whats poppinnn
long time no electronic mail
I’m HYPED to finally release these bad boys. I’ve been planning these for months, but various projects or whatever have come up that have kept them on the back burner, but I’m finally finished with my Vib-Ribbon OST cassettes.
1999 saw the original release of the PlayStation exclusive, Vib-Ribbon. The game only ever saw a North American release in 2014 after it was accidentally mentioned during an E3 presentation by Shawn Layden. Despite North American gamers having basically no exposure to Vib-Ribbon, the game has remained a cult classic among PlayStation fans and even has an easter egg in Astro’s Playroom.
The game was developed by team NanaOn-Sha, the Sony aligned studio most notable for PaRappa The Rapper, and Um Jammer Lammy, and it's very apparent Vib-Ribbon is a sister-series to the iconic music based games. Vib-Ribbon was a similarly simple music game with a cartoon mascot, but this game was different, because Vib-Ribbon was designed to run off the PlayStation's RAM. Being able to run the entirety of the game off the 2MB of RAM and 1MB of VRAM built into the PlayStation allowed the game to run after having the disc swapped out. This in turn meant users could swap a music CD into the PlayStation, and Vib-ribbon would generate levels around your music.
This was a prominent feature in the marketing of Vib-Ribbon, so I wanted to incorporate that feature for this tape too. I put the whole Vib-Ribbon soundtrack on side A, and left Side B blank so that you can put any music you want on Side B. But I didn't stop there - I'm shipping every tape with plastic plugs for the holes on the top of the tape. The holes on top of a tape are copy protection, and by putting the plugs in, that allows you to record on to the tape. I designed up an extra insert card that gives everyone a quick rundown on how to record tapes, so I hope this release works as an introduction to making cassettes!
As you guys are probably aware, I love really pushing the limits with my tapes and trying to think outside the box with them. This idea for using these Vib-Ribbon tapes as a little intro to custom tapes is one of my favorite ideas. I love cassettes, and I’ve been incredibly fortunate to meet all of you guys reading this right now. I hate gatekeeping this kind of knowledge, and I hope these tapes can inspire some people to get into this lil hobby and make some more cool things. If any of you ever have any questions about this kind of stuff, don’t hesitate to ask me too! I’m always happy to help!
I already have my next release in the works, and I hope to get back on track with some more consistent releases every month or so. What would you like to see me make? What’s your favorite PS1 game? Bang my line and let’s talk about these old games <3
These tapes will be available on Friday September 6th at Noon CST
and you can save a little bit if you use the code VIBRI
