EGG Music finally availiable to us

[zinger]

Here's the message from hally that I promised him to convey when posting this piece of news here:

Originally Posted by hally

Music download distriution services, especially for PCs, are not going so well in Japan. So Egg Music should be not active recently. Most of music on Egg Music may be too in obscurity. But I'm sure there're tons of (mainly FM synth-based) good music which western people haven't known yet. Please enjoy some previews from more than 8000 songs.

That's more than 8000 songs in high quality MP3 releases from tons of games, many of them from great but obscure or previously unreleased soundtracks. Hally is undoubtably one of the most knowledgeble on the planet when it comes to VGM (as well as video games in general), and has done a fantastic job at EGG Music. It's just wonderful to see all these great soundtracks get the treatment they deserve.

The big news is that they now accept Paypal and have a registration form in English: http://www.amusement-center.com/en/index.shtml
https://www.amusement-center.com/en/user/free.cgi

Although some parts of Project EGG (the games downloading service) are in english, most of EGG Music is not at the moment. It still shouldn't be too hard to navigate with a bit of patience, and perhaps Google Translate at hand.

[Akumu]

Fantastic news!

[Datschge]

Very nice.
Did he tell you about plans to offer EGG Music in English as well? If so, when? I'll need to adapt all links once they do that.

[zinger]

Yes, there seems to be plans to add more information in English in the future, to make it more accessible, but there are no details yet.

[Liontamer]

Originally Posted by zinger

Yes, there seems to be plans to add more information in English in the future, to make it more accessible, but there are no details yet.

I'm sure someone from here would be willing to help those efforts if it was needed.

[Carl]

Originally Posted by zinger

The big news is that they now accept Paypal and have a registration form in English: http://www.amusement-center.com/en/index.shtml
https://www.amusement-center.com/en/user/free.cgi

Awesome!! Great news for chiptune fans.

Tell Hally I said thanks, and that hopefully opening up this option will help boost sales from overseas downloaders. How's his radio podcast with Hayama going? Sounds like they have fun with it =)

I'm gonna browse at those remastered albums and the EGG albums that didn't have OST releases before, and start with a few of those.

[zinger]

Originally Posted by Carl

I'm gonna browse at those remastered albums and the EGG albums that didn't have OST releases before, and start with a few of those.

Here's a tip: the previously unreleased music of Atsuhiro Motoyama (After Burst is excellent, for instance).

[CHz]

Confirming After Burst as awesome, that's near the top of my list of games that don't have an emulated audio archive yet (to my knowledge anyway) but should.

Also this is fabulous news, I could sink so much money into this. I'm especially interested in this one because it's previously unreleased music, and a few arrangements. You can't go wrong with Shinichi Sakamoto.

[Dag]

Does anybody know how these OSTs are created? Are they taken from the original hardware, composer's sources, emulated...?

[zinger]

They are recorded from original hardware.

Another gem on there is IBM PC version of WiBarm. Few are aware of Arsys' western only release of this game, published by Broderbund. It was heavily altered and features a great PSG soundtrack by Toshiya Yamanaka. Who the hell had PSG sound hardware for their PC's, here in the west?!

[Zorbfish]

Might be the first time I'll buy digital releases...

[zinger]

Official news item and further instructions on how to use the service, in english.

The following CD releases from EGG Music are now availiable through VGM World:
DESIRE The Origin -Ryu Umemoto Rare Tracks Vol.2
ECLIPSE The Album -Ryu Umemoto Rare Tracks Vol.1
EVE burst error - THE PERFECT- Ryu Umemoto Rare Tracks Vol.4
Makenaize! Gunleon ~Super Robot Wars Original Sound Collection by Koji Hayama
Psyvariar The Mix
XENON The Origin -Ryu Umemoto Rare Tracks Vol.3

Finally, a problem with the order form at EGG Music has been sorted out, and I've now successfully purchased my first few soundtracks from them.

Service well recommended!

[Akumu]

Now this is slightly off topic, but zinger, do you have plans for shows and concerts this year? I'd love to drive over and be there.

Gonna get all the Assault Suits releases off EGG next week

[zinger]

Thanks for your interest and support Akumu, but doing live shows was pretty much a one-off for me. I can't imagine it happening again soon, not ever actually.

[CHz]

Just bought the Tokeijikake no Aquario Original Soundtrack; PayPal worked without a hitch. Once you purchase an album, you have to manually go back to the album page to download it, you don't get e-mailed a link or anything. A red download button will appear next to every track on the tracklist if you want to grab the tracks one at a time, but you probably want to click the red button above the tracklist where the add-to-cart button once was to download the whole album at once.

Recording quality is great, and the MP3s look like they're encoded in VBR V2. The tracks on Aquario are only single looped; I don't know if that's true for all EGG releases or just this one.

Also, anyone who grabs EGG releases should make sure to fill in track lengths on the album pages here. :V

[Jodo Kast]

I've been waiting to get some EGG music for some time now, mainly because of how much vgm research I used to do. A lot of the soundtracks are familiar, even though I've never heard the music. And purchasing digitally suits me just fine, since I no longer use a standard cd player.

[Carl]

OK, I just loaded up 7 of Keishi Yonao's albums as my first batch purchase.
7 albums for 80 bucks ain't bad.

Smooth sailing, the process goes like this:
1. Login to Amusement Center account
2. Add albums to your cart (click the Green Yen banner to go to your cart)
3. Checkout, selecting Paypal on the 3rd step when prompted for payment type.
4. Finalize/Accept and they'll forward you to your Paypal account to finish.
5. Manually browse to the album's page, now there's Red Buttons there.
6. Click the first center Red Button to download the ZIP containing all tracks.
7. Unzip and enjoy your mp3s!

Download speeds from their server varied between 60kbps~180kbps, the mp3s are VBR
I'll definitely be using this service again (and again...)

[Kewing]

Originally Posted by Zorbfish

Might be the first time I'll buy digital releases...

You're not the only one The music from Misty Blue has grown on me quite a bit lately, so I'm definitely picking the digital release to check out the unreleased tracks.
Slightly off-topic but still, I'd like to know some recommendations: is there any other EGG digital release with music similar to Koshiro's work on Misty Blue? Would be interesting to find some other nice obscure gems

[Ragnatic]

This is my first post and I just bought Zan GEAR Original Soundtracks. I was browsing Sakuraba's website and saw the Amusement Center notice. Browsing through Sakuraba's music, I saw this game and loved its music. I've never played or heard about this game before.

Just wanting to show some appreciation to this project.

[niki]

Originally Posted by CHz

The tracks on Aquario are only single looped; I don't know if that's true for all EGG releases or just this one.

Any word on this guys ? :o

[Carl]

Neural Gear has intro & 2 loops then fade on start of 3rd
Hydefos MSX has 2 loops then fade on start of 3rd
Mad Stalker X68k has 2 loops then fade on start of 3rd

...my OST purchases have been double looped.

Although for works/demo album purchases (the Keishi Yonao Rare Collection ''Yonatan House") it's single pass no fade as they're normal non-game songs using x68k hardware, so it may vary depending on the album type.

Ragnatic: Congrats and thanks for supporting a great service.

[zinger]

Latest EGG Music Purchases, all of them are highly recommended:

Manabu Saito

Euphory Original Soundtracks - A great classic, contains both FM and PSG versions.

Mark Flint Presents Evolution Original Soundtracks - Holy shit this is good! I had never heard of this Sacom game before. It's on the FM Towns. The atmosphere is eerie as hell, not unlike the highlights of Kawamoto's Rayforce. A must have.

Providence - Another one I hadn't heard of before. More Saito goodness, further strengthening his position as one of my absolute favourites. Pure gold.

Atsuhiro Motoyama

L-DIS Original Soundtracks - Great PC-Engine shooter soundtrack. Definetly worth a couple of listens.

Toshiya Yamanaka

Knight Arms - Another classic which I absolutlely love. It's nice to have a real X68000 recording of it.

[Another Soundscape]

Giving this a bump, any more tips to share?

[Rrolack]

It makes me sad that their downloads are MP3 rather than lossless.