Why is the music in some PCE Rpgs so mediocre???

[ddd1234]

I've played through Neo Metal Fantasy (great RPG BTW, very underrated), and currently trying to tackle Tenshi no Uta (Not bad so far).

While, these RPGS deliver the graphics and the game play, the music is sadly lacking. I only found 2-3 tracks in NMF worthy of being called decent, and rest mostly forgettable. The music in T.N.U. isn't any better, and features the most obnoxious battle theme I've ever heard in a RPG.

In other words, the music merely gets the job done.

Are there any PCE RPGs that have exceptional music? At least something comparable to Lufia 2, PS IV, Dungeon explorer, and DQ 5.

[Black Tiger]

TM/FEOE Manjimaru and Kabukiden, Ys I - IV, Benkei Gaiden, Dragon Slayer, LoX I & II,

[SignOfZeta]

Tengai Makyo II has one of the best soundtracks of all time. Usually anything from Falcom is very good, all the PCE Ys games, for example.

[Arkhan]

alot of PCE cd games fall victim to early 90s fail. 

It's all like crap you'd hear as a demonstration on a toy piano.

I think they should've had moar chiptunes.

[grahf]

I just started playing Anearth Fantasy Stories again, and some of the music is pretty cool. You can tell they tried to add a little originality to each area, and most of the tracks match really well. There are a few duds, but for the most part the soundtrack is nice.

[ddd1234]

Kabuki Den music is good from what I heard. Have yet to try Anearth stories.

[blueraven]

Check out the 2 Xanadu games.

I agree with the "NEEDS MOAR CHIPTUNES" argument. A lot of ppl (programmers) forgot about it when redbook came out.

[nodtveidt]

That's what happens when you hope to ride a gimmick rather than finding a talented musician. Making it a chiptune won't increase the quality of the track, and making it redbook doesn't necessarily mean it'll be any good. The medium isn't the problem; the intent and skill is the problem.

[SignOfZeta]

Chiptunes had zero hipster douchebad retro scene back then. They were seen as limited, as opposed to CDROM which was/is only limited by the fact that its stereo. While its common to get caught up in the charm of chiptunes, they are kind of a one trick pony, especially when it comes to RPGs where you often want something that sounds more classical and analog.

Like The Old Rover said, if you can make good chiptunes you can make good redbook. You can do anything with redbook, including recording PSG onto it. You want a dual PSG chip Arkhan? Well, this could be done on CD with some clever mixing. Its never going to happen with a standard PCE.

[RegalSin]

The Music in Neo-Metal is what you would normally hear in an ancient time themed series, or animation. Yes like many series the music is something from youth culture
( like a b-movie ) but you have to remember the feeling the sounds gave off, when it was needed or not.

ddd1234 you have to be more specific about Mediocore. It just seems that you have a problem with the music in the game on another level I can not understand. What would you prefer?

I prefer everything before 1995. Everything leaving 1995 sounds like......not the best to me. However that is part of growing up ( you know a walking talking dead person ), you start to understand where things originates from and apreciate the nature of creativity whatever spawns from it. It does not mean you need to be like, Stan Marsh and say everything is shite. It just gives you a broader outlook and aprieciation on life. It is not that everything is crap, it is just that alot of people are childish and only got smart enough not to be bums.

Like The Old Rover said, if you can make good chiptunes you can make good redbook. You can do anything with redbook, including recording PSG onto it. You want a dual PSG chip Arkhan? Well, this could be done on CD with some clever mixing. Its never going to happen with a standard PCE.

Okay here is the thing, A chiptune is a new thing, it is not the invention of synthisizers, and it is not stuff from the 1980's. A chiptune is basically mixing in regular, real music with synth sounds. Nobody wants to admit this because this has been done before many times. We consumers of videogames just called this "game music", and some musical candy man nutter decided to call it something else.

Many of these newer mucisians are just milking everything from the past and calling it new, because nobody can remember where that piece of music came from.

Synthisizer music was made to mimic real instruments which it does greatly, at the same time create it's own class of instruments. What
people needs to understand the music on CD that is really Synth music made in a more sophisicated machine. The PCE can have it's own brand of midi/Mod/PSG music but it is limited to the instruments and memory usage, along with channels. Of course in order to get more space in a music file you must.......

[Arkhan]

Zeta: I know.  But, if I am going to use redbook I might as well use better stuff.  Though, I did use a C64's SID for Insanity. .  I've been experimenting with some chiptunes for CD audio w/ the PCE already.  Some of it will rear its head with Retrocade for sure.

Never say never about never having dual PSGs.  The MSX now has a cartridge that can use the SID, and it already had multiple sound chips added externally. I doubt it will happen any time soon, but maybe someone will figure out how to make a PSG addon, or maybe address and use the konami SCC from the MSX to add more sound.  That'd be 5 extra channels right there.

Okay here is the thing, A chiptune is a new thing,

No. It's not.

it is not the invention of synthisizers,

Wat?

and it is not stuff from the 1980's.

Yes it is.  Do you know how many chiptunes came out in the 80s for the C64, Spectrum, and all the other 8 bit computers?  There are whole scenes revolving around this stuff that started in the 1980s.  Get with it man.
 

A chiptune is basically mixing in regular, real music with synth sounds.

No it isn't. 

Many of these newer mucisians are just ignorant hipster douches riding the OMG RETRO bandwagon.

Fixed.  I talked the goon from Crystal Castles one time.  I talked about the C64/SID and he stared at me like I was speaking Klingon.  Then he went "OH I think i sampled that thing one time maybe".  FFS.

Synthisizer music was made to mimic real instruments which it does greatly,

DEVO disagrees.  So does my Roland SH-101 which sounds nothing like any real instrument you will play in an orchestra. 

What
people needs to understand the music on CD that is really Synth music made in a more sophisicated machine.

No it isn't.  Have you listened to Lords of Thunder, Gate of Thunder, or Sapphire?  Those are called guitars. and drums.

The PCE can have it's own brand of midi/Mod/PSG music but it is limited to the instruments and memory usage, along with channels. Of course in order to get more space in a music file you must.......

Stop that.  Please.  MIDI is digital data.  It's numbers.  It can control stage lighting ffs.

MODs are some tracker nonsense and the pinnacle of hipster chiptune douche lingo. 

[SignOfZeta]

The term "chip tune" was used commonly by PCE fans when the system was new to describe music that wasn't from CD. You can see it used in period publications, Turbo Mailing List archives, etc.

I guess now it has a new meaning.

[RegalSin]

I am not going to arugue this. Lets all agree that everybody has a differnt terminology and representation of what a synthersizer music ( chiptune ).

The PCE can do the same kinds of music the Genesis, SNES, Saturn,
and even PSX can do. That is all I really care about. I don't care about music controlling stage lights, or sound sampling being played alongside those computerized data.

The flat fact is the music from back then was great, and before that great, and even now great. I just want to know what the original poster, found so displeasing about the music in Neo-metal.

..........

You mean to say repetitive?

I understand that perfectly, after hearing a background music for a long time of any game can get on my nerves. It is like playing street fighter music while your sleeping.

[Arkhan]

Okay my problem with using the term chip-tune to reference synth, is that it was not popular to music types in the past, on most levels. It is only popular or noticeable to music types right now, because the 2d age group grewed up with the sound.

I have no idea what you are trying to say.  They were called chiptunes in the 80s, and still are now.  Noone refers to synthesizers as chiptunes.  You don't hear 80s pop like the Duran Duran and go MAN LISTEN TO THAT CHIP TUNE.

However they are not making music directly with software or hardware that is transferable back and forth between differnt formats.

Yes they are.  Myself included.  I go from MIDI to MML, and have gone from MIDI to MOD, back to MIDI, to MML to FruityLoops and back. 

Theirfore it is not synth, it is chip-tune. It has a double meaning, like the word gang or poke.

Who said anything about synths anyways?  I call my music made on CD "Synthtune" because I felt like it, and because it was made using synthesizers.  The SID is a synthesizer chip.

So what is a Synth then? As long as the data is electronicly stored with instrument definitions you can
pass it over to a machine. A synth can even contain sound samples if the machine is able to understand how it works. Because now you can control how long, short, or loud the sample is played creating a complete differnt sound entirely.

Samples are not synthesis. Synthesis means creating something.  Synthesizers use no sampling.  Synthesizers create sounds internally through various methods (analog, FM).

The hipsters, are the people who are using the term chiptune right now as we speak. I have nothing against them because they are the current trend of artist and in that bunch are actually getting noticed. However this is what I am talking about, in current trends of chiptunes. Not the stuff we lived and grewed up with.

Chiptune artists are mostly dumb.  The music all sounds the f*cking same.

It's jazzy little drum beats with stupid arpeggio nonsense.  It's a big f*ckin cliche. The only chiptune scene that isn't wildly guilty of this is the PC engine scene, mostly because I'm the only one doing chiptunes currently, and I hate that crap.

The MSX scene escapes it as well since they are FM-heavy, and arpeggios don't really come into play, thank god.

The C64, Amiga, NES, and gameboy are all key players in the travesty known as modern chiptunes.

[esteban]

Anyway, to get back on track:

As someone already pointed out, you have to consider the purpose of music in a medium. Music is not always intended to be a standalone product--very often it is designed to complement film/video games (think "incidental music", ambient soundscapes, music to foster a certain mood/atmosphere, etc.).

So...by design, some music in video games (RPG's) are "lackluster"... but, wait, it gets even better: sometimes a good song, repeated for the millionth time, becomes unbrearably grating. The cute, catchy song is a dagger to the groin. That sweeping, triumphant orchestral piece becomes a hackneyed mound of damp shite.

And thus we enter the House of Muzak, where, by design, music is preemptively banal. YES, that's right motherf*cker, it is banal by design.

Now, you might scoff at the notion, but it actually isn't such a bad idea when players spend hours upon hours listening to a particular track of music.

I personally feel that ambient soundscapes should be used in these situations--they are less grating then Muzak and can be much more effective nurturing appropriate moods.

I have never really researched/argued this before, but I will suggest that part of Metroid's (NES) brilliance is the hybrid ambient+simple melody formula that was used in parts of its soundtrack. I'm not saying it was perfect (the "loops" are far too short), but it was an effective way to be catchy, build atmospheric soundscapes and transcend the typical (generic) "standalone song" mentaility to video game soundtracks.

Shite, I've been ranting for too long.

Bottom line: mediocre by choice, or by incompetence?