Jammin' Sam Miller on Vinyl: A Guide to the SNES Scores Rebuilt Note by Note

Super Nintendo music was written to be squeezed. The console's sound chip held a small bank of samples, each one a recording of a single note pitched up and down to play a whole part, and everything had to be compressed hard enough to fit on a cartridge alongside the game. What came out of the speakers was never quite what the composers heard in the room. Jammin' Sam Miller's project is the attempt to get back to that room.

He grew up in rural Louisiana, where Donkey Kong Country was one of the few games in the house, and taught himself music making remixes of it in FL Studio on a laptop. He studied film, then started posting remasters of the Donkey Kong Country score, reading the game's SPC data with a DOS tool from the nineties to pull out every channel's pitch and volume note by note. For the higher quality source sounds he went to David Wise, who composed most of that music, got a list of the machines Rare had used, and went looking for them. The method has stayed the same since: hex data converted to MIDI, the parts rebuilt in a modern studio with the original keyboard samples layered back in, then mixed and mastered for vinyl. None of the original game audio is used.

Five of these records are on our shelf: the full Donkey Kong Country trilogy from Musique Pour La Danse in Switzerland, and Super Metroid and A Link to the Past from WRWTFWW. They sit with the official Japanese pressings rather than against them, because they answer a different question. The Nippon Columbia discs document what shipped. These document what the music was before the hardware got to it.

Jammin' Sam Miller - Donkey Kong Country 1 (Original Soundtrack) (Yellow Color) Vinyl LP

Rare's Donkey Kong Country landed on the SNES in 1994 with a score by David Wise, Eveline Fischer and Robin Beanland that treated a platform game like an atmosphere piece, all water, fog and jungle air. Miller's recreation came out on Musique Pour La Danse in 2021 and is where the whole project began. It is the one to hear first, because the difference between the cartridge mix and this one is not subtle.

Why it's worth purchasing

• The record that started the recreation project, and still the clearest demonstration of the idea
• Double LP on banana yellow vinyl, cut from parts rebuilt note by note rather than ripped audio
• Wise's underwater and cave writing finally heard without the cartridge squeeze

Jammin' Sam Miller - Donkey Kong Country 2 (Original Soundtrack) (Green Color) Vinyl LP

Diddy's Kong Quest followed in 1995, and the music is the reason a lot of people rate it above the first game: Wise wrote nearly all of it himself, pushing further into minor keys, odd time and the kind of melody that sits in your head for thirty years. The recreation arrived on Musique Pour La Danse in 2022 on forest green vinyl, with Matt Furniss co-credited on one cue. Of the three volumes, this is the one that plays most like an album.

Why it's worth purchasing

• Wise working almost alone, and the strongest set of melodies in the trilogy
• Double LP on forest green vinyl, sequenced to play straight through
• The volume to reach for if you only want one of the three

Jammin' Sam Miller - Donkey Kong Country 3 (Original Soundtrack) (Blue Color) Vinyl LP

Dixie Kong's Double Trouble closed the trilogy in 1996, and most of its score was written by Eveline Fischer, who joined Rare in 1993 as its only in-house musician while Wise freelanced. Wise brought her onto the project and filled in the rest, including Dixie Beat and Brothers Bear. Miller's version came on Musique Pour La Danse in 2022 on blue vinyl, and it is the volume that rewards people who already know the other two.

Why it's worth purchasing

• Fischer's writing, the most overlooked work in the series, given a full modern mix
• Double LP on blue marble vinyl, completing the trilogy on the shelf
• A different compositional voice from the first two, which is the point of owning all three

Jammin' Sam Miller - Super Metroid Recreated (Original Soundtrack) Vinyl LP

Kenji Yamamoto and Minako Hamano scored Super Metroid in 1994 with almost no melody at all: rumbling low end, tribal percussion and long ambient stretches that make Planet Zebes feel like somewhere you should not be. Miller's recreation runs 27 tracks across a double LP, first issued by WRWTFWW in 2023, and this is the pressing on biovinyl with an OBI strip and artwork by Pierre Thyss. Ambient and dub listeners tend to take to this one faster than game music people do.

Why it's worth purchasing

• 27 tracks across two LPs, the full atmospheric score rather than a highlights reel
• Pressed on biovinyl with an OBI strip and Pierre Thyss artwork
• The crossover record here for anyone who buys ambient, dub and library LPs

Jammin' Sam Miller - A Link To The Past Tribute (Forest Green Color) Vinyl LP

Koji Kondo wrote the music for A Link to the Past in 1991, and it is the Zelda score everything after it argues with: the Hyrule Field theme, the Dark World, the title march. This tribute, out on WRWTFWW in 2026, rebuilds 27 cues from the ground up with none of the original audio sampled, and it is the newest and best sounding thing in the run. Forest green vinyl with an OBI strip and a sticker sheet.

Why it's worth purchasing

• 27 cues from Kondo's 1991 score, rebuilt from scratch with no original audio used
• The most recent and most assured recording of the project so far
• Forest green vinyl with an OBI strip, sticker sheet and Pierre Thyss artwork

Where else to look

These records make the most sense next to the official releases, so it is worth reading them together. Our guide to Nintendo soundtracks on CD and vinyl covers the Nippon Columbia anniversary sets and the Laced Records Breath of the Wild box, which is what the same music sounds like when Nintendo documents it. The wider video game soundtracks starter guide runs through Castlevania, Final Fantasy and the indie labels. David Wise's own records come and go on our shelf rather than living there, so ask us.

If You Like Jammin' Sam Miller

• Mikel: the Zelda & Chill series, Kondo's melodies rebuilt as beat tapes instead of restorations.
• Helynt: Mario & Chill and Legend of Synthwave, same instinct pointed at Nintendo's other songbook.
• Yasunori Mitsuda: Chrono Trigger, the other great Super Nintendo score, on vinyl and import CD.
• Konami Kukeiha Club: the in-house team behind Castlevania, chip era writing from the source.
• C418: Minecraft Volume Alpha and Beta, the same patience with space and silence.

All five of these live in our video game soundtracks collection, a few bins over from the official Nintendo pressings they were built from. To see everything we carry under his name in one place, browse the Jammin' Sam Miller collection, then come tell us which cave theme you still hear in your sleep.