This page is dedicated to the SCC (Sound Custom Chip). This chip was presented by Konami in 1987 within the cartridge of Nemesis 2 (also known as "Gradius 2"), and it was included in their cartridges until the last one, "Quarth", in 1990. This technology was an high jump in quality for a 8 bits computer. Of course, this technology became obsolete in few years, when the 16 bits computers and consoles appeared. Even the FM-PAC cartridge for MSX, researched by Panasonic one year later, was better in quality than SCC.

However, I wanted to make this page not because of the sound improvements of this chip, but because of the music quality of much of the original soundtracks that Konami made for this chip. Technology has a brief life, but Art is immortal. So I’d like this music not to get forgotten. Moreover, it seems that there’s no page about it in the web anyway.

The state of "old-computer-music-rescue-operation" is not anything new. In fact, we are in a great period. We have music ripping for a lot of formats: SPC (SNES), NSF (Nintendo), GYM (Megadrive), SID (C64), GBS (GameBoy)... Unfortunately, MSX hasn’t reached the rip level of other systems, though its great musical quality (if any MSX guru is reading, I hope he considerss this the next priority in the MSX scene). It seems we have something with the .KSS, .MGS, .BGM, .BGR, .MPK and .OPX, but 6 different clases of files is not the idea I have of "sound standard file". So, I’m going to present this music in the classical MP3 format.

The files are recorded at 50 Hz, instead of the original 60 Hz. Why? Well, the reason is something as superficial as because it’s the way I’ve heard it in my youth (because of european PAL format), and this is the way I like to listen them right now.

I’ve recorded them using the awesome "Konami SCC Master" by Martos, with a Sony F700 MSX2.

Enjoy ^_^.