dtgreene: Playing the Apple 2gs version (standalone, not the later GS/OS version) of Bard's Tale 2, and I have noticed that the bard song "The Melee March", when played outside of combat, sounds *awful*. It's as though the melody and harmony are in two different keys what happened here?

I should probably point out that the music in Bard's Tale 1 and 2 actually differs between different versions of the games; if you're only familiar with the DOS version and/or the remastered trilogy, the songs are not the same here. (I heard the GS/OS version of the BT2 songs on YouTube, and they matched the standalone version's songs, *except* for The Melee March, which unfortunately happens to be the one I'm talking about here.)

By the way, interesting bug in the DOS version: Have a Bard play song 7 (the one that creates light), press V to turn off the sound, then press V to turn it back on. Suddenly, it's a different tune you're listening to!

abbayarra: That was something I noticed compared to when I did the original playthough on the color compute 2 way back when. I still get the it feels wrong on the songs as they sound different that when I originally played through.

dtgreene: I'd say there's two ways that things could "sound wrong":
1. The music doesn't match up with the one from the version you're most familiar with, but still sounds decent.
2. The music sounds horrible, like off-key or otherwise unpleasant. This is the category of the 2GS version of The Melee March. (It's worth noting that I'd still rather listen to that song than listen to music with electric guitar, but I'd imagine most people would be the other way around.)

By the way, I happened to watch a video of the Apple 2 version (I believe) of Bard's Tale 1. The player played a bard song, and it was Russian Sailor's Dance. Do you happen to know which bard song it was? (By the way, I got a chance to play that piece in band, and it was fun, but not that easy.)

slickrcbd: I'm late, and I can comment that I owned the GS/OS version of BT2 from BRCC. I don't have a clue about the earlier stand-alone versions.
I do know that every once in a blue moon, particularly if using Desk Accessories the sounds would glitch and sound horrible. However, this would affect all the songs, not just Melee March.
Often just saving and reloading the game would fix it, but sometimes you had to exit and relaunch. This glitch was very, very rare, and again, I think ti only happened if you were using DA's that might have conflicted with the game somehow.
That said, I did think that some of the instruments didn't sound that great. I never liked the horns for instance.
Try changing instruments and see if it improves Melee March.
Yes, I know there are in-game reasons for using that cold or fire horn instead of a mandolin or harp, but just try it for testing purposes.