Kef music

I’ve made a lot of music. Most of it is crappy or incomplete…or most likely both. That’s why there’s not much of it up here right now…I’m waiting to write stuff that’s actually good.

These are currently presented in a fairly arbitrary order, except I tend to place better tunes near the top of their respective sections.

Most of the music is in OGG format, but don’t be afraid of OGG. It’s just like MP3, except better, and you probably can play it on your computer already.

(I’m starting to add MP3s for some of my stuff too, for you cavemen who still don’t have an OGG player. There are more of you than I thought. The OGGs do sound better and are smaller than the MP3s, though.)

General

This is stuff that isn’t in any of the other formats.

• The Lonely Little Island (OGG)
  Written in 2009 for a Puyo Puyo knockoff that has probably since been removed from the internet. (I wasn’t involved in programming the game, only writing the music.) The original version of the tune was actually for the NES; it appears in the NES section below. This was written using Jeskola Buzz and is the most polished tune I’ve produced, so it almost sounds professional.

Modules

A module is something made in a program called a tracker. Modules can sound like anything from MIDIs with soundfonts to stuff that’s really amazing. Most of my music’s in the “MIDI with soundfonts” category, since anything that’s really amazing is usually an electronica track of some kind, and I don’t dabble in that style of music very much. WinAmp should be able to play all of these, though it won’t necessarily sound the best it can (unless you play them in OGG format).

The OGG versions of these are often, but not always, smaller. Also, they might sound slightly better, and you’re more likely to be able to play them. So for most of these there’s little reason to get the S3M/IT versions unless you know how to use a tracker and want to see how they work.

• Dawn of Adventure (OGG) (S3M)
  Somebody wanted me to write music for a game. Being the lazy guy that I am, I only managed to produce this, and I don’t think it was used. However, I think it’s the best piece I have ever written. It is technically unfinished, since what I wrote already is a hard act for me to follow. It’s certainly not perfect, and there’s one part that sounds kind of fudged to my ear. But I decided to present it to you as it is.
• Twenty-Four Days An Hour (OGG) (IT)
  A very simple melody using only one instrument sound and four channels. It’s the theme song to a project (webcomic and Flash cartoon) that went nowhere. I have little desire to work on this project now even if I were in the mood to work on this sort of project. In other words, it’s probably dead for good…but I think its catchy little theme lives on.
• Always Another Day (OGG) (IT)
  (Here’s one where the IT is smaller.) This is another very simple piece. It’s the theme song to my graphic novel (if my graphic novel were a movie). I originally wrote it as a MIDI using a harp sound, although a couple of the notes were different, but the basic idea was there. I’m not sure why I chose a synthy beep for the melody in the IT version. Maybe it was a placeholder, but I keep it because it reminds me of a music box, as does the slowdown effect at the end.
• Happy For You (OGG) (IT)
  This is another fugue. I wrote this when I was in love with somebody, but she was in love with somebody else. So of course I had that bittersweet feeling where I was happy that they were happy, but I wasn’t really happy. It was going to be longer, but I never finished it.
• Learn, Damn It! (OGG) (IT)
  This was originally meant to be the background music for a cheesy instructional song, like the songs they played to teach us multiplication in school.

Lemmings

Once upon a time I was going to do the soundtrack for Lemmings DS, an unofficial port of Lemmings. Unfortunately, MrDictionary and I stopped communicating and it didn’t happen. Eventually, he released the game using the original Amiga soundtrack. However, I did end up with two complete (but not polished) tunes remade from the original soundtrack, so here they are.

• Tim 2 (OGG) (S3M)
  My favorite Lemmings tune. Don’t stop listening when it loops the first time…there’s a special segment that plays only on every other iteration. The extra segment was inspired by a very similar segment from the Acorn Archimedes port of the game. The Acorn version had that part instead of the normal ending, but I decided to make it lead into the ending instead.
• Tim 3 (OGG) (S3M)
  This one’s decidedly less finished. It needs a little extra something, though I’m not sure what. However, since I’m sure I’ll never complete it, I’m presenting it as-is.

MIDIs

I generally do not make MIDIs, but I’ve made a few regardless.

• Theme from Mindseeker
  Mindseeker is an obscure Famicom game that tries to teach the player psychic powers. Since nobody has yet won the James Randi Challenge, in which the first person who can provably demonstrate psychic ability is awarded $1,000,000, I can only assume that it has not yet succeeded.
• Happy For You
  The same as the IT/OGG version, only, um, it’s MIDI. (This was actually an automatic conversion from the IT file; I originally uploaded this thinking that I had made it separately by hand, but I eventually remembered that I hadn’t.)

NES music

These are “real” NES tunes in the sense that they can be played on a real NES.

Some of these are currently available only in NSF. NSF stands for NES Sound Format. An NSF player essentially emulates the NES’s CPU and sound hardware, so it’s like a real NES without the pretty pictures. If you don’t have an NSF player (if you don’t know, you almost certainly don’t), I recommend NSFplug for WinAmp. At least I think I do…it has some quirks. But oh well.

You can also listen to NSFs using FCE Ultra or Nestopia. There are probably other NES emulators that play them as well.

Some of these were made in FamiTracker, which is now both the best and easiest way to make NES music. The FTMs allow you to play the music from inside FamiTracker and see how it was made. If you don’t have FamiTracker, just get the NSFs or OGGs.

The ones not made in FamiTracker were made using mck, or more specifically, mck, mckc, MCKwatch, and DMCconv. These are cumbersome and mostly obsolete tools that today have few advantages over FamiTracker.

This section has gotten long, so it’s in alphabetical order now.

• 867-5309/Jenny (NSF, OGG, MP3, FTM)
  The classic Tommy Tutone song. I’ve only done the first verse and the chorus, but it gives the idea.
• Always Another Day (NSF, OGG, MP3, FTM)
  Same ol’ original tune as in the Modules section.
• Dawn of Adventure (NSF, OGG, MP3, FTM)
  Same ol’ original tune as in the Modules section.
• Eye of the Tiger (NSF, OGG, MP3, FTM)
  This one uses the MMC5 expansion chip to play more notes at a time. Unfortunately, the MMC5 chip’s extra music channels were available only in Japan.
• Funky Underground (NSF, OGG, MP3, FTM)
  The underground music from Super Mario Bros. 3, but with a funkier rhythm.
• Kirby Super Star: Computer Virus (NSF)
  I did this one as a half-joke. There’s one area of Kirby Super Star where you’re in an RPG-style battle with a computer. The music sounded extremely NES-like, so it made sense to actually do it as an NES tune. This sounds very much like it did in the Super Nintendo game — not exact, but close. The original composition was written by Jun Ishikawa.
• Leisure Suit Larry Theme (NSF, OGG, FTM)
  My own arrangement of one of the catchiest video game tunes ever. This wasn’t based on any particular version of the theme, though since it’s on the NES, it tends more towards the feel of the theme from the first game, which bleeped and blooped through a monophonic PC speaker. The FTM was composed using version 0.2.8 WIP 2. LSL creator Al Lowe liked it enough that he posted it on his website! (It’s near the bottom, in the fan-made section.)
• Lemmings: Tim 2 (NSF)
  This was entered into an NSF contest in 2003. It lost badly, but so did pretty much everything that didn’t win. It’s not the best it could be, but it still sounded much better than the version in the original NES game, it’s very listenable, and I’m still a little proud of it. (I wrote this version several years before the S3M/OGG version.)
• Life’s Like That (NSF, OGG, MP3, FTM)
  An original tune.
• The Lonely Little Island (NSF, OGG, FTM)
  This is the original version of The Lonely Little Island, since the Flash game originally had an 8-bit motif. When we redid it with an island motif, I made a new version which is found near the top of the page. By the way, I have to give a little credit to Wayne J. Strange, since on a previous tune he suggested using arpeggios, and I still had that advice in mind while hammering this out. Made with FamiTracker 0.3.0.
• Mute City (NSF, OGG, FTM)
  The classic tune from F-Zero. The FTM is designed for version 0.2.7 and won’t sound right on later versions, since (at my own behest!) the behavior of volume envelopes changed between 0.2.7 and 0.2.8.
• NBA Hangtime — It’s Showtime! (NSF, OGG, MP3, FTM)
  The music used in the first and third quarters. Based on the music in the arcade and N64 versions.
• NCAA Basketball (NSF, OGG, MP3, FTM)
  Not the actual NCAA theme, but rather the theme from the SNES game. This game was released in Japan as Super Dunk Shot and in Europe as World League Basketball. Each version featured different teams, but they all had this theme.
• NFL on FOX (NSF, OGG, MP3, FTM)
  
  Because, for some people, football is Serious Business.
• The Picard Song [refrain] (NSF)
  Featured in this YTMND, which is a parody of the infamous Picard Song YTMND. The YTMND uses a WAV rip, so you don’t need an NSF player to hear what it sounds like there. (It’s a lower-quality sample than what you’ll hear from an NSF player, but I think it actually sounds better that way.) It’s a very short loop, a little less than 8 seconds long, but as catchy as ever. The original version was by DarkMateria (with of course some sampling of Patrick Stewart’s voice). Um…I didn’t get the bassline 100% accurate, but I don’t care. I also took a little liberty with the percussion line to make it sound good on the NES.
  • Alternative Picard Song (NSF)
    The same as the above, except Picard says “N.E.S. Enterprise” instead of “U.S.S. Enterprise.”
• Plok Theme (NSF, OGG, MP3, FTM)
  I’m surprised how well this came out without using any expansion chips. Not long before I made this, I thought it couldn’t be done.
• Puggs in Space (NSF, OGG, MP3, FTM)
  If this sounds like a Lemmings tune, that’s because it is. This became the Lemmings tune Tim 3, but a different-sounding version was originally composed for an Amiga demo animation called Puggs in Space (the relevant part starts at 1:36).
• Puyo Puyo: Sticker (NSF, OGG, MP3, FTM)
  You’ll probably recognize this as the Exercise Mode music from Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, although that version sounded slightly different from the Puyo Puyo version.
• SimCity 2000 News (NSF, OGG, MP3, FTM)
  One of the various newspaper themes from SimCity 2000. I made this because I liked how really old MIDI cards played it with something like a square wave rather than the synthy sound that you’ll usually hear from modern cards.
• Super Mario Land: Muda Kingdom (NSF, OGG, MP3, FTM)
  The music from the seaside levels.
• Tetris Attack (NSF, OGG, MP3, FTM)
  The theme from the classic SNES game.
• ToeJam & Earl (NSF, FTM) – six songs; the NSF and FTM contain all six
  • ToeJam Jammin’ (OGG, MP3)
  • Big Earl Bump (OGG, MP3)
  • Rapmaster Rocket Racket (OGG, MP3)
  • Funkotronic Beat (OGG, MP3)
  • Alien Breakdown (OGG, MP3)
  • ToeJam Slowjam (OGG, MP3)
    
    The complete soundtrack to the classic Sega Genesis game.
• TROGDOR! (NSF, OGG, MP3, FTM)
  The theme song for everybody’s favorite burninator from Homestar Runner.
• Wario Blast (NSF, OGG, MP3, FTM)
  The World 1 theme from the classic Game Boy game. It sounds much like the original, but the drum line is mine.
• A Wild Pokeymon Appears! (NSF, OGG, MP3, FTM)
  The “Vs. Trainer” music from Pokémon Red/Blue. Once again I added a drum line to a song that originally didn’t have any.

Mario Paint

In 2001 I made a rendition of my favorite Lemmings tune — yes, again — for a Mario Paint contest held by Zophar’s Domain. (It didn’t win.) Note that this is the real, honest-to-God Mario Paint, not the stupid Mario Paint Composer that has infected YouTube (an important difference because it’s much harder to make a tune with Mario Paint).