MRC Airwaves Challenge | MSX Resource Center

After the success of the MRC MuSiXmas challenge we thought it would be a nice idea to do another MSX music development competition. This time, we joined forces with poke -1,170, who is a DJ on the Dutch radiostation Enschede FM on which he broadcast an entire hour of MSX music in December, 2004. His radio-show, called 'Airwaves' is also published online, and thus gets attention on large retro music websites all over the world.

Knowing that, you can probably already guess the prize and the main juror of this challenge: The winning song (and perhaps even other entries) will be aired on the next Airwaves show on MSX, while the main juror of the MRC Airwaves Challenge will be none other than poke -1,170 himself.

The objective of the challenge is to write a song around the theme 'modern music'. You can use any soundchip (or combination of soundchips) you like to accomplish this. PSG, MSX-MUSIC, MSX-AUDIO, SCC, Moonsound... anything goes. As usual, a 512kB wavekit is the maximum for Moonsound entries. Furthermore, only own compositions will be allowed, so covers and arrangements are no valid entries this time. The challenge closes at February 28th, 23:59 CET. As usual, you are allowed to send in more than one entry. You can send your creations to airwaves@msx.org.

So do you want to get aired on a radio-show that gets attention worldwide? Grab your favorite MSX tracker and get going! Good luck!

Comments (60)

Paragon (1783)

26-01-2005, 16:21

GO MSX GO !

By spl

Paragon (1470)

26-01-2005, 16:22

I have send my songs to poke -1,170 some days ago ^^ when he talked about this in the forums

Ambassador_ (10109)

26-01-2005, 16:44

are trackmos allowed?

Ascended (15187)

26-01-2005, 17:26

Trackmo's are allowed, but will only be rated by their music.

Ambassador_ (10109)

26-01-2005, 17:29

Oh uhm.. and this time allow composers to submit their own "raw-recording" mp3 version .. @ the xmas music challenge this was a major pain in the Analogue Sound System.. ^_^

Ascended (15187)

26-01-2005, 17:34

Nop, the MP3 files will still be made on one and the same computer system, but a better recording solution is on the way. As soon as it has arrived, I'll also redo the MP3 files of the MuSiXmas challenge. Patience, my boy... patience... ;P

By ro

Scribe (4964)

26-01-2005, 17:49

snout my friend, Not everyone is fit to be a audio-matering engineer. What you're talking about is vage. IF there's some one who will do ALL the conversions, let it be some AUDIO engineer with SOME knowledge..

(no, I'm not voluntering although I AM a respectable audio engineerr.. .STOP LAUGHING WOLF. hehe)

By ro

Scribe (4964)

26-01-2005, 17:50

(damn missing EDIT option... )

I mean MASTERING engineer...

Ambassador_ (10109)

26-01-2005, 18:49

It shouldn't be 'mastered' by the way.. a raw recording is just supposed to be a raw recording. No limiting, eq'ing, compressing etc. Only normalising should be allowed since that doesn't change the sound by itself, and a decent fade-out at the end should also be ok. With that knowledge, every recording should in theory sound the same.. and *if* there's a minor tonal difference then it's not really detectable by humans but above all: it doesn't change the creative content, so nothing is 'unfair' regarding judgement.

In this specific case I'm *always* on the side of the competing composers.

Paragon (1783)

27-01-2005, 02:23

Hey Xenon,still haven't got your trax yet (tried it recently but then the connection was verrrry slow) but I saw the ZIP !
Nevertheless, for this compo it has to be made in 2005
NEW ^^
Will check the tracks anyway,and who knows

Paragon (1783)

27-01-2005, 03:23

Hmmm are the files no available anymore btw? keep getting the index of.... etc instead of the ZIP

Enlighted (4348)

27-01-2005, 07:15

Incredible how a musician (sortof) can still have such crappy recording equipment.

Ascended (15187)

27-01-2005, 11:07

It's not crappy, it's broken ^_^.

By spl

Paragon (1470)

27-01-2005, 12:41

Poke -1, 170, the gopher is active, but I have changed the layout and the directories, so now is something different.

Try:

gopher://xrp.no-ip.org

Then go the folders MUSICA - Manifiesto Proletario: 2004 - Manifiesto Proletario: Analogia (Octubre 2004)

As now I have a gopherspace, everyday I am putting new things and changing it.

Yours,

By spl

Paragon (1470)

27-01-2005, 12:42

Or try directly:

gopher://xrp.no-ip.org/1/musica/2004/analogia

Scribe (6544)

27-01-2005, 12:53

having something broken is rather crappy, ey

Paragon (1783)

27-01-2005, 13:39

indeed...only get a big "index of.... " followed by nothing...

By spl

Paragon (1470)

27-01-2005, 14:56

Now I have a little LAN and I think that this is the problem, because I am able to watch in my computer and the portable the gopher, but people from the net no. I'll try to fix it.

Yours,

By spl

Paragon (1470)

27-01-2005, 15:00

Now it's fixed. I had my lan "closed" to external connections

Ascended (15187)

27-01-2005, 23:28

Airwaves challenge banner up and running!

By spl

Paragon (1470)

28-01-2005, 00:11

Finally, remember that the GOPHER is only available if my desktop PC is connected to the net

Snout, I'll try to finish a new song and send it to you, with the nine songs made between July and October. MP3 or PRO format?

Yours,

Paragon (1783)

28-01-2005, 13:47

hey nice banner snout

Scribe (6544)

29-01-2005, 18:07

Did a little something... Have to tune it a little, but I guess it'll be allright...
This time I used a real MSX

Paragon (1783)

29-01-2005, 23:58

Oh good thing is that all episodes of the program will be permantly put online,including the previous episodes (like the 1st msx one)...so the new msx episode will be preserved for future listening as well

By viejo_archivero

Paragon (1395)

31-01-2005, 10:56

Cool... but this is the 3rd consecutive non-coding MRC Challenge, including the xmas song and the Bombaman level edit compo... when will you surprise us with a new challenge similar to Bounce, Snowfall or Underwater?.
Do not misunderstand my words, the latest challenges rocked too.

Paragon (1783)

31-01-2005, 12:45

When will I surprise you? ME? Huh? WHo is I? Not me !!! Not me ! What challenges? Underwater? Who can put their msx running underwater without getting electrocuted? I don't understand these challenges ! You are scaring me ! Help !

By viejo_archivero

Paragon (1395)

31-01-2005, 12:52

Just talking about the closed MRC Challenges, poke

By viejo_archivero

Paragon (1395)

31-01-2005, 12:53

And my message was for the MRC admins

Scribe (6544)

31-01-2005, 13:18

Uploaded my part to mrc...

An mp3 is here: http://www.xs4all.nl/~jelle77/Meits%20_%20A%20Winters%20Tale.mp3

Used plain old Moonblaster 1.4 for audio/music ;)

Paragon (1783)

31-01-2005, 13:39

Damn nice one meits ^^ NIce beats,nice filtering ! What soundchips did you use?

Scribe (6544)

31-01-2005, 13:59

Used plain old Moonblaster 1.4 for audio/music

audio = Philips music module
music = Panasonic fm-pac

one of both you hear to the left, the other to the right... making some kind 2xmono 1xstereo

Paragon (1783)

31-01-2005, 14:21

nice stuff meits So far,you are the winner ^^ (since this is the first entry)...how does it feel meits? The glory,the fame,the attention? The press,cars,parties,chicks,speedboats caviar champain and imported salmon?

Recognised the fm pac,so what does the filtering? nice stuff man

t so people,the bar has been laid (=de lat is gelegd in very crappy english).... !!!

Scribe (6544)

31-01-2005, 14:27

Filtering:
on msx audio all voices can be filtered by adjusting the brightness
on msx music this can be done only with the softwarevoices (msx-music, can only play one softwarevoice at the time:S)

Paragon (1783)

31-01-2005, 14:29

it's in the winamp playlist anyway with some other msx tunes now

Paragon (1783)

31-01-2005, 16:16

TO SNOUT: compo has been added under running competitions at VORC... micromusic will put it up today too under their newz section.

Also,anyone ever seen this small gameboy esque device from korea? Looks like a GBA (the larger one) and it runs emulators...for c64,zx spectrum,nes,snes,GBC,GB A N D MSX ! it supports fmsx(? is that an emu or...) so basically for 200 euros you have a flashcard based portable MSX...u can attach a keyboard for cellphone to it too,so that means playing Salamander in the train or composing

By spl

Paragon (1470)

01-02-2005, 12:01

Are you talking about the GP32? I have a GP32 since MAY 2003. The scene and community is very very active and I have made music for two games. We hade made two "users meetings" in 2003 and 2004 in Barcelona, in the BCN PARTY.

Here you can see more:

http://www.gp32spain.com (It's in spanish, but it's the most active and visited gp32 website)

http://www.gp32x.org
http://www.retrodev.info
http://www.gp32news.com
http://www.gp32linux.com/
http://gp32emu.dcemu.co.uk/
http://emuholic.emuboards.com/index.php

And more....

By spl

Paragon (1470)

01-02-2005, 12:03

The GBA emulation is very primitive Most of the emulators are ported by a coder named Rlyeh (http://www.retrodev.info), also a "MSXer" of Spain. He made a year ago a port of FMSX, and he told me that he will improve the emulator.

Paragon (1783)

01-02-2005, 14:34

hmmm that BCN party....was that called arte futura? Was there an exhibition in the national museum of modern arts too?

Paragon (1783)

01-02-2005, 14:35

the idea for msx users to have a portable msx to work on or play with anywhere is attractive

By spl

Paragon (1470)

01-02-2005, 16:21

No, the BCN PARTY is not the Art Futura

http://www.bcnparty.org

The BCN PARTY is one of the best "Scener Parties" of the world. In four editions it has become a real reference to the demoscene and digital art. I like it a lot :D, and you can go with every computer you want and you can take part into any compo, for example the 8 BIT MUSIC COMPO ;)

Paragon (1783)

02-02-2005, 03:43

\Hmmm it sounds so familiar... i must have seen it in barcelona when I was there veejaying...might have gotten something to do with a big computer game related exhibitionor people doing live gigs from bcn where I veejayed or something...remember a guy with a portable c64 blowing me away with an awesome liveset that didn't even sound like a c64...
barcelona...aaah...the turron,the tappas

Paragon (1783)

03-02-2005, 16:53

with one track so far,meits is still the winner ! He enjoys it now by celebrating it in a swimmingpool in ibiza.
Now we need a SECOND track,so it becomes a challenge !

go laides,work those msx'es !!!

By spl

Paragon (1470)

04-02-2005, 11:36

I have accidentally deleted the song I was working on, but now I am writing a new song. Hope it will be published ^^

Paragon (1783)

04-02-2005, 13:35

"HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER!" (streetfighter 2)

By spl

Paragon (1470)

04-02-2005, 22:13

I've finished the song!!! (before more than 8 hours) Hope you like it!! Now it's sent

By spl

Paragon (1470)

04-02-2005, 22:16

"Before 10 hours"... NO! After 10 hours!!

Paragon (1783)

05-02-2005, 00:28

waiting for it

Ascended (15187)

05-02-2005, 01:19

~ some minor problems getting the song to actually produce sound... a bit more patience, my friends! ~

By spl

Paragon (1470)

06-02-2005, 15:16

Yesterday I deleted AGAIN accidentally the song when I have pressed F4 insted of F3 But I can't load the pro song I have copied to my PC hard disk. I think that the disk I have has some FAT problems. Fortunately, I have a MP3 to hear the song.

I think the FAT problems are because the PRO TRACKER DSK in file-hunter.com has 374 KB instead of 360 KB. Some Spanish Users adapted the disk to a 360 KB... but It runs, but if you save a song... then DON'T MAKE A BACKUP, because you will not be able to load it Snout, I've sent you the ZIP file with PRO TRACKER. Try to save a song and copy it into another disk.

Yours,

By spl

Paragon (1470)

06-02-2005, 15:50

How I can dump into a disk the 364KB DSK without modifying it? I've seen that if you modify it.... then you will not be able to load the songs anywhere

Paragon (1783)

07-02-2005, 12:51

I thought that an msx formatted disk would be recognised under windows ( except XP)..I remember that I kept my msx progs back-upped at a pc HD and transferring them again to normal msx disks...hail microsoft

By spl

Paragon (1470)

07-02-2005, 13:57

Yes, they are 100% compatible. The problem is that the Pro Tracker disk is something "special", so now I will save my songs in other disk. I have saved all the songs I done before and now they can be readable in all the MSX I have sent the songs to Snout, to put them on line. Unfortunately, I have lost the song I've made, but as I have a MP3, I've also send the song to Snout to put it online to encourage the people at making music with msx for the Challenge The song will be put on-line as "lost entry", but you will be able to listen it.

Yours,

Paragon (1783)

11-02-2005, 12:49

hey man,thanx for the track ! Pity it can't run in the compo (why not actually?)

Scribe (6544)

11-02-2005, 15:59

with one track so far,meits is still the winner ! He enjoys it now by celebrating it in a swimmingpool in ibiza.
Now we need a SECOND track,so it becomes a challenge !

Just be patient. They'll all show up just before the deadline. Always was and always will be (remembering demo's and games being finished on the fairs on which they were released ^_^)

Paragon (1783)

12-02-2005, 02:40

Hey meits, how's the holiday from your ibiza mansion?

By spl

Paragon (1470)

14-02-2005, 21:39

Poke -1,170 I have sent to Snout a new song ^^ Hope you'll enjoy it

Paragon (1783)

15-02-2005, 01:59

looking forward to hearing it

Scribe (6544)

15-02-2005, 17:39

Why, actually, is the sram size of Moonsound set to 512kb?

Ascended (15187)

15-02-2005, 17:41

Because my Moonsound only has 512K

Ascended (15187)

15-02-2005, 20:43

2 new entries!