Musica Del Tyrian

S peaking from Experience, I have found that I don't like to write sound systems in dos. It probably had to do with my inability at the time to find out much of anything about the sound system in question. All I had to work with was an Adlib programming disk I ordered which had some unworking sample files on it. It was a foregone conclusion that it would be better to delegate the task to someone else, rather than spend the time to figure out why I couldn't get working code. That and the Adlib cards at that time had no speech synthesis, so it would be impossible for me to afford to write it. That first Adlib came in a huge, neat box, though. :) Nowadays I'm sure it's far easier, what with DirectSound and other code libraries floating around every corner. Windows might make your system crash but at least it's pretty consistent about it. However, getting back to Tyrian's sound... The sound system was called 'Loudness', provided by Andreas Molnar. He gave me a hunk of code, some sample programs, and some weird music in executable format. From that I eventually figured out how to run his sound system and Tyrian spoke. Loudness was capable of mixing multiple sound effects together itself, while simultaneously driving the FM chip in weird but interesting ways. Somehow it's able to create additional instruments and nice effects. How he programs the card I can guess at but never found out. Unfortunately for the digital sound, though, it tended to make it somewhat choppy and crackly on some systems. I suspect it was a tradeoff to get it working well on slow 386 systems. This is why it's hard to figure out what the Tyrian beta-tester (Susan Aldworth) is saying when her voice plays during the game. Most of the sound effects were done by myself, actually. We had someone else do some of them, too - Nando Eweg. I believe he was on the Jazz Jackrabbit (Epic Megagames Game) team at the time. Actually about three times the number of sound effects that were needed were created. I think if you ask a musician/sound effects person they'll tell you they dislike doing extra sound effects that aren't put in the game (are cut or just don't sound right), but if you ask the designers they'll say they're necessary. Personally I'm in the latter category. :) Now, regarding the music, well, that was all done by Alec, then given to Andreas who rewrote it in his own strange format. An unfortunate amount of extra work, but it made the music sound a lot nicer. It usually sounds nicer in FM synthesis than in Midi, actually. After Andreas got through with the music he'd send it back to me, then I'd take it and put it in the game. At which point I'd give each song a horribly silly name and totally ruin the integrity of the music. Life is like that sometimes. :) - Jason | Musica.