I was just going to mention Galaxian. The discrete synth sounds in earlier arcade games are very fascinating to me since they have a notiably "softer" or "warmer" sound. I love games that have a good background drone too and Galaxian's one of them.
No surprise here, but I love Williams sound effects. The player start sound for Sinistar by Mike Metz is one of my favorite arcade sound effects ever. It was made completely by accident and uses a hybrid square/sine waveform to generate the audio, which makes it sound different and unique from Defender and Joust. The "screen transition" or "wave start" sound effect in Robotron is another favorite too.
Inferno has some awesome bizarre sound design that really sells the spooky vibe of the game. And Blaster feels like a "best of" the entire Williams sound library, with excellent use of stereo sound, especially in the Time Tunnel (yet another awesome drone).
A few years ago, I wrote a fan letter to Suzanne Ciani, who did the pinball sounds for Xenon. She's a really amazing electronic musician, I highly recommend checking out her album Seven Waves.
Atari has some great sounds too like Centipede, Tempest, Major Havoc, and I, Robot.
Other sounds that come to mind include:
- the Mad Planets death sound
- Reactor attract mode music
- a lot of various Namco sounds from Bosconian, Dig Dug and Pac-Man
- the techno music and sound design in Konami's Polygonet Commanders
- Star Castle drone (even though I have never played it)
- Gyruss music
And countless others that I can't recall right now, lol
No surprise here, but I love Williams sound effects. The player start sound for Sinistar by Mike Metz is one of my favorite arcade sound effects ever. It was made completely by accident and uses a hybrid square/sine waveform to generate the audio, which makes it sound different and unique from Defender and Joust. The "screen transition" or "wave start" sound effect in Robotron is another favorite too.
Inferno has some awesome bizarre sound design that really sells the spooky vibe of the game. And Blaster feels like a "best of" the entire Williams sound library, with excellent use of stereo sound, especially in the Time Tunnel (yet another awesome drone).
A few years ago, I wrote a fan letter to Suzanne Ciani, who did the pinball sounds for Xenon. She's a really amazing electronic musician, I highly recommend checking out her album Seven Waves.
Atari has some great sounds too like Centipede, Tempest, Major Havoc, and I, Robot.
Other sounds that come to mind include:
- the Mad Planets death sound
- Reactor attract mode music
- a lot of various Namco sounds from Bosconian, Dig Dug and Pac-Man
- the techno music and sound design in Konami's Polygonet Commanders
- Star Castle drone (even though I have never played it)
- Gyruss music
And countless others that I can't recall right now, lol



