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  #1  
Old Nov 21, 2018, 07:38 PM
hcs hcs is offline
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The last three tracks seem to be beta versions. I don't know Wave Race 64 very well, but Rocket Belt sounds nothing like the final Pilotwings 64 track. I'd think someone just made them up but Hang Glider does sound similar. It's odd that they let these tracks play for so long, too.

At a glance the Super Mario 64 tracks seem to match the OST.
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  #2  
Old Nov 7, 2019, 06:50 AM
radorn radorn is offline
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@hcs I know the WR64 soundtrack very well, and that track reminds me of nothing that appears in the final game, at least in terms of melody. There are some hints of stylistic choices and intrumental elements, like the glissandos, that do kind of sound like they could be from a very early stage of development with the composer just trying things, but that's all, really.

The Rocket Belt theme indeed sounds nothing like the final game. According to interviews with the composer, he was throwing stuff at the director, and he eventually showed him some demo tracks he did for his previous work for a sound library maker, and he finally liked it, so it ended up as the track we know. Perhaps this is an earlier attempt.

This is his channel https://www.youtube.com/user/SonicArtist313/
As a bonus, since I dug this up, in the comments someone asked him if he's still making music and he's revealed that he'll soon release an album with a remake of Birdman.

Last edited by radorn; Nov 7, 2019 at 07:27 AM.
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  #3  
Old Nov 7, 2019, 04:45 PM
hcs hcs is offline
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Ooh, I'll keep an eye out for the Birdman remake, thanks!

I've always wanted a release of some PW64 tracks, which is why I picked up this disc. It was kind of disappointing in that regard, though still historically interesting.
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  #4  
Old Nov 7, 2019, 05:54 PM
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Aifread Aifread is offline
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The PW64 composer expressed interest via Youtube comments in releasing the soundtrack at some point, but I don't think anything ever came of that. May be some licensing issues with Nintendo still since they've done that 3DS game.
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  #5  
Old Nov 8, 2019, 12:16 PM
radorn radorn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hcs View Post
Ooh, I'll keep an eye out for the Birdman remake, thanks!

I've always wanted a release of some PW64 tracks, which is why I picked up this disc. It was kind of disappointing in that regard, though still historically interesting.
Thank you for the release.
To be honest, I find it strange that these tracks somehow got to see the light of day at all. They aren't anything particularly good musically speaking, in my opinion, to warrant putting them on a promotional release. Sounds more like something you release years later for fervent fans who must know everything about the game, like how they released the original synth recordings by the composer of Mr Gimmick! like 20 years later or something, which were generally better than what can be heard here, and properly editted, not with three or four loops like in this disc.
I would be curious to know the story of how this came to be, if these last three tracks are, indeed, as we suspect, actual prototypes from the development cycle, or just some crappy MIDI tracks someone at Nintendo did for whatever reason xD, and, in both cases, just how on earth they ended up in this disc.
It's like the tracks were flying arround Nintendo's offices and some unscrupulous employee took them and they ended up on whoever was responsible for this 's desk or something. (well, that was a mouthful)
It's all very strange, really.

Last edited by radorn; Nov 8, 2019 at 01:45 PM.
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  #6  
Old Nov 8, 2019, 05:16 PM
hcs hcs is offline
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My thinking is that this was an early version of Original Cuts that was going to feature all the launch titles, but they didn't have final music for PW and WR yet. Because they wanted something for limited release with the NA store launch kit, they just used whatever was on hand.

Those might not even have been demos by Dan Hess, in an interview he said "I wrote dozens and dozens of songs that were not selected before finally requiring the Nintendo team to provide reference songs to make sure we were on the same page for musical direction," so maybe some of the reference songs? Or some of the dozens and dozens that didn't make the cut and thus were never quite fleshed out. It'd be cool if someone could ask him if he recalls these tracks.

Quote:
Thank you for the release.
Not sure what you mean here, the archive.org release?

Edit: I guess the reference songs were more likely already released stuff (like SNES PW) rather than something dashed off.

Last edited by hcs; Nov 8, 2019 at 08:14 PM.
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  #7  
Old Nov 9, 2019, 08:38 AM
radorn radorn is offline
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Quote:
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Not sure what you mean here, the archive.org release?
Yes... right?
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  #8  
Old Nov 9, 2019, 04:06 PM
hcs hcs is offline
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Yeah that's mine, just wanted to clarify for back-patting purposes. Also could have been the USF rip, I thought.
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  #9  
Old Nov 9, 2019, 06:59 PM
radorn radorn is offline
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pat, pat, pat, until it's red, my friend.
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  #10  
Old Nov 10, 2019, 12:01 AM
hcs hcs is offline
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I was just listening to Nintendo 64 Original Soundtrack Greatest Hits, track 6 is the same as track 14 here!

Edit: I don't have Original Cuts, but my guess is that track 1 is the same, it's that same weirdly long 7:40.

Last edited by hcs; Nov 10, 2019 at 01:06 AM.
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  #11  
Old Nov 11, 2019, 07:21 PM
radorn radorn is offline
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They sure liked it... for some strange reason I fail to grasp.
At least I'm pretty convinced it's authentic and not just some crappy MIDI track someone's cousin made, because it has quite a few characteristically totaka-esque thingies from the N64 era in there, but it's just so lame and unfinished, and it loops over and over...
I understand they put it because they had nothing else from the game, but I suspect NCL would never have approved it's public release. It probably escaped the usual tight control and someone decided it was OK to use it... "thrice".

Last edited by radorn; Nov 11, 2019 at 09:52 PM.
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  #12  
Old Nov 11, 2019, 11:34 PM
radorn radorn is offline
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkMELrsojbg Birdman remake teaser
Not too bad!
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  #13  
Old Nov 12, 2019, 02:11 PM
hcs hcs is offline
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Quality control on all of those early N64 US releases was pretty awful, when it wasn't just cribbed from the Super Mario 64 OST, so it really doesn't surprise me.

Thanks for the Birdman link, awesome! I guess this would be a good time to bug him about these weird tracks since he's active again. (I asked in a comment, we'll see if anything comes of it)

Last edited by hcs; Nov 12, 2019 at 02:20 PM.
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  #14  
Old Nov 13, 2019, 09:48 AM
hcs hcs is offline
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Sounds like Dan doesn't recognize them. From my comment on the Birdman video :
Quote:
While I'm here, I was wondering if you could recall anything about these two odd tracks, ostensibly from Pilotwings 64, on this strange "Cool Cuts" CD. I have reason to believe that it's official, but these have almost no relationship to the final game.
Dan Hess:
Quote:
I would have to say that CD has no official context whatsoever. And I doubt it was released the year it shows. Crazy how many remakes of VGM there are!
So, if this even did come with NoA's blessing, as I still suppose, he had nothing to do with those tracks, and given that his demo that became Rocket Belt existed before he even took the job, I believe that any work in progress would have been recognizably his style. And at least he doesn't seem to remember hearing them, so they may not have been the reference tracks, though it was a quarter century ago.

Edit: I'm realizing he never said he did listen to them, so maybe he just dismissed the whole thing out of hand, knowing he never sanctioned a release?

To restate a few things:

My evidence that this is official is similarities to Original Greatest Hits, which showed up (with a slightly different cover) in the second N Gear catalog poster seen here. It uses that same weird Wave Race track, and they both name ALLIED DT on the inner ring, who I think also pressed the US printing of the proper Super Mario 64 OST; discogs mentions the matrix/runout text, and it has the same ugly label as OGH. The logos all look legit and trademarks are everywhere.

I suspect it is even more similar to Original Cuts, they have a similar CD label (and name), and the Wave Race track, but I don't have any info besides what's here.

The only other discussion I've seen about this was a NintendoAge thread where the consensus was that it was in a launch kit, but that's pretty hearsay-y. Maybe it was a later addition to that set.

Was this a dry run of OGH that someone slapped together some filler for? The tune for Hang Glider is in there so someone knew what it sounded like, but why not do the same for Rocket Belt? Is it referencing the SNES game somehow?

Maybe there were licensing/royalty issues putting the real tracks on CD? Pilotwings 64 never got an official release, and they left it off OGH, opting instead for an even weirder hodgepodge, with some Star Fox arrangements from the SNES album and some Rare stuff. Puzzlement continues.

Last edited by hcs; Nov 13, 2019 at 09:51 AM.
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  #15  
Old Nov 15, 2019, 08:15 PM
radorn radorn is offline
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I just checked the entire SNES PilotWings SPC set and nothing sounds like the rocket belt track on the disc. Not the style, not any recognizable melody.
But the more I listen to the disc's rocket belt theme the more it reminds me of the gyrocopter theme in the N64 game. The percussion and baseline are very similar, and it also uses brass, which is also used later in the final theme, although the melody in this case is different. It has quite a bit of "floaty-fluffy"-ness to it later, which seems to follow along the lines of the director's demands.

Then, there's the more familiar hang glider theme, which even starts with the a very similar effect as used for the menues when you confirm an option.
This one is puzzling, and the inclusion of the opening "confirm" SFX suggests to me that someone heard wip versions of the music for the game and then tried to recreate them cheaply for the disc... but somehow not even I buy that.

It would seem that, as you suggest, he didn't really took the time to listen to the tracks, or, maybe, he did, and they are real, and he's just shy about it xD. I don't know. In either case, the disc seems legitimate to me and his answer about it being just some fan arrangement doesn't sound right to me at all.

Last edited by radorn; Nov 15, 2019 at 11:49 PM.
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  #16  
Old Dec 12, 2020, 04:05 PM
hcs hcs is offline
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I just ran across this comment from Dan Hess on a YouTube recording of Hang Glider:

Quote:
This track was actually a remake of something that I wrote for a different project but had not been used. Wada San heard it and asked that I build it out for the game. All I really had at the time was the main melody which was being played by an electric guitar in the original track. When I saw the initial gameplay for the Hang Glider it inspired the creation of the floaty but bouncy track (as opposed to "floaty-fluffy" for Birdman). ;-)
So there was an early version of this melody floating around. A possible source for someone who might have mocked up this track?

He commented on most of the tracks in this playlist, this seems to be the source of the track-by-track liner notes in 2DNR-009, I'd wondered where those came from.
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