Pimp my PSG #3 - Thexder by poke-1,170

And here's number 3 in the Pimp my PSG challenge. You might know poke-1,170 primarily as a VJ, but he's also a musician. He chose to tackle the theme song from Thexder and give it a unique makeover.

Nobody can say it better than the man himself, so here's poke-1,170:

poke-1,170 wrote:

I mainly played MSX games as a kid that had PSG music, since I had an NMS 8220 and cartridges were too expensive. One game that always stood out for me was Thexder. It had some loneliness to it due to the minimal but stark looking backgrounds and the melancholic tune. For the remix I wanted to make it a bit more upbeat and lighthearted, and make use of sound effects to represent the player's transformation between a robot and a jet fighter, imaginary electronic battle systems, combat sounds, enemy noises and sounds that reflect the minimal environment. I enjoy what can be done soundwise with the MSX' FM cartridges, I'm an avid fan of Warp Records, Skam, Rephlex and other IDM music labels and the MSX is very capable of making sounds that are used by acts like Autechre, Phoenicia, Jega etc. The transcription was done by ear, and since it's a remix competition I added extra bits and pieces and changed the occasional note.

Hope you enjoy :)

Couldn't have said it better myself! With the May 1st deadline, there are still 23 days left until the deadline, so plenty of time to join in the Pimp my PSG challenge in and win prizes and eternal fame!

Relevant link: Pimp my PSG - Thexder by poke-1,170

Commentaires (15)

Par Latok

msx guru (3959)

07-04-2016, 22:57

It had some loneliness to it..... Absolutely! It's the same feeling I get when playing H.E.R.O.

Great great tune, poke, thx!!

Par meits

Scribe (6571)

08-04-2016, 18:15

I'm a happy listener

Par Grauw

Ascended (10818)

08-04-2016, 18:31

Me too . I like it, nice!

Par snout

Ascended (15187)

08-04-2016, 20:30

Very original use of FM on MSX, where we tend to aim more for the Microcabin or Impact sounds. I had to check several times to see if it really was an MBM soing and not Moonsound.

Par poke-1,170

Paragon (1783)

08-04-2016, 20:35

snout wrote:

yeah a lot can be done with the msx's FM cartridges,if you put some time into messing around with building your own custom sounds. The only samples I used were kicks and snares for the drums, and the shield and lasershot from the game itself. The rest is all FM. You can do funny stuff with setting the operator a and b to more extreme levels and doing stuff on very high notes, you get these odd sounds out of it.

Par sd_snatcher

Prophet (3675)

09-04-2016, 18:08

I thought that the "melancholic tune" comment was a bit weird, as this wasn't the way I could recall the soundtrack. After hearing this arrangement I found out why. poke-1,170 was probably used to play the game at 50Hz, and this makes all Japanese games run 16.6% slower and most songs indeed become melancholic because of that.

Just check how upbeat is the original song in NTSC, then compare it to the slowed down version in PAL that definitely becomes melancholic.

09-04-2016, 22:19

Quote:

sd_snatcher After hearing this arrangement I found out why. poke-1,170 was probably used to play the game at 50Hz, and this makes all Japanese games run 16.6% slower and most songs indeed become melancholic because of that.

hehe yep, 50 hertz indeed. I always found there was a feeling of emptiness to the game, both the tune (not super uplifting anyway) and having to walk/fly through these big empty rooms with enemies.

Par raymond

Hero (653)