intvdave Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 The synthesizer is probably the most neglected component slightly behind the ECS itself. It was a shame that the song tapes were not released. I started working on updating Melody Blaster and one of the first things was to create / add new music. Check out: melody.rom Song #1 is "Star Wars Theme" and Song #7, Greensleeves, has been updated to the full song. I will continue adding / changing songs. This thread is to see what interest there is in the synthesizer and to share the work I have done. 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Intellivet Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 Awesome! Big interest in this from me as I love to play with the synthesizer and have wished more material had been made for decades. I cannot remember which thread joked about making Rock Band Intellivision components but if they had been made along with the game I would have instantly bought them; big music fan. I understand most folks probably do not have the synthesizer so is a much smaller or limited market to produce for but you have my full support (i.e. money) if you produce a new melody blaster version with a library of new songs in rom or cart form (or dare I say a new game altogether?) moving forward! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+the1hatman Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 This is a much needed extension for a periphery item that has nearly no library to speak of. I actually own the INT-Synth and just upgraded my Melody Blaster to complete in box status last year. Would very much support new software to be released to add to this piece! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BBWW Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 If I can recover my Cuttle Cart Library I'll give it a I'll give it ago. Had my laptop die...trying to pull stuff up from backup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 Can you add Crawling by Linkin Park. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
intvdave Posted March 12, 2017 Author Share Posted March 12, 2017 I will add any song people want. All I ask is for you to compose it in the format I need. At this time, Melody Blaster supports 3 octaves. I am debating on adding additional octaves but the keyboard may look to compressed. My current plan is to add songs my kid will play so do not expect complex songs. For now..at least you have Star Wars BBWW, if you like, I will create a ROM with a collection of your songs and call it "BBWW's Melodies" You can promote it with your music! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
First Spear Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 What is the format you need? Thanks. I will add any song people want. All I ask is for you to compose it in the format I need. At this time, Melody Blaster supports 3 octaves. I am debating on adding additional octaves but the keyboard may look to compressed. My current plan is to add songs my kid will play so do not expect complex songs. For now..at least you have Star Wars BBWW, if you like, I will create a ROM with a collection of your songs and call it "BBWW's Melodies" You can promote it with your music! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
First Spear Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 What jzIntv parameters are you using to launch this? The synthesizer is probably the most neglected component slightly behind the ECS itself. It was a shame that the song tapes were not released. I started working on updating Melody Blaster and one of the first things was to create / add new music. Check out: melody.rom Song #1 is "Star Wars Theme" and Song #7, Greensleeves, has been updated to the full song. I will continue adding / changing songs. This thread is to see what interest there is in the synthesizer and to share the work I have done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
intvdave Posted March 12, 2017 Author Share Posted March 12, 2017 Awesome! Big interest in this from me as I love to play with the synthesizer and have wished more material had been made for decades. I cannot remember which thread joked about making Rock Band Intellivision components but if they had been made along with the game I would have instantly bought them; big music fan. I understand most folks probably do not have the synthesizer so is a much smaller or limited market to produce for but you have my full support (i.e. money) if you produce a new melody blaster version with a library of new songs in rom or cart form (or dare I say a new game altogether?) moving forward! Thanks for the support Intellivet. I am sure you are correct. I would guess that most Intellivision collectors do not own a synthesizer. Rev is probably one. I will not need financial support. Whatever I put together will be made available at no expense. I would love to hear of people using their synthesizers. The reason I requested for the Ultimate Interface to be made was so that I could use the ECS keyboard and Synthesizer in emulation on my PC. I love the hardware! I now have more reason to use them. The support I could use would be good song selections and help with documenting the songs. I can explain the format I need. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric7100 Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 Song #1 is "Star Wars Theme" and Song #7, Greensleeves, has been updated to the full song. No Metallica? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
intvdave Posted March 12, 2017 Author Share Posted March 12, 2017 What jzIntv parameters are you using to launch this? You need to enable ECS. jzIntv -s1 -z1 -v1 melody.bin You may need to configure a hackfile. Once the game loads, hit F6 to switch keyboard layouts. F6 is for the piano and F7 is for the ECS keyboard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
intvdave Posted March 12, 2017 Author Share Posted March 12, 2017 No Metallica? Sure! Just document the song for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+JasonlikesINTV Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 This is awesome. I've always felt that the Synth was a massively underutilized Intellivision controller. The fantastic success of Rock Band and Guitar Hero (and DDR, Parappa the Rapper, etc) evidence its potential. I'm still hoping someone 3D prints an Intellivision II-esque guitar controller and releases the homebrew "Heavy Mattel". Someday, this will happen. In the meantime, it's cool to see some development with the synth. I'd suggest attempting the music of Thunder Castle and Snafu...and maybe YYZ by Rush 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+intellivotion Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 ...and maybe YYZ by Rush lolWho will write the drum lines? Mr. Peart in person? (Jason, chapeau for quoting that great and complicated song) Having the synthesizer I would be happy to have one more reason to use it. Go David go 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeM_Intellivision Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 I definitely would be interested a have a NIB Synthesizer that I bought New from Italy many years ago (white version). I would probably pick up a loose one in good working order for my boys to play on. I have no technical knowledge of anything so unfortunately I can't provide any input on song documentation:-( I have no clue on limitations of Synthesizer but I did play Melody Blaster for 1st time a few years back and was pretty impressed with it. Some songs I would personally love of possible would be "Flash Gordon" Movie Soundtrack by Queen or any good Queen song for that matter, any Pink Floyd songs, any Kiss songs, and any Metallica or other good bands like Beatles, etc... Sorry I can't be of more use but thumbs up for doing this. Still need to take Flintstones Keyboard Fun for a whirl as well. Thanks again for your efforts David - two thumbs up!! Joe 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m-crew Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 So let be written, so let be done!!! Kool project Dave.. Looking forward to this !!! I will try to keep my song wish list short ... lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_intv Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 This is very cool and would be a HUGE improvement for this under utilized device. Van Halens Jump comes to mind......its full of synthesizer sounds! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
intvdave Posted March 13, 2017 Author Share Posted March 13, 2017 A huge thanks to Rev for pointing me to Synthesia! It is Melody Blaster for the PC, Mac, IOS, and Android. http://www.synthesiagame.com/ A sweet option is the ability to download MIDI files which removes the need to encode them into Melody Blaster. And another one is that I can use my 88 key piano instead of the Inty synthesizer. I am still willing to add songs to Melody Blaster but the songs would have to be ones for kids to learn with. I am not going to do anything complicated as they would be best played with Synthesia. I may still work on updating Melody Blaster but I think I am going to be a bit busy actually playing the piano now! Thanks again Rev! I do not know why I did not think of this before 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zendocon Posted May 6, 2021 Share Posted May 6, 2021 Boo! I thought I was first to hack Melody Blaster and change the music. Oh well, at least I was first to change all the tunes, I think. Good thing I didn't get caught up playing Synthesia. So for a tiebreaker round, somebody has to put a tune onto an Aquarius tape. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
intvdave Posted May 6, 2021 Author Share Posted May 6, 2021 2 minutes ago, Zendocon said: So for a tiebreaker round, somebody has to put a tune onto an Aquarius tape. This is not a competition. I saw your thread on you adding all new tunes. I thought of reaching out to you but there is just no interest in the piano for the ECS. I moved on to other projects. I do love what you did! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zendocon Posted May 6, 2021 Share Posted May 6, 2021 2 minutes ago, intvdave said: This is not a competition. I saw your thread on you adding all new tunes. I thought of reaching out to you but there is just no interest in the piano for the ECS. I moved on to other projects. I do love what you did! I only said "competition" because putting tunes onto virtual tapes was what inspired me to reverse-engineer this game in the first place. I thought changing the built-in music would be an intermediate step. The reason I didn't keep going is because I don't assume tunes loaded from tape would contain more than one music channel, same as when playing a melody with the keyboard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1980gamer Posted May 6, 2021 Share Posted May 6, 2021 Dam you Dave! LOL I was about to sell my Keyboard and Melody Blaster! OK, to be fair... I have 2 of each.. So I may sell 1 of them... Complete in box with warranty card.. You know, incase it breaks, you can contact Mattel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev Posted May 17, 2023 Share Posted May 17, 2023 Coming soon! 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+the1hatman Posted May 18, 2023 Share Posted May 18, 2023 5 hours ago, Rev said: Coming soon! You tease!!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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