Back in the day (before such modern things as compressed digital audio and mp3s), MIDI was king. For me, it was initially driven by the soundtracks of Sierra’s adventure games like Kings Quest 6 and Quest for Glory 3 and 4. It expanded into hobbyist music editors (think early, early versions of Cakewalk), and eventually I purchased a Roland JV-35 keyboard for the sole reason of improving the sound of my MIDI files (and this was before SB AWE Soundfont technology). The first “awe inspiring” composition we found on the fledgling Internet was this piece called “Overture For a New World”. I still don’t know who composed it, but it definitely formed a very lasting memory.

[audio src=“https://griphiam.web.aplus.net/audio/overture” format=“mp3 ogg” options=“controls”]

This clip was recorded using my JV-1080 module (which really has some kick ass sounds for it’s time). These are pure GM patches… I have the Orchestral expansion board, but I haven’t optimized the piece for it yet.

I hope you enjoy, and if anyone could possibly identify the composer, I’d love to know (and to see if he or she did any others!)