RUclips: Where you can play a game from beginning to end on or even before the day of release, but 30 seconds of music from a 30 year old game will get you taken down. Heaven forbid you increase interest in something even the publishers have abandoned.
That's why I started a channel just for Mega Drive / Genesis music, plan to list them all. Love them all! The music has as much character as the game characters! So many fond memories as a kid
@@MaxOakland FM is simply the modulation of one oscillator by another. It's basically just vibrato taken to an extreme, both in amount and speed. If you don't know what vibrato is, it's a cyclical change of pitch, i.e. "frequency modulation", literally. It's a bit hard to explain in a more fundamental way than that, but basically FM is just changing the pitch of one tone with another tone. Do it fast enough and you end up generating different harmonics and producing an entirely new sound. Then you alter how much and how fast you're modulating over time to create different, more complex timbres. FM is truly a rabbit hole and it can go quite deep, to say nothing of what you can do with it when you leave the sine waves of Genesis-era Yamaha chips behind. It's extremely powerful, but like anything powerful, it's also very difficult. Simply the nature of the beast.
@@defaultxr this is exactly right. And it’s been around for a long, long time. Even going back to the early days of synths. It can get super advanced quickly, but the DX7, the sound of the 80s, is the preeminent and most beloved of FM synths if it’s heyday. It’s in the same family as the chip in the Genesis. But we used a digital program in the class. Basically we would alter waveforms for hours on end to come up with whatever that lesson was about.
@@MaxOakland One of the main differences, is that FM Synths use Mathematical Algorithms, to form the sounds. These Algorithms can be quite complex, and with a lot of different Value Ranges, inputted into each Part. Look at some closeup photos of a Yamaha DX-7 Keyboard, and you will see some of the actual Algorithm Structures (simplified), Screen-Printed onto the actual keyboard itself. I believe you selected a certain Algorithm, and then tweaked the parameters in each of those "Algorithm Boxes". The combination possibilities, are truly astounding! As are what kinds of crazy awesome sounds... that you can get out of the thing. In fact, you can watch some Descriptions and Programming videos about the DX-7, that describe how FM Synthesis basically works... and you have the added benefit of getting to hear the changes. You can also get hold of some DX-7 (or other FM Synth) Emulator programs for your PC. Try loading sounds, playing them... and then Tweaking the values of them. The program interfaces within these Emulators, is often a lot easier to deal with... than trying to program the actual physical keyboard itself.. as there is a lot more Details and controls being available for you.. to see and interact with.
Im 41, My sister had a SMS, my Cousin had a Mega Drive an I had a Super Nes. I loved playing on all three. I never noticed there was a difference in sound between the megadrive and Snes until the age of youtube. Back then, I dont really think it mattered. I never really moved on after the 16 bit era. I still play them now and get excited for 16 bit games I never had a chance to play. Mickey Mouse and castle of Illusion, followed by Alien 3s music always stand out for me.
I'm 44 so a bit older and played the SMS, megadrive and then the SNES occasionally if I rented the system out for a weekend. I definitely noticed the difference in sound quality between the megadrive street fighter 2 and the SNES. The SNES for me at the time def had the better sound, but as a megadrive owner I completely backed the special champion edition mainly as it had the arcade opening fight scene 😂 I also played street fighter in the arcade so I experienced all 3.
@@Klynch111 For street fighter, Genesis had better music that was closer to the arcade, while SNES had better voices and sound effects, the music on SNES just sounded weird.
When you have a composer like Yuzo Koshiro giving a show in Paris with hundreds of people from MD game music only, it meand it was a success. Some games sounds terrible, but now with trackers, there are guys giving music we could have never imagined back in the day.
Well me as a big snes fan have to admit that sound on the snes can suck as well. I really HATED if game developers did not only sliced those audio samples but also stored fast recorded in those snes games sothat the snes has to stretch and repitch those samples back to it’s original pitch & speed, as a result it could sound very dry. But if game developers did not cut & stretch those audio samples in their snes games, then it can generate wonderful audio. And with sound swapping game developers didn’t had to worry about running out of 64KB audio ram and the amount of samples they could use on the snes because they will have more freedom.
@@TheSliderW it isn't really like that, especially when you have an existing sound driver. It is just a matter of tweaking up a few knobs long enough until you get the sound you like. No understanding of the underlying math is required. Now when we talk about the era when composers also had to program their own drivers first, that was a different deal.
@@shiru8bitAgreed. I also doubt composers had a hobby of programming hardware level sounds drivers. They'd most likely look the developers in the eye as they handed the midi/mod files and be like : "Here is the music, good luck"
@@shiru8bit Well that complexity didn't help the game development cycle, hence most Genesis games sound like ass. The NES makes incredible music in the right hands. Check out the "Journey to Silius" soundtrack.
I'm one of those SNES sound people but I've grown to love some of what the Genesis/MD has to offer. It really comes down to the individual composer for me, like you said.
Funny thing, some of the best SNES soundtracks for me were in rather mediocre games. Like Waterworld, Vortex or Shaq Fu. Of course there were enough games like Cybernator where great music matched great gameplay. Genesis really shine in electronic, synth-pop, techno and trance genres. Contra Hard Corps or Batman and Robin are the best examples.
To me the SNES wasn't on par with the gritty sounds of the Genesis I even love the fire bass and the so called fart noise everytime somebody gets hit the early beat em ups to me it was so raw and guttural it made me feel like I was actually hitting something
@@mirabilisFM was the sound of that era. Synth-pop for example used it extensively. Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, Duran Duran, Tears for Fears, Alphaville to name a few.
you needed a developer who knew how to create music and sound effects for that FM chip, but it was technically inferior to the snes sound chip, i dont think anyone would argue otherwise
@@joesaiditstrue The Snes sound chip made making music for it a LOT easier, but making truly excellent music that fits well with the game was still going to take some serious artistic skill. I remember being absolutely blown away by the music from Sonic 3. I probably shouldn't have been so surprised when I found out that my favorite song from the game was literally made by the king of pop himself! He wasn't credited because of the scandal he ended up in, but it's well known that Michael Jackson himself was involved in some of the music in Sonic 3.
@@joesaiditstrue The Snes sound chip is a thing of beauty. I used to just hang out in certain levels of Secret of Mana as a kid and just be amazed at the gorgeous music emanating from my console.
The more I watched this the more it felt like a funeral. It's like at funeral you see photos of a young man slowly turn in to a shell of what he once was towards the end of his life.
The headphone port possibly promoted the Genesis/MegaDrive due to putting Stereo option obviously right there in the front. Most TV's didn't have stereo so hooking up stereo speakers was tempting for any music/audio lovers.
And these days, if you have the right adapter and extensions, you can get stereo through your TV by just plugging the headphone jack into the red and white ports in a composite input.
@@linkthehero8431 Yeah that's basically how it was done especially with the sega cd add on for the model 1. But became much nicer when the model 2 eventually got stereo out by default.
Got you beat. 46 and still loving Genesis music. I was a big Nintendo fan until Sega brought the Genesis out. I instantly became a fan of Sega when I couldn't have been bothered with them prior.
Sonic 1 Starlight Zone is such a great track, one of my favourite gaming songs of all time. I think i prefer the Sega Mega drive music, they knocked out some bangers back in the day! The whole Streets Of Rage soundtrack and Sonic 3 & Knuckles are some of the best ever made.
Rock n Roll Racing sounded pretty good on Genesis, at least when Larry wasn't making all music pause so he could say something. Not sure why Blizzard had to do that; Streets of Rage 1, 2, and 3 and a bunch of other games just muted one music channel when a voice clip played. No idea why Blizzard couldn't have done that for RnRR.
The Amiga sound system was similar to the SNES one (although it was from 1985). But if you like techno that was the system to own, not only for the games, but also for the demos and tracker music.
I love a lot of the tunes on Genesis games. Gunstar Heroes, Rolling Thunder 2&3, Sonic 1,,2,,3, & Knuckles, MUSHA, SOR 1&2, Shinobi games, TF IV, just to name a few. Sega CD took it to a higher level. Love it all.
When the yamaha synth was used as an instrument within its own right, it really could sing. I find myself leaning towards it much more these days as it has its own unique quality to the soound. The wavetable synth of the snes and later pc games just sounds a bit cheap and cheesy these days with the low quality sampled sounds, but it was remarkable back in the day. I've got a pretty decent wavetable card in my PC but a lot of the time I still prefer the OPL synth.
Lets be technical, the soundchip of the Megadrive is a restricted Yamaha DX7 FM synth with only 6 or 7 voice of polyphony depend if you using the 1 channel 8 bit sampling dac for drum or sound effect, now the snes sound chip is a sampler limited to 64kb of memory for the sample itself and the sequencer data, so even if it's more like an Amiga Paula with 8 track of polyphony it's still very limited and only top notch sound designer and programmer can make it sound like a regular high end sampler, both have quality and limitation but in right hand you can have very high quality soundtrack .
Probably why so many songs on the Amiga sounded much better than on the SNES, it was only 4 channels compared to 8 of the SNES but you could have songs that could use most of the memory you got in the Amiga, so far bigger than 64k, there were also tricks that many developers used to have 7 channel sounds which sounded great. I think another weakness of the SNES is that cartridges were not cheap back then so a lot of songs used to cut corners to save space, hence why so many sounded muffled and low quality, the Amiga on the other hand was floppy disk which were dirt cheap back then, so storage being so cheap and not being limited on the memory use allowed the Amiga to deliver much better sounds then the SNES, which many games did, even thought the SNES sound chip is better than the Amiga, it was held back in those two key areas, storage and 64k limit. The Mega Drive didn't have those issue but it had it's own issues.
Sega had a sound that's iconic, and works for some games, but overall yes, others sounded better. Did this hurt the system? No. I was a teenager during this area and almost nobody compared the sounds when choosing a system.
I'd say that both the SNES and Genesis sounded incredible at the time, far beyond what the NES and Master System could do. Sound has always been somewhat of a neglected area in games though. Hence why the Sega CD didn't do as well as Sega hoped.
Killer Instinct was a game changer for the SNES though, largely due to the great audio. Of course people didn't directly compare audio, but they did praise that game and others for being great in that department. I don't remember anyone ever getting excited about genesis audio back then. People who played on both systems extensively could recognize that the was a significant quality difference between the audio of the systems.
Actually not. They sounded worse. Tracked music needs great samples and great samples take up space on the cartridge. I bet that over 90% of the SNES games had terrible soundtracks (fidelity-wise). If everything sounds like mass-reverb'd 22kHz lowpass filtered garbage (SNES), I rather prefer a synthesizer pumping out crystal clear sound in real-time (OPN chip) instead of canned, ripped samples. Those awful snare drums with the 300% reverb of many SNES games haunt me to this day. I enjoy the SHADOWRUNNER soundtrack, but the lowpass filtering hurts my ears^^ DynamiTracer (IIRC) was one of the few examples that used proper samples/sound, and Donkey Kong. As much as I like StarFox' soundtrack, it also sounds too muffled.
@@brandongregori995 killer instinct at the time sounded great on SNES put it up against the N64 version and it doesn’t sound quite as good in comparison but it’s definitely nostalgia talking on your part for me. The game changer was tales of Phantasia. Which full vocals in one track. i’m not just yeah, yeah, yeah, that was heard on killer instinct, and again it sounded muffled It sounded muffled on SNES, Plok was way more impressive than Killer Instinct.
@@Adamtendo_player_1 I'm literally talking about what people thought about the audio of the different systems back then. That's not nostalgia at all, and I never said KI was the best audio the SNES ever had.
Incredible episode! I used to debate this with a dear old roommate of mine. He showed me that there was great music on the Sega Genesis, but I had always had the impression it was subpar. This is yet another great video to add to the timeless debate, nice one Mel!
I agree, some games sounded great then you would hear some chalkboard stcrathing sounds from lazy devs not properly utilizing the hardware. Also Genesis had extra sound channels not always used that was built in for Sega Master system backwards compatibility.
Yep, just like all this Z-tier 'AI generated' shit we see now.. it should be a tool to allow us to push further and go harder.. not just dial it in for easy bucks. Alas.. history repeats.
I disagree, GEMS sounded horrible for the most part. Good composers were able to overcome its limitations, but the music and sound effects still sounded primitive. Comix Zone is one of, if not the only GEMS game that sounds just as good as a native FM synth game.
@@phattjohnson Ironically the *professional* music industry has ai tools meant as simply a tool to boost musicians. its just novelties aimed at amateurs that are "Generate corporate slop" engines. I.e theres some ai driven mastering tools like EQs where it can automate general steps til its time to finetune by ear.
In all fairness, FM synthesis is difficult to do effectively even today with the modern tools we have. You can do some great stuff with it, but it's something you really only get good at with experience. Nevermind trying to do it in 1992, following barebones documentation in Japanese, in a barebones dev environment...
I've realized that my relationship with this system is unlike any other. It's not even the library--I wish the SEGA Genesis had its own equivalent of Super Mario World, Earthbound, the last few Super Fire Pro Wrestling games, etc. It's the hardware itself. It's that gritty feeling, and the personal nostalgia tied to it. The way the early Madden (and Bill Walsh) games sound, Castlevania Bloodlines...so much of the connection I feel is from the sound hardware.
Love the sound of Mega Drive. It was perfect for heavy metal styled soundtracks. Too me, SNES often had too much reverb and sounded muffled in comparison, due to the heavy compression. Though western developers, was often terrible at using the sound on Mega Drive. But those Japanese games, especially the shmups, amazing tracks.
Sound of Pokey Means Business from Earthbound completely curb stomps any heavy metal the Genesis attempted to do, not to mention Rock N Roll Racing and Mega Man X trilogy.
@@yeahyeahwowman8099I guess you haven’t heard Thunder Force IV then that proves the Mega Drive can match the SNES and the SNES has proven that it can match the Mega Drive with Spiderman and Venom Separation Anxiety which sounds amazing on SNES.
Man there is so many that the Genesis had that were great. RoadRash 3, Crue Ball, and my favorite on the platform: Steel Empire. That game literally had the sheet music for the title track on the start screen.
I was delighted to hear the theme from Star Light Zone. I genuinely think the slower, PAL version of the theme is nicer. Of course, that could just be what sounds 'right' to my ear.
One limitation of the Mega Drive rarely talked about is the limitation on music tempo… you can’t just pick any tempo you want. It has to match or be a certain division of the refresh speed. There are a few tricks you can employ to get a few more usable tempos but it essentially boils down to about 4 you have to pick from. Try composing music in Deflemask and you’ll quickly see what I mean.
Love the Genesis! You can't mistake the sound from that system! I remember getting ours for Christmas, coming from the Master System, firing the Genesis up for the first time, hearing Altered Beast, and Madden, being blown away!!!
Haha, well you could "mistake the sound" if you compared it to a game from Fujitsu's FM Towns line of computers. They used the same YM2612 chip as the Genesis. :) Though I suppose FM Towns didn't have the PSG of the SMS to accompany the FM.
The Megadrive soundchip was amazing. One soundtrack seldom heard (due to the game not officially being released), is the Tim Follin music to 'Time Trax'. It's absolutely jaw dropping, and really shows what the Megadrive could do soundwise. It's on RUclips for anyone interested!
Not if developers know how to work the system toward its strengths. Some of the most famous game music actually come from the megadrive. Streets of rage and sonic etc.
If you think that's impressive, listen to the "Journey to Silius (NES) Music - Stage Theme 02". That's right. N. E. S. Let it play out. It's a full track.
The Genesis had the headphone jack and I used it with my personal headphones to listen to the great soundtracks of games like revenge of Shinobi and truxton. I even had those cheap Sega branded tiny speaker system 🤣. "Power Up!"
As always a stellar video and well produced. I am sad I am at the end 1991 atm and Warsong was not showcased, nor the sequel. Oh well it was a good spread.
Sonic, Golden Axe and SOR series, Gunstar Heroes and Thunder Force, just to name a few, have amazing sound effects and music. I have a Playlist that I listen to from time to time while I'm working to ensure I'll always remember them.
So the Mega Drive’s music blew me away as a kid - I used to sit there for hours listening to Revenge of Shinobi’s sound test, Streets of Rage 1, Splatterhouse 2…and hands down the best OST for the system has to be Sonic 3. Hydrocity Zone Act 2 has such a complex arrangement, it boggles the mind. So for the people that saying that sound didn’t matter when you were kids - it did. I noticed how (this is my edit here!) DIFFERENT Mortal Kombat sounded on Mega Drive compared to SNES, I remember listening to Donkey Kong Country and being actually floored by it. The big question is did it hurt the Mega Drive? I don’t think so, just based on the demographic playing the console. It was more arcade and sports esque, so the music was naturally more punchy. The SNES felt…epic. There were huge adventures that you could save on the cartridge. The Mega Drive was a totally different experience…and unfortunately this approach in their game development really hurt the Saturn, especially when up against Metal Gear Solid, FF7, Castlevania SOTN - gaming evolved and sadly they were too late when the Dreamcast had this massive array of original IP’s and genres. But SEGA have always been the arcade developer. Their type of games were much snappier and enjoyed in quicker bursts whereas Nintendo had much bigger games. It was brilliant to have both systems. Here are a few games I would also recommend regarding their soundtrack on Mega Drive (Genesis ha!): Talmit’s Adventure (or Marvel Land), Streets of Rage 3 (played out of the speakers is insanity), Beyond Oasis, Puggsy, Soleil (or Crusader of Centy), Castlevania: Bloodlines, Quackshot, Ecco: Tides of Time and…James Pond II! I’m sure there’s more but my least favourite out of the games I had funny enough was Talespin, Sonic Spinball was REALLY bad and Marble Madness was just utterly atrocious. Great video as usual dude! Always look forward to a new video from you! 👍✌️ EDIT: EA I think purely used GEMS thinking about it, was just listening to Rolo the Elephant then (remember that?!) and Road Rash and there’s such an ear piercing twang to them!
@@TIGFAD Yeah I vastly prefer the Genesis MK osts too, because it sounded much more like an 80s horror movie ost, in similar vein to a John Carpenter film. I can understand why everyone hates it though, because it sounds nothing like arcade. I'd argue? Who cares, MK arcade's ost was just generic tribal noise. It's not like Street Fighter, which had actual melodies.
I agree for the most part, but genesis also had the huge epics like Shining Force, Phantasy Star, Warriors of Eternal Sun. It just lacked Squaresoft Jrpgs. Back in the 90s, Square games were niche up until FF 7 & Mario rpg. It just reeks of historical revisionism because I find that Genesis rpgs had much more complex gameplay. Look at the difference in gameplay between SNES & Genesis Shadowrun. Most people prefer SNES shadowrun because most gamers prefer games that function more like a storycentric movie. In terms of pure rpg choice & consequences game design, the genesis version had it beat. Ironically the Sega Cd Shadowrun is storybased & played more like a text adventure game with some rpg maps & tactical battles.
@@HereticHydra Agreed. Those cut and paste drum samples in the Mega Drive/Genesis Mortal Kombat really sounded like a real drummer when the SNES sounded like a synthesizer played through a galvanised tin shed. Also If you listen carefully to the MK 1 and MK II soundtracks on Mega Drive/Genesis, they are in fact the arcade tunes, they're just arranged in a very different style almost like disco, plus the tracks all play on different levels which makes it more confusing to the player.
@@TIGFAD hey! Sorry I meant MK2, I just thought it played and sounded so much better on the SNES! The Mega Drive has that more primal energy to it but it seems more ambient and genuinely scary on the SNES. Then that same day I played DKC and couldn’t believe the graphics and just how cinematic it sounded…and this was me at 6! But I was heavily into music at an early age and have been playing guitar/piano/drums/bass for 28 years now haha. My fondest memory is sitting there listening to the intro of Streets of Rage 1…it makes me sad listening to it now, just so much nostalgia and how happy I was back then. And regarding the RPG’s on Mega Drive, I only properly played and finished Soleil! And loved it. But sadly never got into Phantasy Star. I remember playing FF6 and the intro and music blew my socks off at probably the age of 8…? Then FF7 came out. It changed my whole outlook on RPG’s. But yes in hindsight it’s a shame that games on the SEGA CD like Lunar: Eternal Blue, Popful Mail and Shining Force are barely discussed. I’ve played them but never gave them a chance sadly. But yes! Soundtrack wise I loved SEGA’s arcade style outputs and Nintendo’s more cinematic sound.
What about sor3? The entire trilogy was indicative of contemporary urban sounds during the time of its release. SOR3 was just far more industrial & less pop radio-friendly. A lot of Sor3's music sounded like straight up gangsta rap & industrial techno. That's peak Sega to me, when they reference underground subcultures like Jet Set Radio did.
@@HereticHydraworded perfectly. I always expected SoR3 to be way more unlistenable with how people described it, when it's just nice chaotic acid techno. I guess people fear or reject things that aren't instantly pleasing to the ear. It's sad, SoR3 is also the most impressive of the trilogy in terms of it's music production. It truly pushed the sound to it's absolute limit
6:35 "...it usually sounded quite nice" *cut to an extremely grating and tinny western soundtrack* I tend to like the Genesis sound chip but this was a hilarious transition.
I am pretty sure the Genesis gave me my music influence...Jamming to this synth wave video gem of a music journey. This guy...🤘 Great sound and video quality. A GEM, I tell ya!
first of all, great work on making the video. i read about the problems you had in completing this video due to the music triggering copyright claims. your effort is worth the wait. as a fan of EDM and synth pop, i LOVE the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis)! i had the Version 1 SMD with the audio jack and volume slider, and i would hook up my SMD to my boombox so i can hear the music and sound from the games even louder. my favourite games were Bare Knuckle (Streets Of Rage) I, II and III, and i even made a mix tape by recording the songs from the games using my boombox. great video again. keep up the excellent work SLX!
I LOVE that tone! I think that that kind of sound, that FM tone, was its peak point. In fact, today we even have hardware synths which are based on Genesis/Mega Drive's internal soundchip! (one of them has been recently reviewed by Mark of CGR)
@@YeahhhhthisisgoodI'd go with a 6-operator FM synth for greater range of sounds; you can still do all the Genesis sounds but you aren't stuck there either. If you own a keyboard with MIDI then a Yamaha TX7 is a good, cheap way to have DX7 sounds. OR get a free FM VST plugin!
@@vjspectronLimited to 6 voices, but the Volca FM2 is compatible with DX7 patches, is pretty cheap, and can run off batteries. The only downside to that, or a TX7 actually, is that it's not multitimbral, so can't do an entire song with multiple instruments live.
in the world of modular synthesiser we take FM synthesis and more types of synthesis to the next level aka god mode in Algorithm aka infinite FM Algorithm, so yeah shit start going crazy in the world of synthesiser when FM synthesis meats modular trust me on that one I being be doing this for a long time now, and that only one type of synthesis name FM no cap
Monster World IV is an example of a Genesis game that could do similar instrumentation of the SNES. On the GEMS side, the X Men 2 OST was a beast. I liked SNES sound and all, but sometimes it sounded too filtered.
Two words: Mega Turrican. One of the greatest chip tunes of all time. Also, many of the SNES tracks (while musically complex) sounded a bit like an ice cream truck, while the Genesis had that otherworldly edge. And don’t forget, Yamaha’s DX7, the 90s keyboard that was used in everything from pop to soundtracks, was also running on FM synthesis. The SNES was vanilla MIDI. Like you said, it was all in the hands of the programmer.
Thanks for solving that mystery for me! I had a SNES and a Genesis and I had thought the sound was much worse on my Genesis. When I learned it had a good synth chip in it I was confused. Turns out I just didn't have any of the right games. Some of those Genesis games sound awesome.
For me the Mega-Drive has the best game sound tracks of the 16-bit days, hard hitting with energy and passion, Love The Mega-Drive sound, great video mate 👍👍
I look at it like this; the MegaDrive/Genesis could never produce a soundtrack as beautiful as Donkey Kong Country. But the SNES could never have produced something with the energy as Streets of Rage 2. It all depended who was behind the wheels. Tech and Talent had to match.
Well, that and the SNES couldn't really natively output FM synth. Now, there will be people popping out of the woodwork to rebuttal this, claiming that they can do it via emulation. Congrats to them! They did synth on the SNES, 30 years after the SNES was released, using tech not available to developers/composers at the time, via emulation! Good job. However, the SNES couldn't do the energy of SoR2? The synth sound, no. The energy? Oh _hell yes._ Follin Bros. 'Nuff said.
Not to be one of "those guys," but since the SNES was sample based and the samples were stored on the cartridge, not the console, developers either had to use a library or roll their own samples. Sample a DX7 or other FM synthesizer for every instrument instead of relying on the general MIDI samples a lot of games used and you could recreate any Genesis soundtrack.
@@ryanstewart4444The Neo Geo had the benefit of being capable of FM and samples simultaneously, essentially being able to combine the capabilities of the SNES and Genesis.
I was a SNES kid back then but there was no denying the Genesis could have great OST’s in its games. Streets of Rage really opened my mind on that Sega sound. As I got older I have a much larger appreciation for the console and its games. Glad I learned about the model revisions that impacted the audio quality and sound drivers to understand why some games sounded amazing while other Ms sound like crap.
As a kid i recorded the Sonic 3 music directly from the tv speaker to audio cassettes. My siblings laughed at me for doing that and enjoyed doing noise to thwart the recordings. Things changed a lot overtime!
I really like you video essays on these topics! Ultimately SNES' ROM-based oscillator structure was better for imitative or realistic sounds, but lacked the dynamic range--the highs and lows--that the Genesis' FM-based sound could really nail, especially Rev-1 Genesis! SNES sound is like listening to real music coming from the next room over, whereas Genesis is more simplified FM sound but it's got immediate presence. FM is notoriously difficult for sound design; I have a room full of synths and only one is FM because it produces great pseudo-acoustic sounds (bass guitar, bells, electric piano, various crystalline sounds, etc.) but programming it is an academic exercise in adjusting ratios between sine waves and how these react over the note range and with envelopes. Programming a traditional "subtractive" synth is like forming a sculpture out of clay where you can quickly 'rough-out' a vision and make fine adjustments until it's what you want, whereas FM feels more like building a multi-hinged structure, going back-and-forth between each piece individually and hoping they all still mesh together after each tweak...and working with nothing more than a tiny pocket knife! Yamaha--the ones who really got behind and licensed FM tech--also design terrible user interfaces...I can't help but feel FM would've turned out better if someone else with better ideas about user interface would've taken the reins instead. The synth manufacturer Korg, for example, recently released an FM synth called the OpSix that takes the drudgery out of FM programming by letting you select multiple operators while you tweak their parameters, honestly it's a game-changer! Still, FM was an affordable, groundbreaking tech in the mid-80's that scaled well to various applications and easily did stuff that would've taken too many resources using prior synthesis. The old classic analog synths that people spend $$$$($ ?!) on these days were being sold for a few hundred dollars second-hand when the Yamaha DX7 blew up the scene in the mid-80's due to being a flexible, good-sounding, relatively-affordable replacement for electric pianos and even acoustic stuff like accordions and harmonicas in the studio. It was hot-**** and featured all over 80's and even 90's chart-toppers. The tech has merit, even if the Genesis used a simplified 4-operator structure instead of the DX7's 6-operators. In particular, Sega did a fantastic job designing the Sonic games to the strengths of the Genesis' processing power and FM sounds...before considering the music, just think of the sound FX themselves--grabbing rings, tallying up your total score, hitting bumpers, revving up--none of these sounds would've been nearly as bright or resonant--effective--on the SNES. And then there's tunes like Chemical Zone! I know that's a lot to read, but this is a fascinating topic for some of us!
Great video. I had both the SNES and Genesis when I was growing up and I loved the music on both systems for the reasons you stated: the orchestral scores on the SNES vs the "crunchy", base-ey, techno/electronic sounds on the Genesis. A master composer could make both types of hardware sing. Yuzo Koshiro is the best example where he created masterful dance tunes for the Streets of Rage games and sweeping orchestral melodies for the Actraiser As for GEMS, I only became aware of it a few years ago. I also wondered for the longest time why the sound seemed to have gotten worse after 1992 or so. Tazmania was the first game that I remember as having "crappy" sound so I looked up the sound design credits for the game, saw some names then looked up those names and came across GEMS and that has *finally* explained everything, It was possible to do good music and sound with GEMS. Tommy Tallarico used it in the games he worked on (Earthworm Jim, Cool Spot, etc) and those games have some pretty good sound and music. What happened with the other games that used GEMS was that its ease of use caused sound designers to become lazy and they simply used the default sound files instead of putting in any work and creating any new ones.
Yeah I also think that sound generally hurt the Sega Genesis, but the sound of the NES, SMS, Game Boy were also synth and still had excellent music so the Genesis too, among the games that sound so good like Sonic and Streets of Rage there are among others the Lion King, Midnight Resistance, Jewel Master, Dragon Slayer The Legend of Heroes 1 & 2, Master of Monsters, Sparkster, Dangerous Seed, Socket, Exile...
In the right hands with good sound drivers, definitely not. Beyond commercial games, just listening to what some youtube channels do (Savaged Regime, John Tay, ChiptunedRaijin, etc.) demonstrates what it was capable of.
Arrangement and good patch/synth programming mean so much for the Genesis since you could get away with samples/reverb as a "crutch" on the SNES. FM is not the most intuitive so it takes a special breed to really master it IMO. Something I also noticed that is on some soundtracks I love is those Genesis games used both their default FM chip and the one meant for Master System compatible games in combination. It usually fleshed out the sound just that bit more and made things really pop. To get really nerdy about it I think it's because the SN chip could help with delay channels and also provide more harmonic content since they were square waves, in essence 8 melodic channels at your disposal and 2 for percussion Great picks on this video. Devilish is also a soundtrack for Gen that blew me away
There’s something about the sounds of the genesis, something so nostalgic especially with the early titles. I had the genesis the year it dropped, its hard to explain how amazing it was to have. The first 2 years of the genesis was a special time in gaming imo.
Thunder force 3 & 4 alongside anything Yuzo Koshiro have some of the best ost in video gane history. The gem sound driver really gave it a bad name to this day 😢
IMO - Thunderforce II is superior in every aspect, to all of its Sequels. Especially in the music and sound effects. TF3 appears to have a lot less Resolution in both the Music, and the Graphical Details. Since they tried to push the game to the limits, sacrifices had to be made... to be able to fit it onto a standard cartridge size. Some of TF 3 musical compositions were really good... but I really hated how low-resolution they sounded, compared to TF2. The Genesis was also not very good with making Organic looking Graphics, due to its limited color palette... and TF3 tried to duplicate Organics (badly), unlike the more Mechanical and Futuristic look.. of TF2. And because they used less overall graphical details, it looked kinda bland and blocky.. and seemingly of a much lower resolution. The powerups were also vastly degraded, IMO. They looked awful, compared to TF2. The main gripe people had with TF2, was the Top-View levels. I enjoyed the variance of them... but I do agree that they had some issues. A map was needed for these levels, as they were so large that you often got Lost. Other than that, it took a bit of time, before I realized that there was a limited range, to your "Bombs" (which are different from your other weapons). This is why you needed to get very close to targets on the Bases, to be able to destroy them. The sound driver itself wasnt really the issue. The real issue, was companies that refused to hire highly talented and qualified... Musicians, and sound effect creators. Companies were more than willing to cut costs as much as possible, to get maximum potential profits. If a Restaurant chooses to use Cheap, Low quality ingredients... Low skilled Cooks.. and Poor Recipes... then the Fault is with the Owner / Management / Business. Nobody forced these places to use Canned Veggies, for example... just like Nobody forced game companies into using this bad sound drive tool + poor quality sound creators and composers.
I was a SNES fan through and through back then but still enjoyed Megadrive sound. Even now I'm working my way through the library and am often impressed. Thurder Force blew me away.
I think Comix Zone was one of my favorite sounding Genesis games. While the voice samples did have some scratch, they were clearer than Street Fighter's and the very famous take on the classic "Sega" opening.
That's weird. Personally, I can barely stand the music rendition of that game. That GEMS "electric guitar" sound that plays over and over again in every single song quickly gets on my nerves...
I think it's really important to always keep in mind that the Genesis is 1980s tech and not 1990s but even still - the sound hardware was definitely a place where they should've put in some more resources. It really isn't all that much better than the Mark III FM module. At the very least, even if you like FM Synth for the musical instruments, it would've been very helpful if there were some sample channels for sound effects. (That's what usually gets me in GEMS games - usually the music is not great, but the sound effects were grating.)
It's curious how Street Fighter II: Special Championship Edition sounded better than Super Street Fighter II. They took the Cammy track from the arcade game and turned it into... that.
This is an awesome video and I really love the way you analyze this topic and cite examples with each idea you cover. In my own opinion regarding music on the platform, I feel it's really down to the compositions on an individual level. There are plenty of games that sound better on either platform that doesn't really matter if it was originally composed as FM synth or not, because it's just down to the overall effort to make it jam right. I'm sure some devs were more apt than others in different areas, but I think the bad soundtracks are just because the effort wasn't as strong as it should have been regardless of platform (but especially here). I think overall, Sega kinda de-emphasized the importance of sound (as evidenced by how they integrated the sound into the CPU and the constant changing of op-amps). Luckily for us, there were devs who took the sound seriously for their individual games and we got some great music, but Sega wanted to get the games out there overall IMHO. Their own flagship titles were a little different, but they also wanted to get the 3rd party devs to crank stuff out so they could flaunt how many licensed games there were (evidenced by the ads where Genesis touted either 500+ or 700+ titles and how they let EA kinda bully them just to make sure they were also cranking out software). I would say that sound wasn't really a huge factor in many consumers opinions at the time tho. The SegaCD would try and capitalize on Q-Sound on a few titles, but the sound in games in general was largely disregarded as anything affecting the gameplay experience with many people. A lot of people felt videogame music wasn't really a big deal so long as it existed in some form, and it wasn't uncommon to put on your own music and play a game muted (or with just sound effects if the options allowed) back then. I personally love VGM and even have many soundtracks on vinyl in my personal collection, but in my circles at the time of it's life the sound was probably really most people's least influential factor. Again - excellent video and thank you for explaining many differences in the production of these games, which definitely helps understand why some decisions were made and how people received them. As always, keep up the great work!!
It was always a give or take but I usually leaned towards the Genesis. I liked the synthesizer music the Genesis produced a bit more vs the compressed orchestral sound from the SNES. Games like fatal fury and Captain America and the avengers proved they could shred the SNES when needed. Then you get games like spiderman x-men and SNES tears the genesis up. It really just depends on how well it’s handled and who is composing.
Both consoles had the appropriate sound hardware for their respective games. The atmospheric and orchestral tracks for those epic Snes Adventure and RPG games. Genesis had awesome synth for its immense arcade library.
@@gizaha What you're saying doesn't make sense. No one says that FM synth sounds better than redbook audio (audio CD quality). Redbook can emulate virtually any kind of audio though, either CD recordings or even FM synth recordings if you want. What he meant is, for 16-bit consoles that didn't/couldn't use audio CD quality yet, he prefers the sound from the MD's FM synth based sound chip than from the SNES' sample based sound chip.
@@gizahaRed Book audio was quicker and cheaper to produce as it required significantly less skill. And that remains the case to this day. Any idiot with a DAW can knock together a Redbook audio soundtrack in minutes… but you try composing music for a Sega Genesis game (e.g. in Deflemask).
Hitoshi Sakimoto was still composing with Terpsichorean in an updated form for the then-ancient YM-2151 for mid-90s Raizing arcade shooters and getting even more incredible results from it than he managed with Masaharu Iwata on the Gensis. FM and PCM have their own distinct sound styles and one isn't necessarily 'better' than the other, just more suited to what you want to accomplish. For every game lumbered with the GEMS driver there was a SNES one that couldn't replicate the distinctive clear sound of FM to save its life.
As for me I enjoy both no matter if is the Sega Genesis or the Super Nintendo, as such I enjoy both consoles equally and both consoles has their own style, strength and weakness and each one makes me smile both the orchestra music style of the SNES or the 80's Fm Synth style of the Genesis. So for me, both console are awesome and both has great Tunes in the right hands of course.
I think I'm right in saying that GEMS is basically an editor, isn't it? And it allows music to be dynamically altered depending on what's happening in the game. It's still the FM chip that's being used to generate the sounds, so GEMS isn't really to blame for poor audio. The problem is that FM synthesis is pretty difficult to get your chops round, and some devs didn't manage it.
I always thought sound and music was something the Genesis had going for it over the SNES. It was so bright, visceral and gritty. You can do anything with FM with enough skill and imagination. SNES was nice too but was all low bitrate sample based, and sounded like it had a low pass filter on everything. Every system had games that sounded terrible, it’s not the hardwares fault.
I agree, I grew tired of that low pass filter or whatever it was, the music sounded too Samey. It was great when the console launched, but then release after release kept having that filter on everything.
Actraser, Super Ghouls and Ghosts, Super Contra Spirits. Just 3 examples of soundtracks on the SNES that are far beyond the capabilities of the Megadrive/ Genesis.
It wasn't simply a lowpass filter like the YM2612 had, but Gaussian interpolation. It's what the SNES applied to decompressed samples to make them sound more natural and less harsh. The problem is that it often over-corrected the abrasiveness and made them sound TOO soft, sort of the opposite to a harsh GEMS soundtrack. The Commodore Amiga used this interpolation method too, however it also allowed for it to be turned off to get a clearer sound. That's why Amiga tracks sound similar to those on the SNES but higher quality.
Awesome video dude! I've been thinking about this since the console wars back in the day! I agree with everything you said. I am a Genesis die hard by the way. The Genesis was capable of having some amazing sound, but compared to Super Nintendo, a lot of times it couldn't compete. But in the right hands, the soundtracks on it could be some of the best ever. The Genesis sound had a grittiness to it that the Super Nintendo just couldn't replicate with its softer sound. Stand outs to me are Streets of Rage 2 and Rocket Knight Adventures. There are more, but those come to mind first. Then there are true ear bleeders like the first Xmen game. I liked that game, but what in the hell were they thinking? Thanks again for the video man. Truly great stuff!
The answer varies. Some games that are split between the two sound better on Genesis, IE the arrangements in Hyperstone Heist are WAY tighter than Turtles in Time which honestly comes off a bit warbly. In a beat em up, that tightness helps. On another hand, BattleToads/Double Dragon isn’t bad on Genesis, but the sound on SNES has a LOT more… body, I guess? Dem guitar samples doe
I do prefer SNES sound and always have. But I would never ignore some of the Mega Drive masterpieces out there. My brother had a Mega Drive back in the days and I had an SNES, so we played both systems after all. I loved the Shining Force (1+2) Soundtrack as well as Shinobi's and Thunderforce's. That gritty Thunderforce rock sound was excellent, and I had so much fun with the music generator in Toejam and Earl. Never forget: there are weak and tinny SNES soundtracks as well, coming from composers that weren't very sophisticated with their sounddesign. Lots and lots of Capcom games had great compositions but used all the same abysmal capcom sound-font. So while I absolutely stand behind the statement that the SNES had Soundtrack masterpieces like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 3 (/6), F-Zero, Axelay, Castlevania 4, Rock n Roll Racing, Turtles in Time and more, the Mega Drive absolutely spiced thing up with a different approach.
It really made the Genesis sound dated in comparison to the SNES, but in the Genesis's defense, it was designed to be an "arcade at home" system, so going with that Yamaha chip made sense.
It also made the Genesis ports of TMNT and SF2 sound closer to the arcade version. The SNES versions in some ways sounded better since the arcade boards were FM and not sample-based, but I do prefer arcade accuracy.
I was a Sega kid first and foremost growing up. While I did play SNES games back then, it was usually either rentals from the local video store or when visiting with my older cousins. During my teen years, I played the SNES library a bit more via emulators, but I did eventually score the OG hardware when I was 20 along with Secret of Mana and Super Mario World. At the end of the day, I always liked both consoles. They both had such great games that you can't go wrong either way. I liked the Genesis for Sonic, Mortal Kombat, Virtua Racing, and Zombies Ate My Neighbors; and the SNES for Castlevania, Legend of Zelda, Mario, Donkey Kong Country, and the Square RPGs. As long as you're having fun, that's all that matters. No reason for the hardcore fans to piss all over each other's consoles and games when we can all come together.
I always loved the full body sound of the Genesis percussion and SFX on offer. Specifically the snare in Sonic games and the hitting the ground effect in the Power Rangers 1v1 game.
Problem with SNES sample based audio was the cartridge size limitation which would result in some very ugly low quality muffled samples. They would also use one sample and pitch shift to make many notes from the same sample resulting in out of tune music. You would also often encounter a lot of clipping in samples too. Amiga did sample based music much better. There are definitely a lot of games shown here that could benefit from remastered soundtracks in FM.
"They would also use one sample and pitch shift to make many notes from the same sample resulting in out of tune music." Thank you! I've often felt some SNES tunes sounded wrong but I couldn't put my finger on why.
SNES sounds can make me laugh at times, especially with games like Black Thorne when your character gets killed the enemy laughter sounds hilariously bad like it’s using a generic and muffled sample.
As a kid, I remember every time I bought a new game or rented one, I always checked to see if music could be turned off so I could still hear the sound effects and listen to my favorite cd. Now, I can't get enough of those fm tunes.
Of course FM synth didn't hurt it. The sample engine of SNES is probably slightly "better" in a number of sounds it can produce sense, like if you were sent to a desert island with 1 console or something. But the FM can do many marvelous things and was quite powerful when it was introduced in the 80s. What truly hurt the Sega Genesis via sound was shoving midis through GEMS, which while perfectly capable, takes a decent amount of fine tuning to sound good. (hey... I like Greendog!) One thing worth noting is the Sega's FM isn't as good as say, the NEC PC98, or even the SoundBlaster. Another thing worth noting is the Genesis also had sound expansions. It's CD drive (with redbook) actually came out, and the 32X adds PWM samples that strongly bridge the gap between SNES' sampling capabilities, particularly with drums. The Chaotix soundtest is a great example as it shows you what parts of the song are FM and which parts are Sampled, or the Kolibri OST which can stand up alongside SNES' best. And TBH the good old fashioned 8-bit PSG noise channel in the base Genesis that the older games use is underrated. (like Sonic 1 and Batman seen here) And the Genesis didn't just have no samples at all, the YM2612 had a mod to sacrifice a couple of FM operators for a WAV sample, which takes up too much space to really use, but is why the Michael Jackson soundtrack to Sonic 3 for example is so memorable. Did you know Sega Saturn had an AMAZING FM synthesizer? (32OP goodness, much more than Genesis' mere 6OP. Sadly most devs chose Redbook audio which is cool in it's own way) The music you hear in Nights for example, had a lot of FM elements, which is part of how the A Life system was able to modulate the music on the fly. It was also able to port 1:1 recreations of arcade OSTs (often with a redbook OST *also* included)
The Genesis' Yamaha FM chip sounded incredible when used by the right people. I honestly think it could sound better than the SNES' heavily-compressed samples at times; for example, I prefer the OSTs of Castlevania Bloodlines and Contra Hard Corps to Super Castlevania 4 and Contra 3, respectively. Of course the Genesis could (and often did) sound tinny and grating, but I think that was a result of developers who weren't adept at FM synthesis. Not everyone could bust out killer soundtracks like Yuzo Koshiro
"A tool is only as good as the person using it." Replace "a tool" and "person" with "GEMS" and "composer", respectively. Tommy Tallarico (Cool Spot, Aladdin, Earthworm Jim) was one of the few composers who used GEMS to its highest potential; in fact, Tallarico called GEMS one of his favorite tools for music composition. DYK: Recreational Brainware was formed by former Technopop employees, and were responsible for developing Spider-Man and Taz-Mania for the Genesis. After Recreational Brainware closed doors, several employees would later former their own studios, like Extended Play Productions (developers of Chakan: The Forever Man, and are not related to the developers of several EA games), Head Games, Foley Hi-Tech, and Monkey Business (founded by Burt Sloane, and were co-developers of the Sega CD version of Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin).
29:18 Man listening to the comparison of Shining Force to Chrono Trigger really solidifies my Sega preference /maybe nostalgic bias. Shining Force 1 and 2 soundtrack + sound effects + art style created such a perfect vibe.
Great video as usual! I agree with you in that there was a place for both the sound of the Genesis and the sound of the SNES. If I had to pick only one though, I'd take the sound of the SNES every time.
Yeah. The SNES audio is technically more advanced/superior and what Yuzo Koshiro, Nobuo Uematsu, Nintendo and Konami audio guys did with it was amazing. However, I find that most SNES soundtracks fall into the "50 shades of muffled horn" pattern that I really didn't enjoy. Sometimes, it’s so muffled and low bit rate that it sounds just as synthetic as any synth stuff. Most of my favorite Genesis soundtracks are typically louder, more bassy and raw sounding. I remember my first time seeing and hearing a Genesis game. It was Altered Beast. It was an audio shock in addition to the visual one. The epic sounding stereo synth music, combined with great (for that time) effects and voice samples was better than anything I’ve heard at home before, representing a huge jump over anything on the NES and even an FM synth equipped MSX2 (which I grew up with). Genesis audio hardware was a great choice for a 1988 console. As you’ve said, it was the home version of what was used by most arcade boards and something that most Japanese developers were very used to working with. But yeah… by the time stuff like DKC, Super Metroid and Chrono Trigger rolled out, the advantages of SNES’ newer architecture were impossible to dismiss even for (by then) a die-hard Genesis fan like me. The decreasing flow of Japanese-developed Genesis games, combined with all of Sega of America’s crappy, dark and dithered “Western audience” games with poorly done GEMS audio, certainly didn’t help matters. Still, these days, I go back and listen to way more Genesis soundtracks than I do SNES'.
I mean, if a console has Streets of Rage 2, Sonic 1/2/3, Castlevania Bloodlines and Contra: Hard Corps sounding like they sounded, one can't say it had bad sound capabilities. It just needed a bit of love to get it right. If you half-assed it, you got the 32x Doom's music.
RUclips: Where you can play a game from beginning to end on or even before the day of release, but 30 seconds of music from a 30 year old game will get you taken down. Heaven forbid you increase interest in something even the publishers have abandoned.
RUclips: Hilafeti Muhammediye
I got hurt by the Wii Wii.
Yeah like ten seconds of ''Green Hill Zone'' can get you a copyright claim wtf?
It won't get you taken down automatically, but it'll get you demonetized!
@@phattjohnsonSame difference for those that rely on revenue from their RUclips videos to make a living.
That's why I started a channel just for Mega Drive / Genesis music, plan to list them all. Love them all! The music has as much character as the game characters! So many fond memories as a kid
Welp...you got a new subscriber. 😂
I took an FM class in college. It was incredibly complicated and difficult, but also very fun tweaking wave forms to get them just so
How does it work?
Yes explain to us
@@MaxOakland FM is simply the modulation of one oscillator by another. It's basically just vibrato taken to an extreme, both in amount and speed. If you don't know what vibrato is, it's a cyclical change of pitch, i.e. "frequency modulation", literally. It's a bit hard to explain in a more fundamental way than that, but basically FM is just changing the pitch of one tone with another tone. Do it fast enough and you end up generating different harmonics and producing an entirely new sound. Then you alter how much and how fast you're modulating over time to create different, more complex timbres. FM is truly a rabbit hole and it can go quite deep, to say nothing of what you can do with it when you leave the sine waves of Genesis-era Yamaha chips behind. It's extremely powerful, but like anything powerful, it's also very difficult. Simply the nature of the beast.
@@defaultxr this is exactly right. And it’s been around for a long, long time. Even going back to the early days of synths. It can get super advanced quickly, but the DX7, the sound of the 80s, is the preeminent and most beloved of FM synths if it’s heyday. It’s in the same family as the chip in the Genesis. But we used a digital program in the class. Basically we would alter waveforms for hours on end to come up with whatever that lesson was about.
@@MaxOakland One of the main differences, is that FM Synths use Mathematical Algorithms, to form the sounds. These Algorithms can be quite complex, and with a lot of different Value Ranges, inputted into each Part. Look at some closeup photos of a Yamaha DX-7 Keyboard, and you will see some of the actual Algorithm Structures (simplified), Screen-Printed onto the actual keyboard itself. I believe you selected a certain Algorithm, and then tweaked the parameters in each of those "Algorithm Boxes". The combination possibilities, are truly astounding! As are what kinds of crazy awesome sounds... that you can get out of the thing.
In fact, you can watch some Descriptions and Programming videos about the DX-7, that describe how FM Synthesis basically works... and you have the added benefit of getting to hear the changes.
You can also get hold of some DX-7 (or other FM Synth) Emulator programs for your PC. Try loading sounds, playing them... and then Tweaking the values of them. The program interfaces within these Emulators, is often a lot easier to deal with... than trying to program the actual physical keyboard itself.. as there is a lot more Details and controls being available for you.. to see and interact with.
Im 41, My sister had a SMS, my Cousin had a Mega Drive an I had a Super Nes. I loved playing on all three. I never noticed there was a difference in sound between the megadrive and Snes until the age of youtube. Back then, I dont really think it mattered.
I never really moved on after the 16 bit era. I still play them now and get excited for 16 bit games I never had a chance to play.
Mickey Mouse and castle of Illusion, followed by Alien 3s music always stand out for me.
I'm 44 so a bit older and played the SMS, megadrive and then the SNES occasionally if I rented the system out for a weekend. I definitely noticed the difference in sound quality between the megadrive street fighter 2 and the SNES. The SNES for me at the time def had the better sound, but as a megadrive owner I completely backed the special champion edition mainly as it had the arcade opening fight scene 😂
I also played street fighter in the arcade so I experienced all 3.
Oh, it mattered to me.
Exactly
@@Klynch111 For street fighter, Genesis had better music that was closer to the arcade, while SNES had better voices and sound effects, the music on SNES just sounded weird.
Honestly, if you loved the game. It didnt matter. The game itself, and all about it, was what aesthetic made the game memorable to begin with.
When you have a composer like Yuzo Koshiro giving a show in Paris with hundreds of people from MD game music only, it meand it was a success.
Some games sounds terrible, but now with trackers, there are guys giving music we could have never imagined back in the day.
Well, when it sucks, it sucks less on the SNES
But when it shines, it shines brighter on the MD
Underrated comment
Well me as a big snes fan have to admit that sound on the snes can suck as well.
I really HATED if game developers did not only sliced those audio samples but also stored fast recorded in those snes games sothat the snes has to stretch and repitch those samples back to it’s original pitch & speed, as a result it could sound very dry.
But if game developers did not cut & stretch those audio samples in their snes games, then it can generate wonderful audio.
And with sound swapping game developers didn’t had to worry about running out of 64KB audio ram and the amount of samples they could use on the snes because they will have more freedom.
The music can only be as good as the artist behind it, the megadrive itself makes incredible music in the right hands.
Except the artist also needed a very deep technical understanding of the hardware. Almost impossible to findX)
@@TheSliderW it isn't really like that, especially when you have an existing sound driver. It is just a matter of tweaking up a few knobs long enough until you get the sound you like. No understanding of the underlying math is required. Now when we talk about the era when composers also had to program their own drivers first, that was a different deal.
@@shiru8bitAgreed. I also doubt composers had a hobby of programming hardware level sounds drivers. They'd most likely look the developers in the eye as they handed the midi/mod files and be like : "Here is the music, good luck"
@@shiru8bit Well that complexity didn't help the game development cycle, hence most Genesis games sound like ass. The NES makes incredible music in the right hands. Check out the "Journey to Silius" soundtrack.
@@phattjohnson absolutely anything makes incredible music in the right hands.
I'm one of those SNES sound people but I've grown to love some of what the Genesis/MD has to offer. It really comes down to the individual composer for me, like you said.
Funny thing, some of the best SNES soundtracks for me were in rather mediocre games. Like Waterworld, Vortex or Shaq Fu. Of course there were enough games like Cybernator where great music matched great gameplay.
Genesis really shine in electronic, synth-pop, techno and trance genres.
Contra Hard Corps or Batman and Robin are the best examples.
Me too. You can't deny the Genesis percussion was incredible. And some game soundtracks, notably, Streets of Rage series, were iconic.
I hope I get were you are, bud. I'm still struggling to enjoy most FM music. I'm trying, though. 😅 OPL2/3 is pretty nostalgic.
To me the SNES wasn't on par with the gritty sounds of the Genesis I even love the fire bass and the so called fart noise everytime somebody gets hit the early beat em ups to me it was so raw and guttural it made me feel like I was actually hitting something
@@mirabilisFM was the sound of that era. Synth-pop for example used it extensively. Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, Duran Duran, Tears for Fears, Alphaville to name a few.
I love the way the megadrive sounds. I still listen to the soundtracks for sonic 3; and thunder force 3;
you needed a developer who knew how to create music and sound effects for that FM chip, but it was technically inferior to the snes sound chip, i dont think anyone would argue otherwise
I love the Thunder Force IV soundtrack
Castlevania Bloodlines is a masterpiece in that regards as well
@@joesaiditstrue The Snes sound chip made making music for it a LOT easier, but making truly excellent music that fits well with the game was still going to take some serious artistic skill.
I remember being absolutely blown away by the music from Sonic 3. I probably shouldn't have been so surprised when I found out that my favorite song from the game was literally made by the king of pop himself! He wasn't credited because of the scandal he ended up in, but it's well known that Michael Jackson himself was involved in some of the music in Sonic 3.
@@joesaiditstrue The Snes sound chip is a thing of beauty. I used to just hang out in certain levels of Secret of Mana as a kid and just be amazed at the gorgeous music emanating from my console.
The more I watched this the more it felt like a funeral. It's like at funeral you see photos of a young man slowly turn in to a shell of what he once was towards the end of his life.
The headphone port possibly promoted the Genesis/MegaDrive due to putting Stereo option obviously right there in the front. Most TV's didn't have stereo so hooking up stereo speakers was tempting for any music/audio lovers.
And these days, if you have the right adapter and extensions, you can get stereo through your TV by just plugging the headphone jack into the red and white ports in a composite input.
@@linkthehero8431 Yeah that's basically how it was done especially with the sega cd add on for the model 1. But became much nicer when the model 2 eventually got stereo out by default.
I'm 43 and still listen to Genesis music.
Believe
Same
Got you beat. 46 and still loving Genesis music. I was a big Nintendo fan until Sega brought the Genesis out. I instantly became a fan of Sega when I couldn't have been bothered with them prior.
@@davidclark7165 I believe
SoR 1 & 2 still hold up ❤
Bonus level music from the game Cool Spot on a Genesis is a masterpiece I listen to this day
Rave Dance Tune ;)
Sonic 1 Starlight Zone is such a great track, one of my favourite gaming songs of all time.
I think i prefer the Sega Mega drive music, they knocked out some bangers back in the day! The whole Streets Of Rage soundtrack and Sonic 3 & Knuckles are some of the best ever made.
I remember plugging in my cheap headphones into the Genesis audio jack and playing this stage.. Oh my.. It was pure bliss😊
Best thing in Sonic 1 is the soundtrack.
@@IamLegend32 i never thought about doing that, i am gonna do it now for sure.
@@HeathenDance they need to release the soundtrack, i would listen to it on loop.
Rock n Roll Racing sounded pretty good on Genesis, at least when Larry wasn't making all music pause so he could say something. Not sure why Blizzard had to do that; Streets of Rage 1, 2, and 3 and a bunch of other games just muted one music channel when a voice clip played. No idea why Blizzard couldn't have done that for RnRR.
as a techno music junkie since the 90s i agree.
the genesis sound was where it was at.
The Amiga sound system was similar to the SNES one (although it was from 1985).
But if you like techno that was the system to own, not only for the games, but also for the demos and tracker music.
The SNES SONY FM midi hasn't aged as well and is not as hard as the Yamaha
@@ryanglaser5336TRUE. the sound of the SNES seems so muffled by comparison. doesnt hit as hard as the Genesis.
Loved the Genesis sound! Just got my Mega Synthesis in! Can't wait to start making my own sega sounding tunes.
Good luck. What genre of music you want to make ?
Gonna sub cuz me wants to hear!
A what now? :O
I love hearing the PSG sound waves in Mega Drive music.. Reminds me of the Master System inside.
I think the PSG sometimes hurt Mega Drive sounds unless it was TechoSoft or the Cube driver.
The megadrive is my all time favourite console i love the sound the second you hear it you know exactly what system it is
I love a lot of the tunes on Genesis games.
Gunstar Heroes, Rolling Thunder 2&3, Sonic 1,,2,,3, & Knuckles, MUSHA, SOR 1&2, Shinobi games, TF IV, just to name a few.
Sega CD took it to a higher level.
Love it all.
You should be forced to take it a higher level.:3
When the yamaha synth was used as an instrument within its own right, it really could sing. I find myself leaning towards it much more these days as it has its own unique quality to the soound. The wavetable synth of the snes and later pc games just sounds a bit cheap and cheesy these days with the low quality sampled sounds, but it was remarkable back in the day. I've got a pretty decent wavetable card in my PC but a lot of the time I still prefer the OPL synth.
Lets be technical, the soundchip of the Megadrive is a restricted Yamaha DX7 FM synth with only 6 or 7 voice of polyphony depend if you using the 1 channel 8 bit sampling dac for drum or sound effect, now the snes sound chip is a sampler limited to 64kb of memory for the sample itself and the sequencer data, so even if it's more like an Amiga Paula with 8 track of polyphony it's still very limited and only top notch sound designer and programmer can make it sound like a regular high end sampler, both have quality and limitation but in right hand you can have very high quality soundtrack .
Probably why so many songs on the Amiga sounded much better than on the SNES, it was only 4 channels compared to 8 of the SNES but you could have songs that could use most of the memory you got in the Amiga, so far bigger than 64k, there were also tricks that many developers used to have 7 channel sounds which sounded great.
I think another weakness of the SNES is that cartridges were not cheap back then so a lot of songs used to cut corners to save space, hence why so many sounded muffled and low quality, the Amiga on the other hand was floppy disk which were dirt cheap back then, so storage being so cheap and not being limited on the memory use allowed the Amiga to deliver much better sounds then the SNES, which many games did, even thought the SNES sound chip is better than the Amiga, it was held back in those two key areas, storage and 64k limit.
The Mega Drive didn't have those issue but it had it's own issues.
Sega had a sound that's iconic, and works for some games, but overall yes, others sounded better. Did this hurt the system? No. I was a teenager during this area and almost nobody compared the sounds when choosing a system.
I'd say that both the SNES and Genesis sounded incredible at the time, far beyond what the NES and Master System could do. Sound has always been somewhat of a neglected area in games though. Hence why the Sega CD didn't do as well as Sega hoped.
Killer Instinct was a game changer for the SNES though, largely due to the great audio. Of course people didn't directly compare audio, but they did praise that game and others for being great in that department. I don't remember anyone ever getting excited about genesis audio back then. People who played on both systems extensively could recognize that the was a significant quality difference between the audio of the systems.
Actually not. They sounded worse. Tracked music needs great samples and great samples take up space on the cartridge. I bet that over 90% of the SNES games had terrible soundtracks (fidelity-wise). If everything sounds like mass-reverb'd 22kHz lowpass filtered garbage (SNES), I rather prefer a synthesizer pumping out crystal clear sound in real-time (OPN chip) instead of canned, ripped samples. Those awful snare drums with the 300% reverb of many SNES games haunt me to this day. I enjoy the SHADOWRUNNER soundtrack, but the lowpass filtering hurts my ears^^ DynamiTracer (IIRC) was one of the few examples that used proper samples/sound, and Donkey Kong. As much as I like StarFox' soundtrack, it also sounds too muffled.
@@brandongregori995 killer instinct at the time sounded great on SNES put it up against the N64 version and it doesn’t sound quite as good in comparison but it’s definitely nostalgia talking on your part for me. The game changer was tales of Phantasia. Which full vocals in one track. i’m not just yeah, yeah, yeah, that was heard on killer instinct, and again it sounded muffled It sounded muffled on SNES, Plok was way more impressive than Killer Instinct.
@@Adamtendo_player_1 I'm literally talking about what people thought about the audio of the different systems back then. That's not nostalgia at all, and I never said KI was the best audio the SNES ever had.
Incredible episode! I used to debate this with a dear old roommate of mine. He showed me that there was great music on the Sega Genesis, but I had always had the impression it was subpar.
This is yet another great video to add to the timeless debate, nice one Mel!
Thanks for listening.
Poor programmers/composers using GEMS hurt the Genesis.
I agree, some games sounded great then you would hear some chalkboard stcrathing sounds from lazy devs not properly utilizing the hardware. Also Genesis had extra sound channels not always used that was built in for Sega Master system backwards compatibility.
Yep, just like all this Z-tier 'AI generated' shit we see now.. it should be a tool to allow us to push further and go harder.. not just dial it in for easy bucks. Alas.. history repeats.
I disagree, GEMS sounded horrible for the most part. Good composers were able to overcome its limitations, but the music and sound effects still sounded primitive.
Comix Zone is one of, if not the only GEMS game that sounds just as good as a native FM synth game.
@@phattjohnson Ironically the *professional* music industry has ai tools meant as simply a tool to boost musicians. its just novelties aimed at amateurs that are "Generate corporate slop" engines.
I.e theres some ai driven mastering tools like EQs where it can automate general steps til its time to finetune by ear.
In all fairness, FM synthesis is difficult to do effectively even today with the modern tools we have. You can do some great stuff with it, but it's something you really only get good at with experience. Nevermind trying to do it in 1992, following barebones documentation in Japanese, in a barebones dev environment...
I've realized that my relationship with this system is unlike any other. It's not even the library--I wish the SEGA Genesis had its own equivalent of Super Mario World, Earthbound, the last few Super Fire Pro Wrestling games, etc. It's the hardware itself. It's that gritty feeling, and the personal nostalgia tied to it. The way the early Madden (and Bill Walsh) games sound, Castlevania Bloodlines...so much of the connection I feel is from the sound hardware.
Love the sound of Mega Drive. It was perfect for heavy metal styled soundtracks. Too me, SNES often had too much reverb and sounded muffled in comparison, due to the heavy compression. Though western developers, was often terrible at using the sound on Mega Drive. But those Japanese games, especially the shmups, amazing tracks.
I think the Genesis helped me get into Industrial. That mix of metal/electronic.
Definitely agree. Bass was really good. Nothing on SNES sounds as good as Road Rash or Streets of Rage.
Sound of Pokey Means Business from Earthbound completely curb stomps any heavy metal the Genesis attempted to do, not to mention Rock N Roll Racing and Mega Man X trilogy.
@@yeahyeahwowman8099I guess you haven’t heard Thunder Force IV then that proves the Mega Drive can match the SNES and the SNES has proven that it can match the Mega Drive with Spiderman and Venom Separation Anxiety which sounds amazing on SNES.
Man there is so many that the Genesis had that were great. RoadRash 3, Crue Ball, and my favorite on the platform: Steel Empire. That game literally had the sheet music for the title track on the start screen.
I love Steel Empire!
I was delighted to hear the theme from Star Light Zone.
I genuinely think the slower, PAL version of the theme is nicer. Of course, that could just be what sounds 'right' to my ear.
One limitation of the Mega Drive rarely talked about is the limitation on music tempo… you can’t just pick any tempo you want. It has to match or be a certain division of the refresh speed.
There are a few tricks you can employ to get a few more usable tempos but it essentially boils down to about 4 you have to pick from.
Try composing music in Deflemask and you’ll quickly see what I mean.
Personal favorites : Alissia Dragons, Wiz'n'Liz, Shining force II and Earthworm Jim 2.
Ristar has such iconic musics as well.
I love Alisia Dragoon!
Love the Genesis! You can't mistake the sound from that system! I remember getting ours for Christmas, coming from the Master System, firing the Genesis up for the first time, hearing Altered Beast, and Madden, being blown away!!!
Like a car driving up the street on bare brake pads.. you can't mistake it at all!
Haha, well you could "mistake the sound" if you compared it to a game from Fujitsu's FM Towns line of computers. They used the same YM2612 chip as the Genesis. :) Though I suppose FM Towns didn't have the PSG of the SMS to accompany the FM.
The Megadrive soundchip was amazing. One soundtrack seldom heard (due to the game not officially being released), is the Tim Follin music to 'Time Trax'. It's absolutely jaw dropping, and really shows what the Megadrive could do soundwise. It's on RUclips for anyone interested!
Not if developers know how to work the system toward its strengths. Some of the most famous game music actually come from the megadrive. Streets of rage and sonic etc.
Agreed, especially in the hands of Eastern devs. All depends on the devs.
Earth Worm Jim sounds amazing, so does the sonic games.
Western Devs have produced grand sega soundtracks, take Matt Furniss
Sonic has always been known for the series music and this would persist onto the Saturn and Dreamcast too
Skitchin is really underrated.
Jewelmaster is the game I use to prove that FM Synthesis, that 1st song rocks so freaking hard
Agree 100%. The title track is a banger! So brilliant yet so under appreciated.
If you think that's impressive, listen to the "Journey to Silius (NES) Music - Stage Theme 02". That's right. N. E. S. Let it play out. It's a full track.
Man I love that gamer. Finally beat it a few years back.
The Genesis had the headphone jack and I used it with my personal headphones to listen to the great soundtracks of games like revenge of Shinobi and truxton. I even had those cheap Sega branded tiny speaker system 🤣. "Power Up!"
Gaiares, Strider, Altered Beast, Super Monica GP, and Castle of illusion are among my top Genesis music.
As always a stellar video and well produced. I am sad I am at the end 1991 atm and Warsong was not showcased, nor the sequel. Oh well it was a good spread.
Agreed. Perhaps the best soundtracks on the Genesis even. Noriyuki Iwadare (Lunar Series) was incredible on cartridge too
Warsong and Langrisser 2 definitely had some rocking soundtracks.
@@Silpiobaire yes it did!
Sonic, Golden Axe and SOR series, Gunstar Heroes and Thunder Force, just to name a few, have amazing sound effects and music. I have a Playlist that I listen to from time to time while I'm working to ensure I'll always remember them.
So the Mega Drive’s music blew me away as a kid - I used to sit there for hours listening to Revenge of Shinobi’s sound test, Streets of Rage 1, Splatterhouse 2…and hands down the best OST for the system has to be Sonic 3. Hydrocity Zone Act 2 has such a complex arrangement, it boggles the mind. So for the people that saying that sound didn’t matter when you were kids - it did. I noticed how (this is my edit here!) DIFFERENT Mortal Kombat sounded on Mega Drive compared to SNES, I remember listening to Donkey Kong Country and being actually floored by it.
The big question is did it hurt the Mega Drive? I don’t think so, just based on the demographic playing the console. It was more arcade and sports esque, so the music was naturally more punchy. The SNES felt…epic. There were huge adventures that you could save on the cartridge. The Mega Drive was a totally different experience…and unfortunately this approach in their game development really hurt the Saturn, especially when up against Metal Gear Solid, FF7, Castlevania SOTN - gaming evolved and sadly they were too late when the Dreamcast had this massive array of original IP’s and genres.
But SEGA have always been the arcade developer. Their type of games were much snappier and enjoyed in quicker bursts whereas Nintendo had much bigger games. It was brilliant to have both systems.
Here are a few games I would also recommend regarding their soundtrack on Mega Drive (Genesis ha!): Talmit’s Adventure (or Marvel Land), Streets of Rage 3 (played out of the speakers is insanity), Beyond Oasis, Puggsy, Soleil (or Crusader of Centy), Castlevania: Bloodlines, Quackshot, Ecco: Tides of Time and…James Pond II! I’m sure there’s more but my least favourite out of the games I had funny enough was Talespin, Sonic Spinball was REALLY bad and Marble Madness was just utterly atrocious.
Great video as usual dude! Always look forward to a new video from you! 👍✌️
EDIT: EA I think purely used GEMS thinking about it, was just listening to Rolo the Elephant then (remember that?!) and Road Rash and there’s such an ear piercing twang to them!
Mortal Kombat? Do you mean MK1? Because I think the Genesis music blows the SNES version away. Seriously, compare the pit stage of both. No contest.
@@TIGFAD Yeah I vastly prefer the Genesis MK osts too, because it sounded much more like an 80s horror movie ost, in similar vein to a John Carpenter film. I can understand why everyone hates it though, because it sounds nothing like arcade. I'd argue? Who cares, MK arcade's ost was just generic tribal noise. It's not like Street Fighter, which had actual melodies.
I agree for the most part, but genesis also had the huge epics like Shining Force, Phantasy Star, Warriors of Eternal Sun. It just lacked Squaresoft Jrpgs. Back in the 90s, Square games were niche up until FF 7 & Mario rpg. It just reeks of historical revisionism because I find that Genesis rpgs had much more complex gameplay. Look at the difference in gameplay between SNES & Genesis Shadowrun. Most people prefer SNES shadowrun because most gamers prefer games that function more like a storycentric movie. In terms of pure rpg choice & consequences game design, the genesis version had it beat. Ironically the Sega Cd Shadowrun is storybased & played more like a text adventure game with some rpg maps & tactical battles.
@@HereticHydra Agreed. Those cut and paste drum samples in the Mega Drive/Genesis Mortal Kombat really sounded like a real drummer when the SNES sounded like a synthesizer played through a galvanised tin shed. Also If you listen carefully to the MK 1 and MK II soundtracks on Mega Drive/Genesis, they are in fact the arcade tunes, they're just arranged in a very different style almost like disco, plus the tracks all play on different levels which makes it more confusing to the player.
@@TIGFAD hey! Sorry I meant MK2, I just thought it played and sounded so much better on the SNES! The Mega Drive has that more primal energy to it but it seems more ambient and genuinely scary on the SNES. Then that same day I played DKC and couldn’t believe the graphics and just how cinematic it sounded…and this was me at 6! But I was heavily into music at an early age and have been playing guitar/piano/drums/bass for 28 years now haha.
My fondest memory is sitting there listening to the intro of Streets of Rage 1…it makes me sad listening to it now, just so much nostalgia and how happy I was back then.
And regarding the RPG’s on Mega Drive, I only properly played and finished Soleil! And loved it. But sadly never got into Phantasy Star. I remember playing FF6 and the intro and music blew my socks off at probably the age of 8…?
Then FF7 came out. It changed my whole outlook on RPG’s. But yes in hindsight it’s a shame that games on the SEGA CD like Lunar: Eternal Blue, Popful Mail and Shining Force are barely discussed. I’ve played them but never gave them a chance sadly. But yes! Soundtrack wise I loved SEGA’s arcade style outputs and Nintendo’s more cinematic sound.
I'm surprised there's nothing from Road Rash 3 on here. That game has an amazing soundtrack.
Streets of Rage 1 and 2 made me proud to be a Genesis owner.
Way better than anything else out there.
What about Meat Of Rage?
What about sor3? The entire trilogy was indicative of contemporary urban sounds during the time of its release. SOR3 was just far more industrial & less pop radio-friendly. A lot of Sor3's music sounded like straight up gangsta rap & industrial techno. That's peak Sega to me, when they reference underground subcultures like Jet Set Radio did.
How proud?
@@HereticHydraworded perfectly. I always expected SoR3 to be way more unlistenable with how people described it, when it's just nice chaotic acid techno. I guess people fear or reject things that aren't instantly pleasing to the ear. It's sad, SoR3 is also the most impressive of the trilogy in terms of it's music production. It truly pushed the sound to it's absolute limit
6:35 "...it usually sounded quite nice" *cut to an extremely grating and tinny western soundtrack*
I tend to like the Genesis sound chip but this was a hilarious transition.
I am pretty sure the Genesis gave me my music influence...Jamming to this synth wave video gem of a music journey. This guy...🤘
Great sound and video quality. A GEM, I tell ya!
first of all, great work on making the video. i read about the problems you had in completing this video due to the music triggering copyright claims. your effort is worth the wait.
as a fan of EDM and synth pop, i LOVE the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis)! i had the Version 1 SMD with the audio jack and volume slider, and i would hook up my SMD to my boombox so i can hear the music and sound from the games even louder. my favourite games were Bare Knuckle (Streets Of Rage) I, II and III, and i even made a mix tape by recording the songs from the games using my boombox.
great video again. keep up the excellent work SLX!
I LOVE that tone! I think that that kind of sound, that FM tone, was its peak point. In fact, today we even have hardware synths which are based on Genesis/Mega Drive's internal soundchip!
(one of them has been recently reviewed by Mark of CGR)
Thanks for the tips. Looking for these sort of sounds for an album I’m working on
@@YeahhhhthisisgoodI'd go with a 6-operator FM synth for greater range of sounds; you can still do all the Genesis sounds but you aren't stuck there either. If you own a keyboard with MIDI then a Yamaha TX7 is a good, cheap way to have DX7 sounds. OR get a free FM VST plugin!
@@vjspectronLimited to 6 voices, but the Volca FM2 is compatible with DX7 patches, is pretty cheap, and can run off batteries.
The only downside to that, or a TX7 actually, is that it's not multitimbral, so can't do an entire song with multiple instruments live.
in the world of modular synthesiser we take FM synthesis and more types of synthesis to the next level aka god mode in Algorithm aka infinite FM Algorithm, so yeah shit start going crazy in the world of synthesiser when FM synthesis meats modular trust me on that one I being be doing this for a long time now, and that only one type of synthesis name FM no cap
nice @@Silanda
Valis III, Target Earth, Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition, Rolling Thunder III, these were some great examples of the Genesis sound chip excelling.
Monster World IV is an example of a Genesis game that could do similar instrumentation of the SNES. On the GEMS side, the X Men 2 OST was a beast. I liked SNES sound and all, but sometimes it sounded too filtered.
Two words: Mega Turrican. One of the greatest chip tunes of all time. Also, many of the SNES tracks (while musically complex) sounded a bit like an ice cream truck, while the Genesis had that otherworldly edge. And don’t forget, Yamaha’s DX7, the 90s keyboard that was used in everything from pop to soundtracks, was also running on FM synthesis. The SNES was vanilla MIDI. Like you said, it was all in the hands of the programmer.
Here to see it before it's gone again. 😂
I guarantee it's NinteNAZI lawyers again, reporting this: 28:59
Thanks for solving that mystery for me!
I had a SNES and a Genesis and I had thought the sound was much worse on my Genesis. When I learned it had a good synth chip in it I was confused. Turns out I just didn't have any of the right games. Some of those Genesis games sound awesome.
That revenge of Shinobi song is amazing
The entire soundtrack is amazing.yuzo koshiro is an FM god.
@@stephenhall2980 That game was one hit level after another, both in terms of music and gameplay!
Link?
Chinatown
@@HarolBarol-ye5zeNo, Link was on the other console :P
5:58
For me the Mega-Drive has the best game sound tracks of the 16-bit days, hard hitting with energy and passion, Love The Mega-Drive sound, great video mate 👍👍
concordo com vc amigo!!! Tive os dois consoles e as musicas do genesis me marcaram demais
I look at it like this; the MegaDrive/Genesis could never produce a soundtrack as beautiful as Donkey Kong Country. But the SNES could never have produced something with the energy as Streets of Rage 2. It all depended who was behind the wheels. Tech and Talent had to match.
Well, that and the SNES couldn't really natively output FM synth. Now, there will be people popping out of the woodwork to rebuttal this, claiming that they can do it via emulation. Congrats to them! They did synth on the SNES, 30 years after the SNES was released, using tech not available to developers/composers at the time, via emulation! Good job.
However, the SNES couldn't do the energy of SoR2? The synth sound, no. The energy? Oh _hell yes._ Follin Bros. 'Nuff said.
The SNES could with samples of synth instruments.
Fair enough
Not to be one of "those guys," but since the SNES was sample based and the samples were stored on the cartridge, not the console, developers either had to use a library or roll their own samples. Sample a DX7 or other FM synthesizer for every instrument instead of relying on the general MIDI samples a lot of games used and you could recreate any Genesis soundtrack.
The Japanese Master System had FM built in. Imagine getting Streets of Rage and PS2-3 soundtracks in 1987! Think of the effect on movie games.
Whirlwind from Shinobi III will always give me goosebumps. One of my most favorite stages and music ever.
I loved the difference in sounds between the SEGA and SNES. I was the audio Switzerland in the Console War.
There's still sometimes I would choose the SNES and other times I would choose the Genesis. Guess it depends on the game and or song.
When you throw in the TG16 and NEO GEO that era was peerless.
@@ryanstewart4444The Neo Geo had the benefit of being capable of FM and samples simultaneously, essentially being able to combine the capabilities of the SNES and Genesis.
I was a SNES kid back then but there was no denying the Genesis could have great OST’s in its games. Streets of Rage really opened my mind on that Sega sound. As I got older I have a much larger appreciation for the console and its games. Glad I learned about the model revisions that impacted the audio quality and sound drivers to understand why some games sounded amazing while other Ms sound like crap.
As a kid i recorded the Sonic 3 music directly from the tv speaker to audio cassettes. My siblings laughed at me for doing that and enjoyed doing noise to thwart the recordings.
Things changed a lot overtime!
Thank you for including Shining Force 2 although I do like Shining Force One a little bit better I do love the music for two xD
I really like you video essays on these topics!
Ultimately SNES' ROM-based oscillator structure was better for imitative or realistic sounds, but lacked the dynamic range--the highs and lows--that the Genesis' FM-based sound could really nail, especially Rev-1 Genesis! SNES sound is like listening to real music coming from the next room over, whereas Genesis is more simplified FM sound but it's got immediate presence.
FM is notoriously difficult for sound design; I have a room full of synths and only one is FM because it produces great pseudo-acoustic sounds (bass guitar, bells, electric piano, various crystalline sounds, etc.) but programming it is an academic exercise in adjusting ratios between sine waves and how these react over the note range and with envelopes. Programming a traditional "subtractive" synth is like forming a sculpture out of clay where you can quickly 'rough-out' a vision and make fine adjustments until it's what you want, whereas FM feels more like building a multi-hinged structure, going back-and-forth between each piece individually and hoping they all still mesh together after each tweak...and working with nothing more than a tiny pocket knife! Yamaha--the ones who really got behind and licensed FM tech--also design terrible user interfaces...I can't help but feel FM would've turned out better if someone else with better ideas about user interface would've taken the reins instead. The synth manufacturer Korg, for example, recently released an FM synth called the OpSix that takes the drudgery out of FM programming by letting you select multiple operators while you tweak their parameters, honestly it's a game-changer!
Still, FM was an affordable, groundbreaking tech in the mid-80's that scaled well to various applications and easily did stuff that would've taken too many resources using prior synthesis. The old classic analog synths that people spend $$$$($ ?!) on these days were being sold for a few hundred dollars second-hand when the Yamaha DX7 blew up the scene in the mid-80's due to being a flexible, good-sounding, relatively-affordable replacement for electric pianos and even acoustic stuff like accordions and harmonicas in the studio. It was hot-**** and featured all over 80's and even 90's chart-toppers. The tech has merit, even if the Genesis used a simplified 4-operator structure instead of the DX7's 6-operators.
In particular, Sega did a fantastic job designing the Sonic games to the strengths of the Genesis' processing power and FM sounds...before considering the music, just think of the sound FX themselves--grabbing rings, tallying up your total score, hitting bumpers, revving up--none of these sounds would've been nearly as bright or resonant--effective--on the SNES. And then there's tunes like Chemical Zone!
I know that's a lot to read, but this is a fascinating topic for some of us!
This video needed more Techno Soft. The music from Devil's Crush and Hezog Zwei will melt your speakers.
Elemental Master
Great video. I had both the SNES and Genesis when I was growing up and I loved the music on both systems for the reasons you stated: the orchestral scores on the SNES vs the "crunchy", base-ey, techno/electronic sounds on the Genesis. A master composer could make both types of hardware sing. Yuzo Koshiro is the best example where he created masterful dance tunes for the Streets of Rage games and sweeping orchestral melodies for the Actraiser
As for GEMS, I only became aware of it a few years ago. I also wondered for the longest time why the sound seemed to have gotten worse after 1992 or so. Tazmania was the first game that I remember as having "crappy" sound so I looked up the sound design credits for the game, saw some names then looked up those names and came across GEMS and that has *finally* explained everything,
It was possible to do good music and sound with GEMS. Tommy Tallarico used it in the games he worked on (Earthworm Jim, Cool Spot, etc) and those games have some pretty good sound and music. What happened with the other games that used GEMS was that its ease of use caused sound designers to become lazy and they simply used the default sound files instead of putting in any work and creating any new ones.
Yeah I also think that sound generally hurt the Sega Genesis, but the sound of the NES, SMS, Game Boy were also synth and still had excellent music so the Genesis too, among the games that sound so good like Sonic and Streets of Rage there are among others the Lion King, Midnight Resistance, Jewel Master, Dragon Slayer The Legend of Heroes 1 & 2, Master of Monsters, Sparkster, Dangerous Seed, Socket, Exile...
In the right hands with good sound drivers, definitely not. Beyond commercial games, just listening to what some youtube channels do (Savaged Regime, John Tay, ChiptunedRaijin, etc.) demonstrates what it was capable of.
Sometimes you don’t even hear the snes music because it is so quiet and dull
And sometimes you need you mute your TV to spare your ears from Genesis games lol. No point judging by bad examples.
@@SnakebitSTI well it’s elevator music or a rock concert with tremble turned too high
Arrangement and good patch/synth programming mean so much for the Genesis since you could get away with samples/reverb as a "crutch" on the SNES. FM is not the most intuitive so it takes a special breed to really master it IMO.
Something I also noticed that is on some soundtracks I love is those Genesis games used both their default FM chip and the one meant for Master System compatible games in combination. It usually fleshed out the sound just that bit more and made things really pop. To get really nerdy about it I think it's because the SN chip could help with delay channels and also provide more harmonic content since they were square waves, in essence 8 melodic channels at your disposal and 2 for percussion
Great picks on this video. Devilish is also a soundtrack for Gen that blew me away
BATMAN 91 by Sunsoft embodied the Elfman and Prince dynamic perfectly
There’s something about the sounds of the genesis, something so nostalgic especially with the early titles. I had the genesis the year it dropped, its hard to explain how amazing it was to have. The first 2 years of the genesis was a special time in gaming imo.
Thunder force 3 & 4 alongside anything Yuzo Koshiro have some of the best ost in video gane history. The gem sound driver really gave it a bad name to this day 😢
Thunder Force 3 = Amazing. Agreed.
IMO - Thunderforce II is superior in every aspect, to all of its Sequels. Especially in the music and sound effects. TF3 appears to have a lot less Resolution in both the Music, and the Graphical Details. Since they tried to push the game to the limits, sacrifices had to be made... to be able to fit it onto a standard cartridge size.
Some of TF 3 musical compositions were really good... but I really hated how low-resolution they sounded, compared to TF2.
The Genesis was also not very good with making Organic looking Graphics, due to its limited color palette... and TF3 tried to duplicate Organics (badly), unlike the more Mechanical and Futuristic look.. of TF2. And because they used less overall graphical details, it looked kinda bland and blocky.. and seemingly of a much lower resolution.
The powerups were also vastly degraded, IMO. They looked awful, compared to TF2.
The main gripe people had with TF2, was the Top-View levels. I enjoyed the variance of them... but I do agree that they had some issues. A map was needed for these levels, as they were so large that you often got Lost. Other than that, it took a bit of time, before I realized that there was a limited range, to your "Bombs" (which are different from your other weapons). This is why you needed to get very close to targets on the Bases, to be able to destroy them.
The sound driver itself wasnt really the issue. The real issue, was companies that refused to hire highly talented and qualified... Musicians, and sound effect creators. Companies were more than willing to cut costs as much as possible, to get maximum potential profits.
If a Restaurant chooses to use Cheap, Low quality ingredients... Low skilled Cooks.. and Poor Recipes... then the Fault is with the Owner / Management / Business. Nobody forced these places to use Canned Veggies, for example... just like Nobody forced game companies into using this bad sound drive tool + poor quality sound creators and composers.
I think that’s changing although you get some trolls who still bash the Mega Drive sound.
I was a SNES fan through and through back then but still enjoyed Megadrive sound. Even now I'm working my way through the library and am often impressed. Thurder Force blew me away.
I think Comix Zone was one of my favorite sounding Genesis games. While the voice samples did have some scratch, they were clearer than Street Fighter's and the very famous take on the classic "Sega" opening.
That's weird. Personally, I can barely stand the music rendition of that game. That GEMS "electric guitar" sound that plays over and over again in every single song quickly gets on my nerves...
@@Shyning77 Well you won't like ''The Ooze'' then.
I think it's really important to always keep in mind that the Genesis is 1980s tech and not 1990s but even still - the sound hardware was definitely a place where they should've put in some more resources. It really isn't all that much better than the Mark III FM module. At the very least, even if you like FM Synth for the musical instruments, it would've been very helpful if there were some sample channels for sound effects. (That's what usually gets me in GEMS games - usually the music is not great, but the sound effects were grating.)
It's curious how Street Fighter II: Special Championship Edition sounded better than Super Street Fighter II. They took the Cammy track from the arcade game and turned it into... that.
It's like for SSF2, they just used MIDI version of the songs and attributed the same generic instruments to all songs.
They didn't have much memory left for the audio
This is an awesome video and I really love the way you analyze this topic and cite examples with each idea you cover. In my own opinion regarding music on the platform, I feel it's really down to the compositions on an individual level. There are plenty of games that sound better on either platform that doesn't really matter if it was originally composed as FM synth or not, because it's just down to the overall effort to make it jam right. I'm sure some devs were more apt than others in different areas, but I think the bad soundtracks are just because the effort wasn't as strong as it should have been regardless of platform (but especially here).
I think overall, Sega kinda de-emphasized the importance of sound (as evidenced by how they integrated the sound into the CPU and the constant changing of op-amps). Luckily for us, there were devs who took the sound seriously for their individual games and we got some great music, but Sega wanted to get the games out there overall IMHO. Their own flagship titles were a little different, but they also wanted to get the 3rd party devs to crank stuff out so they could flaunt how many licensed games there were (evidenced by the ads where Genesis touted either 500+ or 700+ titles and how they let EA kinda bully them just to make sure they were also cranking out software).
I would say that sound wasn't really a huge factor in many consumers opinions at the time tho. The SegaCD would try and capitalize on Q-Sound on a few titles, but the sound in games in general was largely disregarded as anything affecting the gameplay experience with many people. A lot of people felt videogame music wasn't really a big deal so long as it existed in some form, and it wasn't uncommon to put on your own music and play a game muted (or with just sound effects if the options allowed) back then. I personally love VGM and even have many soundtracks on vinyl in my personal collection, but in my circles at the time of it's life the sound was probably really most people's least influential factor.
Again - excellent video and thank you for explaining many differences in the production of these games, which definitely helps understand why some decisions were made and how people received them. As always, keep up the great work!!
It was always a give or take but I usually leaned towards the Genesis. I liked the synthesizer music the Genesis produced a bit more vs the compressed orchestral sound from the SNES.
Games like fatal fury and Captain America and the avengers proved they could shred the SNES when needed.
Then you get games like spiderman x-men and SNES tears the genesis up.
It really just depends on how well it’s handled and who is composing.
Both consoles had the appropriate sound hardware for their respective games. The atmospheric and orchestral tracks for those epic Snes Adventure and RPG games. Genesis had awesome synth for its immense arcade library.
I'm definitely in the FM synth crowd.
So when Saturn choose the audio cd way you dissapointed from the result. What no?
@@gizaha I guess? By that time consoles didn't have to rely on FM synth for sound.
@@Ostnizdasht206Why they didn't stay to FM synthesis since is better?
@@gizaha What you're saying doesn't make sense. No one says that FM synth sounds better than redbook audio (audio CD quality). Redbook can emulate virtually any kind of audio though, either CD recordings or even FM synth recordings if you want. What he meant is, for 16-bit consoles that didn't/couldn't use audio CD quality yet, he prefers the sound from the MD's FM synth based sound chip than from the SNES' sample based sound chip.
@@gizahaRed Book audio was quicker and cheaper to produce as it required significantly less skill.
And that remains the case to this day.
Any idiot with a DAW can knock together a Redbook audio soundtrack in minutes… but you try composing music for a Sega Genesis game (e.g. in Deflemask).
Hitoshi Sakimoto was still composing with Terpsichorean in an updated form for the then-ancient YM-2151 for mid-90s Raizing arcade shooters and getting even more incredible results from it than he managed with Masaharu Iwata on the Gensis. FM and PCM have their own distinct sound styles and one isn't necessarily 'better' than the other, just more suited to what you want to accomplish. For every game lumbered with the GEMS driver there was a SNES one that couldn't replicate the distinctive clear sound of FM to save its life.
The sound makes the genesis really distinct but in a lot of cases it makes its games soundtracks an extremely mixed bag
As for me I enjoy both no matter if is the Sega Genesis or the Super Nintendo, as such I enjoy both consoles equally and both consoles has their own style, strength and weakness and each one makes me smile both the orchestra music style of the SNES or the 80's Fm Synth style of the Genesis. So for me, both console are awesome and both has great Tunes in the right hands of course.
Best Sega Channel 👍👍👍
I had/have both systems. Some of the music on the Genesis, at times, was rough. However, it had some great soundtracks and it's still my go to system.
No way, the YM2612 is bangin'!
I think I'm right in saying that GEMS is basically an editor, isn't it? And it allows music to be dynamically altered depending on what's happening in the game. It's still the FM chip that's being used to generate the sounds, so GEMS isn't really to blame for poor audio. The problem is that FM synthesis is pretty difficult to get your chops round, and some devs didn't manage it.
I always thought sound and music was something the Genesis had going for it over the SNES. It was so bright, visceral and gritty. You can do anything with FM with enough skill and imagination. SNES was nice too but was all low bitrate sample based, and sounded like it had a low pass filter on everything. Every system had games that sounded terrible, it’s not the hardwares fault.
I agree, I grew tired of that low pass filter or whatever it was, the music sounded too Samey. It was great when the console launched, but then release after release kept having that filter on everything.
Smash tv, which is better?
Actraser, Super Ghouls and Ghosts, Super Contra Spirits.
Just 3 examples of soundtracks on the SNES that are far beyond the capabilities of the Megadrive/ Genesis.
It wasn't simply a lowpass filter like the YM2612 had, but Gaussian interpolation. It's what the SNES applied to decompressed samples to make them sound more natural and less harsh. The problem is that it often over-corrected the abrasiveness and made them sound TOO soft, sort of the opposite to a harsh GEMS soundtrack. The Commodore Amiga used this interpolation method too, however it also allowed for it to be turned off to get a clearer sound. That's why Amiga tracks sound similar to those on the SNES but higher quality.
@@wayne1da121 In theory, the Genesis's own PCM channel could just stream the soundtracks of those games, but you'd be limited by ROM size.
Awesome video dude! I've been thinking about this since the console wars back in the day! I agree with everything you said. I am a Genesis die hard by the way. The Genesis was capable of having some amazing sound, but compared to Super Nintendo, a lot of times it couldn't compete. But in the right hands, the soundtracks on it could be some of the best ever. The Genesis sound had a grittiness to it that the Super Nintendo just couldn't replicate with its softer sound.
Stand outs to me are Streets of Rage 2 and Rocket Knight Adventures. There are more, but those come to mind first. Then there are true ear bleeders like the first Xmen game. I liked that game, but what in the hell were they thinking? Thanks again for the video man. Truly great stuff!
Alien 3 on the Genesis / Megadrive has the best sound track of ANY game. Masterpiece.
Matt Furniss! Also James Bond : The Duel by the same composer has stellar tracks, even though the game itself is pretty average.
I appreciated both consoles , i am 50 years old and still listening megadrive musics of my heart
The answer varies. Some games that are split between the two sound better on Genesis, IE the arrangements in Hyperstone Heist are WAY tighter than Turtles in Time which honestly comes off a bit warbly. In a beat em up, that tightness helps.
On another hand, BattleToads/Double Dragon isn’t bad on Genesis, but the sound on SNES has a LOT more… body, I guess? Dem guitar samples doe
I do prefer SNES sound and always have. But I would never ignore some of the Mega Drive masterpieces out there. My brother had a Mega Drive back in the days and I had an SNES, so we played both systems after all. I loved the Shining Force (1+2) Soundtrack as well as Shinobi's and Thunderforce's. That gritty Thunderforce rock sound was excellent, and I had so much fun with the music generator in Toejam and Earl. Never forget: there are weak and tinny SNES soundtracks as well, coming from composers that weren't very sophisticated with their sounddesign. Lots and lots of Capcom games had great compositions but used all the same abysmal capcom sound-font. So while I absolutely stand behind the statement that the SNES had Soundtrack masterpieces like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 3 (/6), F-Zero, Axelay, Castlevania 4, Rock n Roll Racing, Turtles in Time and more, the Mega Drive absolutely spiced thing up with a different approach.
It really made the Genesis sound dated in comparison to the SNES, but in the Genesis's defense, it was designed to be an "arcade at home" system, so going with that Yamaha chip made sense.
It also made the Genesis ports of TMNT and SF2 sound closer to the arcade version. The SNES versions in some ways sounded better since the arcade boards were FM and not sample-based, but I do prefer arcade accuracy.
I was a Sega kid first and foremost growing up. While I did play SNES games back then, it was usually either rentals from the local video store or when visiting with my older cousins. During my teen years, I played the SNES library a bit more via emulators, but I did eventually score the OG hardware when I was 20 along with Secret of Mana and Super Mario World. At the end of the day, I always liked both consoles. They both had such great games that you can't go wrong either way. I liked the Genesis for Sonic, Mortal Kombat, Virtua Racing, and Zombies Ate My Neighbors; and the SNES for Castlevania, Legend of Zelda, Mario, Donkey Kong Country, and the Square RPGs. As long as you're having fun, that's all that matters. No reason for the hardcore fans to piss all over each other's consoles and games when we can all come together.
Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun has an unreal soundtrack on the Genesis!
And that game used GEMS which shows GEMS can sound good.
I always loved the full body sound of the Genesis percussion and SFX on offer. Specifically the snare in Sonic games and the hitting the ground effect in the Power Rangers 1v1 game.
Problem with SNES sample based audio was the cartridge size limitation which would result in some very ugly low quality muffled samples. They would also use one sample and pitch shift to make many notes from the same sample resulting in out of tune music. You would also often encounter a lot of clipping in samples too. Amiga did sample based music much better. There are definitely a lot of games shown here that could benefit from remastered soundtracks in FM.
"They would also use one sample and pitch shift to make many notes from the same sample resulting in out of tune music."
Thank you! I've often felt some SNES tunes sounded wrong but I couldn't put my finger on why.
SNES sounds can make me laugh at times, especially with games like Black Thorne when your character gets killed the enemy laughter sounds hilariously bad like it’s using a generic and muffled sample.
As a kid, I remember every time I bought a new game or rented one, I always checked to see if music could be turned off so I could still hear the sound effects and listen to my favorite cd. Now, I can't get enough of those fm tunes.
I love genesis sound. It's nostalgic.
Of course FM synth didn't hurt it. The sample engine of SNES is probably slightly "better" in a number of sounds it can produce sense, like if you were sent to a desert island with 1 console or something. But the FM can do many marvelous things and was quite powerful when it was introduced in the 80s. What truly hurt the Sega Genesis via sound was shoving midis through GEMS, which while perfectly capable, takes a decent amount of fine tuning to sound good. (hey... I like Greendog!) One thing worth noting is the Sega's FM isn't as good as say, the NEC PC98, or even the SoundBlaster.
Another thing worth noting is the Genesis also had sound expansions. It's CD drive (with redbook) actually came out, and the 32X adds PWM samples that strongly bridge the gap between SNES' sampling capabilities, particularly with drums. The Chaotix soundtest is a great example as it shows you what parts of the song are FM and which parts are Sampled, or the Kolibri OST which can stand up alongside SNES' best. And TBH the good old fashioned 8-bit PSG noise channel in the base Genesis that the older games use is underrated. (like Sonic 1 and Batman seen here) And the Genesis didn't just have no samples at all, the YM2612 had a mod to sacrifice a couple of FM operators for a WAV sample, which takes up too much space to really use, but is why the Michael Jackson soundtrack to Sonic 3 for example is so memorable.
Did you know Sega Saturn had an AMAZING FM synthesizer? (32OP goodness, much more than Genesis' mere 6OP. Sadly most devs chose Redbook audio which is cool in it's own way) The music you hear in Nights for example, had a lot of FM elements, which is part of how the A Life system was able to modulate the music on the fly. It was also able to port 1:1 recreations of arcade OSTs (often with a redbook OST *also* included)
The Genesis' Yamaha FM chip sounded incredible when used by the right people. I honestly think it could sound better than the SNES' heavily-compressed samples at times; for example, I prefer the OSTs of Castlevania Bloodlines and Contra Hard Corps to Super Castlevania 4 and Contra 3, respectively. Of course the Genesis could (and often did) sound tinny and grating, but I think that was a result of developers who weren't adept at FM synthesis. Not everyone could bust out killer soundtracks like Yuzo Koshiro
"A tool is only as good as the person using it."
Replace "a tool" and "person" with "GEMS" and "composer", respectively.
Tommy Tallarico (Cool Spot, Aladdin, Earthworm Jim) was one of the few composers who used GEMS to its highest potential; in fact, Tallarico called GEMS one of his favorite tools for music composition.
DYK: Recreational Brainware was formed by former Technopop employees, and were responsible for developing Spider-Man and Taz-Mania for the Genesis. After Recreational Brainware closed doors, several employees would later former their own studios, like Extended Play Productions (developers of Chakan: The Forever Man, and are not related to the developers of several EA games), Head Games, Foley Hi-Tech, and Monkey Business (founded by Burt Sloane, and were co-developers of the Sega CD version of Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin).
29:18 Man listening to the comparison of Shining Force to Chrono Trigger really solidifies my Sega preference /maybe nostalgic bias. Shining Force 1 and 2 soundtrack + sound effects + art style created such a perfect vibe.
Personally, I appreciate both, but you can definitely tell they were on different hardware.
That Shining Force song sounded really nice, but Chrono Trigger had the most epic soundtrack of the 16 bit era. That was actually a weak example.
@@EdexoteI liked FF3 more but Chrono Trigger is amazing too.
@@IamLegend32 that's a great example as well. Still love the Mega Drive's FM sound when properly programmed.
Great video as usual! I agree with you in that there was a place for both the sound of the Genesis and the sound of the SNES. If I had to pick only one though, I'd take the sound of the SNES every time.
Yeah. The SNES audio is technically more advanced/superior and what Yuzo Koshiro, Nobuo Uematsu, Nintendo and Konami audio guys did with it was amazing. However, I find that most SNES soundtracks fall into the "50 shades of muffled horn" pattern that I really didn't enjoy. Sometimes, it’s so muffled and low bit rate that it sounds just as synthetic as any synth stuff. Most of my favorite Genesis soundtracks are typically louder, more bassy and raw sounding.
I remember my first time seeing and hearing a Genesis game. It was Altered Beast. It was an audio shock in addition to the visual one. The epic sounding stereo synth music, combined with great (for that time) effects and voice samples was better than anything I’ve heard at home before, representing a huge jump over anything on the NES and even an FM synth equipped MSX2 (which I grew up with).
Genesis audio hardware was a great choice for a 1988 console. As you’ve said, it was the home version of what was used by most arcade boards and something that most Japanese developers were very used to working with.
But yeah… by the time stuff like DKC, Super Metroid and Chrono Trigger rolled out, the advantages of SNES’ newer architecture were impossible to dismiss even for (by then) a die-hard Genesis fan like me. The decreasing flow of Japanese-developed Genesis games, combined with all of Sega of America’s crappy, dark and dithered “Western audience” games with poorly done GEMS audio, certainly didn’t help matters. Still, these days, I go back and listen to way more Genesis soundtracks than I do SNES'.
I mean, if a console has Streets of Rage 2, Sonic 1/2/3, Castlevania Bloodlines and Contra: Hard Corps sounding like they sounded, one can't say it had bad sound capabilities. It just needed a bit of love to get it right. If you half-assed it, you got the 32x Doom's music.