Electric Moo: Nox Archaist Video Game Soundtrack, Discrete Quad, lossless

[Electric Moo]

This album was originally released in stereo a year ago. Since it is an immersive, ambient soundtrack with lots of effects, I figured it would be a good candidate for surround treatment. So I remixed the whole thing into Quad from scratch, as a practical exercise in surround. It was a lot of work!!

Initially I planned to get vinyl copies pressed, using Involve's matrix encoding process, but as there is a two year backlog for pressing plants right now that has been put on hold. It may still happen in the future though.

Meanwhile here is the discrete 4 channel mix, plus LFE channel to enhance FX. For maximum compatibility & ease of decoding, the file format is a 5.1 FLAC container, with a silent center channel. It is designed for playback on four full range speakers: the classic quad setup. As mentioned there is a LFE channel as well, but it's not absolutely necessary.

The stereo soundtrack mp3 files are included with the purchase of the game. If you are into video games, it is quite an amazing project: Nox Archaist was written from scratch in assembly line, to run natively on an original Apple II computer, complete with floppy disks (!!). It will also run on an Apple II emulator on modern computers.

5.1 audio is not supported by Bandcamp yet, so the actual download link is included as a "bonus item" once you purchase the single track. It's a 2.4 gig zip file.
The single track is the stereo ( short ) version of track 1 "Nox Archaist Suite".

Quadraphonic version is $10. Runtime 56:40
https://electricmoo.bandcamp.com/album/nox-archaist-quadraphonic-discrete-41-51-mix
Stereo version is $5. Runtime 55 minutes.
https://electricmoo.bandcamp.com/album/nox-archaist-original-game-soundtrack
24/96 lossless FLAC files in both cases.

The Quad version has an extended track 1, with a shipwreck to tie into the beginning of the game. It was originally used in the Kickstarter campaign. I embellished it for the soundtrack.

Track listing:

Hope you like it!!

Interested in people's impressions. As I said, it's my first attempt at surround.

 

[Electric Moo]

Here is a link to the game:

https://www.6502workshop.com/p/nox-archaist.html
This fellow does a great review of the box set:

 

[Electric Moo]

And here are some reviews of the soundtrack. Not everybody likes it

 

[Sonik Wiz]

Here is a link to the game:

https://www.6502workshop.com/p/nox-archaist.html
This fellow does a great review of the box set:

Not being a gamer it was interesting to see the unboxing of Nox Archaist. But no actual demo so I still don't know what the game is about. I think a friend said it is available to play on Steam? Don't know if he was correct or not.

So is your project a re-make of the original game music? Or is it something entirely new inspired by the game?

 

[Sonik Wiz]

And here are some reviews of the soundtrack. Not everybody likes it

View attachment 74526

I take it this was from the original stereo release? If so how long has it been out. I guess the big deal is that it is now in surround.

 

[Electric Moo]

Good questions:

The Apple II wasn't capable of playing music ingame initially, so my soundtrack was designed as a companion piece, to be played on a stereo or PC running an emulator, while the game was being played. Eventually they figured out how to get a Mockingboard emulator to work, so now it can play short pieces of 8 bit music, as a character enters a new area. Some of the soundtrack cues are in there, too.

Here is a promo vid for the game:

 

[Electric Moo]

I guess it's a juxtaposition of a modern game soundtrack and hardware that was only capable of playing 8 bit audio.

There are many references to things in the game: dialogue, monster traits, the spells being cast are based on the latin wordings in the manual, and being killed & resurrected is a large part of gameplay

In fact the whole thing loops, starting from the shipwreck at the beginning of the story, and plays out as a journey of sorts.

 

[Electric Moo]

By the way, those reviews are all done by characters you encounter in the game. One item you discover is called "Escape from Vacous, the Musical" written by none other than Lord Hraakvar!

 

[Sonik Wiz]

Last night I sat down on the floor (between all 4 speakers, you know) to wrap some Christmas presents. I put on Nox Archaist surround to accompany the paper cutting & taping. I did not get anything wrapped... it wasn't long before I pulled my chair back in position & gave this music/soundtrack my full attention.

It is imaginative music with clean production & good surround mixing. The songs are more like environments. One might be a boat at sea, a village or wolves at night. The opening track is big & grand setting the stage for the other selections to follow. IMO this is good mood music for after dark enjoyment, not so much ear bud music for a brisk walk in the sun.

There is quite pinpoint individual sounds & some active panning. It's engaging but not gaudy. Track 8 starts off with a loud snap that spooked both my pups off the couch. But I won't spoil more than that as this is music more to be discovered than detailed.

Highly recommended!

 

[Electric Moo]

Wow!! Thanks for the review!

And glad you like it!

It was difficult to come up with material that wasn't boring, but also not too distracting, as it was more or less intended to be played in the background. So if it succeeded in creating an environment and mood, it is good.

 

[Electric Moo]

I just realized, there's no way to preview the music on that Quad link. But the stereo versions are up on youtube, here is track 4 "sea voyage"

 

[Electric Moo]

And here is a mellower one called "travelling by night"



The whole soundtrack is like a journey through the world the game is based in, called Wynmar.

 

[jimfisheye]

I ended up listening to the last track initially. (Probably the most "art rock" sounding of the set.) I wasn't sure what to expect going in and I find this "art rock" story telling approach (akin to improvised music) with interesting bits that jumped out and surprised me. More in my wheelhouse than the endless verse/chorus/click-track approach you hear too often. Well recorded and mixed at a glance too!

After more complete listening I hear some of the keyboard patch sounds and looped game soundtrack style bits. Especially the first track. That's not quite in my wheelhouse (I tend to like live originating performance) but I'll take this over a lot of modern stuff I've heard! A video game soundtrack hits like this, eh?

Nice work Electric Moo!

 

[Electric Moo]

Hey, thanks!! I know you have high standards, so if it gets your approval that says a lot!!

Just a note: I played all the parts on this whole project, manually. So the timing is probably sloppy, but I wanted it to breathe more than copy/pasted midi items.

Except for the sequencer driving the rhythm parts on "storm of Vazarath", which I recorded live while tweaking the various synths, and the arpeggiator on "song of the wisp". Although I was working the Moog live while playing the chords. There's some mistakes in there too.

I don't think I even ran a clock when I laid down the basic drums in track 1. And it took a pint of beer & many tries to get those high strings! It would have been easier to lock & quantize everything, honestly.

The coolest thing was using a real balalaika my mother brought back from Russia years ago, for the itinerant band playing in the tavern. that was intentionally rough. I just tuned the thing up & improv'd over the gtr part.

So I used real instruments as much as possible. Unfortunately I don't have a symphony orchestra in my basement.

 

[GOS]

Downloading it now. I'll report back later...

 

[Electric Moo]

Awesome! Curious how it sounds on your system!

For gear nerds, I used a lot of cool stuff on this, although I tried to keep it fairly subtle & blend in with the rest of the instruments ( so it didn't sound like @@LOOK!! here is an Oberheim!! Haha )

So there's

-Fender Rhodes MK1A ( same model Ray Manzarek used on "riders on the storm" )
-Moog model D
-Moog Voyager
-Moog Grandmother
-Oberheim Four Voice SEM
-Roland System 500
-Doepfer Dark Time, Dark Energy 1 & 2
-RMI Electra Piano & Harpsichord
-a bunch of guitars

Ugh...maybe I'll compile some liner notes

 

[jimfisheye]

Well done again then! Apparently some of the slickness in the production fooled me a little. High standards or "high" standards? I just think some of the major labels with their shrill bs need to go back to school. This is how it's done.

 

[Sonik Wiz]

Glad to see others are taking notice of this work. Most certianly looking forward to what @GOS thinks of it.

I found the hardware list pretty interesting. Any other cool "making of" info?

 

[Electric Moo]

Ah, well....hmm. There is a "making of" book in the works for the game in general: so I'll try not to duplicate anything I submitted for that.

It's remarkable when you think about it: who in their right mind develops a new game, in 2020, for the Apple II? which came out in 1977 & hasn't been in production for decades?? It's brilliant!! and I'm glad to have been involved, musically and with some of the game itself.

Not only is it an amazing feat that the game was even finished/released, but the quality of work involved, from everybody, is top notch. Looking at the graphics compared to modern hardware, people may not appreciate some things. But they wrangled every last resource out of the Apple II hardware, to get features working. Steve Wozniak even posted about it, on his twitter account. And he's in the game too!! Along with Lord British himself, and some other gaming royalty. How cool is that?

The "nonunironic" youtube video above sorta sums it up: I get a laugh every time I watch it, because he's 100% right!! There were moments when I thought the game, and even the music, would never get finished. But now it's out there, forever, and people can enjoy & make use of it, for years into the future.

 

[Electric Moo]

I recorded a lot of the sound fx myself, with a field recorder: tromping around in the mud at 2am ( it's too noisy during the day!! ), lodging a mic with a windscreen down in the rocks by the water; having to edit helicopters, airplanes & speedboats out, to get useable material.

Funny: I had a family of raccoons move into my attic at one point. Since I had sound fx library material, I put some snarling lion, tiger, hyena, alligator roaring sounds etc on a loop and cranked a pair of PA speakers up towards the ceiling!! It was crazy loud!!

Haha they were gone a day or two later!!

Edit- oh, and that's why you hear a terrified raccoon somewhere, in the soundtrack