Old New Stock #9: Synthe Sector #2

It's been a while since the previous Old New Stock. Some of you might have thought that it was over. But the truth is we just got started. In fact, if the intervals stay this big, we might run out of life time before everything is handled. But so far for that. Let's cut to the case.

A while back we published Synthe Sector #1 in this series. That might have hinted that there is a sequel, and boy there is. In this second episode of Synthe Sector Emphasysters MOA and Dinomight really delivered. Where part one was a simple music disk with music originally written in FAC Sountracker and converted to Moonblaster, part two is completely done in Moonblaster. Graphically they went next level. So far that they needed a second disk to fit all the content.

What to expect on this AVC (Audio Visual Collection as they call it)? First of all understand that this release is a Moonblaster stereo production. This means that it sounds as intended if you connected both MSX-Music and MSX-Audio at the same time while they both have their own speaker, for example MSX-Music to the left and MSX-Audio to the right. openMSX's Catapult configures the emulator the right way, so if you can't manage to split both chips with the real hardware, go there.

On the first disk both makers introduce the staff and explain the story behind every track in the musical replayer. You can skip all this by pressing spacebar a few times. After a bit of loading you'll end up in a concert hall with the complete Emphasys band on stage. Dr. Driessenaar on keys, Master of Audio on flute, Dinomight on a guitar/bass guitar (just recently it turned out they were confused about the guitar themselves as well) and Reinier Koolmees (RAT) on the drums. The controls look very simple, but take your time getting used to them.

After pressing the stop or fade button and ESC when the music has stopped you're asked to insert the second disk on which you'll find some visual demos and even some (mainly MSX-Audio) own voices to be used in Moonblaster.

After Synthe Sector #2 Emphasys released a few more disk magazines and then they quit the scene. Master of Audio is still a frequent visitor on this website and when time allows he's willing to help out where he can.

Relevant link: Synthe Sector #2.