Cave Story soundtrack - remade with VRC6! (And some obligatory rambling) · 12:28pm Sep 9th, 2015
So it's not often that I just share random things in my blogs unless I'm asked to, but I decided to make an exception for this instance, because it's just too awesome to not share. As you can see, someone set aside quite a bit of time (around half a year) to remix/remake the soundtrack of Cave Story in FamiTracker -- so that means, yes, it is indeed true 8-bit sound, and it utilizes the VRC6 chip extension as well.
Being that Cave Story is an amazing game and the soundtrack for it is one of my all-time favorites, on top of my love for all things 8-bit, you can see why this is something I'd be interested in, and thus, would want to share it. And it's only got a couple hundred views?! For how much effort it must've taken to make it, that's just criminal. (There's a tracklist with timeline shortcuts on the video description, so, you can skip through to your preferred songs if you don't feel like sitting through over a straight hour-plus of music. ;) )
Just what is the VRC6 chip, you might ask? Well, many of you probably don't care (so thus, having seen what I have promoted, feel free to skip over it), but for those that do, then by all means, read on.
It's this thing, right here. That's what was stuffed inside this cartridge. Cool, huh?
In my usual tradition of rambling about things I'm particularly fond of, the VRC6 was a proprietary cartridge chip that Konami used back when they were making their own carts for the Famicom console (which I've talked about in a prior blog). In addition to the expanded memory capacity that was superior to the basic carts that Nintendo produced at the time, it also added its most noticeable and interesting feature: enhanced sound and music. The VRC6 added three full sound channels to the 2A03's built-in five -- two pulse wave channels and one sawtooth wave channel -- bringing up the total to eight. The result is a much fuller, "richer" sound than the typical NES/Famicom sound channels could allow on their own.
This is perhaps most evident in the Japanese release of Castlevania 3, known there as Akumajō Densetsu (literally, "Devil's Castle Legend"), and one of the relatively few games that used the chip. You can easily tell the difference between it and the version we know right from the start. Though, it's a matter of opinion and preference on which version you prefer, since both still sound great.
Why did this version not make it overseas? It's a bit of a long story, but, as far as I know, Nintendo wanted to keep their products under control outside of Japan -- as evidenced by the infamous 10NES lockout chip -- and so as a result, companies releasing over here were forced to use chips and hardware provided by Nintendo, which they could only get through the appropriate licensing. As a result, Konami was not allowed to use their own specially-designed chips. So, left with no other option, they ported the game and completely rearranged the music to utilize Nintendo's MMC5 chip. Which was, in fairness, quite a powerful chip on its own, complete with a couple of extra sound channels to boot, but few games made use of it.
Since FamiTracker (a popular music tracker software that produces TRUE 8-bit sound, none of that GXSSC crap) can utilize the capabilities of the VRC6 chip, among the many other well-known audio chips for the system, you're bound to see a lot of remixes floating around online in that style. I could probably point you in the direction of a few other particularly good ones...
I think I'm just slightly addicted to Castlevania, now.
Holy shit how did this guy get the choir samples in there.
Can't go wrong with a classic.
Seriously just search "VRC6" on YouTube, and you'll find lots of cool stuff.
Would you believe me if I told you that this was one of the songs that got me into the fandom?
This one, too. This is also good.
2spooky4me
This chip was succeeded by the extremely rare VRC7 chip, which added even MORE channels and memory. It was only ever used in one game, Lagrange Point, and you'd be forgiven for thinking the sound coming out of it being from the 16-bit era instead. Bit of a shame neither that nor the VRC6 ever caught on (mainly due to Nintendo's restrictions and the fact that they were pretty expensive to produce), but hey, it makes for a cool retrospective.
Oh look, a pony! Your day is now enhanced.
Very cool stuff, I'd not known any of this, think you'd be up for doing a blogpost on the evils of GXSSC? Or maybe go further back and do a sort of newbie primer on the major terms and movers and shakers 8-bit wise?
3380028
I didn't think people would be interested in any of this, but, I'd love to. There's a ton of topics I could dig into, nevermind just the musical side of things.
Hah, I probably could, yeah. And it's GXSCC, actually; minor typo there on my part. But yes, it's not a bad program by itself, but it's the way people use it that makes it awful. Doesn't help that most of the time, it just sounds really, really bad. (Example: This is a lazily-done "remix" using GXSCC. Compare that to this excellent, true remix, made using FamiTracker. Yeah...)
Such as? Audio-wise, game-wise, or just in general? Maybe I could talk about specific companies, game series, or simply carry on getting into the nitty-gritty of the 8-bit sound systems. There's a lot of ground I can cover, so for me it's just a matter of figuring out where to start.