Audio Arts wk1 - Comodore 64 - Ghostbusters - Game Sound

Link To You Tube Video of Ghostbusters Game

Ghostbusters Title menu

After The Game Loads up the title menu appears and a short low quality audio sample is played. Laughter at Start of Ghostbusters game Mp3 Then the a fast tempo version of the Ghostbusters theme song kicks in. It is a combination of noise triggered to emulate drum sounds, and various wave forms such as a saw tooth wave to emulate instruments create the main melody.
Title Menu Menu Mp3

Ghostubusters start of game
There are sharp high pitch sounds which accompany the writing of the text. It sounds as though a sine tone has been put through an ADSR envelope to create this sound. There is no music during this part of the game.
Typing Sounds Mp3

During Game


A Ghost is caught
According to the Wikipedia commodore 64 article "The sound chip, SID, had three channels, each with its own ADSR envelope generator, and with several different waveforms, ring modulation and filter capabilities. It too, was very advanced for its time. It was designed by Bob Yannes, who would later co-found synthesizer company Ensoniq. Yannes criticized other contemporary computer sound chips as "primitive, obviously (...) designed by people who knew nothing about music.""#1

The in game music is a down tempo version of the main theme song played at the title menu. It would appear that it uses one channel for the drum sounds and another for the main melody. The third channel seems to be for additional effects, such as When A Ghost is caught in a trap. When a ghost has been caught or failed to be caught the music is forced to stop whilst a short low quality audio clip is played. Yet they have utilised the memory so that the music then resumes at the same point which it stopped at.

In Game Music Mp3

A ghost is caught Mp3 -listen for the sound effect of the ghost trap amongst the music.

a ghost gets away Mp3


Driving
The in game music is played whilst driving. There are no additional sound effects for the car.

References
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64#Graphics_and_sound)

All pictures are screen shots I took whilst playing the game and all Sounds I recorded whilst playing the game.


Reference:

Haines, Christian. “Audio Arts Week 1 – Introduction to Game Sound.” Lecture presented at Tutorial Room 408, Level 4, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, 24th July, 2007.