VOGONS


First post, by lordskylark

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

If some of you here have some downtime, I am looking for someone to make some high-quality recordings of the music for a few older New World Computing games (mainly Might and Magic) as part of an archive, including my personal friend who composed much of the music. The games were ported to various platforms, so we are trying to get a recording of each version. We understand that emulation is possible, but we are not interested in using emulation, we want a recording made from the original hardware. It would be very expensive and time consuming for us to acquire every single system and learn its operations, especially when some of these soundtracks are incredibly short and some of the systems quite costly. I will monetarily compensate anyone for the time invested.

We can provide images and/or save states for most of these in order to make this as easy as possible without having to play through the entire game.

Needed systems:

AppleIIe (three games: 1 minute + 1 minute + 1 minute) (1987, 1988, 1990)
DOS SoundBlaster 1.5 OPL2 (two games -- was partially completed -- need maybe 45 minutes left) (1991)

(Note: Unless, the specific requests are deleted from the main post, do not consider any requests to be fulfilled yet even if someone has responded, as offers do not always come to fruition.)

Thank you,
Andrew

Last edited by lordskylark on 2020-11-24, 19:54. Edited 16 times in total.

Reply 1 of 21, by MrSmiley381

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

If the game doesn't have any odd speed-sensitive issues, I have an MSX Turbo-R from which I can record. I have a flash cart for it which might make things a bit easier. Only other caveat is that the system supposedly needs a couple of resistor and trace mods to have the best possible audio quality and balance. Sorry I don't have any of those other Japanese computers (yet).

I've also got an Amiga 1200, so if the Amiga game listed will run on that then there's another potential system covered.

It's been a long time since I've done any audio recording but I have enough sense to fiddle with low/high pass filters and check for audio buzz, etc.

I spend my days fighting with clunky software so I can afford to spend my evenings fighting with clunky hardware.

Reply 2 of 21, by lordskylark

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
MrSmiley381 wrote on 2020-03-27, 11:16:

If the game doesn't have any odd speed-sensitive issues, I have an MSX Turbo-R from which I can record. I have a flash cart for it which might make things a bit easier. Only other caveat is that the system supposedly needs a couple of resistor and trace mods to have the best possible audio quality and balance. Sorry I don't have any of those other Japanese computers (yet).

I've also got an Amiga 1200, so if the Amiga game listed will run on that then there's another potential system covered.

It's been a long time since I've done any audio recording but I have enough sense to fiddle with low/high pass filters and check for audio buzz, etc.

Thank you for the reply. I suppose it would be best to update the information with the date of the games.

The Amiga games were release in 1990 and 1992. I'm not sure how the soundcard evolved.
The MSX game is from 1989. My notes say that there are two different sound versions of it - PSG and OPLL. This will require an image, I believe, as I had to hack the game to make some music play without having to make a full run through the game.

I will contact you individually.

Reply 4 of 21, by daikatana_

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Does it have to be Sound Blaster 1.5? Or any card with OPL2 will do? I just got Aztech Sound Galaxy NX working and it sports OPL2.

Game MIDI soundtracks

Retro games and HW reviews

Reply 5 of 21, by xjas

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

If the MSX game can run on an NTSC machine from floppy disk, I can probably do it.

twitch.tv/oldskooljay - playing the obscure, forgotten & weird - most Tuesdays & Thursdays @ 6:30 PM PDT. Bonus streams elsewhen!

Reply 7 of 21, by daikatana_

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Also, I could manage to record PC speaker sound somehow. Best and easiest way should be just a cable with RCA or jack, connected directly to PC speaker and then record the sound with some external device or another computer.

Game MIDI soundtracks

Retro games and HW reviews

Reply 9 of 21, by lordskylark

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
daikatana_ wrote on 2020-04-14, 09:25:

Also, I could manage to record PC speaker sound somehow. Best and easiest way should be just a cable with RCA or jack, connected directly to PC speaker and then record the sound with some external device or another computer.

Don't some older soundcards have a way to run the PC-speaker output itself back into the soundboard with a cord to avoid having to use an external microphone?

Reply 10 of 21, by lordskylark

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
daikatana_ wrote on 2020-04-14, 08:05:

Does it have to be Sound Blaster 1.5? Or any card with OPL2 will do? I just got Aztech Sound Galaxy NX working and it sports OPL2.

The FM versions of the soundtracks were optimized for Sound Blaster 1.5 (or perhaps version 1.0) OPL2. We are trying to get things recorded as close as possible to the actual way that it would have been heard and mixed at the time they were composed.

Reply 11 of 21, by lordskylark

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

The request for the three PC-Speaker games has been fulfilled. Thank you for helping.

I was also informed, that what I actually need for the MSX request is an MSX2 -- both PSG and OPLL versions.

(UPDATE: PSG version of MSX done. Still need MSX2 OPLL version.)

Reply 12 of 21, by lordskylark

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
lordskylark wrote on 2020-03-27, 02:41:
If some of you here have some downtime, I am looking for someone to make some high-quality recordings of the music for a few old […]
Show full quote

If some of you here have some downtime, I am looking for someone to make some high-quality recordings of the music for a few older games for an archive for my personal friend who composed some of the music. The games were ported to various platforms, so we are trying to get a recording of each version. We understand that emulation is possible, but we are not interested in using emulation, we want a recording made from the original hardware. It would be very expensive and time consuming for us to acquire every single system and learn its operations, especially when some of these soundtracks are incredibly short and some of the systems quite costly. I am monetarily compensate anyone for the time invested.

We can provide images and/or save states for most of these in order to make this as easy as possible without having to play through the entire game.

Needed systems:

AppleIIe (three games: 1 minute + 1 minute + 1 minute) (1987, 1988, 1990)
Amiga (two games: 1 minute + 30 minutes) (1990, 1992)
Macintosh OS6(?) (one game: 30 minutes) (1993)
DOS SoundBlaster 1.5 OPL2 (one game: 90 minutes) (1991)

MSX2 (one game: 20 minutes - OPLL version) (1989)
Japanese PC-88 (one game: 20 minutes) (1987)
Japanese PC-98 (ask)
Japanese FM-7 (one game: 20 minutes) (1987)
Japanese FM-Towns (ask)

There may be some more in the future, depending on how soon these can be completed.

(If there's a better forum area to post this request, please let me know.)

(Note: Unless, the specific requests are deleted from the main post, do not consider any requests to be fulfilled yet even if someone has responded, as offers do not always come to fruition.)

Thank you,
Andrew

(EDIT: DONE:
PC-Speaker games
MSX1 game)

Reply 13 of 21, by cyclone3d

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Do you still need the SoundBlaster 1.5 OPL2 stuff done?

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 14 of 21, by lordskylark

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
cyclone3d wrote on 2020-07-01, 16:40:

Do you still need the SoundBlaster 1.5 OPL2 stuff done?

One SoundBlaster 1.5 OPL2 game was done. I only need the other.
Otherwise I still need to find someone for the rest of the games on the list.

Reply 17 of 21, by kreats

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

yeah I can probably do a few of these:

AppleIIe (three games: 1 minute + 1 minute + 1 minute) (1987, 1988, 1990) - got a iie card installed in a lc575 if you need someone else
Amiga (two games: 1 minute + 30 minutes) (1990, 1992) - got a a600 and a a1200 handy
Macintosh OS6(?) (one game: 30 minutes) (1993) - got a few different compact macs
DOS SoundBlaster 1.5 OPL2 (one game: 90 minutes) (1991) - might have one of these around, have to check

got a maudio 1010lt I can feed them into also

Reply 19 of 21, by lordskylark

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Amiga versions are done.
Someone is working on the last Soundblaster title...
Someone is working on the PC-98 & FM-Towns...
I'm in contact with some Japanese who plan to help me in a few month with some of the rare Japanese-only systems. (I didn't necessarily expect to find someone here who had them, but you never know.)

I think AppleIIe is the last system that someone here might be able to realistically help with. Thanks!