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Has the Snes sound chip gotten a bad rep recently?
- Thread starter Oscarzx n
- Start date
Can I use this as an excuse to post this example of music done on the Genesis? I admit, was just looking for a post that almost kind of ties into me dumping it in this thread:
I still can't believe it's done *only* on the Genesis/MD hardware. I've played it on a flash cart and can confirm, it feels like magic.
If you don't like synth, that's fair. I can completely understand that.
I do want to share a few examples, though, that you may not have heard. They're still very FM synth but I think they sound quite nice as work well as game music. I feel like the 'crunchy' sound along with clean, sharp synth works well here. That said, this is a tricky system to source audio for as it varies from model to model and is often handled poorly in emulation. Bad emulation often sounds wayyyy too harsh and bright. Also, many later model systems exhibited poor audio quality, unfortunately. So these tracks are just samples - not sure of where each track originates from.
I'd be interested to hear your take on the different tracks especially as an audio person.
Time Dominator 1st
Treasure Castle | Socket | Genesis | Soundtrack
Song: Treasure Castle Game: Socket System: Sega Genesis Playlist URL: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-vD6rIjXrcK5phP63lK5jL-u2-xSojlG If you want me...
www.youtube.com
Vapor Trail
[SEGA Genesis Music] Vapor Trail - Full Original Soundtrack OST
***All my soundtracks are recorded from authentic NTSC Model 1 VA3 Genesis hardware*** You know the drill. Track listing below. 0:00 Vapor Trail 3:05 Bloody ...
www.youtube.com
Streets of Rage 2, of course
Streets Of Rage 2 - Go Straight
Streets of Rage 2, known in Japan as Bare Knuckle II: Shitō he no Chinkonka (ベア・ナックルII 死闘への鎮魂歌 lit. "Bare Knuckle II: The Requiem of the Deadly Battle"?), an...
www.youtube.com
Sparkster
Gleylancer
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Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
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Battle Mania - this one is interesting as it leans heavily into synth to create a very menacing sound but it also has tight percussion and deep bass.
- YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
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Alien Soldier
- YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
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Xeno Crisis - a newer game but a great sound that leans into the crunchy audio you get from the system
Xeno Crisis OST #05 - Area 3 - Dunes
Xeno Crisis original soundtrack composed by Daniel Bärlin (Savaged Regime) for the Sega Mega Drive. Mastered by Lee Mintram (Featurecast). Order your copy of...
www.youtube.com
...and yeah, anything from Savaged Regime is amazing and really showcases what's possible. I'm not confident Super NES could deliver anything as crisp and clean as, say, this...
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - Mystic Cave Zone (YM2612 Rearranged)
Original by Masato Nakamura, Izuho TakeuchiSupport me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/savagedregime
www.youtube.com
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They don't require anything extra. "Solar Modulation" for instance was created for soundtrack that was released on a literal cartridge that plays on any stock Genesis.
YM2017 · Catskull Electronics
A brand new album on a cartridge exclusively for the Sega Genesis
What homebrew scenes have is the advantage of decades of accumulated know-how. Which is true for any piece of hardware.
Oh yeah, another great example of Mega Drive audio. This sounds great.
www.youtube.com
Tanzer Sega Genesis/Megadrive Soundtrack
↓↓↓ Track List en la descripción ↓↓↓ Soundtrack completo de "Tanzer". Juego creado por Megacat Studios para Sega Genesis/Megadrive. Full "Tanzer" OST. A home...
www.youtube.com
I really think it is "hate": I can't seem to go into a Super Nintendo music discussion thread around these parts without somebody bring up a ton of examples as to "why the Genesis/Mega Drive sound is superior". It's like entering a Donkey Kong Country music thread and suddenly someone brings up how it sounds sooo much better on the Genesis. I mean, what the hell man.
It's almost thinly veiled trolling. Call it "clear headed discussion" if you like, but I don't think every discussion involving the Super Nintendo's sound needs to involved their competitors in every regard.
David Wise music sounded better on the SNES to me. He really knew his way with the SNES soundchip. Genesis music compared to the SNES version.
It's one of those situations where, to the layman, the SNES sounds miles ahead of anything else in its timeframe.
But when you know how the SNES sound chip operates in comparison to the Yamaha hardware in the Genesis it's a bit less impressive. Sure, there's still some great music being pumped out of that thing, don't get me wrong, but the SNES audio is basically the midpoint between proper "chiptunes" and pre-recorded music.
But when you know how the SNES sound chip operates in comparison to the Yamaha hardware in the Genesis it's a bit less impressive. Sure, there's still some great music being pumped out of that thing, don't get me wrong, but the SNES audio is basically the midpoint between proper "chiptunes" and pre-recorded music.
Weeeeyyyyy we're here again with this old chestnut.
Both systems have great tracks, a lot of Megadrive tunes are just WAY too harsh with the FM CLANG though, the SNES however, a lot of the tracks just give me this weird sick feeling at the back of my throat, I just can't listen to them. It's something to do with the shortness of the sound samples, combined with the TOTAL LACK of ADSR envelope on so many samples.
Also the snes built in reverb is so so so bad and so many songs use it in lieu of having to bother doing ADSR envelopes it feels like to me.
I think the Snes also sounded a bit crap to me coming from having had an Amiga 500 for years beforehand. Whereas Megadrive just kind of sounded the same as arcade machines had for years.
Anyway have a song.
Outrun 2 cover done by Yousuke Yasui on the MD chip. I like listening to this a lot.
Both systems have great tracks, a lot of Megadrive tunes are just WAY too harsh with the FM CLANG though, the SNES however, a lot of the tracks just give me this weird sick feeling at the back of my throat, I just can't listen to them. It's something to do with the shortness of the sound samples, combined with the TOTAL LACK of ADSR envelope on so many samples.
Also the snes built in reverb is so so so bad and so many songs use it in lieu of having to bother doing ADSR envelopes it feels like to me.
I think the Snes also sounded a bit crap to me coming from having had an Amiga 500 for years beforehand. Whereas Megadrive just kind of sounded the same as arcade machines had for years.
Anyway have a song.
Outrun 2 cover done by Yousuke Yasui on the MD chip. I like listening to this a lot.
MegaDrive and Super Famicom were the two main sources of video game music in the console space (in the west) at the time. It's unsurprising that they're being compared. OP themselves did talk about other competitors.
I dunno it's pretty obvious that, if we're talking sound quality/clarity, the sound the Yamaha chip produces, as low end as was that chip at the time (it's technically a downgraded version of a high-end chip if I'm not mistaken), aged much better than the sound produced by the Sony chip (which let's not get ahead of ourselves wasn't exactly groundbreaking either). Especially now that some of us have access to high-end sound systems.
And even disregarding the competition, the sound produced by the SFC chip is pretty low-quality. It uses low frequency, low bit depth samples for most soundtracks and no amount of filtering can circumvent that.
That being said, that sound has its charms, especially for people like us where nostalgia plays a huge role, but this charm is that of a low quality sound, much like a crackling recording can have its charms, but can objectively be criticized as being of low quality.
MMX1 has one of the all-time greatest soundtracks.
But all three X games on the SNES have the same kinda awful sounding, off-key samples.
Just listen to the "guitar" that comes in at around 33 seconds.
It's like nails on a chalkboard
I have always not been a big fan of it, as far as I can remember. Some soundtracks it works great - Mario World, Yoshi's Island, Star Fox, Mega Man X do good.
It's kind of everything else. Farty and muffly and echoey - Not a fan.
That said, the Genesis soundchip is also over-romanticized - When it's good it's fuckin good , but I don't think it gets to that level as frequently as some people think.
It's kind of everything else. Farty and muffly and echoey - Not a fan.
That said, the Genesis soundchip is also over-romanticized - When it's good it's fuckin good , but I don't think it gets to that level as frequently as some people think.
It still blows my mind that this was possible. Although the implementation was well outside of the box and not how the sound chip was meant to be used. The results are astounding.
My problem with the Genesis is it was really only good at one thing, and it really couldn't create any songs that I would classify as "beautiful" like I would countless SNES tracks.
My problem with the Genesis is it was really only good at one thing, and it really couldn't create any songs that I would classify as "beautiful" like I would countless SNES tracks.
Didn't know this game had such nice OST.Time Dominator 1st
Treasure Castle | Socket | Genesis | Soundtrack
Song: Treasure Castle Game: Socket System: Sega Genesis Playlist URL: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-vD6rIjXrcK5phP63lK5jL-u2-xSojlG If you want me...
Some of these are very impressive and definitely have a great sense of energy to them, I think for me it just really comes down to not loving the FM synth sound. Some games definitely found ways to use it to a pleasant effect though. Especially many of your used examples.If you don't like synth, that's fair. I can completely understand that.
I do want to share a few examples, though, that you may not have heard. They're still very FM synth but I think they sound quite nice as work well as game music. I feel like the 'crunchy' sound along with clean, sharp synth works well here. That said, this is a tricky system to source audio for as it varies from model to model and is often handled poorly in emulation. Bad emulation often sounds wayyyy too harsh and bright. Also, many later model systems exhibited poor audio quality, unfortunately. So these tracks are just samples - not sure of where each track originates from.
I'd be interested to hear your take on the different tracks especially as an audio person.
Time Dominator 1st
Treasure Castle | Socket | Genesis | Soundtrack
Song: Treasure Castle Game: Socket System: Sega Genesis Playlist URL: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-vD6rIjXrcK5phP63lK5jL-u2-xSojlG If you want me...
Vapor Trail
[SEGA Genesis Music] Vapor Trail - Full Original Soundtrack OST
***All my soundtracks are recorded from authentic NTSC Model 1 VA3 Genesis hardware*** You know the drill. Track listing below. 0:00 Vapor Trail 3:05 Bloody ...
Streets of Rage 2, of course
Streets Of Rage 2 - Go Straight
Streets of Rage 2, known in Japan as Bare Knuckle II: Shitō he no Chinkonka (ベア・ナックルII 死闘への鎮魂歌 lit. "Bare Knuckle II: The Requiem of the Deadly Battle"?), an...
Sparkster
Gleylancer
- YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
Battle Mania - this one is interesting as it leans heavily into synth to create a very menacing sound but it also has tight percussion and deep bass.
- YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
Alien Soldier
- YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
Xeno Crisis - a newer game but a great sound that leans into the crunchy audio you get from the system
Xeno Crisis OST #05 - Area 3 - Dunes
Xeno Crisis original soundtrack composed by Daniel Bärlin (Savaged Regime) for the Sega Mega Drive. Mastered by Lee Mintram (Featurecast). Order your copy of...
...and yeah, anything from Savaged Regime is amazing and really showcases what's possible. I'm not confident Super NES could deliver anything as crisp and clean as, say, this...
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - Mystic Cave Zone (YM2612 Rearranged)
Original by Masato Nakamura, Izuho TakeuchiSupport me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/savagedregime
like I said, I think my biggest criticism really just comes down to the nature of the synth, it sometimes comes off as a one trick pony. Because nature of their very similar timbres, many of these feel like they could come from the same soundtrack.
I think my favor towards Super Nintendo comes down to enjoying the warmth and just the sheer variety it being a sampler gave it. You could never mistake Star Fox's or Donkey Kong's sounds for each other for instance.
I guess really just comes down what you prefer, variety and warmth or consistency and brightness.
Oof to that Super Metroid one. Especially the Brinstar track. Sounds flat.
I don't think it's a laymen thing. Liking or disliking FM synth doesn't make you more sophisticated. It's just... different.
Nah, the Amiga and Neo Geo were on a whole different level.
Maybe the poster you quoted thinks producing music on the SNES is just selecting a couple of instruments out of a list and the notes they should play. Which isn't... quite how it works, at least for the better soundtracks.
OP
OP
In many Youtube comment sections of comparison of Genesis and Snes games I have seen a lot of people complaining about the Snes audio, even in some games I think sound pretty good like The Lion King or Earthworm Jim 2. Hell, I remember some people saying the OST of Maximum Carnage was better on Genesis because it sounded clearer, and I think that games sounds awful on Genesis for the most part and badass on the Snes.
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Nah. SNES sounds fantastic for its time. If anything, people are only now beginning to discover how unbelievably amazing the Megadrive sound chip was.
The Megadrive may only be able to do specific types of sounds very well, but if you use those, and you use them in compositions tailored to them, the sound quality is flawless even today. And that's the leg up it has over the SNES chip.
The SNES chip on the other hand does sound muffled and compressed, but is able to replicate a much larger variety of sounds. And despite it sounding "muffled" by comparison to the pure MD sound quality (or to modern audio), it still certainly sounded more than good enough to make the most of its variety. Not only does that mean the SNES is able to produce a much larger range of different types of instrumentation, allowing the masters to produce outstanding tracks, but it also means those who weren't so masterful were able to produce good sounding stuff much more easily.
I think most people, even those who sing the praises of the MD sound chip, perfectly understand all of the above.
Horses for courses. I'm partial to the MD sound myself. But I do recognize that the SNES chip was a significant leap forward technologically.
I'll leave y'all with this as an example of how good the MD can sound in the hands of a master:
The Megadrive may only be able to do specific types of sounds very well, but if you use those, and you use them in compositions tailored to them, the sound quality is flawless even today. And that's the leg up it has over the SNES chip.
The SNES chip on the other hand does sound muffled and compressed, but is able to replicate a much larger variety of sounds. And despite it sounding "muffled" by comparison to the pure MD sound quality (or to modern audio), it still certainly sounded more than good enough to make the most of its variety. Not only does that mean the SNES is able to produce a much larger range of different types of instrumentation, allowing the masters to produce outstanding tracks, but it also means those who weren't so masterful were able to produce good sounding stuff much more easily.
I think most people, even those who sing the praises of the MD sound chip, perfectly understand all of the above.
Horses for courses. I'm partial to the MD sound myself. But I do recognize that the SNES chip was a significant leap forward technologically.
I'll leave y'all with this as an example of how good the MD can sound in the hands of a master:
I dunno, while the Amiga is interesting, it also has some pretty serious limitations. Games typically sound worse overall. There are some amazing sounding games, though (such as those that Chris Huelsbeck worked on). It's a very interesting sound chip.
Makes sense really - everybody is an arm-chair warrior with access to Wikipedia and Youtube, the situation has likely reversed since James Rolfes awful AVGN videos becuase people like to have some sense of authority about a subject even if they don't understand it. Hence now its Megadrive>SNES.
I mean, the SNES as a form of Hardware isn't that interesting, fantastic games, but Mode-7 is a feature in its PPU hardware and the SPC700 loaded samples of varying quality you had to chop up to make interesting sounds, its a lot less interesting than hearing some home-brew warriors get 4-Channel PCM trackers written entirely in sofware on the Genny/MD because the 68K was a beast compares to the Ricoh c65a2 in the SNES.
But you know what it deserves to be that way, the retro game community has always had this odd Nintendo biased gate-keeping to it, owing also to the US having a monolithic view of everything in history and how its only important if its relevant to the Americas. Nintendo saved the video game industry! Nintendo barely made a register until the SNES, the Megadrive dominated a lot of Europe, with its own unique exceptions like Germany and some Nordic countries.
People forgot the rest of the Anglosphere (UK, NZ, AUS) and the entirety of continental Europe had a microcomputer boom in the 80's and thats where a lot of interesting software and game titles appeared that are much maligned or forgotten.
I mean, the SNES as a form of Hardware isn't that interesting, fantastic games, but Mode-7 is a feature in its PPU hardware and the SPC700 loaded samples of varying quality you had to chop up to make interesting sounds, its a lot less interesting than hearing some home-brew warriors get 4-Channel PCM trackers written entirely in sofware on the Genny/MD because the 68K was a beast compares to the Ricoh c65a2 in the SNES.
But you know what it deserves to be that way, the retro game community has always had this odd Nintendo biased gate-keeping to it, owing also to the US having a monolithic view of everything in history and how its only important if its relevant to the Americas. Nintendo saved the video game industry! Nintendo barely made a register until the SNES, the Megadrive dominated a lot of Europe, with its own unique exceptions like Germany and some Nordic countries.
People forgot the rest of the Anglosphere (UK, NZ, AUS) and the entirety of continental Europe had a microcomputer boom in the 80's and thats where a lot of interesting software and game titles appeared that are much maligned or forgotten.
Computer gaming was alive and awesome in North America back then, too. There's just a weird revisionist erasure of it on message boards like this one, probably because most people that were there for that are in the 40+ year old minority.
That's mostly due to many Amiga games beeing just ports of the Atari ST games with poor sampling of the FM music used in those.
Games designed around the Amiga as the lead system have no such problems. It's akin (but in reverse) to people making SNES games, using samples for their music and then trying to replicate that in the FM chip, it just doesn't work.
This is why music from Huelsbeck, Whitaker, Brimble, Moby and countless other Amiga musicians is so far ahead compared to what you could find at the time.
Aye, my apologies it seemed like a bit of a big F-U to the states, but theirs an absolute treasure trove of stuff from the old world, some junk, yes but some really unique idiosyncratic stuff that's getting written out.
Probably because it was on tapes and floppy! Which you can imagine don't last long!
It seemed a lot of the American industry got centralised much quicker in the late 80's, though their are some really interesting stories like the Commodore/Amiga/Atari fiasco and EA with Trip Hawkins etc.
Its great to see the indie boom in some ways, and I mean, what kind of world are we living on where there are at least a few titles a year being released for the SNES, MD/Genny and even Dreamcast. Thats bonkers.
I've never heard this myself, but maybe it's because everyone loved shitting on Genesis sound-quality while it could clearly sound just as good as the SNES in its own way. So maybe some people started a narrative where SNES music is suddenly "bad" and Genesis? I dunno if that's true at all, I just pulled that straight from my ass, but I know that I love both SNES and Genesis audio.
yeah, it's about the only thing it has going for it lmao
other than a cool fuckin' name. Time Dominator the 1st sounds like it's going to be an awesome Time Travel themed shmup or some shit and.... well....
I don't think I knew that Commodore was an American company until the 21st century. They hardly had any footprint here.
For my entire life, the American PC space seemed to consist entirely of the IBM + Apple lineages, and I was using PCs by the late '80s.
Definitely. I'm in Canada but was lucky to play a ton of European computer games back then. There were so many pioneering game musicans from over there.
As far as somewhat underrated SNES music goes, I always liked what the guitars sounded in Uniracers.
And the bass heavy soundtrack of Super EDF
Then there's Waterworld but I don't think that soundtrack is all that unknown these days
Probably one of the more famous "discoveries" in SNES music in the last 10 years or so.
And the bass heavy soundtrack of Super EDF
Then there's Waterworld but I don't think that soundtrack is all that unknown these days
Probably one of the more famous "discoveries" in SNES music in the last 10 years or so.
The C64 was hugely popular in NA, even more so than in Europe
On the other hand, the ST and Amiga computers were more seen as productivity systems than gaming ones. This is why finding big box amigas in the US is easier than finding an Amiga 500
Too many people used the stock Genesis sound drivers and just tossed in a MIDI file with no thought to the voicing so it's almost all just a single kinda crummy "not-quite-a-sawtooth" sound to them all. Thin and bland. That said I fuckin love the Spinball options music, though it definitely sounds better with the 2612's default analog filter on it.
For me the big issue with the SNES sound is that even a lot of pretty good soundtracks fall victim to the low amount of available sample memory available. This means looping samples have really short loop points that create unpleasant overtones. Stuff has a tendency to sound tinny there too. It was an entire era of tinny game sound unless you really knew what you were doing.
For me the big issue with the SNES sound is that even a lot of pretty good soundtracks fall victim to the low amount of available sample memory available. This means looping samples have really short loop points that create unpleasant overtones. Stuff has a tendency to sound tinny there too. It was an entire era of tinny game sound unless you really knew what you were doing.
This is why GEMS gets so much hate that I don't think it quite deserves. AFAIK the driver isn't bad, but the problem was that its tools made it easy for composers to import MIDI files.
I can only assume that some composers didn't seem to want to do much more than import General MIDI compositions and assign tracks to crappy, nearest fitting, presets. You can't do that with the YM2612 and expect it to sound good. Just look at Doom on the 32x; it feels like something I could have knocked up in a day. The driver wasn't at fault.
I put at least some of this down to western programmers not really having much experience with programming FM synth stuff outside of adlib and soundblaster cards, which usually had higher polyphony than the 2612 at the expense of voices only being 2-op, and thus a lot easier to arrange. They could have at least tried to get Doom 32X to sound almost 1:1 with the adlib arrangement, and it should have been easily possible.
===
Semirelatedly I will also never apologize for loving the Chakan soundtrack. It's like if Throbbing Gristle had invented dubstep, or someone locked The Residents in a room with the DX7. I believe this is Mark Millar who was an expert at getting the weird, unsettling sounds out of the system, and also was responsible for the Earthworm Jim soundtrack sounding so much better than on SNES.
One thing to think about in terms of game console audio hardware at the time is the SNES came out almost 2 years after the first CD based system. There where quite few games with good soundtracks released in that period as well. Ys Book 1 & 2 came out on the PC Engine CD a couple of days short of a full year before the SNES was released for example.
The Last Armageddon PC Engine CD port was pre-SNES as well. Just give me that battle theme on loop forever.
The Last Armageddon PC Engine CD port was pre-SNES as well. Just give me that battle theme on loop forever.
GEMS is a catch-22. It's a powerful tool whose purpose is basically to eliminate the need for a dedicated sound programmer, allowing for composers to create music for the system without extensive technical knowledge of the hardware. But in practice this often leads to some detrimental corner-cutting and over-reliance on unimpressive stock voices.
To make an analogy beyond the scope of just music, I get the same kind of vibes from poorly optimized Unity indie games.
So many C64s are dead now and thrown away so that's makes them seem more obscure today than they were when it was on the market. The Vic 20 was also considered a success in NA for its time.
DUSTINODELLOFFICIAL is the gold standard for Mega Drive/Genesis music. Emulators haven't done such a horrible job with the SNES audio hardware so it's not quite as important for SNES games. You'll also run into uploaders putting extra effects on the tracks like reverb without mentioning it.
As a rule, avoid anything from SNESMD16-OST.
If you want to get into other 16 bit era music such as Japanese computer music it's a giant crap shoot with almost all of it recorded through some kind of emulator or another. You get weird stuff like the tempo on Rusty - I'll Destroy Your Mind being massively reduced when it's run through the Hoot music player so half of the uploads of that track are much slower than they should be.
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It's less about the tools, and more about the hands that use them. Both of them have examples of mind blowingly phenomenal soundtracks, and arguably terrible ones too.
Honestly I'm floored by artists that worked on both platforms. Yuzo Koshiro in particular.
Honestly I'm floored by artists that worked on both platforms. Yuzo Koshiro in particular.
That jerk doesn't split tracks into individual videos though.
Because the SFC was a more successful system but nowdays with the resurgence of retrogaming and out current audio setups, its shortcomings are a lot clearer
Also SPC700 criticism used to be drowned out by SFC fans who just couldn't handle any negativity towards it.
He didn't do a good enough job posting time stamps on some of his earlier uploads and that's a pain especially on mobile devices where it's a really big problem.
Most of the rest of my problems with full ost uploads are covered by these:
How to Loop Part of YouTube Video? – The Geeks Club
www.thegeeksclub.com
How to Share a YouTube Video at a Specific Time: 3 Easy Ways
A user-friendly guide to starting a YouTube video at a certain time Do you want to create a YouTube link that opens the video to a certain time? This can easily be done using a web browser with a built-in feature. While you can't copy a...
www.wikihow.com
Otherwise, I don't think it's as big of a problem as your making it sound to have full ost uploads and is preferable in some cases. Given how much work it is just to do the recordings, asking for them to be split into individual tracks is asking for too much given how many sound tracks he uploaded, IMHO.
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