OCR00972 - Tyrian "A Rare Find"

[Night10194]

All I have to say is that this is a fantastic mood piece. Thank you for your excellent work.

[V. Celestine]

Once I get an award pic made I'm gonna give this work the honor of 'amongst the most listened-to of OC Remixes' (something like that).

This reminds me of when I used to bike to my old friend's place up the hill past the neighborhood and school. It was a time when P 133's were out, my friend had a Cyrix and AOL. He downloaded Tyrian off of the user files they had back then.

And Tyrian was discovered.

Though it was a demo, all the music was there, and I remember hearing this amongst the ST. It was the most played game the two of us had. Great shooter, good music.

Don't know how my friend is doing nowdays, hopefully he's found this site by now.

Good remix. Brings back memories.

[KirbySSB]

This was played after chapter 4 when Trent was talking about how all of Savara would worship him, and that he didn't want it.

[AlexBrandon]

This is definitely a cool remix. I had no idea Tyrian's music would be taken to this kind of level.

Having said that, Composition in Q was actually written by Andreas Molnar. Andreas deserves a lot of credit for a number of pieces in Tyrian. Granted, I didn't exactly hire him for them, but he programmed the "Loudness" sound system, which in its day was the best AdLib system ever created, turning standard AdLib instruments into full blow DX7 synth sounding ones. He even converted a MOD I made (for the return to Savara level) into that format, so the guy definitely pulled his weight and his tunes made for excellent contributions.

So thanks, Disturbed, for a job well done and keeping the Tyrian flame alive!

[djpretzel]

Great to see game composers themselves chiming in on ReMixes, especially when they're correcting inaccurate information - thanks for the update and for making some kickass music: I've played the Unreal and UT series extensively and loved everything I've heard, as have many I've spoken with. I've added Andreas' name to the credits list for the game and will fix the write-up as well.

[KirbySSB]

Alex Brandon -- Did you write "Rock Garden" and "Sarah's Song"?

Those two were some of the best pieces of music I've ever heard, and I actually have a plugin for my winamp to play the Loudness sound system (.lds) files in all their glory.

I also converted a few to .mp3 and have them on my mp3 player.

Thanks for the great music for one of my favorite games ever.

[damathacus]

Um, the original composers of the piece aren't gonna be checking a review thread on a remix site. You might just as well go to a forum discussion thread about Mario and post open questions to Miyamoto.

[Borg Number One]

Hi.

This is definitely a cool remix. I had no idea Tyrian's music would be taken to this kind of level.

Having said that, Composition in Q was actually written by Andreas Molnar. Andreas deserves a lot of credit for a number of pieces in Tyrian. Granted, I didn't exactly hire him for them, but he programmed the "Loudness" sound system, which in its day was the best AdLib system ever created, turning standard AdLib instruments into full blow DX7 synth sounding ones. He even converted a MOD I made (for the return to Savara level) into that format, so the guy definitely pulled his weight and his tunes made for excellent contributions.

So thanks, Disturbed, for a job well done and keeping the Tyrian flame alive!

1.)

That is really true.

It seems to be a kind of a phenomenon:

All the current tunes which are in:

Loudness Sound System ( LDS ) format sound more than decent.

To get more LDS tunes, you can check melcom 's

chiptunes archive:

http://chiptunes.back2roots.org/

2.)

The file: " music.mus " inside the Tyrian directory contains all the Loudness tunes which are the game music.

If you do not have knowledges in " ripping " or in extracting data from " container files ",

then you can check the Game Extractor:

http://www.watto.org/extract

It is able to extract files from " music.mus "

and it is a more than decent JAVA application so that it runs on different operating systems which are able to run JAVA applications.

(e.g. Windows, Linux,...)

Here you can get more information about ripping pictures, sounds, music, etc.

http://www.extractor.ru/download_index.phtml

http://www.xentax.com/

http://wiki.xentax.com

http://www.elberethzone.net

( http://www.elberethzone.net/index.php?page=dup5&language=en )

3.)

I made great efforts to:

figure out and find the creator/builder/author of the Loudness Sound System ( LDS ) format.

Finally, I found him.

Here is the whole story:

http://members.iinet.net.au/~vannevar/tyrian/music.html

You can also use the old RDosPlay program to listen to the LDS files. It was written by Roman Dolejsi who was located and contacted by Borg Number One. Roman had lost the sources to RDosPlay but he told Borg Number One that Andras Molnar (the original author of the Loudness Sound System) lived in Germany so Borg spent almost three years searching for him. Andras was able to supply his source code which Borg Number One passed on to Simon Peter who used them to add LDS support to AdPlug.

That effort is why we are now able to enjoy Tyrian's music in this format so thanks go to Borg Number One and Simon Peter for their hard work.

Because of "Melcom", Simon Peter (author of ADPlug) and me

know us each other very well,

I sent the LDS player sources* & docs*

to Simon and he converted them to C/C++.

So it was possible to add LDS support to ADPlug in a really fast way.

*=Andras was surprised in a very positve way,

when I got in contact with him the first time and when we talked about his really greeeeaaaat format:

Loudness Sound System ( LDS ).

4.)

Andreas Molnar did not develop/introduce the LDS format.

His name is: Andras (without the e)

You can also take google and look for "Andrew Miller".

5.)

Short time ago,

I heard that the Loudness Sound System format ( LDS ) was also used in

(DOS) executables on different

PC magazines CDs

On these CDs, the executables start a menue that displays screenshots and descriptions of the CD content (in high resolution SVGA Vesa/VBE mode).

e.g. "PC Games" (in Germany)

Now, I am looking for persons who have got "PC Games" CDs

and I am looking for more (re)sources which use the Loudness Sound System.

6.)

If you have any question about:

+ Loudness (no requests about sources/documents), Andras, Chip tunes, Adlib, etc.

+ "How to record MIDI signals/data to a Midi file again?"

(e.g. ripping MIDI data from any certain game was not possible)

or, ...

then just ask the question here or get in contact with me (via eMail or private message or ICQ).

@Alex (Alexander Brandon)

Long time ago I prepared a

"Loudness Sound System misc files" -archive

which contains misc stuff about the Loudness Sound System format.

(e.g. unpublished Loudness tunes,

screenshots from games where you can see the Loudness string in the credits,

etc...).

Because of Andras lost some files (LDS project files, Loudness tunes, documents, etc...),

I would like to know if you still have Loudness related stuff?

[damathacus]

Er, I stand corrected. I should have read more carefully.

[Frictional Antidote]

I agree, the song does evoke emotion, however perhaps around the 2:00 mark of the song the dynamics could have been more. Other than that, very well arranged. Perhaps one day when I am bored I'll transcribe the whole thing so I can have the sheet music. Great mix. Thank you Disturbed for your work.

[Marmiduke]

Very cool piano work here. It definately exposes a bit more of the emotion that was retained in the original. Very accomplished expansion of the source melody, it's all pretty consistant arrangement wise.

One thing about the string element, it does its job well and I think the piece benefits from its inclusion, but at times I think it shadows the piano a little too closely. Very minor gripe, and one that I don't even notice during some listenings. Like I said, the benefits outweigh and detractions the strings have.

Another solid piano mix. And here I was thinking that the piano mix was a niche product for an already niche audience. There are a ton of really talented pianists with healthy videogame love. It's a real privelage to be able to share in that love. Keep them coming.

[OceansAndrew]

Pretty melancholy track with a solo piano and some tasteful backing strings. The build throughout is gradual but well integrated, and there is plenty of drama to be had. DJP's description of the track is pretty much spot on.

If you are looking for a heart-wrenching piano track, look no further.