Soundchip Tribute

[Kamahl]

The gameboy chip is the last one on my list kokujin

And by classic I really meant in games of the time, no demos or recent homebrews. Still if anyone wants to make a "Sounchips pulled to their limits" I'd be glad to contribute.

Software driven PCM tunes isn't really what I would call a good example of the classic sound of the chip kool kitty. I put in the beeper as a joke :P, and the gba... well the gba soundchip is just 2 PCM channels to write into.

And the ghouls and ghosts theme on the atari-st is made by Tim Follin, that guy can make ANY chip sound good.
Here's the amiga version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK4osO00-js
I mean.. really...

"Oh, and does the MT-32/LAPC-I count?"
That's the midi thing that makes games sound good right? Don't know much about it but it sure sounds nice.

[kokujin]

The gameboy chip is the last one on my list kokujin

And by classic I really meant in games of the time, no demos or recent homebrews. Still if anyone wants to make a "Sounchips pulled to their limits" I'd be glad to contribute.

I didn't see the gameboy post, I also didn't post anything that wasn't from an actual game.I think we should keep the thread for actual game music and not demos.

[Kamahl]

That line was for kool kitty, i should have put a quote or @koolkitty in that post somewhere, sorry for the confusion kokujin

[kool kitty89]

Software driven PCM tunes isn't really what I would call a good example of the classic sound of the chip kool kitty. I put in the beeper as a joke :P, and the gba... well the gba soundchip is just 2 PCM channels to write into.

Yes, but where's the limit between "pure" chip-synth and software synth?
How about CPU driven envelopes, PWM (be it interrupt or cycle timed), or PCM effects? (especially those used in-game -Stormlord has PCM on in-game in-game on the C64, as does Turrican on the ST)
Should we discount all YM2612 music using software PCM/ADPCM/MOD playback through the DAC channel? (or PCM on the TG-16)

What about DSP/CPU driven sample sound systems: they may not be hacks like PSG or bare DACs for PCM, but they're still technically similar. (and you've got a range from simple DMA audio with a coprocessor -or main CPU/shared coprocessor as in the N64/32x/GBA/etc- that drives the audio, the SNES's sound system would fall into that category too)
Hell, Paula is more CPU reliant than many later sample based systems, and without CPU work, you'd have no looped samples or such. (of course, you need a CPU/MCD in all cases to update the sound registers on even the simplest PSG)

Where is the line drawn?


And the GBA's sound hardware is nearly identical to the 32x's, PWM with the same odd formatting iirc (allowing variable resolution and sample rate trade-offs) with DMA driven stereo. (ie hardwired left and right channels, like the STe, or 1/2 the Amiga; though if you feed it through mono output, it could be treated as 2 channels without the annoying problems of hard L/R instruments -there's a mono mode on the digital end, but that's a single-channel mode)

And the ghouls and ghosts theme on the atari-st is made by Tim Follin, that guy can make ANY chip sound good.
Here's the amiga version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK4osO00-js
I mean.. really...

I know that, though there's some other kick-ass musicians out there too, though they left the scene before Follin. (like Galway and Hubbard)
Follin gets a lot of attention, but there's quite a few others out there who pushed things too.

I like the ST/CPC/Speccy versions of the Ghouls n' Ghosts music a fair bit more than the C64 or Amiga tunes in a few cases. (happens with several other games too)

That and the fact that they butchered the arcade soundtrack rather than arranging/remixing things to cater to the platform (with a handful of exceptions where arranged/remixed tracks were used). Far too many European arcade ports did that unfortunately. (same for that stupid SFX OR Music option many games forced rather than offering the more sensible middle ground with SFX AND Music -cutting out the least significant instruments to play SFX, the option would have been nice if they'd given SFX+Music instead of just FX, or all 3 -rather ironic that some games using beeper only forced music+FX on such limited hardware or the same for the PC Speaker where plain FX -or plain music in a few cases where single voice square wave was OK- would have been very useful)
Just because the music is good, doesn't mean it's a good idea to replace the real game music. (other than added intro/title music perhaps, like R-Type, though that's not remotely fitting tot he game either)

Of course, with all else equal, Paula will sound better, but that's not the point: the point is getting good use out of something and enjoying it for what it is.

The AY/YM PSG is pretty good for the time (1979 or earlier) with advantages over POKEY and universal superiority over the cheap SN76489 (weaker noise generation, low pitch resolution, no ADSR, etc -also worse for PCM hacks due to the coarser steps both for doing 4-bit log samples and 2/3 channel higher res hacks -in which case you could take advantage of the 5-bit logarithmic res per channel).
The advantages over POKEY, of course, are the dynamic pitch range and hardware envelope (which can also be hacked for a low-res saw/triangle wave for a total of 4 channels plus noise), that and better PCM hacks for some things. (added channels can produce 8-bit or higher approximated resolution, but POKEY has superior single channels with 4-bit linear range much preferable to the logarithmic channels in that context -plus 3 timers to allow interrupt driven effects)

Cases where the AY sounds like the SN, is underutilization of the chip, and even Follin couldn't make the SN sound like the AY does above. (or various chip demo artists for that matter)
The SN is like the worst characteristics of POKEY and the AY8910 rolled into one, though also in a very small package. (the other 2 both had I/O functionality crammed into them too)
Even TIA is ahead of the SN in some areas, albeit it's pretty crap for anything but exremely stylized music due to the low pitch resolution (short of PWM), though it can also do things that the AY can't (like the periodic pulse wave noise so characteristically "Atari")

They're all ~1979 chips too, and the AY remained the absolute best single sound chip on the open market until Yamaha's FM synth chips arrived in 1985. (and among those first couple chips produced was the fully YM2149 compatible YM2203 -including the I/O, though requiring an external DAC and I think only supporting mono)
It's a shame that there weren't better alternatives in-between though. (General Instruments later came out with the AY-2-8930 with variable pulse width and 3 envelopes, but I think that wasn't until the late 80s -and by that point the YM2203 should have been a more interesting upgrade anyway, a shame the STe didn't add that -albeit they could have been putting that on higher end STs from 1986 onward at least )

Just be glad that, if they had to choose off the shelf, that the MSX/CPC/128k/ST opted for the AY/YM PSG and not the weak SN. (a shame the Colecovision and SMS did that -especially as both should have been able to pus the I/O ports to good use)
That also should have been the chip of choice for early PC sound cards (and was for the Apple Mockingboard), but oddly there were no soundboards for the PC (professional or consumer) until 1987 with the Adlib followed by the MT32, Gameblaster, and others in '89 onward. (the PCJr/Tandy-1000 used the SN PSG unfortunately, though actually got some good use out of it -Thexder sounds better than the MSX version, albeit in part due to SFX being on the PC speaker channel and the MSX game not optmizing things)


We've discussed some of this before:
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12564
Let alone several other chiptune threads.

"Oh, and does the MT-32/LAPC-I count?"
That's the midi thing that makes games sound good right? Don't know much about it but it sure sounds nice.

It's a complex hardware synthesizer combining additive, subtractive, and sample sysnthesis along with some other features. (samples are hardcoded and limited to attack and percussion, the rest is done with simple waveforms) There's also hardware reverb.

Roland dropped it in favor of Geneeral Midi at the biginning of the 90s, and it never got a lower-cost consumer-oriented consolidated design, unfortunately, and thus faded from the scene in favor of sample based stuff. (all it needed was soundblaster compatible DMA sound -since it lacked any sort of native imported sample playback- and a consolidated chipset, and it probably could have become a major player on the mass market -it had been around since '87, so by the early 90s the potential for consolidation was pretty high)



Another one not mentioned is the YM2203 prominent on the older and lower-end PC8801s (maybe PC9800 series as well).


That and some Ensoniq chips (true wavetable synth -and sample synth/PCM streaming capabilities I believe), though the Apple II was the only computer/game console to have that standard. (some arcade games used Ensoniq synths though)






Edit:
but on the YM2203, and also in for contrast with the MT-32 tracks, you've got:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eADSS9FgNxA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-y6jW-JaPo

(I think SSG/PSG is limited to SFX)

[Kamahl]

You're looking WAY too much into this... What part of "classic chip sound" is hard to get ? Stuff that sounds good but doesn't go out of it's way to do things the chip wasn't supposed to.

- Making the AY chip do the turrican intro - Not what the chip sounds like at all normally.
- Programming the 32X or GBA sounds channels to make music - It's what they're supposed to do.

See the difference?

I'd like a tune for the Atari-ST using the extra PCM channels because drums are a huge part of music for me, same reason I'm pissed off at how underused they were for the pc engine chip. It's either awesome effects like in blood gear or xanadu, or good drums like in shockman, rarely both (there's soldier blade and a few others).

The beeper is there as a joke, really other than that crazy music by Follin and a few others it's... well... a beeper.

And there's a reason the SN76489 is only on the list as a helper to the YM2612
Also the jerk comment about putting it on the Master System.
SN76489 Alone = Crap.

If you want to make a thread about pushing the chips, I have some demo tunes for the amiga I'd love to post , and that awesome song by Follin for the MD would fit the bill perfectly too.

[Enternal]

Time Trax is amazing...and its funny when I heard Rock And Roll racing, I thought of the Spiderman and X-men soundtrack then scrolled down to see it was the same guy

[Curryman123]

Some of my favorites-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0Mp8uMammw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qH9F...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wWHZE14hP8

[kool kitty89]

I added a few things to the post above too.

You're looking WAY too much into this... What part of "classic chip sound" is hard to get ? Stuff that sounds good but doesn't go out of it's way to do things the chip wasn't supposed to.

But that's just is: who defines what the chip is "supposed" to do?
When they added the timers to POKEY, were they thinking of CPU assisted sound tricks or mainly for use with SIO and such?

How about the bug in SID used for PCM without sacrificing a hardware channel for volume modulation? (should all such cases be discounted, or all cases of PSG/volume modulation PCM, or PWM?)
Or using the AY's envelope as a saw/triangle wave channel?
Software envelopes?
etc, etc

- Making the AY chip do the turrican intro - Not what the chip sounds like at all normally.
- Programming the 32X or GBA sounds channels to make music - It's what they're supposed to do.

See the difference?

Yep, and that's the difference between using the "chip" and using the computer behind it:

Again, where do you draw the line with CPU assistance?

This has come up before and there's never, ever been anything conclusive resulting from it.

If you include CPU-intensive PCM on the YM2612, where else do you allow it? Do you discount all games using CPU driven PWM, PCM, envelope, etc effects?
Limit CPU to ONLY providing register updates and sample loop times (for DMA audio)?

So what, compare the chips on the basis on what could have been done using only a super slow/weak CPU/MCU? (like in the kHz range depending on the chip -650x/680x has dramatically faster instructions than some others, maybe a 500 kHz 8008 )


And if the YM2612's DAC is fair game, why not similar hacks on PSGs?
Even with such a double standard, you'd need to eliminate Afterburner II from the Genesis sound too since it's doing all PCM via the PSG. (software mixing to 2 channels at that -probably interleaving)

For any games that did software mixed MOD on the Mac or STe, should that be discounted too? (since it requires mixing, or at least scaling for notes unless you did fixed rate playback -or limited it to the preset STe rates)

I'd like a tune for the Atari-ST using the extra PCM channels because drums are a huge part of music for me

You must love what Tiido's doen on the MD then. (or what a handful of developers did back then, like with Vapor Trial and Atomic Runner -Galaxy Force II has some pretty decent percussion too)

And again, there ARE in-game examples of PCM percussion for the ST, as with Turrican II. (rather low quality, of course, and actually sounds a little weaker than the PSG samples on Afterburner II in spite of that PSG being weaker for such -and apparently it's not hacking 3 channels for higher res approximation either, just 4-bit log samples at 3 kHz -and as such ABII sounds damn good considering, maybe they just managed some really good preprocessing/formatting catering to the PSG) OTOH it sounds better than some DAC PCM playback on the MD, as does ABII. (a shame that that's the case, but there's some pretty poor software PCM playback through the DAC)

Anyway, for Turrican II, see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9cmiW42oXg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azCJeaLD6AE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeDIeTWF13o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUsWxCH0Qz8

(nice reverb in the last one -not sure there's any PCM in that one though)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7bntCzEsQM
(not as thick as the NES's PCM bass Tom posted earlier, but still has a nice kick to it)

I'll stop there as I might end up posting the entire game otherwise, so:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...0812A437B10E1C


Plenty of other games that did PCM SFX in-game, but usually concurrently (not simultaneously) with Music, and rarely used in the music itself.
Turrican II is the opposite: does all SFX with PSG sounds (seems like it uses PWM definitely the sawtooth hack channel for some FX too) and concurrent use of channels for FX/PCM/music. (not concurrent use of all sound, but single channels)
Seems to have some nice envelope effects too. (presumably software since the envelope as sawtooth is used for other things)

Obviously not as good as the Amiga for most/all cases, but again, the point is sounding good in its own right.

same reason I'm pissed off at how underused they were for the pc engine chip. It's either awesome effects like in blood gear or xanadu, or good drums like in shockman, rarely both (there's soldier blade and a few others).

A shame the PCE didn't have nice interval timers like the Lynx, POKEY, or many others to allow hardware timed MOD stuff. (especially since it uses a VERY interrupt-efficient 650x CPU -unlike Z80 or 68k which eat up tons of resource with interrupts -more so for 68k, so the "easy" hardware timed route isn't nearly as attractive -hence why PWM, or even PCM is relatively attractive on the A8, and had it been popular on the level of the C64, there definitely would have been games pushing that back then -interrupt driven PCM could allow a 4 kHz channel and still leave as much CPU time as the C64 -that's assuming the A8 has an effective 1.2 MHz after V-DMA)
Sega also screwed up by not supporting YM2612 interrupts. (Z80 isn't ideal for that, but would have greatly helped weaker programmers manage even PCM playback, especially while doing other tasks -I think a decent interrupt PCM routine could allow up to ~16 kHz with 100% Z80 usage, and given a lot of games dedicated the Z80 to driving much less than that -or equal to it for Atomic Runner/Vapor Trial- that's not bad at all)

As is is, you've at least got the 3.5/7 kHz timer and 15.7 kHz scanline interrupt to use on the PCE, so good for drums ans SFX at least. (and if you pair 2 channels, you can get up to 10-bit resolution)


And there's a reason the SN76489 is only on the list as a helper to the YM2612

Also the jerk comment about putting it on the Master System.
SN76489 Alone = Crap.

A real shame they didn't just use the YM2149 though (for the SG-1000, not SMS -lack of out of the box upgrade in the SMS is another issue -not even dual PSG), same with the Colecovision.
The only good thing about the SN76489 is that it was cheap and small, and for dedicated sound you could probably cram 2 onboard for less cost than a YM2149 (maybe less than an AY8912 or even 8913). Plus, you could address the frequency range issue by clocking them differently. (as Sega did with the System 1's dual PSGs)
As such it was also a lot better than nothing (or close to it a la beeper/PC speaker), and a good low-cost option where nothing else fit. (a shame GCC didn't cram that into the 7800 as a quick-fix option -TIA+SN wouldn't have been a bad pairing for that matter) Interesting that the Speccy didn't go that route since it was so low-cost oriented and didn't use the I/O of the AY either.

I wasn't trying to be a jerk about it either, just expressing my feelings on the subject. (and again, the I/O should have greatly mitigated the added cost over the SN)
And if they HAD used the YM2149, the YM2203 might have been a logical upgrade once the Mk.III arrived. (same footprint other than an added 8-pin skinny-DIP for the DAC)

If you want to make a thread about pushing the chips, I have some demo tunes for the amiga I'd love to post , and that awesome song by Follin for the MD would fit the bill perfectly too.

Not so much about pushing chips, but about the context . . . and pushing things that SHOULD have been done back then, but weren't. (like the extremely poor -on average- use of PCM on the MD -shows how important a foolproof architecture is for "lazy" developers -or ones who put sound as a lower priority, POKEY is another case due to sheer lack of support, the AY got good support though, and plenty of good examples there)





And back to the YM2608, this is one of the better sound tracks doen on the PC8801 IMO:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...0D7E0B6CA5DA17

[Kamahl]

I didn't mean you were a jerk kool kitty, The comment I made above the YM2143 music says that sega were jerks for not using it on the western versions of the Master System. Sorry for the confusion.

As for where you draw the line... well really it's a thing of feel... Using the CPU to help a little is ok, doing an entire song in PCM on a PSG chip is not what this is about.

Could you clarify something for me though, that soundtrack you posted sounds excellent, but before you said the PC8801 used the YM2203?

Were there versions with either chip? I'm not very familiar with it.

It sounds better than the song Kokujin posted so I'll add it anyway.

EDIT: That type of drums in turrican are fine, I don't like the tunes that much though, never been that big of a turrican fan.

[kool kitty89]

Time Trax is amazing...and its funny when I heard Rock And Roll racing, I thought of the Spiderman and X-men soundtrack then scrolled down to see it was the same guy

It's a real shame it wasn't released, even if it was the same mediocre game as the SNES, at least it would have had good music. (rather than music even more mediocre than the gameplay as in the SNES)



And one more comment on the Turrican II soundtrack: it may not be the absolute best on the ST, but it's got to be up there (I'm not intimately familiar with the library though).
It's definitely up there with the best ST demo tunes I've heard. (that aren't MOD )

Jochen Hippel did a great job arranging/remixing Chris Huelsbeck's soundtrack!

[Curryman123]

Anyone who doubts the Snes sound chip should check those 3 tracks i posted.

[Kamahl]

3 SNES tracks on a sega genesis fan forum... tsk tsk tsk.. SHAME ON YOU!
Also the donkey kong soundtrack is really overrated, damn boring music.

Can't say the same about the Lufia 2 soundtrack though, that one is great

[kool kitty89]

I didn't mean you were a jerk kool kitty, The comment I made above the YM2143 music says that sega were jerks for not using it on the western versions of the Master System. Sorry for the confusion.

No, I wasn't even talking about the YM2413, I was talking about the YM2149 in the ST (same as the AY chip), and how THAT would have been a better option back in 1983. (weaker composers/programmers might not have gotten much more from it than the SN, but better ones could have gotten a hell of a lot more, and did in Europe )
And if they HAD used that from the start (like the MSX), the YM2413 might not have been the preferred enhancement over that since the YM2203 was a perfect drop-in replacement available in 1985. (so could have been there from the start on the Mk.III, so long as Sega was willing and Yamaha had sufficient supply -I'm sure NEC had priority; would have been nice if the ST had used it from the start too, but again there's cost and availability -especially as an export product and the ST's tight release schedule, a shame they didn't start adding it later on at least)

And yes, it's shame the YM2413 add-on (and later built-in) didn't come to the west. (was it even out for the Mk.III when the SMS was released in the US in mid '86?) Rather odd really since the SMS's expansion port was more convenient to add to (closer to the AV port), though adding an audio in line would have been even better. (even stranger given the SMS fared much better in the west, even in the US, compared to Japan)

As for where you draw the line... well really it's a thing of feel... Using the CPU to help a little is ok, doing an entire song in PCM on a PSG chip is not what this is about.

OK, I think I get that. (would you also put MD music using PSG lead in a different category as such, or PCM lead for that matter -Skitchin is the only one I know of to do the latter, but single channel MOD should have been pretty realistic -all sample rate for pitch, no scaling)

Could you clarify something for me though, that soundtrack you posted sounds excellent, but before you said the PC8801 used the YM2203?

Earlier and lower end games used the YM2203, higher-end later games supported the YM2608, the PC-8801 used either on different models. (and beeper only on the very early models)
The YM2608 is the backwards compatible successor to the YM2203 (retains full YM2149/AY "SSG" -Yamha term for PSG+envelope- and I/O functionality of the original ~1979 AY-3-8910 )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEC_PC-8801

Again, I'm not sure what NEC's 9801 line used, but it may have been the same Yamaha chips.

Also note that the YM2612 is a direct cut-down derivative of the 2608, removing the internal percussion samples+ROM, ADPCM channel, SSG, and I/O logic while also merging an internal DAC and adding the direct DAC mode. (not sure if the 2608 supports direct DAC or not, but that would have been a useful feature to go beyond 1 ADPCM channel for software mixing or uncompressed PCM playback when desired, the SSG offers a decent hack a la ST, but the direct DAC mode would certainly have been nicer and easier to use) Interestingly the YM2612 seems to be 1 of only 2 Yamaha FM chips (at least from that period) that didn't require an external DAC, the other being the YM2413. (which also removed the hardware adder and used oversampling/multiplexing/interleaving to mix the 9 channels instead -which would also mean they could have used a plain 8-bit DAC without resolution loss, though I'm not sure that's what they did)

The YM2610 is in the same family, hence the mix of FM/SSG/ADPCM too, they're all in the OPN series: the YM2203 is the OPN, the 2608 is the OPNA, YM2610 is the OPNB, and the 2612 is the OPN2.


EDIT:

EDIT: That type of drums in turrican are fine, I don't like the tunes that much though, never been that big of a turrican fan.

There's a few different drums used I think, in the other stages at least.
I like the music, though I'm not a fan of the game. (difficulty is too high for my tastes, I like Mega Turrican for that reason though -some decent drums in that too)

[Kamahl]

I see, thanks for clarifying.

I think now the only things remaining to make the thread absolute greatness are:
- A better nes tune. The top gun music was great but needs better drums and the kick master music there now doesn't fit very well with the rest.
- A beter AY tune with drums (either through software or the extra channels on the STe)
- A more appropriate YM2610 tune, one that uses FM as well.

[kokujin]

If the majority of the sounds weren't created by the chip, I don't consider it a chiptune.Sample based music uses sounds not created by the chip.