| Start Music |
| Composer |
Chris Rode |
| Released |
1982-02-?? |
| Title Origin |
Game Location |
| Loops |
No |
|
Start Music plays upon beginning a game of Ms. Pac-Man. Like the rest of that game's music, it was originally composed by Chris Rode and debuted in arcades in February 1982.
Title
The song has never been officially released in any capacity. However, since it plays in the same context as Pac-Man (ARC)'s "Start Music," which does have an official name, that title has been reused here.
Composition
"Start Music" is a short, upbeat jingle consisting of two melodies: a main line, whose pitch generally increases over the course of the song, and a "bassline" consisting of a regular series of low-pitched notes that provides contrast.
Games
Ms. Pac-Man (ARC)
The original version of the song was written for the same hardware as Pac-Man (ARC), since Ms. Pac-Man was first released as a conversion for that game. It has a distinctly chirpy sound to it.
Ms. Pac-Man (A26)
Work on the Atari 2600 port has been attributed to Mike Horowitz and Josh Littlefield. Given what is known about how development for the console usually worked, it is assumed that one or both of them handled the music as well.
This version of "Start Music" adds some extra notes at the start. Its overall sound is much more harsh than the original (likely inevitable, given the constraints of the hardware), though it sounds much truer to the source than its predecessor did.
Ms. Pac-Man (A2)
The Apple II port of Ms. Pac-Man features harsh, compressed sound design all-around, and its arrangement of "Start Music" is no exception - it sounds noticeably more "electronic."
Ms. Pac-Man (A52)
While this port's arrangement of "Start Music" is closer in pitch to the original, it still sounds harsher on the Atari 5200's more limited hardware.
Ms. Pac-Man (A8)
This version of the game is near-identical to the Atari 5200 port, including its soundtrack. There is no known SAP rip yet.
Ms. Pac-Man (C64)
The Commodore 64 arrangement of "Start Music" is not much different than the original, aside from having less sophisticated instrumentation due to hardware limitations.
Ms. Pac-Man (DOS)
This version of the song, played via a single channel and simplified accordingly, is somewhat shrill.
Ms. Pac-Man (VIC)
While every other version of the game plays "Start Music" immediately before gameplay begins for the first time, the VIC-20 port instead stays on the title screen while the music plays. Its take on the song sounds softer and simpler than the original.
Ms. Pac-Man (ZXS)
Various sites credit David J. Looker for the entirety of the ZX Spectrum port, so it can be assumed that he also handled its audio.
While the song's overall sound texture is sparser than in the original (a given on weaker hardware), its pitch is exactly the same.
Ms. Pac-Man (A78)
As with the Atari 2600 port, Mike Horowitz and Josh Littlefield have been credited for the 7800 version of Ms. Pac-Man. This port's arrangement of 'Start Music" is distinctly shriller and higher-pitched than the original.
Ms. Pac-Man (LYNX)
Unlike many of the game's other ports, the Lynx version features a noticeably faster version of "Start Music" with chirpier instrumentation.
Ms. Pac-Man: Tengen (NES)
David O'Riva is assumed to be the creator of this port's arrangement, owing to his 'special thanks" credit. It is a bit lower-pitched and less chirpy than the original.
Ms. Pac-Man (GEN)
Earl Vickers' arrangement of "Start Music" is best described as a muffled-sounding (but fairly accurate) version of the original song.
Ms. Pac-Man (SMS)
This port's version of "Start Music" is very accurate to the arcade iteration aside from being lower-pitched. (It bears a considerable similarity to the arrangement in Tengen's NES version.)
Ms. Pac-Man (GB)
The Game Boy version of Ms. Pac-Man has an arrangement for the device's hardware that is lower-pitched than the original.
Ms. Pac-Man: Namco (NES)
Namco's NES port features an arrangement of the song that is closer to the original version's pitch, but features shriller instrumentation than Tengen's equivalent.
There are no known credits for this port aside from the text "Naoki Higashio" being present in the ROM. Since they are known to have worked at developer Now Production as a character designer, it is assumed that they handled the music in lieu of any other information.
Ms. Pac-Man (GG)
The Game Gear port features a somewhat lower-pitched version of the song.
Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures (SNES)
The version of Ms. Pac-Man included in this game plays "Start Music" using an instrument that sounds like human whistling, setting it apart from nearly every other iteration.
Ms. Pac-Man (SNES)
The SNES version of "Start Music" appears to have been sampled directly from the original arcade game. As a result, the only difference from the source is that it sounds muffled.
Ms. Pac-Man: Special Color Edition (GBC)
While the Game Boy Color's sound hardware is the same as the original Game Boy, this port does not reuse the older port's version of "Start Music." That said, it does continue the trend of playing the song at a lower pitch.
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