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2012-11-23 15:19

Fredrik

Registered: Apr 2009
Posts: 204

Ocean Loader 2

Ocean Loader 2 was made as early as 1985?
This great Masterpiece

2012-11-23 19:24

Fred

Registered: Feb 2003
Posts: 284

I know the loader tune is used in the tape loader from Comic Bakery which is from early 1986.

It is also used in the tape loaders for Cobra, Mikie, Miami Vice, Highlander, Donkey Kong (from Ocean), Parallax, Super Bowl, Short Circuit, etc. which are all from 1986.

Many games on tape from Ocean uses this loader music but I don't know which game used this tune for the first time.

Btw, /MUSICIANS/G/Galway_Martin/Ocean_Loader_1.sid is from 1985 which is on the tape of the games: Transformers and Hyper Sports.

2012-11-24 09:48

Fred

Registered: Feb 2003
Posts: 284

Info from:

http://www.c64.com/articles/ocean_history.html

Ocean Loader 1
The first ever Ocean loader theme by Martin Galway was only used in a handful of games in 1985, notably Hyper Sports (Imagine) and Transformers (Ocean). After the initial introduction, the tune plays quite fast, and indeed later on at the two minute mark there's some intentional delay between two of the channels. This continues for most of the tune. Now, this led several people (me included) to believe that the tune was bugged and out of synch, but this was actually not the case at all. Over to Martin Galway himself who said to me: "The "version 1" is a real tune, it was really like that on Hyper Sports and maybe one or two other games before Comic Bakery (Cyclone would have used it, for example, but it was never released by Ocean). I think you're just too used to listening to version two, which does sound a great deal more polished - which is all it really is. The delay you speak of at 02:03 really is supposed to be a delay of 4 beats. Some of the releases on the ADSRs don't sound exactly as I remember them, but maybe too much time is passing."

Do bear in mind though what led some of us to believe it was a possible bug was the fact that Ocean had had problems with their tape mastering at the time. Over to Andrew Oakley, whom when he was younger worked at Ablex, a company that specialised in tape mastering (which included occasional programming of the tape loader!) for software companies. For years they mastered the tapes of Ocean games, and he distinctly recalls the fact that the mastering of Hyper Sports was severely rushed to get it in time for the Christmas 1985 market. "We had trouble and it got very close to the line regarding the proposed pre-Christmas release date. I know I didn't write the loader for it, 'cos if we had any trouble we'd use the company's own loader adding utility." This probably explains why the title screen for Hyper Sports appears half way through loading. Nevertheless, this loading tune is valid and has been stated by Martin himself to be so.

Ocean Loader 2
The revised version is slowed down after the initial part, and was slightly tweaked so the later part had no delay, either. This was widely used in almost every Ocean/Imagine game bar a few exceptions between late 1985 to mid-1987 and is probably the most familiar version that is known. As it turns out, this was to be part of a plan to have a different loading music for every Ocean game (now that would have been nice) but time, as ever, was the determining factor. Over to Martin Galway again: "Version two was a reworking of that tune that I did in late 1985 for Comic Bakery. There was actually supposed to be separate loading music for every game - that was my plan. However, I was running out of time on projects and in the case of Comic Bakery I simply reworked an older piece. After that I really didn't have time to mess with it, and it stuck in universal use. Rambo was the only one that got its own loading music as part of this plan."

2013-12-06 00:22

theWizard
Account closed

Registered: Jul 2007
Posts: 109

Quote: Ocean Loader 2 was made as early as 1985?
This great Masterpiece

was it before or after the dinosaurs ?

good tune though man , allthough ocean 1 is me favourite. brad pit n that other guys in it. that mexican geezer george clooney.lol?

2013-12-06 08:14

TPM

Registered: Jan 2004
Posts: 109

"Ignore all posts from this user"

glad there's an option :)

2013-12-06 12:09

grasstust

Registered: Apr 2007
Posts: 43

Nice piece of information. Can't wait to get my hands on this book!

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