Apple II music?
limtc
Is there any Apple II-related music that once you hear it, you are
reminded of Apple II? I am more familiar with Apple IIGS related one,
like FTA songs (Delta Demo, Modulae, etc) or Diversi Tune, but I am
not sure are there any Apple II related one.
If there are such music, anybody has recorded them?
Bill Buckels
"limtc" <thye...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Is there any Apple II-related music that once you hear it, you are reminded
>of Apple II?
IMO there is not. Back in those days it was considered pretty cool by "the
common man" to play songs through the speaker. Sound cards were pretty much
unaffordable by "the common man" and a non-standard luxury so until the GS
unless you owned a C64 with a SID chip or had a load of midi gear or a big
fat wallet the music was just speaker clicks.
Here, have a look here:
http://www.aztecmuseum.ca/Rando33.pdf
Those who have been around computing for awhile will remember that with the
exception of Sakura (Japanese Folk Melody) and Scales, that the songs in
Rando are the same songs featured in the IBM Basic Program:
The IBM Personal Computer Music Scroll
Version 1.00 (C)Copyright IBM Corp 1981
Licensed Material - Program Property of IBM
One of my early IBM-PC C programming efforts was to convert music from BASIC
programs with sound or play statements to sound files of my own design. This
old program from IBM is in fact the program that the songs that you will
hear in Rando originated from. After the initial conversion to my own file
format with whatever adjustments that my IBM program made to do so. They
have then gone through my IBM to Apple II conversion utility SND2APP.
JJ Sonick
Yes, Adventure Construction Set's theme music (no sound card
necessary!)
And Ultima IV's music - heard on my friend's IIe back at the time - he
had a Mockingboard.
I have a Mockingboard clone now, and recorded a bit of that music
(still need to re-do the recording in stereo):
http://www.mozomedia.com/apple2/2008/11/the-mockingboard-sings/
Josh
Josh
JJ Sonick
You can hear the ACS music here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7Ypc77jlkk
Polymorph
Music that I will always remember include:
* the music from Speedway Classic (the marching band music)
* the music from Piccadilly Pair
* the music from Karateka (especially the finale)
* the music from Summer Games
There are probably others, but they're the ones that spring instantly
to mind. :-)
Cheers,
Mike
Nick Westgate
> * the music from Karateka (especially the finale)
Good point - the intro music does some low notes that seem to resonate
with the case, making them bigger and louder than the usual pips and
squeaks the II makes.
Also for me, the polyphonic theme for Bruce Lee.
Cheers,
Nick.
Michael J. Mahon
> "limtc" <thye...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Is there any Apple II-related music that once you hear it, you are reminded
>> of Apple II?
>
> IMO there is not. Back in those days it was considered pretty cool by "the
> common man" to play songs through the speaker. Sound cards were pretty much
> unaffordable by "the common man" and a non-standard luxury so until the GS
> unless you owned a C64 with a SID chip or had a load of midi gear or a big
> fat wallet the music was just speaker clicks.
I'm proud to say that I've had a hand in changing that! ;-)
Check out SOUND.EDITOR, RT.SYNTH, or SYNTH on my website. They all
produce full-flavored sound from the 1-bit speaker (or cassette port).
In fact, you really need to attach headphones or an external speaker
to hear all the sound.
Of course, that doesn't really address the OP's question--sounds
that we are likely to associate with the Apple II.
Though it isn't "music", I find the Apple II "beep" to be instantly
recognizable when I hear it coming from a back room in a dentist's
office, for example. Just as I instantly recognize the sound of a
C. Itoh dot matrix printer. ;-)
-michael
NadaNet 3.0 for Apple II parallel computing!
Home page: http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon/
"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."
Don
Since the 8-bit Apple II's had limited musical/sound capabilities, any
music that is played will likely remind you of the Apple II. No other
machine's music played like the Apple II's did. While many people
will look at the limited music capabilities as a minus, it was also
unique. :)
As far as music that stands out, a few things come to mind:
I just reviewed Marble Madness last month for Retrogaming Times
Monthly. I've always found the 8-bit version's music entertaining and
catchy.
I also remember Bruce Lee (Datasoft) had some cool music.
Unfortunately, it appears I couldn't hear the music via the AppleWin
emulator. However, I saw from the splash screen that the music was
created by Electric Duet, so there were actually two voices instead of
the typical one.
Lastly, I had a Phasor card in my Apple IIe. The card included some
songs off a disk and one of my favorites was "Popcorn" (figures since
I like dance / trance type music). Among the other songs I liked that
could be played via a sound card was something from Ultima V. :)
Don
mdj
Whenever I hear Mozart's Sonata for Piano 16, I'm immediately reminded
of the 2 voice rendition that was supplied with the Apple IIc on the
"Apple at Play" disk.
Matt
winstonsmith
> Bill Buckels wrote:
> > "limtc" <thyech...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> Is there any Apple II-related music that once you hear it, you are reminded
> >> of Apple II?
>
> > IMO there is not. Back in those days it was considered pretty cool by "the
> > common man" to play songs through the speaker. Sound cards were pretty much
> > unaffordable by "the common man" and a non-standard luxury so until the GS
> > unless you owned a C64 with a SID chip or had a load of midi gear or a big
> > fat wallet the music was just speaker clicks.
>
> I'm proud to say that I've had a hand in changing that! ;-)
>
> Check out SOUND.EDITOR, RT.SYNTH, or SYNTH on my website. They all
> produce full-flavored sound from the 1-bit speaker (or cassette port).
> In fact, you really need to attach headphones or an external speaker
> to hear all the sound.
>
> Of course, that doesn't really address the OP's question--sounds
> that we are likely to associate with the Apple II.
>
> Though it isn't "music", I find the Apple II "beep" to be instantly
> recognizable when I hear it coming from a back room in a dentist's
> office, for example.
Just as I always suspect it will be followed by a Disk ][ powering-up
to a chatter!
limtc
> Music that I will always remember include:
> * the music from Speedway Classic (the marching band music)
> * the music from Piccadilly Pair
> * the music from Karateka (especially the finale)
> * the music from Summer Games
Of the few that is mentioned in this thread, only Speedway Classic and
Karateka I can remembered... any place where we can find the real
sound recording from the Apple II? or even MIDI files of those?
Polymorph
I don't know of anywhere off hand, but it *should* be fairly simple to
record the music by running these games in an emulator and recording
the output?
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
Mike
Zero dB
Great apps btw. I'm working them into the 8-bit portion of my studio
where the mssiah (c64 sid synth/seq) resides, and now the apple II
has a dedicated i/o fader as well. Not to mention the incredible
sounds posted on your site from the apple crate II :) I need one of
THOSE in my studio!! :)
-Jayson
jayson dot removethis anderson at gmail
BLuRry
My favorites:
Paul Lutus' Electronic Duet music disk, Ghostbusters (opening), Archon
(opening), Rad Warrior, Bob Bishop's Applevision, Tass Times in Tone
Town, Ultima 5 soundtrack
And one of my all time favorites, Ball Blazer -- there's a fun remix
of it done by Romeo Knight and mixed with Beastie Boys' "All
Lifestyles in shapes and forms":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVMMB5cI4Sk
The sound effects in Buck Rodgers were pretty cool back in the day
too...
-B
Simon D. Williams
> Of the few that is mentioned in this thread, only Speedway Classic and
> Karateka I can remembered... any place where we can find the real
> sound recording from the Apple II? or even MIDI files of those?
Speedway Classic theme is here:
http://eightbitsoundandfury.ld8.org/audio.html
There's also a few samples of mockingboard stuff that you might find
interesting
] SIMON D WILLIAMS
limtc
Can you add in some of the music recommend in this thread? Thanks!
Simon D. Williams
> Can you add in some of the music recommend in this thread? Thanks!
What's posted is pretty much what I have... unfortunately at the moment I
don't really have time to go hunting for stuff :(
] SIMON D WILLIAMS
Craig Bower
And Spare Change's jukebox when you feed it a token.
Instantly conjures up images of the Apple II when I hear them.
Cheers,
Craig
ict@ccess
music world.
Catchy little tunes.
Rob
Michael J. Mahon
I just realized that the AppleVision music is in that category... ;-)
Gary
that's the game we got right after we got our sound card.
bloomer_au
in several quite expressive modes. There were the pure tones (1 note
at a time), the mewly tones (Karateka, The Goonies - 1 note at a time,
but with constant expression changes) then the 2-voice timbres of
Electric Duet, and even more voices than that with Music Construction
Set (though I don't think they were 'genuine' in their 3 voices etc.
the way Duet was genuine with 2). I'm not aware that anything as
organic sounding was ever wrangled out of the pure tones of a PC
speaker or any other computer with 1-bit sound.
There's also a gent on this list (sorry, forget name) who devised an
even better method of 1-bit sampling, and has a program you can run on
your apple iie which will play unbelievably good sounding string
samples (EG Cello) as you tap keys.
Re: games to mention, I think you guys have already mentioned most of
the cool music, but here's my own reprise, including such technical
terms as 'mewly' ;)
- Prince of Persia (the whole score) (2+ voices, exotic - awesome!)
- Karateka (the whole score) (1 voice, mewly)
- Goonies intro (1 voice, mewly, tortured cover of Cyndi Lauper's
theme song)
- Archon intro (2 voices, very petite sounding but cool track)
- Bruce Lee (2 voices, v cool intro)
- Adventure Construction Set (pure tones, a soundtrack with 30
different pieces, all good compositions)
- Summer/Winter/World Games (2+ voices, the national anthems of many
countries)
- Lucifer's Realm (intro is 2-voice menuet from Electric Duet)
- Gremlins (opens with boxy 2 voice rendition of Jerry Goldsmith's
theme song)
- Microwave (cool in-game soundtrack, including Cantina from Star
Wars)
- Jungle Hunt (1 voice, neat theme song and new game riff)
- Bard's Tales (1-2 voices, 6-7 bard songs in each of 3 games)
- Electric Duet (Tool used to create 2 voice music, disk comes with
probably 30 classical+pop covers)
-Ghostbusters
*In some cases, what took all CPU time on the Apple was hearable all
the time in-game on the Commodore 64, and that always pissed me off
after I returned from playing such a game at a friend's house. So for
instance on the apple, you'd hear the ghostbusters theme at the start
only, but on the C64 it played all the way through. Same goes for -
Zorro (unexciting music anyway)
Rocky Horror Show (ugh - the apple version is almost silent! no in-
game Time Warp!)
lyricalnanoha
> *In some cases, what took all CPU time on the Apple was hearable all
> the time in-game on the Commodore 64, and that always pissed me off
> after I returned from playing such a game at a friend's house. So for
> instance on the apple, you'd hear the ghostbusters theme at the start
> only, but on the C64 it played all the way through. Same goes for -
MockingBoard FTW. The version of Pitfall II I have supports a
MockingBoard in slot 5; if installed, you get the same BGM you hear on the
Atari, Commodore, etc.
Pity it wasn't more common.
-uso.
sfahey
Re: Re: Apple II music?
By: lyricalnanoha to comp.sys.apple2 on Mon Sep 14 2009 02:55 am
> MockingBoard FTW. The version of Pitfall II I have supports a
> MockingBoard in slot 5; if installed, you get the same BGM you hear on the
> Atari, Commodore, etc.
And now, I have that tune in my head and can't get it to stop.
Sean Fahey
www.a2central.com
bbs.a2central.com