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DISK Strategy II (OPL4 Music Disk)

DISK Strategy II (OPL4 Music Disk)

por ro em 27-06-2017, 13:05
Tópico: Software
Tags: opl4, Music Disk
Idiomas:

A music disk devoted to just one game from Micro Cabin, and all using OPL4 as output. Near Dark released their "Great Strategy II" covers on a music disk dubbed "Disk Strategy II". Free to download on MSX Resource Center.

The Micro Cabin game Great Strategy II might not be their most known one, but Micro Cabin is renown for their music compositions and this game makes no exception. And that's exactly what MRC user Meits thought when looking for inspiration for new tunes. After his Daisenryaku MSX OPL4 cover he decided to do the complete score. For the ear it is a matter of taste if you like the music or not, but Meits found a lot of joy to find out how the software company did their music for this game. Some tracks are just straight forward, where others use a measure which an untrained ear wouldn't expect. But there were some complete utter oddballs which pooped on the "elementary rules of music".

The result is a complete new music disk, downloadable here on MRC. Two important keys besides the usual cursor keys and space bar:

  • ESC: Quit
  • Select: Toggle autoplay

To prevent being done listening in a couple of minutes while auto-playing, the music is repeating itself a few times within the music file. This way the music might be fit as a musical wallpaper for a while.

Comentários (28)

Por syn

Prophet (2133)

imagem de syn

27-06-2017, 19:02

Nice stuff, listening to it in the background atm Big smile

Por meits

Scribe (6571)

imagem de meits

27-06-2017, 19:54

Only thing I didn't test: does the sound of the sea waves stop while loading when using a real computer with a diskdrive? Running Naked in a Field of Flowers

Por syn

Prophet (2133)

imagem de syn

27-06-2017, 23:32

I haven't tried on the real thing sorry Smile

Por meits

Scribe (6571)

imagem de meits

27-06-2017, 23:34

I only tried on a turbo R from mass storage. I somehow guess the sound of the waves will fade away when using a disk drive... If that's the case i am so sorry Running Naked in a Field of Flowers

Por Grauw

Ascended (10819)

imagem de Grauw

28-06-2017, 00:01

Nice! Surprise music disk release! Big smile

(Real MSX should sound the same as openMSX, it emulates FDC access speeds and all. Sounds fine here!)

Por Manuel

Ascended (19676)

imagem de Manuel

28-06-2017, 23:44

Hah, finally someone takes a stab at these songs! I still think that first theme of this game is one of the greatest FM tracks out there...

Por meits

Scribe (6571)

imagem de meits

29-06-2017, 01:11

I liked (the originals of) the right bottom ship, the top two... The top for its robust sound and the one below that for its utter weirdness.

Por Pencioner

Scribe (1609)

imagem de Pencioner

29-06-2017, 01:59

I confirm that the waves sound doesn't stop on loading, all is fine.

OFF: Though, i noticed other thing (mostly likely related just to my own cartridge as it is a home-soldered Wozblaster one). The music is playing with some tempo deviations and have a small but noticeable delays (like it stucks for a little bit, making some notes, randomly, a little bit longer, not much but it sounds horrible). I checked with the blueMSX - the music plays just well on MSX2+ configuration. And by the way, i have noticed this issue before on most of demo disks (two months ago i had enough time and i listened to a bunch of demo disks for it). Thus i was sure that it is related to the fact that they were produced on Turbo-R and some slowdown is expected. Now i'm not sure if i have some issues with my hardware... crap...

Por mboixo

Resident (40)

imagem de mboixo

29-06-2017, 01:59

No Moonblaster Sad Crying

Por journey

Hero (577)

imagem de journey

29-06-2017, 08:55

Doesn't work for me. I can only hear waves for a few seconds, then cyan screen forever..

My equipment:
MSX Turbo-R A1ST
MFR SCC SD
tried with Nextor
tried with Sofarun (last version)

Any suggestions? Question

Por Pippo

Hero (521)

imagem de Pippo

29-06-2017, 10:06

It works fine with BlueMsx.
I sincerely hope someone will be able to help you.

The tunes are very, very nice!
It's very interesting and original the music selection mode too. Smile

Por Sebbeug

Champion (405)

imagem de Sebbeug

29-06-2017, 10:09

Works fine with 1chipMSX/DalSoRi R2

Nice work Wink

Por journey

Hero (577)

imagem de journey

29-06-2017, 10:11

Sebbeug wrote:

Works fine with 1chipMSX/DalSoRi R2

Nice work Wink

i've to try with 1ChipMSX

Por meits

Scribe (6571)

imagem de meits

29-06-2017, 11:26

Pencioner wrote:

I confirm that the waves sound doesn't stop on loading, all is fine.

OFF: Though, i noticed other thing (mostly likely related just to my own cartridge as it is a home-soldered Wozblaster one). The music is playing with some tempo deviations and have a small but noticeable delays (like it stucks for a little bit, making some notes, randomly, a little bit longer, not much but it sounds horrible). I checked with the blueMSX - the music plays just well on MSX2+ configuration. And by the way, i have noticed this issue before on most of demo disks (two months ago i had enough time and i listened to a bunch of demo disks for it). Thus i was sure that it is related to the fact that they were produced on Turbo-R and some slowdown is expected. Now i'm not sure if i have some issues with my hardware... crap...

It is indeed coded on a turbo R. Unfortunately I don't have enough space to place any of the MSX2+es on my desk and even more unfortunately none of all my MSXes is an MSX2 or lower. But trust me, it works on an MSX2. Seen it happen on an emulator and it's all basic. Nothing spectacular going on there. While only some keys are being read and a sprite is being dragged around every MSX has plenty of time to handle the Moonsound replay-driver.

My wozblaster clone (FM-Blaster from Repro Factory) is staying with a friend for a while so I can't test on that cartridge. Tonight I'll receive an mp3 of a tune recorded with this very cartridge which I will compare 1:1 with a dal-so-ri MP3 and a Moondsound mp3. I did use a Dal-So-Ri and I expect it works on my Moonsound as well. Can you record your audio directly to your PC and make an mp3 as well? I'm very curious to hear what happens.

journey wrote:

Doesn't work for me. I can only hear waves for a few seconds, then cyan screen forever..

My equipment:
MSX Turbo-R A1ST
MFR SCC SD
tried with Nextor
tried with Sofarun (last version)

Any suggestions? Question

This is very very weird since it's the setup I made it on (click picture on top).
I made the DSK for emulator users. It's not necessary to flash the DSK to your flashrom. You can unpack the files to a folder on you SD card and boot it directly.
I just checked if the DSK works when flashed, and it just does.
Does this work, as I did the main code of that thing as well?

Pippo wrote:

It works fine with BlueMsx.
I sincerely hope someone will be able to help you.

The tunes are very, very nice!
It's very interesting and original the music selection mode too. :)

Thanks, but the music selection is made this way because I had no clue what the names of the tracks are

journey wrote:
Sebbeug wrote:

Works fine with 1chipMSX/DalSoRi R2

Nice work ;)

i've to try with 1ChipMSX

Did I miss something? Is the second model of Dal-So-Ri released or are you a tester?

Por Pencioner

Scribe (1609)

imagem de Pencioner

29-06-2017, 11:15

@Meits My setup was Wavy 70FD with real floppy - worked fine (it doesn't detect card in first slot but detects in second slot - is it expected though?)
Dutch Moonsound Veterans also has the same issue (occasional slowdowns etc) with my card... i'm feeling desperate as i dunno how to investigate those kind of hw issues Sad

Por meits

Scribe (6571)

imagem de meits

29-06-2017, 11:36

I remember slowdowns on my OCM with D.M.V. IIRC I had a dal-so-ri inserted that day.
Will now connect an MSX2+ and use the FDD and try in both slots. The slot expander in which my OPL4s normally are inserted is indeed in slot 2. This should not affect the check if the device is present or not. It's just a check on an I/O port.
Will report shortly.

Por Sebbeug

Champion (405)

imagem de Sebbeug

29-06-2017, 11:50

Meits wrote:

Did I miss something? Is the second model of Dal-So-Ri released or are you a tester?

It's available ! (here http://blog.daum.net/jsfx)
I ordered two last week... Received. Great stuff !

I'm working on stickers now ;)

Jun will add these pictures on his blog very soon i think ;)

Por meits

Scribe (6571)

imagem de meits

29-06-2017, 12:13

Daaaaaaaaaamn Smile2

Por journey

Hero (577)

imagem de journey

29-06-2017, 13:29

@Meits:

I've tried to unpack the DSK and if i start run"autoexec.bas works fine Smile

Por Pencioner

Scribe (1609)

imagem de Pencioner

29-06-2017, 13:34

Meits wrote:

I remember slowdowns on my OCM with D.M.V. IIRC I had a dal-so-ri inserted that day.
Will now connect an MSX2+ and use the FDD and try in both slots. The slot expander in which my OPL4s normally are inserted is indeed in slot 2. This should not affect the check if the device is present or not. It's just a check on an I/O port.
Will report shortly.

Damn! After you said it is just an IN/OUT it reminded me about that old rule if you have cartridge problems then try to clean up the connectors first! Aaaargh! Sorry for the noise... now i'm going to relisten all those "slowing-down" demo disks again (i wouldn't regret of course Tongue)

Edited: and of course it now gets detected in first slot too Smile

Now it plays fine, fast tempo and no slowdowns, thank you for the beatiful music disk Smile I appreciate it - done very well. Regards!

Por meits

Scribe (6571)

imagem de meits

29-06-2017, 14:03

Thank you too.
I am testing on all my MSX models what happens and found out my Sony HB-F1XDJ is rather sick. It powers up just once in a while. Never would've noticed it if I didn't do a check on all these machines.

When it did power up I ran into what happens to journey.

journey wrote:

Doesn't work for me. I can only hear waves for a few seconds, then cyan screen forever..

My equipment:
MSX Turbo-R A1ST
MFR SCC SD
tried with Nextor
tried with Sofarun (last version)

Any suggestions? Question

A check in openMSX proves that it does work though.
As my Sony clearly has issues and needs a check-up at the doctor, so I can't really rely on the outcome of this test.

Edit:
And after a few more attempts to power up the machine it passes the test.

Por Grauw

Ascended (10819)

imagem de Grauw

29-06-2017, 14:28

Re. slowing down, maybe 50 / 60 Hz equalisation, possibly working as intended (introduces a slight shuffle), or maybe not working as intended?

Por Pencioner

Scribe (1609)

imagem de Pencioner

29-06-2017, 14:32

@Grauw it wasn't just slower, it was like... a tape player with bad old stretched belt... uneven i mean. but suddenly it was just unclean slot or cartridge connector (i cleaned both at the same time so i don't know what side caused the trouble). though it was that perfectly unclear so cartridge still works but stucks on I/O a little bit Smile

Por Wierzbowsky

Guardian (3648)

imagem de Wierzbowsky

29-06-2017, 16:41

I somehow missed it - what's the price?

Por Sebbeug

Champion (405)

imagem de Sebbeug

29-06-2017, 17:10

Alexey wrote:

I somehow missed it - what's the price?

DalSoRi R2 ? Price is 120 euros (whitout case)

Por MOA

Champion (293)

imagem de MOA

30-06-2017, 02:14

Thanks! Very nice arrangements and I like the very original user interface. Had so much fun with this game when I was younger and the music was top-notch (as was the case for most Micro-Cabin productions).

Por mesiasmsx

Prophet (3454)

imagem de mesiasmsx

08-07-2017, 09:25

Thanks Meits!
I hope in the future you make covers from T&E soft for opl4, Rune Worth, Psy-o-Blade, Jesus,Laydock Saga Smile

Por meits

Scribe (6571)

imagem de meits

08-07-2017, 12:08

I would surely want to give it a try if I can find a way to play the music on my MSX outside of the game.
Right now I'm working on another game's OST. I'm taking my time though, not speeding up things Wink