NES Synth Covers

November 21, 2005 11:24 PM

NES Synth covers of classic songs by those goons at Something Awful. Previous NES music stuff: 8bitpeoples' "Axel F" and "The 8 Bits of Christmas", The Video Game Pianist and his famous videos, A Capella NES Themes, SMW Soundtrack, etc. On the Marimba, too, just a few minutes ago. (via BB...via waxy)
posted by BlackLeotardFront (35 comments total)

And *WARNING! SELF LINK* original NES songs can be found here: Robosexual
I know it's shameful, but it's relevant and it sure as hell wasn't going into the FPP.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:27 PM on November 21, 2005

Eeep! I think I'm having a geek out! A Nintendo brand geek out!

Great post. Thanks BlackLeotardFront!
posted by Effigy2000 at 11:28 PM on November 21, 2005

Wow, I just downloaded that earlier today and was seriously about to post it, but I couldn't find the link I originally downloaded it from!

Yellow, Closing Time, and Karma Police are Hot.
posted by Paris Hilton at 11:30 PM on November 21, 2005

Dude! Awesome!


Yay goons!
posted by kosher_jenny at 12:14 AM on November 22, 2005

(This is good.)
posted by Rothko at 12:30 AM on November 22, 2005

Wow, I should always set my expectations really low because these turned out to be fantastic. Now this is why I come to MetaFilter. Every couple of days, a link with a ton of music for me to download free of charge. And sometimes, it doesn't even involve breaking the law.
posted by panoptican at 12:31 AM on November 22, 2005

posted by holloway at 12:46 AM on November 22, 2005

I've had the Axel F remixes on my drives ever since they came out. I love dropping some of them at parties, people freak out. Sure, there's the nice booty-shakeable electrobass versions, but the totally off-kilter drunken madness ones are even better. The melody is so obscured and warped it usually takes people the whole song to figure out what they're listening to.

Also, Nullsleep and Commie64 rock.

The whole 8-bit thing is really kind of hit-and-miss. They sugary-poppy stuff I don't like so much. The obviously sort of haphazard and under-polished stuff I can do without, as well.

But the well-written acid-electro-break--booty-bass stuff is just incredible. I've thrown that stuff on in the middle of more "traditional" acid-techno dance DJ sessions and people just freak out trying to figure out what the hell it is. The basstones and acid melody lines in some of that stuff is just exquisite. Big fat square and triangle waves, clicky crunchy synthetic beats all draped over rock solid basslines and bass drum noises. Just the essentials, man. *fwoomp*
posted by loquacious at 1:07 AM on November 22, 2005

You know, this post is a perfect example of why it's not always a bad thing to link to SA via BB and Waxy.

thanks. I had avoided the SA songs because I assumed they would be unlistenable. MetaFilter has once again educated me.
posted by shmegegge at 1:44 AM on November 22, 2005

Commodore 64 acapella by Swedish group Visa Röster.
posted by _aa_ at 3:25 AM on November 22, 2005

Mario covers are ace; esp this guys
posted by 13twelve at 4:31 AM on November 22, 2005

It sounds like even though they're using the NES synth voices, they're playing too many notes at once... could something like the Karma Police cover actually be played on a NES? I thought there was like, 3-voice polyphony plus one noise. Someone correct me.
posted by rxrfrx at 4:53 AM on November 22, 2005

Also, as great as these are, they would be even cooler if they were just NSF sequence files I could play back using a NES synth emulator.
posted by rxrfrx at 4:57 AM on November 22, 2005

(actually the nes covers sounds like bad midi files - the other links teh r0xx0r though)
posted by 13twelve at 5:23 AM on November 22, 2005

Mark VII Cannot Be Stopped
posted by Pretty_Generic at 5:30 AM on November 22, 2005

Saskrotch's NES Breakz Volume One contains quite a bit of gold, especially the beautiful job he did with Little Nemo.

However, the holy grail of NES music has to be The Mario & Zelda Big Band. Seek out the torrent for it immediately.
posted by unsupervised at 5:51 AM on November 22, 2005

I forgot: just in time for the holiday season, check out the One-Up Mushrooms' Super Mario Sleigh Ride.

Xmas and Mario have a lot more in common than fat men in red suits.
posted by unsupervised at 5:55 AM on November 22, 2005

I've always been curious - not to derail, but is there much crossover in membership between sa goons and mefites?
posted by stenseng at 6:49 AM on November 22, 2005

Hooray!!! All 3 Rad Racer songs! They've been stuck in my head since 1987, and I haven't heard any of them since 1992! Thanks, BlackLeotardFront!
posted by ibmcginty at 7:13 AM on November 22, 2005

That marimba link knocked my socks off. Wow. Looked like a high school talent show, too.
posted by mrbill at 7:32 AM on November 22, 2005

I can honestly say when I woke up this morning, I didn't anticipate that soon I'd be listening to an an 8-bit NES version of Slayer's "Angel of Death". Nice.
posted by Gamblor at 8:07 AM on November 22, 2005

Was that the theme to "Perfect Strangers" in there?!
posted by bhayes82 at 8:30 AM on November 22, 2005

Geek correction time.

The instrument in the video was a vibraphone by the sound of it, not a marimba. The difference is (mostly) in the material the keys are made of. The vibraphone has metal bars, the marimba has wooden. The marimba and balaphone have much mellower, warmer sound than the bright, ringing tone of the vibes.

All of these are types of idiophones (instruments whose sound emanates from the direct action of being hit, as contrasted with string instruments that are plucked, picked or hammered).

But the mp3s are still cool.
posted by beelzbubba at 8:46 AM on November 22, 2005

This is old news, but for more NES synth goodness, check out The 8 bit Peoples. My personal favorite is Nullsleep's Depeche Mode Megamix
posted by cosmicbandito at 8:47 AM on November 22, 2005

That's awesome, but in all fairness, with all the synth, Depeche Mode was already pretty close to being an NES soundtrack.
posted by Gamblor at 8:54 AM on November 22, 2005

I wish they could layer the actual vocal tracks on top of the NES music. But, still, these are fantastic.
posted by papercake at 10:47 AM on November 22, 2005

For us metal heads there's always HORSE The Band. I believe they use a SID chip for the keyboards in their songs themed after old NES games.
posted by Dark Messiah at 12:01 PM on November 22, 2005

I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I was highly underwhelmed by these, especially the SA covers one. The a capella one was entertaining, though.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:04 PM on November 22, 2005

Glad you all enjoyed it..

13twelve, thanks for posting that, I was trying to think of other stuff I'd seen.

ibmcginty - you're very welcome, I put those up by special request.

rxrfrx - You're right, I don't think they are strictly NES synth, that is to say it's entirely composed of NES synth tones, but probably wouldn't be possible on an actual NES, sadly.

beelzbubba - The link at boingboing said marimba, that's all I know. but it sounded pretty wooden to me..?
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:05 PM on November 22, 2005

Hey, BLF, you could be right. I looked at it again--the mallets seem to be more the type of stick used with a marimba rather the vibes. WTF do I know? A brilliantly orchestrated piece.
posted by beelzbubba at 12:43 PM on November 22, 2005

Also check out the Minibosses (mp3s of dubious legality) for some awesome proggy covers of NES songs.
posted by kyleg at 1:06 PM on November 22, 2005

beelzbubba - I have a degree in percussion performance, and I say it was definitely a marimba.
posted by emptybowl at 1:21 PM on November 22, 2005

To answer a few points of confusion: it is a marimba, and it is a high school show. I was in marching band pit with those guys (Mario was my section leader!) and was actually at that performance at the talent show. It's better without the drums, which were added about a week before the performance, but the marimba stuff had been practiced all season. These guys are nuts.
posted by luftmensch at 7:49 PM on November 22, 2005

YMCK.

That said, there are a ton of nintendo-music-related threads on metafilter these days. Hell yes. Keep it coming. Video game music is a phenomenon that deeply and subtly ingrained itself in a whole generation of privileged musicians early on. And now it's manifesting in all genres in a ton of different ways I don't think anyone anticipated. A lot of game players from the late 80s went to college and are now rockers. I saw a rock band a couple weeks ago that toured with two Contra experts who beat the game with no continues on a big screen -- all while this serious rock and roll band played the music to the game, with the game.

It's a beautiful instance of cultural exchange between America and Japan. To think that a few Japanese computer programmers in the early 80s could have such a broad impact on the world musical culture for so long.
posted by Laugh_track at 6:28 AM on November 23, 2005

laugh_track wins.
posted by poweredbybeard at 8:34 PM on November 23, 2005