FM Drive - 16-Bit Action Game Music Pack, Mega Drive / Genesis Style FM Score - 44 Tracks

FM Drive is a 44 track 16 bit action game music pack written to the Mega Drive / Genesis sound budget: 38 full looping pieces and 6 short cues, 32:51 of music, as OGG files with sample accurate loop tags plus all 44 editable MIDI sources and a channel map. RPG Maker MV and MZ read the loop points with no plugin, and the Readme gives the import steps for Godot 4 (followed in a blank Godot 4.7.2 project, all 44 files), Unity and GameMaker. Royalty free for commercial games. Three full tracks are free to download on this page, with their MIDI.

One action game from the title screen to the staff roll. The front end: FM Drive, Press Start and Stage Select. Sixteen stages: Neon Boulevard, Highway Chase, Harbour at Dusk, The Undercity, Jungle Ruins, Desert Fortress, Crystal Caverns, Frozen Reactor, Skyline Rooftops, Thunder Skies, Ocean Depths, Factory Line, Midnight Arcade, Volcano Core, Sky Fortress and The Machine Core. The battle set and the bosses: Encounter, Elite Encounter, Last Stand, Mid-Boss, Boss, Rival Duel, Final Boss and Final Boss, Second Form. Between the stages: The Hideout, Parts Shop, Mission Briefing, Bonus Stage, Full Throttle, Escape Sequence and Options. The end: The Fallen, Drive Home, Staff Roll and Night Signal. Cues: Stage Clear, Game Over, Continue, Extra Life, Warning and Act Start.

The channel budget. Every track is written inside six FM channels that play one note each, with the sixth switched to the DAC for drum samples, plus the PSG noise channel for the hi hats: FM1 the lead, FM2 the bass, FM3 a counter line or an arpeggio, FM4 and FM5 the two notes of the pad, FM6 the drums. Measured in the shipped MIDI on all 44 tracks: never more than 5 pitched notes at once, the lead, bass and third voice one note at a time, the pad never more than 2, the drums one sample at a time. The three PSG square channels are left empty for your sound effects. CHANNEL_MAP.md says which MIDI part is which channel on every track.

The drums. 36 tracks carry drums on MIDI channel 10: the kick under the hi hats in the first section of each loop, then the full beat with a crash where it begins and a tom fill into the loop point. The snare lands on beats two and four in every one of those 402 bars (beat three on the 6 half time tracks). On 18 tracks the synth bass jumps up an octave on the off beats, 1,634 notes.

The subtonic. Every one of the 25 full pieces in aeolian, dorian or mixolydian closes its loop with the major chord a whole step below the tonic going straight home, with no leading tone. 43 of those chords on the record, and all three tones of each one sound in the accompaniment, 43 of 43, measured.

One theme, every track. The seed theme, Drive, reaches up a fourth on a syncopated three three two rhythm and climbs on, and all 44 tracks state it in its own shape, counted by the harness in the finished MIDI. Four more themes come from it: Brake is the seed turned over, for the machine empire; Neon runs in eighths, for the stages; Horizon is the lament, for the caverns and the ocean; Turbo stacks two thirds in sixteenths, for the chase and the fight. 1,648 statements and fragments of the 5 themes across the album.

What is in it. 38 full pieces and 6 short cues, 32:51 of music, 11 in aeolian, 11 in harmonic minor, 10 in dorian, 7 in mixolydian and 5 in ionian, 36 keys, 68 to 176 BPM, all in 4/4. 29 General MIDI instruments, among them saw and square leads, electric pianos, synth brass, synth bass, synth strings, pads and mallets. Every pitched note is in its track's mode: 15,768 notes read, none outside it.

What you get. 44 OGG files, 38 of them with sample accurate LOOPSTART and LOOPLENGTH tags, which is what RPG Maker MV and MZ read; each looping file ends exactly at its loop end. 44 editable .mid sources. CHANNEL_MAP.md and channel_budget_proof.json. A Readme with per engine import notes, the proof reports, and a royalty free commercial licence.

Gate results. 788 theory checks and 510 audio checks, 0 failed, and the reports ship inside the download. They say the music is correctly written, rendered and tagged. They are not a claim about taste, which is what the free tracks are for.

Three full tracks are free on this page, with their MIDI: Neon Boulevard, a stage, Encounter, the battle, and Final Boss.

An honest note. The renders are a General MIDI reference render through a conventional soundfont: they are not FM synthesis and not chip emulation, and the instruments are the General MIDI sounds of those names. The MIDI is written to the channel budget, so you can move it into an FM tracker or sound driver, or into your own instruments. No game cue or song is quoted; every tune was composed for this record. The composition system is AI written code and no generative audio model is used anywhere.

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