Re: playing music from GS games

[Mitchell Spector <mitch2gs@hotmail.com>]

"Matthew S. Carpenter" <superpsycho@comcast.net> wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I have my IIgs' audio out hooked up to my Mac's line in for pass through 
>to my stereo system. Someone saw that I had it set up this way and asked 
>if I could record the music from Zany Golf to Mp3.
>
>This got me wondering, is there software on the IIgs that would make it 
>possible play the music files for Zany Golf on the IIgs

    Yes and no. Zany Golf's music file format in question is actually 
"Deluxe Music Construction Set GS". Unfortunately it was never
publicly released (or even leaked) and not compatible with the
Deluxe Music Construction Set format used by the Amiga.

    It should come as no surprise Zany Golf's author, Will Harvey,
is also the same programmer who wrote Music Construction Set GS
and Deluxe Music Construction Set GS. Which were subsequently
used in all his Apple IIGS games--Marble Madness, Zany Golf and
The Immortal.

>without running the game so that there wouldn't be any of the game SFX 
>over the music when I record the music to Mp3 on my Mac.

    Years ago I created a collection of MP3's of several IIgs games,
Zany Golf was among them. I have all 11 soundtracks from the game 
(12.7 MB), without any sound effects present. I did the same for The
Immortal, but a little trickery was involved. 

    At the time I used a Pro-AudioSpectrum-16 sound card, connected
to my ROM 3's headphone jack (since Zany Golf only uses stereo for
sound effects, it was better to have the audio, even though monaural,
mirrored to both channels). I wouldn't mind re-recording it through a
SoundBlaster Live or Audigy, since the quality is higher.

    Ah yes, if you want to listen Zany Golf's soundtracks _without_ the
sound effects present, just press "S" anytime during the level which
brings up the scorecard. The music will continue playing with the
sound effects omitted (just wait for it to loop around the second time
before recording; yes, it loops continuously).

Mitchell Spector