Hello, everyone. For some time, I hosted/maintained a website that offered free downloads of Ad Lib music which I, myself had ripped from various PC (DOS) video games. However the music was stored in a special format which required people to actually *have* an Ad Lib compatible sound card (a rarity, these days) or use *gasp* emulation to play back the music. The site eventually closed, because I wanted to offer something that could be more universally accepted and enjoyed. Today, that has happened. As of today I am proud to present... The Ad Lib music archive v2 @ adlib.oldergames.com Each song is recorded using special hardware that connects directly to the YM3812 chip on the Ad Lib sound card, for the absolute highest possible quality. Since the recorded songs are stored in MP3 format, you can enjoy listening to them using your favorite music player -- comfortably reliving the good old days. In addition to being a nice, little site that will grow as time allows me to record / edit / process / add new soundtracks, its official opening marks the start of the "OlderGames" internet domain being used, under my ownership, as a free tribute site to various aspects of classic gaming in general. Thanks for your attention and interest, everyone. Enjoy the site and have a nice day.
... The RDOSPlay RAW songs? No, I don't plan to. However I may submit them to the "Chiptune Archive" or some such similar site, so they can host them. I'll need to gather them all together and see.
Anything Ad Lib compatible. Should work, I believe that's what we had in our 486 for Kings Quest and Quest for Glory and everything else - always chose "Ad Lib" during install.
... Since the recorded songs are stored in MP3 format, you can enjoy listening to them using your favorite music player -- comfortably reliving the good old days.
... The Ad Lib music archive was updated today. New soundtracks include: * Arkanoid: Revenge of Doh * Olmang Jolmang Paradise * Street Fighter II IBM Please visit and enjoy @ http://adlib.oldergames.com !
... Yes, it'll be added before too long. It was actually the first Ad Lib soundtrack I ever recorded using the hardware method.
Good stuff. Keep 'em coming! Street Fighter II is a bit of a mixed bag. Ryu and Chun-Li's themes sound great but the rest are pretty mediocre. I've just been listening to some X68000 sound rips and they make me wish the YM-2151 had been chosen for Adlib instead. The IBM Music Feature Card was pretty much a YM-2151 on an ISA card but was priced way outside the budget of the average PC owner.
... Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying the music. Street Fighter II IBM is an unofficial Korean version of the game. Considering, I think it's a pretty good effort all around. If you really want to hear mediocrity, check out the official PC version of Street Fighter II, which was produced by US Gold. Talk about a steaming pile of dung. After listening to that, you'd thank me for recording + posting the unofficial Korean set instead. Moving to Ad Lib from the Apple II's single-channel "clicker", I was blown away by the sound it produced. These days, I'm still impressed by a fair amount of the music, but certainly (like anything else), it's the nostalgic feeling one gets from listening to these tunes that really makes them special.
The Ad Lib music archive was updated today. New soundtracks include: * Super Fighter * Tetris Classic Please visit and enjoy @ http://adlib.oldergames.com !
Cool stuff, if a little limited on the library at the moment ;-) I assume that you don't have permission to rip and host the music, though... in which case, be careful! I'm curious about your use of the term "special hardware that connects directly to the YM3812". Did you solder something on to the chip?! Or are you saying that you have a sound card with S/PDIF out and are recording digitally? Whatever you did, I had a chuckle about the following two sentences back-to-back: That's a bit like saying, "Sir, I cooked your dinner with the finest ingredients to perfection. Then I took a crap on it." If you want that quality to be preserved, use a lossless format such as FLAC. I agree though, it's a toss-up - quality vs. maximum compatability without the need for additional software. Incidentally, were the soundtracks for the coin-op conversions such as Arkanoid different from the original, then? Hope to see more tunes on there soon
... Thanks. It's going to be a slow-to-grow library, because the process involves two computers and is rather time consuming. True, at least for everything aside from the Super Fighter soundtrack, since my company owns the rights to that game. This is why I have the copyright disclaimer at the bottom of the site. I figure if a company wants their rather antiquated chip music removed from the site, they'll e-mail me, and I'll gladly comply with their wishes. I have respect for all game companies. What it's called, is the Adlib Digisnap. You can search on Google and easily find more information - but basically what it does, is attach directly to the YM3812 chip on the Ad Lib card, and the other end connects to the parallel port of another computer. It captures every write to the YM3812 and converts it to a digital waveform. In essence, yeah, it's the "purest" way to get a recording. Heh. Lots of people say that - but I'm not going to waste webspace and bandwidth hosting FLAC files. To be honest, I'm extremely picky about the authentic quality of the recordings, which is why I do so much work to record them using hardware rather than what most people would do (emulation or the like). But the Ad Lib is a mono output @ 49720 hz. When I do the conversion from straight headerless RAW waveform over to MP3, the "loss of quality" in the playback is very low. And I tend to think most people don't matter anyway, because quite honestly I don't forsee anyone else sitting down to archive Ad Lib soundtracks in this manner... Take a listen and find out! Generally speaking though, no. That sort of stuff was a lot more common on the C=64, where the European composers would go in and jam out a new take on an original soundtrack. On the PC, it was usually just a straight arcade to Ad Lib conversion. Not that there's anything wrong with that; the Arkanoid: Revenge of DoH set, I've always thought, is pretty neat. Thanks. I hope to have time to record/add more soon. I'm not left with a lot of free time to do it, after 2 jobs and everything else - but I've loved the sound of the Ad Lib card since I first heard it, so it's a pleasure to be sharing the authentic sound of the card with people. Hopefully some people who never heard it before will come give a listen, and see what the PC sound synth all started from.
... Maybe one day. I'd do the Dune II set first, because I prefer that one. I don't have an Ad Lib Gold, nor do I have custom hardware to make hardware recordings from an Ad Lib Gold. Anything that appears on my site will be recorded from the standard Ad Lib card.
