Artist Feature #6: Stéphane Picq

[@dosnostalgic]

Stephane said on his FB page that the first two tracks aren't his, and that Bubble Ghost was the first paid videogame gig he had.

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

oh nooo :( when was this?

[@dosnostalgic]

@@GSTChannelVEVO About a month ago.

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

@@dosnostalgic ah, I found it! I wish there was a way to edit the video itself. alas :( I'll add a note in the description. thanks for pointing this out!

[@StephanePicqDune]

Hello! The first is mine, I just forgot it, LoL! But the second and third no, sorry...

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

@@StephanePicqDune You forgot about Commander Blood? :P That's a soundtrack I'd love to hear in full quality! Sadly, I can't do more than add a note that the other 2 songs aren't yours. I don't suppose you know who actually wrote them? even if not, I appreciate you reaching out with this correction. I didn't know you had a bandcamp, so I've added that to the description as well!

[@earx23]

One of the few good PC musicians from the pre-red book era. His freaky sound design always stands out.

[@Nikos8BitStereo]

Stéphane Picq was certainly the least known composer for me of these Artist Features, or sadly was not privy to much of his work aside from MegaRace which seems to be the most common game people know he did aside from Dune, but even I hadn't heard much of those until now. But I was completely enthralled by this Ethereal style he was practically known for across a lot of the DOS games he composed, which also shows the power of what can be done sound wise on that machine, as I feel it's always known first for its MIDI style, but that also depended on what sound card you had for your DOS machine and how the OST's were composed to begin with. Pretty much majority of the games he has done are not up my alley at all so that has probably made it why I haven't checked out any of the games and OST's he worked on, the DOS library is very deep and I know mostly the basics. But I see he also did a decent amount of Amiga stuff which I will definitely check out, but I enjoyed all what was featured here, a really solid showcase, the Bubble+ and Lost Eden tracks were my favorites of this. And once again very miraculous for a composer to have given the info of a list of the tools he used in his music compositions, I feel it is something a majority of people never know about and its a shame because it gives further appreciation for just what a composer had at there disposal and what was used, and how the various creativity was birthed from it. I am surprised even before the 2000's came along that Picq decided to leave video game music composing, as I feel sometime after 2000 is a turning point for most musicians that started in the 80's or 90's, but it happens and it's good to see him find something else he's been enjoying doing since then. Thanks for another well done Artist Feature and on one I barely knew about, that's what makes this series so great! :)

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

Hey, sorry for the reupload! again! (this is the second time this has happened to an Artist Feature...) Someone pointed out a series of typos in the last upload. Normally I'd just add a note to the description, but these were pretty bad: Every instance of Cryo was misspelled as Cyro. Since that's kind of important, I reuploaded the whole video. I also added a small clip of the Cryo logo. Nothing else has changed. Links to the previous video will still work, but this one is obviously preferred.

[@andersdenkend]

GST大好き Never mind, guess I‘ll have to listen again?! \o_O/

[@mahj]

Damn, I was hoping you somehow snuck in a Megarace track ;) (Just kidding, the work you do is much appreciated)

[@RyumaXtheXKing]

The intro track is also known as Planet Malus - Channel 1 (Iswal).

[@ninjawpb]

you forgot the amazing rock music created for Jumping Jack Son on amiga. Quite rare game about multitrack rock music

[@ozonesama]

"Chamber of the Sci-Mutant Priestess" was also known as "KULT: The Temple of Flying Saucers" (or simply "KULT") here in Europe.

[@KTJohnsonkidThunder]

Stéphane Picq also did the music to MegaRace.

[@TheZmusicGroup]

I admire his work, a mix of techno and tribal influences, and it's very advanced for the time ( by video game music standards). The industry needs more people like him. As for the games themselves, well the last Cryo games in particular were buggy and cryptic, but I liked the art direction and the setting in these games.

[@LeRepulseBR]

I LOVE THIS CHANNEL

[@StephanePicqDune]

Hello! I released in 2024 the remasters of "Dune Spice Opera" and "Lost Eden" on B@ndc@mp, in downloadable Hi-Res Audio 96/24 digital albums! Both are featuring Bonus tracks, enlarged stereo field, clearer sounds and punchy dynamics, expanded spectrum with crispy high-pitched and mellow basses, to pull you in a higher sound experience! BONUS GAME OST featuring the best of AdlibGold-RolandMT32 soundcards in a dynamic intelligent mix included in DUNE album! Megarace and KGB will follow later this year. Follow my YT chanel.

[@geminielectro]

I love Spice Opera and Lost Eden OST.

[@StephanePicqDune]

Hello! I released in 2024 the remasters of "Dune Spice Opera" and "Lost Eden" on B@ndc@mp, in downloadable Hi-Res Audio 96/24 digital albums! Both are featuring Bonus tracks, enlarged stereo field, clearer sounds and punchy dynamics, expanded spectrum with crispy high-pitched and mellow basses, to pull you in a higher sound experience! BONUS GAME OST featuring the best of AdlibGold-RolandMT32 soundcards in a dynamic intelligent mix included in DUNE album! Megarace and KGB will follow later this year. Follow my YT chanel.

[@gyd67ckn]

Hadn't heard of this guy or honestly most of these games, but really enjoyed the tracks (especially from the first half) and the quality mix.

[@julienbraudel7109]

Thanks for this amazing work. Could you do some tribute to one of this french video game composers : Charles Callet or Jean Baudlot? Jean Baudlot sadly passed away in 2021.

[@geminielectro]

5:15 Gorrr Ba Chev!... great.

[@StephanePicqDune]

I released in 2024 the remasters of "Dune Spice Opera" and "Lost Eden" on B@ndc@mp, in downloadable Hi-Res Audio 96/24 digital albums! Both are featuring Bonus tracks, enlarged stereo field, clearer sounds and punchy dynamics, expanded spectrum with crispy high-pitched and mellow basses, to pull you in a higher sound experience! BONUS GAME OST featuring the best of AdlibGold-RolandMT32 soundcards in a dynamic intelligent mix included in DUNE album! Megarace and KGB will follow later this year. Follow my YT chanel.

[@Whelkman]

My personal favorite of Stephane's is "Suburb" from MegaRace.

[@clessili]

A good opportunity to listen to it again!

[@xc3n]

A bit disappointed that you opted for the Sega CD release of the Dune soundtrack rather than DOS/Adlib as it's one of the best FM synthesis VGM soundtrack ever made :o

[@bolgerasful]

Wow, where can I find Balise?

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

if you check the description, there's a link to the entire soundtrack from Commander Blood. Unfortunately, the video contains the entire soundtrack and no timestamps. here's a direct link to the song: kzbin.info/www/bejne/foibqq1rqJ6ilas If you'd like to download that song, you're in luck: someone has extracted all of the music from the game and put it online as MP3s. Except unfortunately, they're still split (i.e. how "Rain Day" and "Moon Day" are actually one single song). Still, Balise is available here, along wirh every other song: downloads.khinsider.com/game-soundtracks/album/commander-blood-ms-dos

[@Nukle0n]

Cryo huh... I remember all of these games and none of them worked even at the time they were new, I can't imagine trying to get them to work nowadays. They all relied on you having a particular version of Windows, and a particular version of the Apple Quicktime software installed with the right version of their godawful Quicktime VR software which was the way all these terrible myst clones operated. And even when you got them to run they were half finished, and usually also utterly incomprehensible.

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

I can confirm that getting those last two games running was nearly impossible. Luckily, DOSBox was able to handle everything from the DOS era with no problems.

[@xc3n]

never had any issue running Dune on DOS at the time ... can't speak for other titles though