PCCB-00306: Blazing Star

[CHz]

Is Seisuke Ito mentioned in the booklet as a composer? I'm asking because Harumi Fujita is solely credited for music in the game credits (2:23). Both GMCL and this Pulstar/Blazing Star reference page give music jointly to Fujita and Ito, so I'm wondering how that got started.

[lgb]

Could be a misinterpretation of sound effects, unless he worked like Kouchi Kyuma.

[Kewing]

I just checked my copy, and indeed both are listed like this:

Composed&Arranged by: Harumi Fujita, Seisuke Ito (STUDIO LAB)

Maybe Fujita was more focused on composition while Ito did the arrangements?

[pepak]

The relevant page from the cover:

[wgangb]

I'd like to buy this soundtrack. However, I'd like to know by someone who already owns this CD, if the tracks are just a dump of the original Cart roms or are instead real original stereo tracks. I'm in love with my Pulstar NGCD, and the CDDA tracks are far more superior quality when compared to the Cart music. I strongly hope Blazing Star have a similar high quality soundtrack.

[Kewing]

Unfortunately, yes, it's just a plain recording from the NeoGeo hardware, and it's rather bad in quality. Unlike many other NeoGeo games that were programmed so that the music would be played back with both the ADPCM and FM sound hardware, each song in Blazing Star is just a single audio file that plays back on the ADPCM sound chip; thus, it sounds even a bit worse than other NeoGeo games.

[pepak]

I am surprised. I have no direct comparison to the original Neo-Geo version, but frequency analysis says the signal goes all the way to 22 kHz - did they really record the music for the game in such a high bitrate?

[wgangb]

Originally Posted by Kewing Darksun

Unfortunately, yes, it's just a plain recording from the NeoGeo hardware, and it's rather bad in quality. Unlike many other NeoGeo games that were programmed so that the music would be played back with both the ADPCM and FM sound hardware, each song in Blazing Star is just a single audio file that plays back on the ADPCM sound chip; thus, it sounds even a bit worse than other NeoGeo games.

Thank you for clearing out my doubts! This is a bad news indeed.
Maybe we should try to contact Mr. Fujita @ Studio Lab. Blazing Star is a breathtaking soundtrack and shouldn't deserve the bad quality of an ADPCM encoding. Meanwhile, I will spend my money on another soundtrack of my to-buy list.

[Kewing]

Indeed it's a shame, I think it would actually benefit from better quality.

Originally Posted by pepak

I am surprised. I have no direct comparison to the original Neo-Geo version, but frequency analysis says the signal goes all the way to 22 kHz - did they really record the music for the game in such a high bitrate?

I can't tell you a definite and technical answer but it does sound like the actual ingame music. Makes you think they may only have done a line-in recording or something, and that's it.

[LuxKiller65]

What's the difference between 1st and 2nd press? Bit confused by the scans/photos of this one.

[suicider]

The tiny yellow portion on the obi which reads Super Picture CD (スーパーピクチャーCD). Kinda dumb since the 2nd press is a picture disc too

[Phonograph]

some translations on vgmdb for 中間デモ give
-> intermission, midway, middle, interim, intermediate, (companion linked to other kanjis), mid, temporary

maybe that it should be cleaned

[LuxKiller65]

dang thanks.
so it's like r-type delta, where both are picture cds, but the 1st press has a few more... colours. lol.
they're both pccb-003xx so it makes sense