The verdict
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1 Yum - Inspiration On Demand
2 Jorito - Joritalo SpaceCakeWalk
3 AuroraMSX - This Tune Needs More Cowbell
4 Nyyrikki - Megapox

We had great great difficulty to choose between Yum (IOD) and Jorito (SCW), it went so bad we actually had to make a point-by-point comparison between the two to make sure we wouldn't end-up in a tie.

Regarding tempo, IOD was slightly too fast and SCW was slightly too slow for typical italo. In the end we dragged both tunes into an audio editor to actually change playback speed to confirm the tempo issue. IOD sounded ideal on 41000Hz and SCW was better on 48000Hz (yes yes, the pitch changed too). Had these tunes been made with Moonblaster using FM-PAC or MSX-Audio then there could be an argument being that due the VDP there was less choice in medium/fast speeds. The Moonsound however has its own interrupt so any tempo could've been chosen. Without our pitch/tempo experiments, IOD was regarded near-trance, and SCW almost being like Crockett's Theme. The average tempo of the two would be perfect. When we stick to the original tempo of the songs, SCW wins over IOD.

Regarding production quality, IOD wins over SCW. SCW leans towards OPL here and there, IOD breathes more air than SCW.

Regarding variety, IOD wins over SCW. IOD has breaks and changes, while SCW has a single style all the way.

Regarding the robot-speech decoration, SCW wins over IOD. In IOD the speech is clearly overkill. Without this overkill our choice wouldn't be so hard in fact.

Regarding the subjective italo-'wrongness', which you could summarize as the stylistic humor from today's point of view -italo artist Koto performing his music in his judo outfit proves this point-, IOD wins slightly over SCW.

These points might give the indication that IOD wins easily over SCW, but if that was the situation then we wouldn't have to go through all these details. Without going into the details we could've ended up in a tie.

Aurora's entry could benfit greatly from custom samples, time issues prevented this. On the whole a slight bit too repetitive, but as said, put some work on custom samples, Linn drums to italo are like sleigh bells to Xmas tunes: they define it. There could really be an italo tune inside, especially since this tune leans towards Giorgio Moroder, one of the founding fathers of italo disco.

Nyyrikki's entry finally is not really italo, and because of that there's not much to say about it from this contest's point of view. It's nonetheless awarded 4th place!


yours,
Poke -1,170 & Wolf_

Heh - time issues al the way Anyhow, it was the first time i put some serious work into some MBW tracking, so everything, and especially the sampling & tone/wave editing stuff was brand new to me.

Kudos to Yum & Jorito, a beer for Nyyrikki