PCE chip music

[Bonknuts]

 I'm looking for some PCE chips tunes. Tunes that have a unique or impressive instrument sound or just kicks ass. This is for some PCE music engine research.

 So far I have (all track #'s of the HES files correspond to mednafen playback, other players might reorder the track #'s):

 AfterBurner, Outrun, ThunderBlade: seem to use the most of the same instrument and sound engine. Besides sounding really great (AB comes to mind) they have some unique instruments/sounds. Also has some nice bass on one of the songs.

 Batman: Very interesting sound engine. It uses two of the channels for PCM(wave) samples. The bass guitar is actually scaled in frequency up and down like in a MOD engine (think SNES if you don't know what MOD is). The "Super R-type" sample was noticeably cool, although not frequency scaled.

 Bomberman 93 and 94: Some great tunes and unique sound/instruments. Some impressive "noise channel" drum kits - nice and clean. Bomberman 94 has two great techno-ish tracks with nice drum track - track 128 being one of them 

 Blood Gear: Very synth-y sounding(some tracks sound FM-ish in style). Lots of frequency sliding on chorus notes.

 Bloody Wolf: One of my favorites and really complex sound engine. Very unique sounds/instruments and great variety of music. I wish they had used this sound engine for other games as well. Very impressive.

 Devil's Crush: With it's famous track - love the instruments and composition.

 Fiend Hunter: Of the two tracks that I've heard - really nice samples used in conjuction with PCE audio. When I first heard it, I thought it was a CD track until I noticed some of the PCE instruments. Threw me off

 Parodius: Pretty impressive conversion to PCE audio system

 SF2: same as parodius. Though they both owe more to the composers than the sound engines used. SF2 sounds better than the arcade version imo.

 Solder Blade: Uses the same instruments as a lot of other PCE games (Aldynes, Neutopia 2, etc) and nothing unique. So it shouldn't be on this list - but I'm a fan of the compositions. There are a few covers for other synth formats of this game. I heard a cool OPL2 version and a twin SMS PSG version. There's also that NES cover using extra sound hardware It sounds pretty good though you can tell the instruments lack the timbre and fidelity of the PCE version.
 
 
 R-Type: A great conversion of the original. Has a synth-y sound too (though not FM).
 
 AeroBlasters: Another great conversion. It breaks from some of the more common instruments used in PCE games, in some of the tracks. Though it's still PCE recognizable in parts..

 De-ja: Track 3- nothing special but I like it - not a typical game music,11 -love this track.

 Gomola: Track 62 - nice track

 Metal Stoker: Except for a couple of tracks having a pretty common instrument or common PCE composition, most tracks have a strong bass-synth  and unique composition to them.
 

 

[Zeon]

I believe fiend hunter sounds "like a cd" because it is one of the few pc-engine games to use ADPCM. Dragon Slayer and Star Parodia are a few others that used this. There was also a bonus game hidden in a pce-cd game that had chip music that did this as well. The name of the hidden game is Cychorider if that helps.

Add Kyuukyoku Tiger and Dungeon Explorer to that list too. Lady Sword had music similar to Dungeon Explorer that sounds pretty cool.
Oh and Dragon Slayer 8 - Kaze no Densetsu Xanadu and Dragon Slayer 8 - Kaze no Densetsu Xanadu II have a ton of awesome chip music.

[Joe Redifer]

In my awesome opinion, R-Type sounds much better than the arcade version.  The arcade sounds like ass.  The PCE rendition is much more interesting and aurally pleasing.  Nobody can argue with this assessment.

[nat]

There are a couple tracks that stand out to me as having really, really good bass, possibly the best non-redbook bass on the system:

Dragon Spirit level 2, the "bass guitar string slapping" sound is really nice. If you have your game systems hooked up through an amp to a sound system w/woofer like I do, the shit actually thumps.

Legend of Xanadu, there are so f*cking many chip tunes in this game, and the game is so huge it's hard to describe where to find this one. All I can say is that it first appears around the halfway point, maybe a little further, in an underground area. Has another really good bass "thump" although it's of a different kind than the Dragon Spirit, hard to explain.

Other tunes that just kick ass:

The soundtrack in Sinistron and Cybercore, obviously composed and coded by the same person/group of people, are really really good and use at least one instrument that sounds like FM.

Air Zonk, level 2.

Gunhed, level 2 (what is it with all the level 2s? DS, AZ, Gunhed, etc....)

Dungeon Explorer, level 2.... Just kidding. All the songs here are fantastic, but there are a select few that stand above even the "great." I'm not sure if they technically use any instruments not used in many other Turbo games, but the compositions are fantastic.

[Bonknuts]

 Nat: Yeah - Legend of Xanadu has a lot of PSG music tracks. I love the main town theme (track 10). I need to build a bass boost circuit for my SGX and PCE Though mednafen is pretty accurate for PCE audio emulation (more than the other emu's) - piped straight to the amp.

 Zeon: You mean for drum kits? Fiend Hunter uses it just for the drums and clap samples. I read that DS:LOH used ADPCM for some instrument in the PSG tracks. I didn't know Star Parodia uses ADPCM for music sampes on the PSG tracks though.

 Joe: I agree 

[Zeon]

Nat: Yeah - Legend of Xanadu has a lot of PSG music tracks. I love the main town theme (track 10). I need to build a bass boost circuit for my SGX and PCE Though mednafen is pretty accurate for PCE audio emulation (more than the other emu's) - piped straight to the amp.

 Zeon: You mean for drum kits? Fiend Hunter uses it just for the drums and clap samples. I read that DS:LOH used ADPCM for some instrument in the PSG tracks. I didn't know Star Parodia uses ADPCM for music sampes on the PSG tracks though.

 Joe: I agree 

Oh sorry, I misunderstood. I just meant those games use ADPCM in general not the specifics of what the ADPCM was used for.

[Nintega Turbine Trio-CBS]

PCE Salamander music with speakers and woofer plugged it to a black Duo is a real treat to my ears!  :-" 

[SuperDeadite]

Coryoon has some really nice drum samples in its music.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Shockman, incredible sound kit IMHO.  Also, I really gotta point out Legend of Xanadu 2 over the first game.  Just alot of great tunes, & even some sampled drums.  Also, look into Impossamole.  I know it has that "wavy" sound that some people hate, but, the soundtrack sounds really full, like there's more instruments going on, that are even possible on the PCE.  That's all I can think of right now, that hasn't been mentioned.  Oh, Legendary Axe 2 & ...Monster Pro Wrestling(IIRC), along with the DE 1 are great.

[runinruder]

Cyber Knight
Spiral Wave
Psychosis/Paranoia
Ninja Spirit
Tenshi no Uta II (battle music)

[Digi.k]

There are some good drum samples in SF2 but ultimately I find it too weak and it sounds like the really old pc sound cards with the AD-LIB sound..

Parodius is great but I find that its too quiet..

Salamander is pretty awesome you should check that out but on emulation its not quite perfect..

Heres another game which I'm starting to like very much.. Its jigoku Meguri which is really underlooked by a lot..    I Particularly enjoy the tracks for stage 2 and 3 because of the really gentle japanese percussion samples.

its in WMA format tho..
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BB6M2H5R

Also populous has a pretty cool intro as well.. The original was done by Rob Hubbard and Hudson did a great conversion of it!

[MurderDate]

very cool thread -  wish I had something to add as I LOVE a lot of this music.

[ceti alpha]

Stage 2 of Aero Blasters will always be a favourite of mine. It kicks the hammer pants off of the original arcade track.

[Digi.k]

also I really love the sampled drums in Dragon Saber!

Taito's other shmups that have (imo) great music are; Tatsujin, Hana Tahka Daka!?! and as Zeon said; Kyukyoto Tiger

I use ootake for sound playback

[Ninja Spirit]

Metal Stoker - most of the tunes were composed so well that they are really difficult for someone else to replay by ear, so many complex chord progressions. Stage 2-1 BGM in particular though, the Square 1 channel (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not too keen on the PCE's sound channel names) has a Famicom-like ring to it. Stage 3 BGM is my favorite, when I first heard it, I left my Duo-R on pause for almost an entire hour listening to that

I also gotta give mention to Salamander, Gradius, and Detana! Twinbee, mainly for Konami's usage of those knocking synth drums. I don't see why they scrapped it in Parodius

As a matter fact, how about some fan-made Contra and Gyruss music remixed in PC Engine?

  Batman: Very interesting sound engine. It uses two of the channels for PCM(wave) samples. The bass guitar is actually scaled in frequency up and down like in a MOD engine (think SNES if you don't know what MOD is). The "Super R-type" sample was noticeably cool, although not frequency scaled.

Are you referring to the "orchestra hit" sample in the title screen BGM?

I also thought that was more of a Konami thing. Those samples do show up in A-JAX, Trigon/Lightning Fighters, TMNT, and Sunset Riders