OCR00972 - Tyrian 'A Rare Find'

[djpretzel]

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

[Mog]

omfg I loved this game, got so addicted to it with a friend, 2 player mode 0wn1j!... and you turned it into a wonderful piano remix :) I hope more people see the light and start remixing this game!

[Cpt_Zach]

Om my gosh this game rules so much, my opinion is too horribly biased for me too post.

[Zarla]

I never played this game, but I'm a huge fan of Disturbed's work. I find his piano excellent and very moody and evoking. This is a beatiful piece for him, filled with emotion and excellent playing. I also love the addition of the strings. A beautiful touch.
Anyway, here's to hoping to see more of Disturbed's stuff up here sometime.

[snarfoogle]

Tyrian r0x0r! The two player mode with ship linking...INGENIOUS!

[Gman]

This is very relaxing stuff, specially after listening to BeatDrops new tunage :p It sooths me, although I dont know the original, it still touches me in some way. Adding strings was a great Idea, its not much, but adds alot. I like the way the speed and the mood changes. I herd maybe one off key not in there...might have been me... The ending is very nice. Gets even calmer and give you a nice feeling inside. I'm keeping this man. It'll be my first OC piano tune I keep. I'll listen to it when I'm mad and need to calm down, or just to chill out. Thank you for this wonderfull composition, good job.

-Gman

[Fieari]

I pulled up OC Remix, and when I saw the opening screen for Tyrian, my heart skipped a beat, and I shivered with excitement. I love this game. I love the MUSIC from that game, and in fact, in years gone by, I would pull up the options screen, pick a track, and watch the patterns with the nifty star screen, listening to the midi-quality music. The melodies are that good. Years after having played it, I would still hum themes like "Take me back to Savara" and such.

Recently, I've even tracked it down again, and played it through once more. Yep-- still rocks my world. Awsome shooter. Truely.

Now that I've talked about my thoughts on the game, and the original music (this peice is NOT based on "Take me back to Savara".. I can't quite remember which peice it is based off of. After I write this review, I'll go and check, then report back) I should talk about this particlar rendition.

Piano solos rock my world. I love them dearly, and this is no exception. It begins with a nice slow intro, and takes its time getting to the actual melody, which is fine with me. It sets the mood perfectly, and the somber deep notes at the left hand of the piano work very very well with the middle and higher notes.

At around 1:11 we get one of the first regrettable fumbles. I'm sorry to point it out, but amongst the beauty surrounding it, it stands out like a sore thumb. He doesn't let that get to him though, and continues admirably onwards until 1:29, where one note is out of key. Oh no! But the peice moves on, back to it's lovely wonderful stuff. Fortunatly, there are no more mistakes that I can hear throughout the rest of the song.

It pauses shortly, changes tempo and changes key at around 1:46. I like this new sound as well, differing from the original score as it does. And the pauses and gaps here are not mistakes... they add so much to the drama and depth of the peice. There's even a nice dissonance at one point to emphasize a phrase. The trills that follow later work very very well.

What I like even more though is the end. The song slows down, but as it gets closer and closer to the final note, longer and longer gaps show up in the melody progress... so while the tempo stays pretty constant near the end (although slower than earlier) it FEELS like a gradual ritardando.

Brilliant good work. The two mistakes early in the peice still make me wince slightly when I hear them, but I don't think that's enough to turn me away from listening to this song a few more times. A few dozen more times. And beyond that too.

Personal Rating: B+

[Kamikaze Noodle]

Very emotional. I like it a lot!

EDIT: Ahh yes, many days later and I decided to come back to this review I made on the fly. I think the best thing this song has going for it is how you can almost feel the emotion the player put into it. At least, it SOUNDS like he put a lot of emotion into it. It's not technically outstanding ( I still couldn't play it) but it sheds an emotional light on a song that prolly sounded like boop-boop-beep back in the old days. Disturbed shows how to create tension and release best right at 2:35. I think that's a great touch. A very nice solo piano piece.

[SlightlyOddGuy]

Ahhhhh. This was on VGMix before it went down, so it's nice to see it here. A very nice, moody arrangement of "Composition in Q" from the best shooter ever. Unfortunately, it's also a rather unknown tune, since it's only played once in the whole game (although the music combined with the storyline there is easily one of the most moving gaming moments). Great stuff. Perhaps this will alert more people to the incredible. Tyrian soundtrack. </wildhope>

[Ascahir]

Oh yes, I do believe we need more Tyrian remixes! The piano in this remix is relaxing... Makes me sad since I can't play the game and listen to the music in Windows XP...

[Mog]

... wait, why not?

[Kaosaur]

Hmm...I'm new to the site, and this was the first song that I downloaded.

Incredible! It made me go looking for other fantastic songs. I think a site full of techno remixes would have turned me off immediately but this beautiful piece and many others have me hooked.

I was just wondering one thing, disturbed, have you written down the score for this song and if so, is it available? This is definately something that I'd like to learn how to play.

[Fygee]

Tyrian. Simply the best top-down shooter ever. Even Ikaruga can't top it, and that's a damn good game. I still play it every now and then, believe it or not.

Remix is quite nice. Quality piano work all around.

MORE TYRIAN REMIXES PLEASE.

[Gwilym]

i heard this when disturbed first posted it at vgmix, and it's been on my playlist pretty frequently since then. not quite as frequently as some of his other offerings, but there's no real reason for that. this is a very nice track and has stood the test of time nicely. :D

(assuming (rashly) that this is the same version)

when it comes to disturbed's work, i'm often hard-pressed to say anything more detailed than 'i like it's good'. i'm a pretty crap piano player myself, a- no, scratch that, i'm not even a piano player. and as such i can't even begin to say whether this is a technically impressive work or not. i don't think it matters, it sounds fantastic, and i think that the fact that there are no gratuitously superfast arpeggios or scales running all over the place works in the song's favour.

no misnotes either.

that...string, though. it doesn't sound right. perhaps it's been repaired for this version, but in the one i have, it seems somewhat laggy, and much too thin. reverb might help this, but i think that the section in general needs more to it. i'm not thinking of a full-blown string arrangement that stands up on its own, but something that compliments the piano more than just a single note following the lead would be nice. ahh...i shouldn't dwell on this nitpick though. it might not be there anymore. ;)

very very nice piece. don't think it sounds particularly 'tragic' myself, but its definitely... poignant. still. sweeping. still. greyscale.

it's nice.

~gwilym




p.s. though i swear to 90% christ that this song wasn't in the game. my brother and i used to play it constantly, and completed it about fifteen thousand times, and not one note of this song sounded at all familiar to either of us. i guess it has to have been one of the many 'sound test-only' tracks that the game had. i think i recognise the name. well, obviously i do, otherwise the song wouldn't be here. :P

(and if it was in the game, WHEN?).

[Kaosaur]

If I recall correctly, the song is from one of the later episodes in the game, like 3 or 4. Most of us only got to play the demo, and with all of the codes and game modes, that was pretty long.

If you goto the Jukebox, Composition in Q should be around number 34 or 36 if I remember correctly.

By the way, the company that was putting out Tyrian 2000, XSIV Games, just went under. Tyrian in both of it's forms for PC is now abandoned (sadly, and much to my dismay, as I do not have a full copy anymore). There is a port to GBA in the works, but I won't be getting it (or a GBA).

[Veovis]

i totoally forgot about this game until i saw its posting here. awesome job. sounds like something from silent hill 2 actually. very cool.

[Hannibal]

Beautiful, simply beautiful. I hope to see more music from this awesome game remixed by Disturbed (or anyone else for that matter).

[ishan]

This was an amazing song...too bad it took a YEAR for it to show up on OC. Anyone interested in disturbed's music should really check out his home page...most of his really good mixes have never made it to OC.

http://www.lysis.audio-stream.net/disturbed/

I particularly recommend "bard's love: anna's death". Good Stuff.

[Bateau]

Composition in Q is only used at the end of episode 4 and only on a couple of text screens when Trent is feeling tired of all the fighting.
A game isn't abandoned just because the publisher goes under. Eg, it wasn't 'abandoned' just because Epic stopped publishing it because the developers stuck with the game and found another publisher. World Tree Games are still sticking with the guy behind Symmetry even though he's really useless and they're hoping to get it published again.
BTW Tyrian music in mp3/xm/midi/lds format can be found here:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~vannevar/tyrian/index.html
Alexander Brandon says it's ok to distribute the Tyrian music as long as you don't charge for it or anything. Any help with the unknown remixes would be cool too.

[Gwilym]

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


thankyou!!!

[Clayton]

i do love this game, although i do not suggest it, i waited long and hard for a good remix of this game... still nothing

[Gwilym]

try 'composition in q', by disturbed.

[Akuen]

Haha! I've always loved this game, I remember the good old days when me and my big bro played games like this on our "computer" hehe, I love the game and it's so nostalgic for me, so is this remix. this remix is really awesome. though our first computer only had PC speaker and wern't able to play the music, I've played the game later and heard the music. the music from the game is great, I think, and this remix really is fantastic!
I can highly recommend this remix... AND this remixer. if you see any of Disturbeds other msuic coming up here, I recommend that you listen to it.
I've just checked his webpage, and heard some of his other music there,
it's awesome. I suggest that you check out his webpage. the link is a little above this post... oh well, I'll post it here again:
http://www.lysis.audio-stream.net/disturbed/
phew...

anyways, I'll give this remix :nicework::nicework::nicework::nicework::nicework: out of 5 nicework guys.

[fisherman]

Thoroughly impressive. Mood and musicality are spot-on, and I didn't hear any major flaws with anything else. I noticed the spots djpretzel called "peculiar intonations." It only pops up two or three times though... not a big deal. It happens in this style of music just owing to the nature of things.

[Ax]

Woohoo! First Review, but I've burnt four or five CD's off this site so far. I really have to say that this song is excellent. Personally, I listen to almost every kind of music, but I have a soft spot for classical. This song sounds like it's actually done on a piano, excellent. This mix is very emotional, it made me want to cry when I first heard it. The key trills were used in a perfect way. Not overused, but inserted at the perfect locations. A nice touch is the fact that it speeds up and slows down, it feels like it's constantly building. I highly recommend this mix.

[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. :D

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.

[OA]

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.