Tag Archives: electronic

The Month That Was

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June was the launch month for this blog. It was a busy and interesting month with some surprising results. In all honesty, I wasn’t expecting much in the way of traffic. The majority of blogs hardly get much of a readership, within the first 6 months of operation. 16-BIT Shock on the other hand enjoyed a constant stream of daily visitors. Several spikes occurred during the month, further bumping up overall traffic to the site.

It was also really great that so many views came from so many different countries. To be exact, 31 countries within a 30 day period. Here are the top 10 countries by rate of views:

  1. United States
  2. South Africa (where 16-BIT Shock is based)
  3. United Kingdom
  4. Greece
  5. Canada
  6. Japan
  7. Brazil
  8. Mexico
  9. Netherlands
  10. Italy

Honourable mentions also go to visitors from: Germany, Russia, Portugal, Australia, Finland, Sweden, Hungary, France, Spain, Belgium, New Zealand, Norway, Israel, Ireland, Latvia, Denmark, Morocco, Iceland, Malaysia, Honduras and Columbia.

I appreciate that so many of you took the time to visit this site, read the articles and even shared with your friends & followers on the various social media channels. It’s even better to know that there’s a keen interest in retro gaming among the majority of you. The articles will only get better in the coming months with an increased focus on the project I’ve been working on.

For those of you who have waited patiently for more information on this project –July is your month!

I have several articles lined up that will go into greater detail about this game project, the development process and the release of the first screenshots to ever be made public. Exciting stuff and sure to fire up a few retro heads out there.

And for those that enjoyed Joe Gilliver’s FM Synthesis article, are also in for a treat. Joe’s busy preparing another one that will go further into the technicalities. Want to make your own FM-based chiptune tracks or wondering what the fuss is all about? Joe is an expert in the field and will be shining some light on what is deeply niche subject matter.

Bass Cadet will continue being a mainstay of this blog but will probably be reduced to 2-3 posts per month. The reason for this is because the emphasis will now shift towards game development updates. All in all, it’s looking like an even more interesting month ahead. Stay retro, folks 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

Bass Cadet 03 – Streets Of Rage 2

 

 

 

Bass Cadet 03 hitting you just in time for the weekend!

 

Streets Of Rage 2 / Bare Knuckle II by the legendary Yuzo Koshiro. 

 

 

Bass Cadet 01 – Thunder Force IV

Welcome to my new weekly feature – Bass Cadet.

Every week I will be showcasing a piece of music that’s relevant to the retro enthusiast right here on Bass Cadet. Requirements and criteria for a me to cover a single track, album or even a live performance are as follows:

  • Composition must be strictly electronic.
  • The production may be for a game or any other medium but it must be able to work as a game soundtrack.
  • Vitally important for all compositions to be instrumental but samples and singing are permitted, provided they are a good match.
  • Experimental compositions are allowed but they must be listenable.
  • It may be an old or new production but it must sound positively retro.
  • Last but not least, it must sound great!

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, let’s kick off this week’s feature with something awesome. Technosoft (also known as Tecno Soft) were the code house behind the truly remarkable Thunder Force series. They were also know for the astounding sound work on their game releases.

Thunder Force IV on the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis for those in the U.S.) is one of my favourite horizontal scrolling shmups of all time. It’s just one of those games that strikes the right balance between visuals, sound and play mechanics. A masterpiece bar none.

Since TFIV was developed for the Mega Drive the music is obviously using the system’s Yamaha YM2612 FM-based chip. The previous article covered FM-Synthesis and gave some excellent examples of it’s applications.

However, Thunde Force IV is the standard-bearer for FM-Synthesis on the Mega Drive. Composed by Takeshi Yoshida, Toshiharu Yamanishi and Tomomi Otani they managed to put that little Yamaha chip through it’s paces. If you click on the video above, the results speak for themselves. Fusing techno-jazz with metal, this can only be described as 16-bit cyber thrash, space orchestra. Enjoy!