LogFAQs > #962951258

62st
Game: Full Tilt! Pinball: Space Cadet *Remix
Title: Track 3 (Meteor Storm) (OPL3 and MSGS MIDI sounds simultaneously)
Composer: Matt Ridgeway
Nominator: @GameBopAdv
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2tXvZX9tCM

I may have told this story before, but I have a VERY strong memory of my first time using a computer with the more fancy looking version of windows media player (i suppose this would've been windows media player 7.0 on windows me). My parents had to drag me to some boring event with a bunch of adults doing boring adult work things or whatever at someone's nice fancy giant house. i wouldn't have anything to do for hours and i think i was the only kid there, so no one to talk to. BUT they let me wander around and knew I liked computers so told me I could use the computer there. This was a computer with Windows ME, a NEW operating system I had never seen (i would've still been on windows 95 at the time) and also I was stubbornly obsessed with "midi files" so the very first thing I did was do a search for "*.mid" to look up all the midis on that computer and one of the only ones was the main 3d space cadet pinball theme (I am unsure if I actually played the game. Knowing myself I probably just listened to the thing on loop for hours, which is more what I remember). despite how seemingly mind-numbingly boring the scenario i was stuck in was (especially as their computer was so new it had literally nothing on it other than what was pre-installed, and no internet), listening to that midi alone gave me entertainment for hours. the memory stuck with me strong because i was having so much fun listening to that midi over and over!!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/8/2/AAefu7AAC942.png

The sound card was one I was unfamiliar with at the time too, if I remember correctly I didn't like it as much as opl3 or Soundblaster Live's 8mbgmsfx.sf2...and I still don't know what it was (but it was /probably/ the first time I heard MSGS technically, almost certainly, which is weird to think about given how well-known those sounds are to most people now, erroneously even as "THE thing midi sounds like"). but I was simply happy with the fascination of this NEW operating system with a media player setup I'd never seen before and midis playing on sounds I'd never heard before! Who cares about computer games when i just want to listen to the cool midi file it has like this!

i miss when new operating systems and software updates felt /exciting/ and /new/. everything to me now is so uninspiring and whenever i learn about anything new i'm freaking out "can i still use a version of sony vegas from 2004 on it?" as my first thoughts, which i'm sure you're all too aware of the feeling of. (at least virtual machines and dosbox and things like that are a lot more accessible and maintained these days). space cadet pinball takes me back to a time when new technology actually excited me, made me happy. being able to see "2000" as "a new thing to look forward to" as opposed to as "an old thing i want to go back to". space cadet pinball midi is probably THE most symbolic thing to me of the "NEW computer technology!! COOL!" feeling i had a lot more pre-2005

i have so many other memories entangled with listening to that midi on that day, the shiny way the media player loading symbols felt and looked (it fit so well with this shiny new unfamiliar "MSGS Muted Guitar" sound too. that cool sphere thing especially); so fancy...and unrelated things from the same day like a barbecue emitting heat that warped the way the rest of the outside looked. what would've otherwise been an incredibly boring day of being a kid dragged to adults' work event, instead turned out to be honestly one of THE most vivid memories i have of anything that old. maybe this mundane seeming memory of mine is boring to hear me ramble about, but it's significant to me maybe even just simply because i inexplicably remember it so much better than basically any other thing that happened around ~2000 for some reason, can still see the images in my head. i really do think excitement over seeing this new technology at the time has something to do with it, just entangling what'd otherwise be a mundane event with powerful emotional highs for me. windows me is a big step up from 95, and windows media player 7.0...there wasn't even anything LIKE that in my version of windows. classic media player was just like...a scrollbar. so it was a big deal, especially when i already really liked 'computers' and 'music' and 'midi files' a lot to begin with.

Unrelatedly to the above: I had the actual 3d pinball cd, like not bundled with windows, but the separately sold game that came with multiple tables (and ability to hear this more obscure song you nominated). But I think I wasn't even aware that I had that at the time somehow? But that was my primary experience with this game---the real non windows bundled version. Like I said I'm not even sure I played the game during that old memory of listening to the midi. So it was a cool feeling to later realize I have the actual game it was made for, and hear the song in a new context, alongside many other great tracks like this one!

OK SO on to actually tlaking about this specific song:

also VISUALIZER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rqFeE9qlXQ

one thing that's very obviously something i have to mention is how i like the "slightly complex chord progression" and things like that chiffer lead intersecting with individual notes in that chord progression to enhance it being cool. a lot of movements are chromatic and have to be because it's the only way this stuff even works. I definitely had a fascination with this song when i learned about it simply because of it being not the 'standard' one, and was a neat uplifting subversion of the darker main theme. but it's also just a decent deal more musically challenging! goes and moves a lot more places because it's based around more unusual chords/chord changes, which makes the melody/bass/etc all have to do lots more unusual things to be able to fit with them!

something that always stood out to me about these songs, and you can see in the visual there, is how unsynchronized these constant 16ths layers are. This is clearly being played live on a midi keyboard into the midi file. the actual composition is incredibly gridded obviously, and that fits the scenario perfect, but it's funny to me to imagine some guy playing every individual 16th note on a keyboard and all the slight imprecisions that come with that. like...i always thought this video was kind of funny:
https://youtu.be/QmFUMmgF3z4?t=30

but also that is probably literally how this song was made! not sequenced with a mouse in piano roll or whatever, but every one of those 16th notes liveplayed and that liveplayed data recorded into the file. I think this stands out a lot more in Meteor Storm than it does in the normal space cadet song, because there's just more parts of the song where you hear multiple constant-16ths layers at the same time.

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