Nintendo did not have an exclusive patent on its Famicom cartridges, which accounts for 3rd-party expansion chips and cartridge variants in Japan. Some of the early ones were poor quality and had to be recalled like many early Famicom consoles. While Nintendo did use its US patent to leverage more favorable licensing deals, it was also able to maintain quality control at a higher level for the NES than for the Famicom. Namco's use of expansion audio years before Konami and Sunsoft probably wasn't due to any preferable treatment. Namco had a custom waveform sound generator in early arcade cabinets like Pac-Man, but Konami didn't develop the SCC chip for its arcade boards/MSX until 1985. Namco may have just been ahead of the curve in that regard.

Namco may still have the distribution mindset from an earlier era. They were exclusive distributors of Atari games in Japan at one point, long before the Tengen deal.

Now that I've finally caught up, I want to say how much I appreciate you two doing this, Patrick and Steve. This is exactly the kind of information I've always wanted to know about, but the information is quite scattered at the moment. Doing an exhaustive analysis look at various chips, games and companies all in one place is such a wonderful way to get educated about these topics. Your passion and enthusiasm shines through and you both really do excellent work. I don't have anything helpful to add, like HUNRetroGeek, Vera Lovely IAmATrackMan often do, but I did just want to say please keep up the excellent work. :)

Here's a fun drinking game:  Take a drink every time Steve agrees with Patrick by saying "Yeah, no" or "No, yeah" or just "No".  Take a drink every time Steve says "It's interesting, too, because..." Take a drink every time Patrick says "Absolutely".  Take a drink every time Steve says "Famicon".

Where can one listen to this one? Not on YT and zophar player doesn't work

All rights belong to their respective owners. I own nothing and I'm not related to Retro Game Audio or the people who create it.

Consider supporting the show on www.patreon.com/RetroGameAudio and to look for additional content.

"Retro Game Audio is a monthly podcast dedicated to exploring the sound design and history of classic video game music. Hosted by Patrick Todd and Steve Lakawicz, Retro Game Audio hopes to not only highlight great video game music, but to also help listeners understand how it was made and what the audio hardware was capable of." From www.patreon.com/RetroGameAudio (Updated on 17.2.2018).

Retro Game Audio - In order from the oldest to the newest

Kappa

Patrick and Steve take a close look at the soundtrack to Magician, an NES game released in 1990. Developed by Eurocom and scored by Neil Baldwin. Show note links:
http://dutycyclegenerator.com/
http://nes-audio.com/
List of longest known nes tunes- http://i.imgur.com/fcPgE3b.png

Episode 1: An Up Close Look at Magician (NES)

We discuss Konami's Wai Wai World soundtracks, which include a variety of covers/ rearrangements of other Konami tunes. Show notes:
Info on Wai Wai World: http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/waiwaiworld/waiwaiworld.htm
Thanks to VengefulChip for providing a rip of the Castlevania Amiga soundtrack: http://vengefulchip.tk/castlevania-amiga/
Neil's quote regarding vibrato/ sound engine weirdness: http://dutycyclegenerator.com/


Episode 2: Konami's Wai Wai World Soundtracks

In episode three we give a detailed overview of the NES' sound capabilities.
Enduring some technical difficulties with the recording process, thank you for your patience!

Episode 3: NES Audio Overview

My co-host Steve makes music under the name Ap0c: 
https://ap0c.bandcamp.com/
https://soundcloud.com/ap0c

Interview with Thomas Detert, Gordian Tomb composer:
http://www.remix64.com/interviews/interview-thomas-detert.html

MP3 rips from SID soundchips/ hardware:
http://se2a1.bigbox.info/soasc/index.php?av=0&sb=SOASC&ss=gordian&did=0&#did1

Episode 4: Gordian Tomb (C64)

This episode is all about the Sega Master System, Sega's 8-bit predecessor to the Sega Genesis/ Mega Drive. 

Show notes:
https://segaretro.org/ (a lot of our history notes come from here!)
http://www.smspower.org/Development/SN76489 (more details about SMS PSG audio)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt9lGeAz1z1lxJtSlWhX30w )(Adrian Gauna uploads hardware recordings of Sega music, it's the source of some of our audio)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0CAA9FE7A2C6D20F (My upload of the MSX Final Fantasy soundtrack)

Episode 5: The Sega Master System

We're back to discuss the N163, Namco's MMC chip that offered up to 8 channels of wavetable synthesis as sound expansion for the Nintendo Famicom.

Imgur album of N163 instrument data: http://namco163.imgur.com/

Special thanks to ImATrackMan and Naruko for providing various resources for this episode!

Episode 13: Namco 163 (Famicom Sound Expansion)

The Coffee Zone

The Coffee Zone [VRC7]

This is one of my earliest tracks, inspired by a music I heard in the Karnov arcade at the time. I did this before coding my Compact Editor, so all was written directly into the music driver's source code.

It's made of small musical phrases interchanged and transposed to make the tune longer. Nothing really interesting, just an old curiosity : )

Russian (ZX Spectrum 128, 1989, unreleased)

Hawkeye is one of the first video game soundtracks I ever composed. The game itself was the first parallax full-screen platform game on the Commodore 64 created by the Boys Without Brains (BWB). This is the preview of the remake, which me and my brother are producing in my brother's music studio. Thanks for all the feedback, guys! We're going all the way in. Stay tuned on this one!

Cheers guys! Play it loud!

//Jeroen Tel (and Kees Tel)

Tel Me More

Hawkeye

Jeroen Tel - Hawkeye (Preview)

Made with Deflemask 12 - YM2612+SN76489
Mastered by:  NICKELPUNK ( https://nickelpunk.bandcamp.com/ )
BotB Rank:  61st/312

This year, I'm challenging myself to write and release 100 tracks. I've been busy writing tons of this year so far... this is the first in the whole series (hence the title!).  I've decided that I will complete this goal personally and but keep folks updated as I go - this will include both personal and commercial tracks too!  Right now, I'm up to about 22 - still a long ways to go!

1 Of 100 [Battle of the Bits - Winter Chip XIII]

First time using the genMDM. This is an original track I made to test out the YM2612 FM chip on the Sega Genesis.

I did not use the 2nd sound chip, the SN76489 PSG at all. There are 6 channels of audio. I used the 6 channels on the FM chip with no changes to patches mid song. 

I decided to keep the limitation of the 6 channels, but do some EQ and Compression to the tracks, as I was after a particular aesthetic. Sorry to all you purist Chiptune artists out there :-)

68-YM2612FM

Here's an MS-DOS rendition of G A H by Chromelodeon from The Final Recordings. This was the middle tune in my chipspace open mic set at MAGFest this year to celebrate Chromelodeon's reunion. Man, what a show that was. I had meant to post this online earlier but there was a small change I wanted to make and I didn't have access to my DOS rig until today. Please enjoy! And go see Chromelodeon if you ever get the chance!

G A H

A journey in music and inspiration. Something to really enjoy and cherish... Life empowering, love embracing.

I composed this song for my contributors to the now-infamous "Tel Me More"  project.

This song is also being made as a bonus track on the actual Commodore 64 in multi-speed.

Special thanks for the ongoing support from many of you: friends and family, but in particular:  Kees Tel (my brother), Irene Tel (my sister), Jan Cloin (my brother-in-law), my dear friends: Leon van Rooij, Dirk Sloos, Carl Ellement,  All the guys in Maniacs of Noise! <3, Traveller Keyz 2020!, Jorg van den Elsen, Tom Geevers, Roel Meulemeesters & last but not least, Dr.P & Mr. John! <3

And... in the up and foremost my daughter Janne and her pets: pet rats: Ietje, Wiesje, Bloempje & dog: Guusje & turtles: Roos & Ferdinand & the giant snail: Perkamentus. =D

The Journey continues!

The Open Soul

Jeroen Tel - The Open Soul (preview) (v22)

Tekst en Zang:  Jeroen Tel
Muziek en Arrangement:  Kees Tel

(C) 2020 K. Tel & J. Tel

Corona Corona

Laat Maar - Corona Corona

Just listening to some tunes and talk. 'Tis all.

Retro Game Audio is a monthly podcast about sound design in classic video game music. Hosted by Patrick ("bucky") and Steve Lakawicz.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/RetroGameAudio

RSS feed: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:46473124/sounds.rss

Episode 13: Namco 163 (Famicom Sound Expansion)

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