File:Ballblazer.ogg

About the music

This is the algorithmic composition played continually during play on the 1985 Lucasfilm Games game Ballblazer on the Commodore 64 microcomputer (the game was originally developed for the Atari 800, and also released for the Atari 5200 and 7800. the 800 version was called Ballblaster during development). This page describes the music thus:

The sound for Ballblazer was produced by Langston, a musician with experience arranging and performing jazz, rock and American folk music. "One reviewer, an eminent jazz player, said it sounded like John Coltrane did it. I think that's my best compliment so far."

The music plays forever, without repeating itself but without straying too far from the original theme. The bassline doesn't vary at all, only the lead line in the higher register is fractally varied. This sample doesn't at all do the original justice – the only way to appreciate it properly is to download SIDplay and the .SID file (both linked below) and let it play for hours.

Copyright information

Fair use is asserted for the following reasons:

• no loss of income is likely, as the game from which it is taken hasn't been sold for twenty years
• only a very small portion of the original work is reproduced:
  • this is only a portion of the game's soundtrack, and
  • the original work is of infinite length, so this 29 second sample represents only a tiny proportion of it.

Additionally, the copyright status of this (and other generative works) is unclear and untested. The actual notes performed, and the weighted-random numbers used in their composition, were created on my computer. They are based on an algorithm designed by Lucasarts.

I assert no copyright of my own on this work.

	This is a sound sample from a song, movie, sound effect, or other audio recording that is currently copyrighted. The copyright for it may be owned by the company who made it or the author. For a song, it may also be owned by the person(s) who performed it. It is believed that the use of this work qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law when used on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the U.S. by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, where: the sample is being used for commentary on the recording in question; the sample contributes significantly to the encyclopedia articles in which it is used (listed under the heading "File usage" below) in a way that cannot be duplicated by other forms of media; the sample is short in relation to the duration of the recorded track, and is of inferior quality to the original recording; no other samples from the same track are currently used in Wikipedia; there is no adequate free alternative available. A more detailed fair use rationale should be provided by the user who uploaded this sample. Any other uses of this sample, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, may be copyright infringement. If you are the copyright holder of this sample and you feel that its use here does not fall under "fair use", please see Wikipedia:Copyright problems for information on how to proceed. To the uploader: If this is a free, non-copyrighted audio recording, please post it to Wikimedia Commons instead. Fair use //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ballblazer.ogg true

Technical info

Original .SID file obtained from: http://www.c64unlimited.net/games/b/Ballblazer/Ballblazer.htm ^{[dead link]}

Rendered by User:Finlay McWalter in the following steps:

• "played" (where dynamic generative synthesis is done) using SIDplay (version from May 3rd 2001) producing a 44100 Hz 16 bit mono .WAV file
• shaped using Audacity (v1.3.1 on WindowsXP) to make the music tail-off at the end (as the original generative work is of infinite length)
• converted to OGG-Vorbis using Audacity