Pretty sure I have it fixed now. We thought for sure it was the 556 timer chip at ic43 so I replaced it. Still no love so today I got out the scope that I have NO CLUE how to properly use. I started probing inputs and outputs on the ram and roms then moved to the timer. I noticed when I hit one of the pins on the timer the music would advance. a little more digging and found the output for the time and probed it, when it had sound it was a nice wave, when the sounds died the wave was gone. Tested the 18k resister and it was good so I stole the 1 mf tantalum capacitor from c24 and whala, its working. The waveform stays constant and the game playes great!
My first real fix. Feels good.
-Ken