Tunez 2 disk label

After the release of TeddyWareZ’ SCC Blaffer NT, their music program for the SCC sound chip — which can be found in a lot of Konami cartridges — development for this chip has been minimal. To do something about this, and to demonstrate the capabilities of SCC Blaffer NT, TeddyWareZ decided to release a new product with sound support for the SCC chip only. Tunez 2 — the Asterix edition — is almost completely in Asterix & Obelix style, the famous cartoon characters. Not only the replayer and the first intro demo are in this style, but also the disk label contains these two Gallian heroes. This goes even further in the replayer, but more about that later.

Once upon a time in Gallia...
The first intro demo consists of some information in typical TeddyWareZ style, which means lots of nonsense written in slang. The font is a bit hard to read, since the letters are black at the top and fading to white at the bottom. This makes the top of the font hardly readable, with the black background. The second part of this intro demo consists of the title screen, with a nice picture of Asterix and a simple logo.

Tunez 2 intro demo

     In the meanwhile, the names of the producers will scroll on the screen. Unfortunately this demo cannot be skipped in any way, so you have to watch it every time you boot this disk, and that is quite annoying.

     The second demo is more spectacular. In this part, the screen is divided in two halves. The top half of the screen shows some green and red coloured bars moving around in some sort of circle behind the TeddyWareZ logo. The lower half of the screen shows a scroll text with the usual TeddyWareZ nonsense, but it also includes some information on what keys you can use in this part. With the cursor keys you can control the speed of the green and the red bars, and this gives a very cool effect!

Panoramix in motion
The replayer is also in Asterix and Obelix style, and shows the druid, Panoramix, cooking up some SCC musics. On the right side of the screen, some information is shown. Here, for instance, the time the song is played is being displayed, but also the frequency and pattern information is shown. Below that, there is a box with the song titles in it. With the cursor keys, you can scroll through the list, the effect you get by scrolling is simple, but it looks good.

     Below the song titles the Teleramix can be found. A similar feature can be found in all TeddyWareZ music disks. It is a box that will display information about the song currently playing, and it also contains some nice animations and other effects. Mostly, weird, typical TeddyWareZ texts can be read here. They are quite fun to read, and tell some weird stories, but sometimes some useful information can also be found here. The song info of the first song, for instance, mentions the keys you can use in the replayer. One of the options that is mentioned here is random play, for instance, and there is no mention of it anywhere else.

    The remaining part of the screen is occupied by an ‘equaliser’. This equaliser changes colour from white to grey when a note starts to play, and although it looks good, it is sometimes flickering a bit too much. (Note from the editor: why do people keep calling these things equalisers? They are just approximations of VU-meters for the different channels of the sound chip! An equaliser is a device that you can use to amplify certain frequency bands in the sound to get it in more balance!)

Tunez 2 replayer

Even Gallians do not live forever...
All things end, and so does this music disk. After listening to all songs in the replayer, the only part that is left is the ending demo. In this demo, a vertical scroll is shown with the credits for this product, with a blue and light blue checker board in the background. It is quite a simple demo, also very short. This was a bit disappointing after the good looking intro demos and replayer.

Galliadance!
But... of course I have not mentioned anything about the musics yet. All musics for this music disk were made with TeddyWareZ’ own music program for the SCC, SCC Blaffer NT. This program enables composers to use not only the five SCC channels, but also the internal MSX sound chip, the PSG. And those two combined can give a very good sound, as Tunez 2 clearly demonstrates.

     There are 19 songs present on this music disk, and they are all of good quality, especially when you keep in mind that SCC composing is a bit different from composing for, for instance, MSX-Music. After the SCC musics from Konami, I would say this is the next best thing! The results you get with other music programs for the SCC are not as good, mainly because those programs cannot use the PSG. And, TeddyWareZ shows they know how to use the SCC properly! There are some cover songs on the disk, from Firebird, Vampire Killer, Parodius and Maze of Galious, but the other songs are all original work. Different styles of music can be found, from very relaxing to extremely fast. The cover songs are well done, and it is very nice to hear those PSG tunes rearranged for the SCC. TeddyWareZ’ own style can clearly be recognised. Also, it is funny to see that almost all titles, except the titles of the covers, are completely in Asterix & Obelix style as well.

Conclusion
After the SCC seems almost forgotten, it is really nice to see a new product for the SCC, amidst so many products for all the other sound chips. The SCC has a very characteristic sound and, when used correctly, can generate very good songs. The graphics are quite good, the music even better. TeddyWareZ did a good job with this disk, although there are some minor points. For instance, the SCC detection at the beginning of the disk does not work very well, I always had to force the product to use the right SCC slot. Also, the ending is a bit disappointing, with respect to the remainder of the disk. But still, it is a good product well worth your money.