Archive for category The QuestStudios Archive

Missing Hero’s Quest / Quest for Glory 1 Track Finally Added!

Thanks to some of our forum members, we have added the missing track “The Tavern” to the Hero’s Quest / Quest for Glory 1 Digital Soundtrack page!

Thanks again Goatmeal1 for the MP3 and Ari for the OGG!

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New MIDI File Pages added to the QuestStudios Archive

Hi all!  I know it’s been forever since I updated the site…  Hopefully more frequent updates will follow.

I’ve added some new MIDI file pages!  They are still in progress from a formatting/aesthetics perspective, but the functionality is pretty much all in place.

These new MIDI File pages contain a real-time midi player PolyWave AKA MUKI, with MT-32 playback capability as well as GM playback via SoundFonts.

Additionally, the original ZIP files for the MIDI downloads are also listed.  🙂 These are the unaltered original ZIP’s from the original QuestStudios website.

One thing that’s taken this project so long (apart from real-life putting many things on hold for the last several years) has also been dealing with accounting for many of the little discrepancies in the original ZIP files, like typo’s and going through everything to match it up for the website so that everything works.

Another part of this project has been taking all that disparate data and converting it into something more flexible web-code wise. Below is a quote from a message board post I wrote a while ago on the subject.

It’s a looong time coming.

I’ve been working on the framework for those pages on and off for a long time.

I want not just to be able to provide the original QS midi zips for download, but also have them playable in the web browser, or even on a mobile/phone on-the-go. This presents several problems, the the main one being the playback of MT-32 music or MIDI music in general. “How to do it?” and “How to do it without it sounding like garbage?”. I could just make recordings of everything, but that’s bandwidth intensive, and time consuming. Thankfully, Tomas Pollak’s Polywave AKA Muki.io solves this problem wonderfully with a great implementation of MUNT, a more than adequate Soundfont-based engine for GM, as well as being a great MIDI/chip-tune player in general! I’ve had a number of great and extensive chats with Tomas about the player, some of the playback quirks I ran into, as well as some feature suggestions.

On top of all that, I also wanted to have the website code handle all of this in a more easy to manage way. There is a long story of what I did to automate the parsing the original QS Zip file contents, to match all the track names to their actual file names, many of which did not quite match or had typos in them in some cases, as well as determine what type of synth is needed, and to determine if a patch bank file was needed in case of MT-32 MIDI’s. Ultimately, I was able to create a workflow that accomplishes this and puts it all into JSON, which is what Polywave uses also. I actually extended Polywave’s playlist JSON template for my own site so that I can include track names, synth information, patch banks, file locations/URLs, and other info into the site, without now having to actually make a ton of individual pages with tons of hyperlinks manually. I am pretty pleased with the result and the potential. Again the goal experience I had envisioned for the QSA was that it be something that allows me to browse and listen to any of the tunes I want from any device on any platform.

Myself, from the site’s message board.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the new MIDI file pages, there are many more coming. Stay tuned!

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A Quick Little Zeliard Remix with Roland Cloud!

Howdy all.

As always, sorry for the lack of frequent updates on the site. I know it seems like an empty promise, but I am always trying to find more time to put into the site here. Life just keeps one occupied elsewhere sometimes…

Anyway… I was recently having a some fun with the awesome Roland Cloud! Loving the D-50 virtual synth. I’ve compared it side-by-side to my real one and I can’t tell the difference!

Here is a quick little remix from Zeliard using mainly the Roland D-50 with some Virtual Sound Canvas, and TR-909; All virtual instruments from Roland Cloud.

Download the MP3

Cheers!
Andrew

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An Informal History of Video Game Music – by Eric Wing

Eric Wing recently gave a talk about the history of video game music.  It’s an interesting and fun presentation and you should check it out.

In Eric’s words:

This is an informal look at music in video games from the early days of video games, starting from the 1970’s, but particularly focused on the MIDI and tracker (MOD) decade of music (1988-1998).

This talk will include games that are not widely discussed by today’s YouTubers, but nonetheless significant to the history of the industry. And this talk will reflect on the innovations & ambitions we have lost in today’s world in comparison.

New QuestStudios Archive MIDI Pages Forthcoming…

I have finally began work in earnest toward more MIDI soundtrack pages for the QuestStudios Archive! This is primarily in part to an amazing new feature we will be integrating into the site. Here is a teaser:

Polywave
A browser-based player with MT-32 Emulation, AdLib Emulation, SoundFont playback, and much more!

NOTE: The larger soundtrack files at the end of this playlist may temporarily cause your browser to freeze while loading! :O