The MSX group ANMA brought us many high-quality demos and games in the 1990's, all including amazing soundtracks. All handmade with their own music tracker called RED. This gem is now available from the MRC download database, and free to use. The release comes with all the great ANMA tunes we got to love so much.
Back in the days, the good-old-days, when MSX was the center piece of many homes, there was a very lively demo scene going on. It was then when MSX programmers awoke and showed of their artistic skills like coding, graphics and music. The 1990s brought us an overwhelming bunch of new demo software, many new MSX scene groups popped-up. And ANMA, short for ANdre & MArtijn (Knightram), the "boys" behind it, was one of those. Boys indeed, they where only 15 years old while entering the MSX demo scene. It were the teen's wonder years, like many of us MSX geeks.
ANMA brought us masterpieces like "the anti-rip demo" and, their pinnacle, "source of power". It wouldn't take long for ANMA to shift their attention from making demos to making MSX games. Games like Squeek, Troxx, No Fuss and Frantic entered the MSX gaming market. Again with the same quality we were used to see, and hear!, from their earlier demos. All their soundtracks where handmade with their own music editor called RED.
RED stands for (music) Recorder/EDitor and is original ANMA MSX software. Although there where a handful of good music trackers around, ANMA choose to make their own. Simply because Martijn and Knightram didn't like the other available trackers. And for practical reasons, Andre wanted a very fast replay routine with minimum CPU usage with support mainstream soundchips like PSG and OPLL (MSX-MUSIC). RED has a lot of special effects (sliding, vibrating, volume manipulation, etc) and also special PSG effects to simulate drums. RED also supports a Philips Music keyboard NMS 1160 connected to a custom made interface to make composing easier.
While this software was publicly released years ago on the "MCCM Millenium CD 1", it was without a manual and wasn't known to many people. Now, ANMA's RED including music (and more) has been added to the MRC download database, uploaded directly from the Source (of Power) by MRC user stompetower, André Ligthart.
Relevant link: RED discussed on the forum
Relevant link: download RED from MRC
