Pixelated Audio

We're joined today by Emily Reese; Minnesota Public Radio newscaster, VGM podcast legend and co-creator of the Level with Emily Reese and Top Score podcasts with Sam Keenan.

She is a trumpet player, and studied music education and jazz studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder and received her master’s degree in Music Theory from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Emily is an avid gamer (RPGs and FPS games are a favorite), and a lover of music with jazz and classical in particular.

Today's show began as an interview with Emily but quickly turned into the three of us talking shop about the inner workings of creating the best possible podcast. All the discussion of audio editing and interview planning you can handle, as well as some career highlights from the trio. It's not our typical show format, but we had a great time talking with a fellow podcast host and kindred spirit.

 

Emily started her radio career in 2005 and began working at Minnesota Public Radio in 2008, where she and Sam created Top Score in 2011. Top Score was one of the earliest and most prominent video game music podcasts which featured interviews with some of the most famous composers in the industry. It ushered in an era of mainstream game music appreciation, as well as being a huge inspiration to many aspiring VGM podcasters including us here at Pixelated Audio! After Top Score ended in 2015, Emily and Sam created a new podcast to carry the torch, Level with Emily Reese, which focuses on broader game audio topics including composers, sound designers, voiceover actors and performers. Her vast musical and audio knowledge make Emily's interviews with composers and audio professionals some of the most in-depth around.

If you'd like to hear more, check out Level with Emily Reese, which currently has over 200 episodes and releases on an almost weekly cadence. The show can be found on their website, on YouTube, on your favorite podcast platform, or on their Patreon page.

To learn more about Emily and Sam's other projects, check out their company page Joon Media.

Track List:

0:00:03 "Towhee Grove" Oxenfree - by scntfc

0:14:49 "Welcome Home" The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human - by Karl Flodin

0:29:23 "Star Forge" Straylight - Rob Kovacs

0:44:11 "Lauren Winter's Theme" Heavy Rain - by Normand Corbeil

1:08:32 "Anka" Signs of the Sojourner - by Steve Pardo

How do you do justice describing Brian Schmidt's contribution to gaming? His impact on the global trajectory of games has been immense. There's no doubt in our minds that Brian is one of the most important figures in videogame history, and we couldn't be more honored to have him joining us on the show. This next paragraph is only a portion of what Brian has been up to for the last 35 years or so.

Brian Schmidt began his career in games at Williams around 1987. He soon began working on music and sound programming on iconic pinball games like Swords of Fury and Black Knight 2000, as well as the infamous arcade game NARC. He later went freelance and worked on mechanical and redemption games, dozens of licensed pinball games like Data East's Batman and many for Sega. Fun fact: the 1991 Batman pinball game was the first to use Brian's BSMT2000 hardware board designed for sample playback which went on to see use in pinball games for around 10 years. He then went to Electronic Arts and did sound for a ton of console games like Crüe Ball, Desert Strike, Mutant League Football and a variety of sports games. He contracted with QSound to work on 3D imaging in stereo sound and helped create the hardware used for in a number of games, including many Capcom CPS2 arcade machines. Eventually he moved onto Microsoft where he created the audio architecture for the Xbox and Xbox 360, as well as creating the OG Xbox startup sound. In 2009 he created GameSoundCon, the premier conference for industry professionals to learn how to write and implement music for games. He has been the current president of Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.) for over a decade, an network of audio professionals based around growing the influence and legitimacy of video game music globally. G.A.N.G. along with many other groups paved the way for the recent acceptance of videogame music as a Grammy category. He's currently the audio director and composer for Digital Dreams Entertainment's recent games Mutant Football League 1 and 2, spiritual successors to the EA games he worked on all those years ago.

We had the privilege of talking with Brian about his entire career in games from the very beginning to the present. We cover tons of FM music, pinball, NARC, the Pixies, QSound, EA Games, the Xbox, and his current work on Mutant Football League. This is definitely an episode to catch and we are absolutely thrilled to share it with everyone. If you'd like to learn more about Brian, check out Brian Schmidt Studios where you can see his game credits among many other things.

Track List:

All tracks composed by Brian Schmidt unless otherwise stated

0:00:02 Space Station - Main Theme (Pinball - 1987)

0:06:25 Swords of Fury - Pre-launch, Main Theme, Ball Lock, Two Ball Lock (Pinball - 1988)

0:13:05 (Excerpt) "Lionman vs. Balrog" Swords of Fury cover by Stemage

0:26:58 Black Knight 2000 - Main Theme (Pinball - 1989) co-composed with Steve Ritchie

0:37:42 Black Knight 2000 - Multi-ball composed by Dan Forden

0:39:23 NARC - The Stick (aka K.R.A.K. Street) (Arcade - 1988)

0:46:23 (Excerpt) "Theme From Narc" cover by the Pixies

0:48:22 Batman - Main Theme (Pinball - 1991)

0:55:09 Checkpoint - Jazz (Pinball - 1991)

0:58:11 Checkpoint - Classical

0:59:39 Checkpoint - Rap

1:01:13 (Bedding) Checkpoint - Soul

1:04:56 (Excerpt) "Virtual Haircut" binaural audio demo by QSound

1:07:03 Crüe Ball - Stage 6 (Genesis - 1992)

1:10:59 Desert Strike - Main Theme (Genesis - 1992)

1:13:43 Madden 95 - Halftime (SNES - 1994)

1:19:14 Madden 97 - Menu (PS1 - 1996)

1:21:08 NBA Live 97 - Song 3 (Genesis - 1996)

1:28:23 Xbox startup sound (Xbox - 2001)

1:46:16 Mutant Football League - Cold Steel and Ice (Various - 2017)

Big thanks to ctr for his work on QSound support and ValleyBell for help with Checkpoint/Batman audio dumps. Appreciate it!

Today we're joined by composer and graphics artist Robert Vroemisse for Angelic Warrior DEVA, a modern indie game for the MSX2 released in 2020. Together we talk about the game, the development process, Team DEVA and gaming in the Dutch MSX scene.

Angelic Warrior DEVA is a fast-paced, tough as nails action RPG for the MSX2 created by Team DEVA; made up of Robert Vroemisse (pronounced "Fru-miss-uh") on graphics and most music, John Hassink another MSX scene legend on additional music, and Bart van Velzen the mad lad behind the coding of the project.

Robert Vroemisse who typically works on graphics is the main composer out of necessity but what a killer job he did. The soundtrack is absolutely jam packed with amazing music written for the combo of MSX-AUDIO (OPL1) and MSX-MUSIC (OPLL) and we couldn't be happier to talk with Robert about it.

For more info about Robert check out his MSX.org profile. For the soundtrack to DEVA itself, you can listen to it on Robert's YouTube, on VGMRips, or for download on MSX.org.

For more music by John Hassink, check out his YouTube channel

To purchase Angelic Warrior DEVA, either email Team DEVA frantically for a physical copy or buy it digitally here.

Tadahiro Nitta's album Coordimates with cover art by Robert

Track List:

All songs composed by Robert Vroemisse unless otherwise stated

0:00:00 Title Screen

0:00:29 DEVA Audio Test Menu

0:11:33 Area I - VR testing facility

0:22:00 Introduction Demo II

0:27:01 Area II - Sky Aquaducts

0:35:56 Boss Theme

0:41:53 Area III - Geyser Plains - by John Hassink

0:46:12 Area IV - Plasma Factory

0:53:53 Area VII - Construction Site

0:59:11 (Excerpt) Construction Site rearranged

1:03:42 Area VIII - Death Zone - by John Hassink

1:12:32 Mid Demo II

1:15:58 Area X - Arctic Mines

1:24:39 Shop Theme (Neutral)

1:28:11 Shop Theme (Bad)

1:29:23 Shop Theme (Good)

1:36:09 End Demo II

1:40:27 Game Over

We're back with another stellar euro platformer, this time in the form of Wolfchild, developed by Core Design. Your father Kal Morrow, expert in genetic research and creation of human-animal hybrids, has been kidnapped and the rest of your family was brutally murdered by the terrorist organization CHIMERA. You take control of his surviving son Saul to exact revenge against CHIMERA and their leader Karl Draxx.

Core Design is best known for their work on the first few Tomb Raider games, as well as other games like Rick Dangerous, Jaguar XJ220 and the Fighting Force series.

Simon Phipps, one of the early members of core and a lead graphic designer on Wolfchild published a great article on his website which is where we gathered a lot of the information for this episode. He talks about the origin of the game, the inspiration for its design (Strider, Island of Dr. Moreau, etc) and some notes about animation and the various releases.

Music this time around is handled by Martin Iveson on the original Amiga, Atari ST and later reimagined Mega CD version, with the Genesis, Game Gear and Master System covered by Pixelated Audio veteran Matt Furniss, and down porting duties from the Mega CD to SNES by Steve Collett. There's more good music than you can shake a stick at across the 7 different platforms and we hope you enjoy it!

Track List:

0:00:00 Stage Select (Mega CD)

0:02:08 Title (Amiga)

0:10:11 Title (Atari ST)

0:15:33 Title (Genesis)

0:24:05 Wolfship (Amiga)

0:29:15 Wolfship (Genesis)

0:33:22 (excerpt) Wolfship (Mega CD)

0:33:48 (excerpt) Wolfship (SNES)

0:34:10 (Bedding) Wolfship (Mega CD)

0:35:23 Jungle (Amiga)

0:42:04 Jungle (Genesis)

0:47:23 Jungle (Mega CD)

0:54:36 Temple (Amiga)

0:59:03 Temple (Genesis)

1:02:19 Temple (SNES)

1:05:59 Stage 4 - Chimera Base (Genesis)

1:08:25 Final Stage - Chimera Base (Amiga)

1:12:41 Final Stage - Inner Core (Mega CD)

1:17:09 Ending (Game Gear)

1:19:23 Ending (Mega CD)

1:23:01 Ending (Amiga)

Wolfchild

Amiga, Atari ST (1992) Mega CD (1993) Composed by Martin Iveson

Sega Genesis, Game Gear, Master System (1993) Re-arranged by Matt Furniss

SNES (1993) Adapted from Mega CD by Steve Collett

Today we're joined by industry legend Neil Biggin in an absolutely massive show! Neil regales us with hilarious stories as we cover a wide range of his electronic music during his time at Gremlin Graphics from about 1992-1996. He walks us through some memories of landmark events during the 16 and 32-bit eras: the launch of the CD32, the first days of the Playstation, and being at a company with one of the world's first motion capture studios.

Neil Biggin began his career with Zool 2 on Amiga, and continued with games like the CD32 versions of Zool 1 and 2 and Top Gear 2, Top Gear 3000, the Actua (or VR) sports games, Loaded, Re-Loaded, a number of FIFA games from 1997-2000, and music porting duties for the Desert/Jungle Strike games. His earliest works are teeming with the lovely sounds of Rave and House music, but as his sound progresses he gets deeper into other genres like Metal, Jungle, Drum and Bass and much more. Whether you're new to his work or an old fan, Neil's music continues to sound great to this day.

Neil is also in the process of re-releasing much of his music. Check out his Spotify as more gradually starts appearing over the coming months. He's also working on the latest iteration of the Amiga Immortal album series where Amiga legends like himself, Barry Leitch and many others come together to remaster their own works for modern audiences.

Neil's Links:

Spotify | SoundCloud | Twitter

The kooky song that Neil was thinking of was indeed Martian Hop by the Ran-Dells, a kitsch classic that's still pretty entertaining today.

Track List:

All tracks composed by Neil Biggin unless otherwise stated. Tracks marked with a * indicate previews, newly released tracks or exclusive unreleased material shared from Neil.

0:00:00 Zool 2 - Mount Ices (Amiga)

0:08:09 (Bedding) Zool 2 - Bulberry Hill (Amiga)

0:12:38 Zool - Track 6 (CD32)

0:25:51 Top Gear 2 - Track 1 (CD32)

0:33:18 Top Gear 3000 - Track 2 (SNES)

0:40:15 (Bedding) Top Gear 3000 - Track 3 (SNES)

0:44:32 (Excerpt) Zool 2 - Bulberry Hill (Remaster)*

0:44:54 (Bedding) Desert Strike - Title (DOS - Adlib)

0:47:57 (Bedding) Jungle Strike - TItle (SNES)

0:50:07 Bedding) Jungle Strike - The Madman's Son (SNES)

0:51:00 (SFX) Jungle Strike (SNES)

0:51:43 Premier Manager 3 - Title (Amiga)

0:59:48 Loaded - Track 6 (PS1)

1:14:24 Zool 2 - Tooting Common (CD32), demo also used in Loaded as a hidden track

1:19:48 Actua Golf - Main Menu (SAT)

1:26:19 Actua Golf - Options (SAT)*

1:38:59 Re-Loaded - Purpid (PS1)

1:59:40 Shoot For Loot - Title Theme (Arcade)*

2:01:22 Shoot For Loot - Track 5 (Arcade)*

2:15:54 Hardcore 4x4 Flea's Dreams (PS1 - Unreleased OST)*

Going back to the NES we get The Guardian Legend, a curiousity developed by Compile that is best described as Zelda plus Zanac. Originally released in 1988 for the NES, The Guardian Legend or "Guardic Gaiden" is the pseudo sequel to MSX game Guardic from 1986. While the developers insist there's no story links between the games, there's enough gameplay and music shared between the two that we decided to play a lot of Guardic music for comparison.

The music was composed by two individuals: Masatomo Miyamoto and Takeshi Santo. Masatomo Miyamoto worked with Compile from around 1985-1990 and soonafter left the game industry. Takeshi Santo worked as a sound programmer at Compile from 1987-1989 and then went off to found Sting where he's spent most of his career in a producer capacity.

The Guardian Legend (NES) - 1988 | Guardic (MSX) - 1986

Composed by Masatomo Miyamoto (both games) and Takeshi Santo (TGL only)

Track List:

0:00:04 Title Screen

0:03:16 Approaching NAJU

0:05:16 Boss Theme 1

0:06:58 Message Room

0:12:18 Main BGM (MSX)

0:14:05 NAJU Overworld

0:19:39 Empty Room

0:21:04 Title (MSX) | Password & Outer Space (NES)

0:23:19 Oceanic Area Overworld

0:24:20 Oceanic Area Corridor

0:25:29 Name Entry (MSX)

0:28:44 Boss Theme 2

0:30:27 Corridor Done (NES) | Stage Selection (MSX)

0:31:43 Randar (MSX) | Blue Randar Room (NES)

0:32:57 Forest Area Overworld

0:39:37 Forest Area Corridor

0:43:10 Stellar Area Overworld

0:44:13 Stellar Area Corridor

0:53:01 Organic Area Corridor

0:56:13 Wasteland Area Overworld

0:57:16 Wasteland Area Corridor

0:59:19 Boss (MSX) | Boss Theme 3 (NES)

1:00:48 Last Corridor

1:03:31 (Bedding) Ending (MSX)

1:04:02 Ending

The Guardian Legend (NES) - composed by Masatomo Miyamoto and Takeshi Santo

VGMrips credit to NewRisingSun

Guardic (MSX) - composed by Masatomo Miyamoto, sound programming by Takayuki Hirono

VGMrips credit to GTheGuardian

Today we're joined by composer and indie game developer Timmie aka DDRKirby(ISQ) to talk about their music for Super Mega Zero, an awesome fast-paced puzzle platformer for PC and Switch. We also spend a good deal of time talking about DDRKirby's work in the indie game scene, as well as their upcoming game Rhythm Quest which sounds amazing.

Super Mega Zero was developed by Silkworm and Rogue Games and released in April of 2022, it's a mix of VVVVVV and Celeste, so fans of those games will feel right at home. Pick up your copy on Steam or Switch, you'll be glad you did!

DDRKirby has been involved in composition and indie game development for a long while and their signature "9-bit" style is on full display here. If you like what you hear, check out more from the links below:

Website | YouTube | Patreon

Bandcamp | Super Mega Zero OST

Rhythm Quest | Discord

Links to some of the other things mentioned

Kat Jia's website featuring her wonderful art

Cocoa Moss - DDRKirby and Kat's game studio

One Hour Compo (OHC) - The weekly music competition that DDRKirby has participated in for years

Ludum Dare - The game jam competition website

Episode Track List:

All music composed by DDRKirby(ISQ) from Super Mega Zero unless otherwise stated

0:00:05 Super Mega Zero

0:04:03 Cyclic Oscillations

0:12:28 Pursuit of Infinity

0:19:54 Irrational Space

0:30:27 I Love The Sky (arranged) - From Kiwis Can't Fly

0:41:07 Null Terminator

0:52:30 Tritonal Tribulations

1:04:05 Infinity

1:17:16 Midnight Marauder

1:27:41 Sequential Success

Kicking off the new year with a Famicom banger! Uchuu Keibitai SDF is a vertical shooter released by HAL Laboratory in 1990 for the Japanese market only. While the game leaves a bit to be desired, the soundtrack is great and definitely worth exploring. It was composed by HAL veterans, Jun Ishikawa (known for Kirby Super Star, Alcahest, and Hyper Zone) and Hideki Kanazashi (known for F1-Race, Mach Rider, Eggerland, Rollerball, and Adventures of Lolo). Great music and plenty of space babies to keep it interesting.

Uchuu Keibitai SDF (宇宙警備隊 SDF)

Famicom - 1990 HAL Laboratory

Composed by Jun Ishikawa & Zap Rodeo (aka Hideki Kanazashi)

Track List:

00:06 Start Demo

02:24 Stage 1

07:03 Boss

08:08 Stage 2

10:13 Stage 3

15:47 Stage 4

18:06 Stage 5

22:48 Stage 6

25:30 Stage 7

31:19 Unknown

33:45 Final Boss

36:49 Ending

Uchuu Keibitai SDF @ VGMrips #credit to GTheGuardian

Following up our last show on CANYON.MID, we're joined by the artist that closed out the show, Austin Green. Austin is a guitarist and leader of the band WASD. We're going all in on PC game music today with a mix of Austin's favorites as well as PC game music covers from his recently released album Escape.

For more info about Austin and WASD, check out the following links:

Linktree | Bandcamp

Don't forget to catch WASD live at MAGFest 2023

January 5-8, 2023 (Thursday to Sunday)

Episode Track List:

0:00:00 Jazz Be Damned - Jazz Jackrabbit 2 (1998) - Alexander Brandon

0:05:33 Welcome to Fyrestone - Borderlands (2009) - Jesper Kyd

0:15:03 Fyrestone (WASD cover) - Borderlands (2009) - Jesper Kyd

0:21:37 Progressive - The Incredible Machine 3 (1995) - Chris Stevens, Tim Clarke, Jan Paul Moorhead

0:25:30 Programmable Rock (WASD cover) - The Incredible Machine 3 (1995) - Chris Stevens, Tim Clarke, Jan Paul Moorhead

0:36:23 Brain Freeze - Command and Conquer: Yuri’s Revenge (2001) - Frank Klepacki

0:42:29 Buy Mode 1 - The Sims (2000) - Jerry Martin, Marc Russo

0:47:02 Goin' Down the Fast Way - Rise of the Triad (Christmas 1994) - Lee Jackson, Bobby Prince

0:54:16 The Cathedral - Heretic (1994) - Kevin Schilder

0:57:56 Blighted Sanctuary (WASD cover) - Heretic (1994) - Kevin Schilder

1:07:55 Baba Yetu - Civilization IV (2005) - Christopher Tin

1:14:51 Stand the Test of Time (WASD cover) - Civilization IV (2005) - Christopher Tin

Today we're talking about one of early PC computing's most iconic songs, "Trip Through the Grand Canyon" also known as "CANYON.MID" with none other than the composer himself, George Stone! We take a trip down memory lane and discuss how the song was written, how it ended up on millions of PCs around the world starting with Windows 3.0, and its status as a song that remains beloved to this day.

George Stone is a multi-talented jazz musician who has been active for over 35 years; he's a performer, composer, arranger, and long-time professor at Cuesta College (Music, Recording Arts, Jazz performance/arrangement/composition). In addition to teaching and live performance, George recently did orchestration and arrangement for the 2022 film Amsterdam. After our interview, George was kind enough to send us a number of gifts that bring us joy: a signed PDF copy of CANYON.MID for Bryan and Gene to cherish (yes really), an unreleased MIDI from 1991 which we included in the show, the above charming side-by-side photo of George 30 years apart (1991 to 2021) as well as a screenshot showing some of the original musical cues he worked on way back when!

We checked our facts and sorry George, we forgot to credit you specifically in our talk at the Library of Congress, continuing the unfortunate trend (whoops). Hopefully this episode serves as a decent apology and as always, we hope our listeners enjoy the story and the music as much as we do!

Special thanks to virt (aka Jake Kaufman), "The Smash Brothers" and the band WASD for their lovely arrangements of the classic CANYON.MID

All tracks composed by George Stone unless otherwise stated

00:00 CANYON.MID - full title 'Trip Through the Grand Canyon'

07:40 CANYON.MID arranged by virt (YouTube)

20:31 Untitled cue from 1991

35:33 CANYON.MID (excerpt) performed at MAGFest 7 by the Smash Brothers (YouTube)

48:03 CANYON.MID performed by the band WASD from the album C:\WINDOWS\MEDIA

LINKS

George Stone

Bio on Hal Leonard website

George Stone Big Band - on Discogs

Other mentions mentioned

Passport Designs - the company that started it all

Amsterdam (film) - wiki page

Texting and Driving - album by Dave Tull

Libretto jazz club website in Paso Robles