Image:Ballblazer.ogg
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About the music
This is the algorithmic composition played continually during play on 1982 LucasArts' game Ballblazer on the venerable Commodore 64 microcomputer (the game was originally developed for the the Atari 800, and also released for the Atari 5200 and 7800. the 800 version was called Ballblaster during development). This page (http://www.atarimagazines.com/v3n4/lucasfilm.html) describes the music thus:
- The sound for Ballblazer was produced by Langston, a musician with experience arranging and performing jazz, rock and American folk music. "One reviewer, an eminent jazz player, said it sounded like John Coltrane did it. I think that's my best compliment so far."
The music plays forever, without repeating itself but without straying too far from the original theme. The bassline doesn't vary at all, only the lead line in the higher register is fractally varied. This sample doesn't at all do the original justice - the only way to appreciate it properly is to download SIDplay and the .SID file (both linked below) and let it play for hours.
Copyright information
Fair use is asserted for the following reasons:
- no loss of income is likely, as the game from which it is taken hasn't been sold for twenty years
- only a very small portion of the original work is reproduced:
- this is only a portion of the game's soundtrack, and
- the original work is of infinite length, so this 1 minute sample represents only a tiny proportion of it.
Additionally, the copyright status of this (and other generative works) is unclear and untested. The actual notes performed, and the weighted-random numbers used in their composition, were created on my computer. They are based on an algorithm designed by Lucasarts.
I assert no copyright of my own on this work.
This work is copyrighted. The individual who uploaded this work and first used it in an article, and subsequent persons who place it into articles assert that this qualifies as fair use of the material under United States copyright law.
Technical info
Original .SID file obtained from: http://www.c64unlimited.net/games/b/Ballblazer/Ballblazer.htm
Rendered by User:Finlay McWalter in the following steps:
- "played" (where dynamic generative synthesis is done) using SIDplay (http://sidplay2.sourceforge.net/) (version from May 3rd 2001) producing a 44100 Hz 16 bit mono .WAV file
- shaped using Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) (v1.3.1 on WindowsXP) to make the music tail-off at the end (as the original generative work is of infinite length)
- converted to OGG-Vorbis using Audacity
An MP3 version of this file is available here
File links
There are no pages that link to this file.