Mega Man 9 - Maze of Death NSF Cover (Endless Stage) Remade

[sodalakevine]

Props for giving us this awesome reproduction. This song is so awesome I feel like I'm zooming through spacetime when I hear it.

[Sacredfire059]

You...

Are amazing.

You're the one who did all the music for MM9, and you're neither Japanese nor a corporate bigwig?

*kisses your feet* I am not worthy...

[tssf]

Haha well thank you. I am not affiliated with Capcom, I simply remade the music in an NES format, just because I was interested in hearing the new music being played back in the old hardware. It's always nice hearing something simulate old hardware, but again it just doesn't compare.

[Sacredfire059]

But, I got the soundtrack of the game (in MP3 format) and you were credited as the artist.

Also, about that little comment about the creation of the song - I agree totally. I tried to remix it in FL Studio; the only thing I could salvage from the failboat of a song was the first four measures' bassline.

[tssf]

You probably picked up the NSF-playing-back-from-real-har­dware soundtrack torrent. That's not the original soundtrack unfortunately. I strive for perfection when I remake songs, but I'm definitely not affiliated with the original soundtrack from the actual game. :( I thank you for the praise though.

Maze of Death is a pain, but if you want, I could send you a link where you can get FamiTracker, and the FTM version of the song so you can look at the notes.

[Sacredfire059]

Thanks for the offer, I'll just wait 'till a MIDI comes out though.

Although I AM looking into FamiTracker and would love a tutorial, this thing's friggin confusing =X

[tssf]

Haha well I personally am not making a MIDI version. I tried converting the S3M to MIDI but it didn't turn out well at all. If you can find one that's extremely accurate, then great. There may be one there. I would check vgmusic.

[ratix98]

tssf i was wondering. since the nes has sound bugs. what are some examples where it is present. like that audio snap that you had mentioned in the mm9 soundtrack you had released. are there any games that had that?

[SarothCyngus]

This is how it would sound if MM9 were for the actual NES. Sounds more 8-bit than the orginal. Nice job.

[danooct1]

You're way too insane, tssf.

[Amasloth]

holy fuck how many years does it take to complete one song

[tssf]

what are you talking about? Maze of Death's been complete for a while now.

[PercyShan]

I hear a minor flaw not very important. Good job, tssf!

[tssf]

In the NSF? The NSF version has the "most up to date" version of the song, with some of the mistakes the video has corrected (as I can't update the video without losing all comments / ratings)

[Sprocketman]

Hah, and the composer for Mega Man 9 claimed it wouldn't be possible to do the Endless Stage music using the original NES hardware.

Never underestimate the power of fans. :)

[tssf]

Where did you get the information that this song couldn't be done on the NES? Hehe. If I was better aquainted with Famitracker, I probably could have made this in a much better, easier manner. The song can be done on NES, but it would probably take up a lot of memory. It's longer than the average Mega Man song, and much more complex. So maybe that's what he was talking about.

It can be done on the NES, in a playable game though..that's a different story.

[judgeitobox]

He said "probably" Sproketman. It "probably" wouldn't be possible on an NES. (What is it about you fanboys that makes you take every developer's quote about the tiniest detail and try to find something to refute it with?)

And judging by this remake, it isn't. You'd need one of the sound expansion chips to get a perfect NES-style remake.

Not that I'm bashing your work or anything, tssf, it sounds great!

[Sprocketman]

Okay, okay, I apologize for taking that out of context.

I just meant to compliment him, that's all. No need to be defensive.

[graffx3x]

GOSH, YOU CRAZY FANBOYS. Only a fanboy would say something like that.

[dschultz6072]

Sounds amazing, and I'm sure it only took you an hour to recreate =p  =) Hope all is well, God bless.

[tssf]

It actually took a full weekend :) Thanks for the comments!

[flashygoodness]

Oh, EPIC. I knew this would be done eventually! I can imagine how difficult a task it must be to recreate one of the most complex songs from MM9. I've been a fan of NSF for quite some time, and it's really awesome that new songs are still being made in this format! Thank you for this, and keep up the great work!

[Valis77]

not bad!

[JosephCollins]

It turned out alright, but there's some noticably wrong notes here and there. Mostly wrong pitches and whatnot.

Now if only there were a MID2NSF sort of program... Between that and FruityLoops Studio 5, I'd be all set... Color me too lazy to work with Schism Tracker and 8-bit samples, I guess. ;P

[tssf]

Which notes are wrong? As far as I know there are no wrong notes (I checked it extensively throughout the entire song, especially since I remade 98% of all the "drums" via a playback rate 1/4th the regular speed)

There are some misrepresented effects. The video's audio is old though, the NSF uploaded is the latest version of the song.

There are MID to NSF converters out there. You have to convert it to some standard before you can convert it to NSF.

[JosephCollins]

No, you're right. I was very-much wrong. A side-by-side comparison listening on headphones tells me that the two songs are virtually identical to one-another. I guess my dealing with the Universal NES SoundFont to do Wily Machine 9 last month skewed my viewpoint or something. Dunno why I thought it didn't sound right at first listen... Sorry.

[tssf]

No, all is well. So you're doing an NES-soundfont? I did one back in the day for GBC audio just so a buddy of mine could get me some GBC songs so I could engineer it..but lost them. Could you let me know where to pick it up when you're done? :)

[JosephCollins]

Oddly enough, Zophar's Domain (Zophar [DOT] Net) has one. The one I have, in fact. It's called the "Universal NES SoundFont" and it's by Mideeman. It PERFECTLY simulates every type of wave used by Inti Creates as well as a number of common waves used in NES and Gameboy games. (When I say "perfectly", I do mean just that. The NES version of my Wily Machine MIDI is perfect except for the alarm noises. D:) It makes me wonder if that's what Inti Creates used to make the Rockman 9 soundtrack...

[JosephCollins]

On a slightly more incidental note, feel free to check out my arranged MIDI of the Wily Machine theme at VG Music if you want. I'd put up a video here, but it'd be hugely boring seeing as I have no Rockman 9 to PLAY. XD

[tssf]

So I thought I'd give Wily Machine a try myself:

tssf . gamemusic . ca / Remakes / GIBStuff / wilyboss.nsf

The slides kinda mess up near the end but that's because I'm not doing slides I'm doing notation. It's good enough I think.

[JosephCollins]

The term "good enough" isn't good enough when talking about the accuracy of this NSF. Still, and this might just be my crappy Compaq laptop running Windows Vista, but some of the notes seem a little clumsy or trigger just a split-second too early here and there... That could also be the downside of using S3M-to-NSF software as well, but I dunno if it's ME or the NSF. D: Your take on the alarm noises seems far more accurate than my take, though!

Overall, I'd say you did a great job!

[tssf]

It's definitely the NSF with the timing issues. S3M2NSF causes many timing issues which are starting to tick me off. I've done tons of other S3M2NSF conversions where things just cut too soon, then later in the song they cut at the right time..etc. Replace the file extension "NSF" with "S3M" to hear how it's supposed to sound. The alarm is pretty close but because I chose to do the pitches manually rather than having a pitch bend do it for me, it's not as accurate. Maybe I'll fiddle around.

[dpk4]

holy crap man! this is like exactly like the original! well done!

this stage is EVIL! it's so freaking tough to stay alive after a while!

[tssf]

Thanks! Although there are some errors here and there that I'm currently working to fix (I guess I put the song out too soon, I worked on it all weekend)..the NSF and S3M will be updated later, the video won't be changed though. :)