics are okay.

Here are the links to the Philips NMS 8280 demo:
Mediafire
Gavitex (ex-DepositStorage)

PassionMSX has also a NMS 8280 demo, but somehow the zipfile was damaged,
when Itried downloading it. So here is my version.

If you still wanna see the EMP-Soft Xmas demo anyway:
Mediafire
Gavitex

I warned you !!!

A Xmas post (part one)

It's almost Christmas (or Xmas if you're a lazy typer), so everybody and everything
must be in Christmas style.
So I had to bring some Christmas spirit into my blog.
Here is the part one.

For me is the Toshiba Xmas demo the best Xmas demo ever made on a MSX-1.

The graphics are simple, but very colorfull.
The great PSG-musics  are short but great famous Xmas tunes.
And it has also a little animation in it !

I was amazed the first time, I think it's still impressive how they made it.
I had the demo somewhere on a disk, but lost it.
So I was happy to find it on PassionMSX (MSX Goodies)

On YouTube I found video's of other (MSX-2) Xmas demo's,
but this one deserve also a place on YouTube, it's less boring...
And I recorded the demo with my old BlueMSX emulator.
Here is the link for YouTube.

See ya at part 2.

MSX Google: week 50, 2014

I was searching for a MSX-Basic Christmas demo, which was made by Philips (I tought).
Searching my diskimages got me nowhere, so I tried to find it on the net.

That was not a great succes, although I found a simpel website about a guy from Holland who collects EVERYTHING Philips every made or published for the MSX system.

And it was more than I ever imagined, for example Philips sold lots of game from other game-companies including Konami !

It's nice to see all the Philips MSX hardware (and software) I once owned.
Including my worst joystick ever:

I nearly destroyed that thing while playing Beam Rider.

And my most frequenly used Philips hardware:

With this modem I browsed every MSX-BBS and every MSX Videotex page I could find
to get MSX software. I mostly searched for music, tools, digitize images and basic games.
I didn't play much games so I was not a real game collector.

Last be not least a picture of the Philips datarecorder I used to record every Wordstore sample I made.
It did his job very well, every MSX-tape could be loaded.
Sometimes after a few tries with the volume switch (right below).

Oke enough talk, here is the link

More Wordstore+ Demo's: What's That You're Doing Karaoke !

This funky song of Tug Of War album was so good, I just couldn't understand
why it was never released as a single.
The bass of Paul, the keyboards of Stevie, everything fits like a glove.

So after the succes of Ebony and Ivory (ballad duet with Stevie Wonder),
Paul decided he still can make a hit on his own and released Take It Away as 2nd single.
Well, the title says it all...it was an easy to forget song and sounded oke,
but not catchy enough.
In the end What's That You're Doing was never released as single, otherwise it would
be the 2nd hitsong with Stevie Wonder and Paul...

Here is the link to a video with the lyrics:

I remember that my sister bought the LP at Vroom&Dreesman, a Dutch megastore
which you can find in lot of cities in the Netherlands. The whole recordstore
was filled with poster of the cover of Tug Of War and they played the titlesong
over and over again. She never regret buying it.

To me it was one of the best albums from Paul McCartney & (or without) Wings.
The other ones are the London Town album and Band On The Run...
The title song Tug Of War, reminds me of London Town of the album with the same name, but every song was a pleasure to listen to.
Some highlights: ofcourse What's That You're Doing (funk), Wanderlust (great ballad),
Ballroom Dancing (modern rock).
I remember a Dutch DJ who liked the break in Ballroom Dancing so much,
he played that part twice in his radioshow.
Paul loved the song too, so he re-used it on the Broad Street soundtrack.

Here are the Wordstore+ links:
Mediafire
Gavitex

More Wordstore+ Demo's: Love Is Strange Karaoke !

 I consider that Love Is Strange was the best song on the LP Wild Life of Wings 

(with Paul & Linda McCartney).
It was the first album of Wings and the worst, I think.

To make things more badly, Love Is Strange was a reggae cover of Micky & Silvia
song in 1956 (see the nice 50s style videoclip), so the best song of Wild Life wasn't
even composed by Paul.






Anyway I liked the reggae version so I sampled the intro in Wordstore+.

Not much to say about Wild Life, the first song Mumbo is as bad as the rest of the album.
If Mumbo was arranged differently it would had been an nice rocksong.
There are some bootleg live versions from '71/'72 that shows how Mumbo was ment to be played.
Another song that was played live, was the title song Wild Life, some kind of blues song
I liked it, if it was shorted to 3 minutes, but it was not...
And only in the last song Dear Friend, we hear more than just Wings members playing,
no a real orchestra !
But that song is repeating itself over and over again.

I played Wild Life maybe 3 or 4 times, and every time I was disappointed.
After Paul McCartney's album Ram I had expect something better.
That's all there is to say.

But I found a animated videoclip of Love Is Strange by Wings, which fits
the songs perfectly, the link is here


Wordstore+ links:
Mediafire
Gavitex

More Wordstore+ Demo's: HeyHey Karaoke !

An instrumental song from Pieces of Peace LP of Paul McCartney.
I like the funky parts of it, so I made not 1 but 2 Wordstore+ recordings of it.

After the Pipes Of Peace album, I never bought any Paul McCartney records, CDs or else.
The album before, Tug Of War, was so great so I thought Pipes would be great too.
No, it'was not.

It seems to me Paul wanna sells easy a lot of records by just putting 2 songs with
Michael Jackson (Say Say Say and The Man) on it and some left-overs of Tug Of War sessions.

And I noticed Paul was not capable to follow the new styles and influences in the music
at that time.
He became for me as old fashion guy, and his album after Pipes:
"Give My Regards to Broad Street (the soundtrack of the film)" confirmed that.

It had with lots of recycled old songs from The Beatles, Wings and Tug Of War album.
On top of that, I never liked the new song and single "No More Lonely Nights".
So I was no longer a fanatic Paul McCartney fan.

I found on YouTube only 1 video with a simple animation in it of the song Hey Hey. 
Yeah, just a flower which get some colour...

Wordstore+ links:
Mediafire
Gavitex

More Wordstore+ Demo's: Coming Up Karaoke !

As I look back to my Wordstore+ recordings, I discovered I recorded the most funkest songs of Paul McCartney I knew at that time.
That is Coming Up, What's That You're Doing and Hey Hey.
But now I only discuss Coming Up song.

I always like the song of McCartney II, but after I landed on a blog with lot of
bootlegs and live recordings, I found out there are 2 versions.
The official (studio) version of McCartney II and the live version from a concert
of Wings in Glasgow.
The 2 versions are really different from each other, but still I don't know
which version I liked best, the happy version of Paul or the big funk version
of Wings.

So here are the links to a live version of Coming Up (live from the Kampuchea concert)
and the Paul's funny videoclip

Some words about McCartney II.
It was the first solo album after the last album "Back To The Egg" of Wings.
Just like his first solo album after he left The Beatles, he played all instruments.
I was really suprised that Paul could play all instruments on Coming Up !

But the whole album was not that good, lots of songs are just boring,
because Paul used so little instruments.
Only Coming Up, Nobody Knows (country-rock), Dark Room (experimental electronic)
and One of These Days (acoustic guitar ballad) were my favorites.
I recorded Darkroom in Wordstore+, but again the loop I wanted was too long
to fit in Wordstore+.

There are re-issues of the album with lots of other tracks, but I am not a collector
anymore that wants to have everything Paul had made.

Wordstore+ Karaoke links:
MediaFire
Gavitex

More Wordstore+ Demo's: Birthday Karaoke !

Note: 
I discovered today, 10th of July 2018, that this text was never updated
when it was made on the 7th of December 2014 !!!
Years went by, so I had to make some changes to post it now...

More Wordstore+ Demo's: Karaoke ! (Introduction)

After I published my Wordstore LOUP demo, SupMSX asked me to do more than just one LOUP demo, to create a sort of mega-demo I think...

I had plenty of Wordstore+ stuff, but I can only makes MSX-Basic things, and the replayer
of Wordstore allows me no more than change the speed, the volume and the part that will
be played...after the sample stopped...

But it kept spinning in my head and I decided to get all my Wordstore+ stuff together,
and sort them out. While doing that I got new ideas about a sort of framework I could use
and res-use for mulitple sample parts.

Now I have finished the first batch...the Wordstore+ Karaoke Demo's...
Don't be too exited, cause Wordstore+ can only sample about 20 seconds so it's
more Music & Lyrics than Real Karaoke.

Every demo has only one long sample, but I will post some comments about the sampled
song itself and the album it came from.
So if you don't wanna spoil your ears, you can read some comments I made.
I had to tell you, at the time I sampled this music, I was a fan of The Beatles and a great fan of Paul McCartney & Wings.
Sorry about that.

Last but not least: I made all Wordstore+ demo's for the MSX-1, cause the program was
written for it (and my Music Module sample demo's work only on MSX-2(+).

Music System Xcellent Part Kiwi tape 4 (MSX Soundtracker Music)

Finally, the final part of the 4 tapes of Soundtracker music.
Again it's mono and Soundtracker 2.0 (maybe it was 2.01, cause 2.0 had a serious bug, had to do with saving and loading 1.0 files, again maybe)

No more highlights of Kant A, just the worst: Cold Christmas (unknown, with good reason),
Miami Vice Theme (unknown, not energic enough), Mog Serenda Bonus (unknown, a drumbeat on a classical part makes it not better), Snout Demo Part 4 (happy, but I miss some Snout humor in it).

Link to Kant A:

The last 5 songs are from the Philips Music Creator demo songs, a program where you could choose an arrangement and play your own solo in it, change the instruments and tempo. Well, there is a lot more in it, but that was the only part I was using...

The worst of Kant B: J.M. Jarre Medley 1 + 2 (BCF, I think the limitations of FAC Soundtracker, no instruments change during the song, made the songs not as good as the arranger wanted to make), the last 3 songs from the Philips Music Creator demo songs (somehow the arrangements does not fit the song completly).

PS: If you follow the link to BCF DiscStation #4, you will see also the Amazing Heads demo
      (at 20:30). Don't miss it, it's hilarious !

PS2: Xmas songs and Soundtracker doesn't match very well.
       The songs on these tapes were the best I could find, and that was not very good.

Link to Kant B:

Music System Xcellent Part Kiwi tape 3 (MSX Soundtracker Music)

The complete title of the tape is: "Music System Xcellent Part Kwiki 3 in Full Dimensional  Mono".
Yeah, my friend at that time had a Commodore Amiga 500, which had 4 sampling channels and in stereo. So the titles of all 4 tapes were a little ironic (like the Super Fake Stereo).

This is the 1ste of the Soundtracker 2.0 tapes, now in plain mono.
You will hear only the Music Module.
It was easier for me to record (less changing the recording level of the left/right channel,
so the sound of these tapes 3 and 4 are better than 1 and 2.

The music cames from other sources, cause Moonsoft never released music for Soundtracker 2.0, they were far too busy with creating Moonblaster and composing songs
for it...

So most of the songs cames from the FAC (Federation Agains Commodore) of course and from the BCF (Best Crackers Federation), who released a couple of Diskstations, a sort of disc with a different demo's in a nice menu.

Highlights on Kant A: The Labyrint (FAC), Spybass (BCF) and James Bond Theme (BCF)
is a great starter, Planet Mars (FAC) strange sci-fi, the famous Impact style with Impact 137 (Impact) and Drente 1992 (unknown), funky MSX with Funky Items (FAC), great game-music cover of Metal gear in Action (FAC), classical with Piano Prelude (FAC) and cool down with Amazing Heads 3 (BCF) and Science Fiction Part 2 (FAC).

Kant A link

Songs on Kant B: Impact style in Impact 58 (Impact), the classical Tocca Et Fuga Remix,
the uptempo sci-fi Darkside & Monster (BCF), the early house of Ducky's Acid-House Theme, psg in Music Module style Psg-2 (Impact), happy sound of Mid-Summer 1991 (BCF), the softer side of MSX with Synth Power #9 (FAC) and Totally & Completly (I forgot).

Kant B link

I think there are some songs made by TwinSoft, but I'm not sure...

Music System Xcellent Part Kiwi tape 2 (MSX Soundtracker Music)

As I explained earlier, tape 1 and 2 were recorded in stereo. Well, actually 2 different soundchips were playing the same song at the same time !
Crazy way to get stereo music as you look back...

On tape 2 at Kant A, these are the songs I won't forget:
Arpegiator (FAC), Ni Hongo (A.J. Minnaard), Acid 2 (Amazing Bytewizards), Bases 1 (Station), Swing Beat (FAC), Vibraphone (unknown), Space Invaders (FAC).

The songs are split in 2 different genres, uptempo with Arpegiator, Bases 1, Acid 2,
and Swing Beat.
The softer side with Ni Hongo, Vibraphone ans Space Invaders.

I think the music of Station is very inderrated, it came all from the DECALOGUE demo.
The music was simple but all songs had the same style that I like.

And on Kant B: Impact 2 (Impact), Swift Bass (FAC), Decaloque 2 (Station), Acid (unknown), Dedicated to Mike (I forgot), Impact 60 (Impact), Basic (FAC), Chevy (Station).

All Impact songs I recorded on the tapes were good or very good, I bought all their musicdisks and demo's at the MSX fairs.

I am aware the soundquality is not optimal, I have tried to clean it up, but the results are not much better as the version you can hear
via mixcloud. An old tape is still an old tape with it's limitations...

Listen to Kant A:
Listen to Kant B: