Poke! Shouldn't there be an Italo challenge somewhere soon, with you and me being jury?

According to a quote from Poke he made once, MSX is *the* Italo computer! And quite a lot of typical (read: commercial) Italo sounds like it's been made in FST or MB, so this is in fact a music-challenge which is very natural for many ppl here.

To boost the Moonsound and its SRAM a bit (and to grant quality), I'd say that the defacto soundcard should be the Moonsound with 640kb, where preferably all the SRAM is in active use!

(I figure poke can fill an entire radio hour with the results )

More info on Italo
..and in Dutch..

Typical artists include Laserdance and Koto, and Italo's probable founder Giorgio Moroder.

Great idea! But... why limit the challenge to 640k Moonsound (quite a rare setup, even these days) while the soundcard that made MSX *the* Italo computer actually is none other than the Philips Music Module? I'd say a challenge like this would not be the same without Moonblaster Stereo/FAC Soundtracker entries...

- to boost it (Moonsounds should be spread <640k_promotional_tour_2006> and they should come with plenty o' SRAM </640k_promotional_tour_2006> )
- to improve quality, and perhaps make it easier for composers compared to the Music Module.. (in a way, the only Italo copycats have been Impact sofar)
- Moonsound tools are slightly better than the older trackers made for the Music Module
- there are quite some elements in Italo that would require more flexibility than just 9 FM/AM channels and one samplechannel, I don't think the 'squeeze every drop out of an old retrosystem' should be the maingoal here, so: yes, may we enjoy a bit o' luxury?
- to keep the competition somewhat more balanced..

ps. with Italo sounding like FST/MB I'm mainly referring to the composition, soundwise only the famous 'plucked' sound matches a lot. With regards to the composition: listen to Koto, and you can more or less *see* the 16-step structure and the pattern-based copies and blockcopies, as well as the arpeggios and other typical stuff that spread like a virus on MSX musicdisks..

How many contests can the MSX scene have?

oodles!

mmmKay. Just wondering.

hahahah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo_disco this is a good starting point for some general info.

also, I can highly recommend to hunt for hipnosis, he did some italo styled covers of vangelis
(namely bladerunner and ehh...another one)...
or look up baby's gang on youtube.

good italo: koto ( dragon's lair,jabdah,also in an impact musicdisk)
charly ( spacer woman)
lectric workers (robot is systematic)
kano ( I'm ready)
cyberpeople (void vision, very good one)
hipnosis ( droid piano, blade runner cover)
klein & mbo (dirty talk, wonderful)
hotline (fantasy, aka bobby orlando)

and indeed, moroder... check e=mc2, from here to eternity, the chase.

as for music: italo disco used fm synths a plenty,
most of the impact stuff and some of the stuff I played on that airwaves show
comes pretty damn close, soundwise...
Actually italo could be seen as the synthesizer greatest styled stuff,
the uptempo tracks.

http://www.unyx.nl/eds%20italo%20disco%20hits%20part%201.mp3

this is a track my brother recently made in the style

Sure, analogue synths, FM, drumcomputers, early samplers.. the important point is that Moonsound makes things easier, so that more ppl can compete on an equal level. As said, in the musmod days, you had to be up there with Impact and the likes to get such a sound. Ofcourse, why 'exclude'? Well, let's say I'm not really against musmods, but I doubt it'd be a fair comparison between Moonsound and musmod.

whatever gets the job done I guess... italo puts fm into fm pac

Quote:

good italo: koto ( dragon's lair,jabdah,also in an impact musicdisk)

Ah, Dragon's Lair -- imho one of the best songs on Impact Musicdisk #4

And I guess this would be a perfect occasion to play around with the MoonSounds FM part

Thanks to the help of the masked musician, I only just found out how big a role Italo played in Impact's music. Have a listen to this mp3.

You will hear the following fragments...

1a: Dragon's Legend, by Impact
1b: Dragon's Legend, by Koto

2a: Powerrun, by Impact
2b: Powerrun, by Laserdance

3a: Impact205/BDD's Theme 5, by Impact
3b: Shotgun (Remix), by Laserdance

Notice any similarities? ^_^

Just in case -- it's not intended as an Impact bash, but I always thought those songs were original compositions, whereas Spijkerhoekig and Break Free were the obvious covers. Turns out there were some more covers on the Impact music disks. Kinda surprised me!

I have those koto tracks for yeaaars.. Even got an original cd

..which is very wrong..