We had a great time at VGMTogether presenting our talk on game audio logging and the dedicated communities around the world that have spent years archiving music as accurately as possible. It's a commonly overlooked topic that nevertheless supports a lot of activities in the game music scene.
You may have heard it referred to as "VGM ripping"; logging is the process of accessing, capturing, organizing and ultimately archiving game music in more accessible ways. There are a few ways that game music is stored in data, and a few ways that game music is captured for easier access. It's a time-consuming but rewarding process that requires some computer skills and a decent amount of patience.
In addition to the tracklist we've included a number of other resources: links to some of our past shows with a focus on logging and preservation, links to some of the more prominent game and computer music archives, and some other relevant talks. To all of those involved in VGM logging including our good friends ValleyBell and ctr, as well as the many folks we didn't mention, we thank you for all of your hard work and for everything you've done for the VGM community over the years.
We did our best to make our show as enjoyable for regular listeners, but we have also included our presentation slides which help enhance the experience. Click through the presentation below to see the visual aids and video examples we used during our talk.
Here's the link to our video presentation on YouTube
Track List:
0:06:50 Stage 2 – Yuurei-kun (MSX2)
By Manabu Saito
0:20:23 Ending 2 - Earthbound Beginnings (NES)
By Keiichi Suzuki & Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka
Exclusive to the US version of the game
Logged by MrNorbert1994
0:26:12 The Mountains - The Smurfs (GB)
By Alberto Jose González (Twitter)
0:32:02 Isotoxin - Unreal (PC)
By Andrew "Necros" Sega, edited by Alexander Brandon
0:39:08 Security - System Shock (PC)
By Greg Lopiccolo, Tim Ries
Originally logged and fixed by Joey "Chicajo" D in 1998
0:47:11 Vigilante Shuffle - Interstate '76 (PC)
By Bullmark
Leader [Music Direction By] – Arion Salazar, Jason Slater, Kelly W. Rogers
Written-By, Bass, Keyboards – Arion Salazar
Guitar – David Shul
Drums – Bryan Mantia
Horns – Les Harris
Engineer, Mixed By – Eric Valentine
Executive-Producer – Kelly W. Rogers
0:51:24 Song of the Ancients [excerpt] - Nier (360/PS3)
Composed by Keiichi Okabe
Interactive audio demo example
1:01:26 Launching (Title) - Star Trader (X68000)
Originally composed by Mieko Ishikawa
Additional composers for X68k port: Hiroya Hatsushiba, Keishi Yonao
1:04:34 Elevator - System Shock (PC)
By Greg Lopiccolo, Tim Ries
Originally logged and fixed by Joey "Chicajo" D in 1998
Some past episodes
Logging community and audio format discussion
Namco C352 with ctr - Community member ctr discusses his custom playback software for 90s Namco arcade games "QuattroPlay" as well as some favorite picks
Hole Chaser with Masahiro Kajihara - Composer Kajihara-san talks about his music and developing the PMD sound driver, also used by his contemporaries to write FM music for 80s/90s Japanese computers
5 Years of VGMRips - A retrospective on some favorite music direct from the archivists in the VGMRips community
Roadkill - Jesse Bishop aka "Street Cleaner" talks about his work logging the audio from the game Roadkill. Check out our interview with Jesse about his game too!
Interview with Chase Bethea - Composer Chase Bethea talks about his music, including a live demo on dynamic audio
Hover Racing - Friend of the show electricboogaloo logged the music for the PS1 indie game on the "Net Yaroze" platform
KGB / Conspiracy - A great soundtrack and a discussion of the custom HERAD sound driver that makes the Sound Blaster music really shine
Heart Heat Girls - We cover music from a game that was logged for the show
Yuurei-kun (Mr. Ghost) - We cover the music composed by Manabu Saito, and Bryan and Gene's first full show together
Shows on VGM history
A Brief History of Game Audio - Our live talk at the Library of Congress about the evolution of game audio hardware up to ~1998
Early Game Music with They Create Worlds - Follow-up to the LoC talk, a joint discussion with game historians and podcast "They Create Worlds" about pre-1985 game music
VGM Arrangements - We talk with Nick Marinelli about the awkward adolescence of VGM remixes and arrangements
Artist feature: Manabu Saito - A deep dive into the history of Manabu Saito, a brilliant composer that left us way too soon
Other shows mentioned
Splice with Dain Saint - composer and technical director Dain Saint talks about his music, and his work in the Philly game dev scene
Panzer Dragoon Saga with Saori Kobayashi - VGM legend Saori Kobayashi talks PD Saga and her career crafting the sound for the series
Pilotwings with Dan Hess - Dan Hess and friend of the show Ian Cowell join us to talk about the amazing N64 launch title Pilotwings 64
8-Bit Big Band with Charlie Rosen - Grammy Award winning VGM arranger Charlie Rosen joins us to talk about the 8-Bit Big Band
Lunar: The Silver Star with Noriyuki Iwadare - An amazing all-timer of a show with Noriyuki Iwadare
Matt Furniss - We attempt to stump Matt Furniss with his own music tracks
Colgate the Game - Brush your teeth to the music of this game, featuring our unofficial mascot "Harold Hardtooth"
A non-exhaustive list of game audio repositories
Various systems
VGMRips - dozens of systems including many rare arcade soundtracks
World of Game Music (Mirsoft) - Search is the easiest way to navigate
Zophar Music - A very large and long-running archive
Console specific
SNESMusic - Self explanatory
Project 2612 - Sega Genesis / Mega Drive
SMSPower - Sega Master System / Game Gear
NSF Archive - Nintendo NES, maintained by MrNorbert1994 and hosted unofficially on the NESDev forums
PMH - Game Boy / GBA / PSP
Home computers
Commodore C64
High Voltage SID Collection (HVSC) - The largest C64 SID archive, both game music and music from independent musicians. Music is still made today, and added regularly!
Stone Oakvalley Authentic SID Collection (SOASC) - Hardware recordings from both main chip variants
Compute Gazette SID Collection (CGSC) - A collection of amateur musician compositions, sent into the magazine
Commodore Amiga
UnExoticA - Amiga game music files
Stone Oakvalley Amiga Music Collection (SOAMC) - Amiga hardware recordings. A near exhaustive project done by one person, Stone Oakvalley over the course of 15 years
Other 8-bit computer systems
Atari SAP Music Archive - Music from Atari 8-bit computers (XL/XE)
Atari SNDH - Atari ST archive
World of Spectrum - ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC
Japanese home computers
Kurohane (JP) - Huge archive of Japanese music logging
Hoot Archive - Sharp, NEC, MSX computers and several others, mostly FM music
Windows / PC
Roland Music Lossless Archive (RMLA) - Music from 90s Western PC games using custom sound hardware (MT-32, CM-500, LAPC-I, CM-32L & SC-880) Only available via Wayback machine
Other music repositories
The Mod Archive - PC module files, not specifically game music. Many of these musicians went on to work on games
Modland - Another Mod archive, organized by player file type
VGMusic - The largest archive of VGM MIDI files, started in 1996 and one of the most influential early internet sites dedicated to game music
A small selection of game music players
VGMPlay - Written by logger ValleyBell
ZXTune - A multi-format music player
Quattroplay - A player for Namco arcade music
Additional talks and organizations regarding audio formats and preservation
Library of Congress 2019
The Interface Between Music Composition and Game Design - Wonderful talk by game music composer Winifred Phillips, with discussion about formats and dynamic music
#Declassified: Processing & Preserving Video Games - LoC staff discusses its game collection, the process of making a preservation copy of the data for long-term storage, the unique challenges for video games and possible access solutions
A Brief History of Video Game Music - The video version of our talk (episode 112)
Trackers: The Sound of 16-Bit - Wonderful mini-documentary about the history of trackers and mod music
They Create Worlds - Podcast, book and blog dedicated to preserving game history, primarily from the business side (formation of companies, etc)
VGM Preservation Foundation (VGMPF) - A wiki style site about game music
Game Developer Research Institute (GDRI) - A website dedicated to researching the companies and people involved with video game development, especially the hidden world of contract development
