NES/SMS soundchip comparison

[Alianger]

About Genesis... What do you guys think about the combination of the YM2612 + PSG in the Genesis? Was the PSG really useful for music and sounds effects in Genesis games?

The MD recording you posted stutters a lot, here's a better one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS_XmmKz-l0
I think I like it (MD) better, it's a more complex arrangement and the new bassline is excellent. Only minus is the muffled drums. But they are both good.

Some of the best MD soundtracks use PSG to great effect, making FM leads sound fuller, adding chords and/or white noise hihats and crash cymbals.

Star Cruiser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5tlY...eature=related

[sheath]

Heh, that's the periodic noise (uses up two channels, one of them being the noise channel) at work... It's cool because you can get lower frequency sound (down to C3 or so for practical use) than using square waves but it also sounds very distorted and growl-like. Thanks for posting those, I should probably re-record some of them as well as do more obscure stuff.

Oh, two channels mixed to make lower keys, that is a neat trick then. On my headphones it just bounced off my ears as ugly at the first try.

I thought I recognized your name there, I mean to ask, why do some of these recordings have stereo effects? I thought the Master System was entirely Mono.

Also, I just found a similar tribute and am listening to it now:

[Kamahl]

A music tribute with sound effects... FAAAAAIIIIILLLLL

[sheath]

A music tribute with sound effects... FAAAAAIIIIILLLLL

It also must be emulation, which I also equate to fail no matter what. But! the sound effects problem at least has an excuse, Nintendo platforms don't have standard sound tests, so one must spend way more time than necessary to get a clean sample of the music. That is outside of VGM rips through emulation of course.

[Kamahl]

It also must be emulation, which I also equate to fail no matter what. But! the sound effects problem at least has an excuse, Nintendo platforms don't have standard sound tests, so one must spend way more time than necessary to get a clean sample of the music. That is outside of VGM rips through emulation of course.

If he's already using emulation than not using VGM rips is totally braindead retarded. Just sayin.

[Alianger]

I thought I recognized your name there, I mean to ask, why do some of these recordings have stereo effects? I thought the Master System was entirely Mono.

Well that's one reason why I should redo them some time, as at the time of recording I didn't realize the vgm plugin for winamp was randomly spreading out the channels in stereo and that it was inaccurate.

[Zoltor]

People don't make me do it, I don't want to, but I feel the urge arising.

[Jay See Double You]

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I think the NES sound hardware, overall, is definitely richer, more diverse, and more capable than the SMS/GG. As I understand it, the SMS/GG are limited exclusively to square waves and white noise, while the NES uses two pulse waves (similar to square waves, only flexible, rather than rigid) a triangle wave, white noise, and a crude sampler (often used to bolster the percussion). So, standing by themselves, the NES wins. However, one thing the SMS/GG has going for it (which I really do appreciate and admire) is that the square waves produce a nice, crisp, clean, "sing-songy" quality that NES doesn't ever quite seem to achieve, and it's for this reason that I believe the SMS's PSG pairs so wonderfully with the oft raw sounding FM on the Genesis.

Frankly, though I know this is purely academic conjecture, I believe that the Genesis sounds better supplementing its FM with SMS PSG than it would have had it supplemented itself with the NES for this very reason: the NES can't touch the SMS in "sing-songiness", and that sing-songiness compliments the FM better than the less sing-songy NES would. Methinks the Genesis would've sounded "flatter" with the NES as it's vice-president. This is a big deal to me, as, generally speaking, I prefer the Genesis sound over the other consoles, especially when the Genesis is using both FM and PSG.

I do have one question though. I think I know the answer already, but just to double check: I know what PSG stands for (programmable sound generator), and have a basic understanding of how it works. But is PSG technology a proprietary thing strictly limited to the TI SNxxxxxxxx chip, with SSG (a la GI Yxxxxxxx) being a similar, but separate technology, or is SSG the same technology, just wearing a different name (a la a marketing gimmick), with PSG being a more broad sweeping technology that encompasses all the major similar-but-distinct-sounding chips of the day (POKEY, Ricoh, SID, TI, GI, etc)? I know the NES uses the Ricoh 2A03/MOS 6502 chip. I think the answer is the second one, but I'll ask the same question worded another way: Would it be technically precise to say the Ricoh2A03 generated NES audio is PSG, or is there another acronym that is more accurate that I should be using instead? My guess is yes, it would be precise...but I don't want to go around using the wrong terms and sound dumb. :-) Thanks guys!

[Guntz]

No facts to back this up, but chances are the PSG was licensed out to other manufacturers, like the Z80 and 68000 CPUs. How often do you see a 68k made by Motorola in the Genesis? Not that often actually. I for one tend to find more Hitachi and Signetics-brand 68ks in my Genesis units.

[Kamahl]

I do have one question though. I think I know the answer already, but just to double check: I know what PSG stands for (programmable sound generator), and have a basic understanding of how it works. But is PSG technology a proprietary thing strictly limited to the TI SNxxxxxxxx chip, with SSG (a la GI Yxxxxxxx) being a similar, but separate technology, or is SSG the same technology, just wearing a different name (a la a marketing gimmick), with PSG being a more broad sweeping technology that encompasses all the major similar-but-distinct-sounding chips of the day (POKEY, Ricoh, SID, TI, GI, etc)? I know the NES uses the Ricoh 2A03/MOS 6502 chip. I think the answer is the second one, but I'll ask the same question worded another way: Would it be technically precise to say the Ricoh2A03 generated NES audio is PSG, or is there another acronym that is more accurate that I should be using instead? My guess is yes, it would be precise...but I don't want to go around using the wrong terms and sound dumb. :-) Thanks guys!

Marketing gimmick. And yes, the NES is PSG.

Not sure what these are... - Not sure you can even say they have instruments, you "beep" them (Beeper, PC Speaker)

PSG - Instruments are made by specifying a few parameters that define the wave to be played (2A03, SID, SN64R8463, POKEY, AY-3-8910)

WSG (not really the correct term) - Instruments are actually really tiny samples (HuC6280, Konami SCC)

FM - Instruments are made by specifying a certain number of waves that modulate each other (YM2413, YM2151 etc..., most are hybrids)

PCM - Instruments are samples (compressed or not) of any length (PAULA, SPC700, RF5C164)

[Jay See Double You]

Marketing gimmick. And yes, the NES is PSG.

Not sure what these are... - Not sure you can even say they have instruments, you "beep" them (Beeper, PC Speaker)

PSG - Instruments are made by specifying a few parameters that define the wave to be played (2A03, SID, SN64R8463, POKEY, AY-3-8910)

WSG (not really the correct term) - Instruments are actually really tiny samples (HuC6280, Konami SCC)

FM - Instruments are made by specifying a certain number of waves that modulate each other (YM2413, YM2151 etc..., most are hybrids)

PCM - Instruments are samples (compressed or not) of any length (PAULA, SPC700, RF5C164)

Okay, that's what I figured. Just wanted to find out if PSG was a generic term for the general technology, or a proprietary term for the Texas Instrument chip specifically. It's generic.

I knew about FM and PCM and how they worked.WSG is not a familiar term, but seeing HuC6280 in the list, I knew that was referring to PC Engine/TG16, which is primarily just a very advanced form of PSG, with the added gimmicks of being able to do Direct D/A for things such as speech. Channel 1 on the HuC6280 also has advanced features. Some reports say that if you sacrifice PSG channel 0, you can convert PSG channel 1 into an FM channel, while others say the same thing, only LFO instead of FM.

Very abstractly, I think I get the difference between Frequency Modulation and Low Frequency Oscillation, but I'm kinda fuzzy on the difference between them on a practical level. On the ground, are they basically synonymous terms, or do they yield completely different results? Simply assuming the latter, based solely on the difference in results between Genesis/Mega Drive playback, and TG16 playback, I'm more inclined to believe they're not using the same formats, which through bald conjecture leads me to believe the reports which say LFO. Then again, TG16's PSG sounds notably different than NES' PSG (and even NES' and SMS' PSG don't sound the same) so my assumption is anything but conclusive.

But, based on all reports I've read, other than the Direct D/A feature, which is pretty much only used for small voice clips, I don't think there are any samples going on in the TG16/PCE.

[Jay See Double You]

Also, FM, and sampler aside, it is my understanding that the PSG portion of the Genesis hardware is in every way identical to the PSG of the Master System, and that the Master System PSG hardware and Game Gear PSG hardware are absolutely identical as well. Can anyone confirm/deny this for me? If they do differ, can you please elaborate the wheres and hows for me?

[Kamahl]

The GG hardware is the same but it can do stereo.

Pretty much no game on the tg-16 uses LFO, they just use better samples and dynamic changes.

WSG and PSG are nothing alike, WSG is also much more powerful (unless compared to the SID or something), but it was poorly taken advantage of on the PCE, see the konami SCC (a weaker chip):

[Jay See Double You]

The GG hardware is the same but it can do stereo.

Pretty much no game on the tg-16 uses LFO, they just use better samples and dynamic changes.

WSG and PSG are nothing alike, WSG is also much more powerful (unless compared to the SID or something), but it was poorly taken advantage of on the PCE, see the konami SCC (a weaker chip):

Those are some great tracks! What platform is that on?

It definitely bears a strong resemblance to TG16...only better. However, if we think in terms of sample vs synth, the only thing that sounded like it might be sampled is the percussion. Otherwise, it sounded like TG16 with some whiffs of Genesis....all synth. If it were primarily sample based, I would expect it to more closely resemble SNES than NES/Genesis, yet, I find the converse to be true.

I know that you said WSG isn't a technically precise term, but you juxtapose it against PSG as completely different. Okay, well why is it of the three or four spec sheets I've looked at for the TG16 they unanimously speak in explicitly PSG language, one of which even invoking terms like sawtooth wave, and sine wave etc?

I'm not trying to be combative, only trying to wrap my head around the TG16. Out of SNES, Genesis, SMS, NES, AES, and TG16, TG16 is far and away the one I have the most tenuous grasp of. Help me understand WSG, what a better technical term for it is, why it is WSG instead of PSG, why all the spec sheets call it PSG, and where the sample capacity comes from.

Listening with my ears, it sounds like what the spec sheet says, a dramatically advanced form of PSG, with a hint of something that sounds very similar to, but not quite identically FM.

Thanks! :-)

[The Jackal]

Those are some great tracks! What platform is that on?

MSX2.