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  #1  
Old Sep 7, 2013, 03:41 AM
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Default How did Yuzo Koshiro make his PC-88 music?

How did he hook up his gear to play and hear this music? Any idea what he used? Does he still go about creating the Etrian Odyssey music with the same interface? I have been looking into PC-88 music - http://gyusyabu.ddo.jp/MP3/1996/YUNO1.html AND its soundchip - http://en.cyclopaedia.net/wiki/Yamaha-YM2608.

Someone please help me.
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Old Sep 7, 2013, 04:05 AM
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This interview answers that I think.
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Old Sep 7, 2013, 04:20 AM
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Thanks. I really enjoy reading interviews on hardware limitation and modification.

Quote:
YK: Yes, instead of using an application, I wrote it in a kind of machine language. There weren't really any applications to create music at the time. But I had a friend who created an OS... This friend of mine was also programming music with that. So I used that and modified it, and kept on modifying it, to create music of my own.
hmmm. It sounds like I need a friend as well to come up with an OS to program music on it. Are there people out there sharing their OS mod setups for NEC PC-9801?

I'm guessing the music is made just like making music on an Amiga system (lots of mouse clicking). Would be something if it could be modded to respond to hardware midi sequencer or regular piano midi keyboard...

Quote:
The original was called MML, Music Macro Language. It's based on NEC's BASIC program, but I modified it heavily. It was more a BASIC-style language at first, but I modified it to be something more like Assembly. I called it ‘Music Love'. I used it for all the Bare Knuckle Games."
mmm
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Old Sep 7, 2013, 05:11 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Vert1 View Post
I'm guessing the music is made just like making music on an Amiga system (lots of mouse clicking). Would be something if it could be modded to respond to hardware midi sequencer or regular piano midi keyboard...
depends. most japanese composer back then used a form of custom MML, which I believe is done mostly by hand (notes, note length, vibrato, all that stuff)

the europeans are the ones who used trackers to do their soundtrack (almost always an amiga tracker or something similar). it wasn't until the Saturn/PS1 era when the majority of soundtracks were done with simple MIDI/sequencing.

Quote:
Would be something if it could be modded to respond to hardware midi sequencer or regular piano midi keyboard...
on a real PC-88 OS? there should already be a tracker/sequencer for that somewhere, but I'm not sure where you would find such a thing.
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Old Sep 8, 2013, 08:12 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Vert1 View Post
hmmm. It sounds like I need a friend as well to come up with an OS to program music on it. Are there people out there sharing their OS mod setups for NEC PC-9801?

I'm guessing the music is made just like making music on an Amiga system (lots of mouse clicking). Would be something if it could be modded to respond to hardware midi sequencer or regular piano midi keyboard...
What exactly do you want?
Replicate the original working environment of Koshiro? Good luck with that.
Just getting to know MML, its capabilities etc.? Look around on the internet, MML is normally written using simple text files, but there are plenty applications which allow you to convert them to diverse specific system, from MIDI, using tracker like visual applications etc.
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Old Sep 8, 2013, 11:42 AM
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Well I am looking to buy an NEC PC-8801 and make tunes with that limitation Koshiro experienced coming up in the music scene. This MML stuff looks quite challenging. Gotta familiarize myself with it more and get to purchasing an NEC PC-8801 for hands-on experience.

Ultimately I would like to be make modded gear that triggers the individual notes from the YM2608 soundchip (not a sample of its sound) and connect it to a hardware sequencer (no Cubase).

Quote:
The reason I can't use an 88 nowadays to create songs... There's no way to buy floppy discs anymore. So that's a huge risk. If the PC freezes or if I lose the data in some other way, there's no way I can back up my work. Nowadays you can find them at auction, but it's still super expensive. That's why I can't use the 88 exclusively anymore.
I've had this paranoia when backing up cds to an external harddrive. But now I don't think it's that realistic a fear. Has Koshiro ever lost a game's soundtrack before due to this? I don't agree that it's too expensive. How much money do VGM companies spend on funding their artists? I learnt that Manabu Namiki went out and bought trance music to learn that sound Cave wanted in Espgaluda2; Was that out of his own pocket?
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Last edited by Vert1; Sep 8, 2013 at 11:52 AM.
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Old Sep 8, 2013, 12:37 PM
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VGM seriously needs an equivalent of MTV cribs for its vgm artists.
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Old Sep 8, 2013, 09:10 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Vert1 View Post
I've had this paranoia when backing up cds to an external harddrive. But now I don't think it's that realistic a fear. Has Koshiro ever lost a game's soundtrack before due to this? I don't agree that it's too expensive. How much money do VGM companies spend on funding their artists? I learnt that Manabu Namiki went out and bought trance music to learn that sound Cave wanted in Espgaluda2; Was that out of his own pocket?
I've read of composers losing song data because of HDD failure, so it's possible Yuzo has had that happen as well!

As for the funding, no idea. Although I would have to say that out of all the departments of game development, audio has historically always been given the least amount of resources and time towards it. MIDI was still being used for a lot of games as recent as 7 years ago (Twilight Princess, FF12, etc) I understand it's because of size limitations and not of the composer's will, but it was (and still is) mostly overlooked in development.

Oh, and as for purchasing a PC-88, be sure to get a later model since those are the ones with the YM2608 (earlier models had YM2203). As for what you want to do with it, I'm sure it can be done. Although you want to do it more within the realms of the OS and not directly with the soundchips, there are videos on youtube of people using original chips from the Genesis and Master System and having them played with their keyboards via simple electrical mods.
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  #9  
Old Sep 9, 2013, 08:48 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Yuzo Koshiro
Next, on Sorcerian... That was a challenging title for me. There are 60 tracks in the game, and I composed 39 of them. By that time, I'd already gotten used to programming, so I was at a point where I wanted to create as big a variety of songs as possible. I tried making classical music, jazzy music, pop music... And I was using FM sound sources. My motivation there was to make as many kinds of music as possible, so I was creating as many sound sources as possible. I created 50 to 60 tracks without even slowing down. I just loved making tracks, one after another. So I had easily 50 or 60 tracks of my own, but other people were working on the project as well, so they picked out 39 of mine, and then they used other people's work for the rest of the soundtrack. That was when I was enjoying making game music the most.
Interesting. I wonder if Falcom actually used those unused Sorcerian tracks in other Falcom games or on Sorcerian Additional Scenarios (composed by Mieko Ishikawa). They already did stuff like this with tracks like Battleground or Fair Wind in Ys I and II re-releases.
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  #10  
Old May 17, 2014, 10:57 AM
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Koshiro has been posting versions of his songs using a bunch of interesting physical devices, maybe that could help you.

(though it would be way simpler to stick with a DAW+emu VSTi, I think he uses them as well >>).
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  #11  
Old Jun 11, 2014, 12:03 PM
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If you're interested in similar sounds you might want to check out Alpha Dance II. This sample right here specifically reminded me of BKII: http://synthmania.com/Best%20Service...E%20BEEP11.mp3
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