BEFORE YOU COMMENT: Please know my stance about emulating the quirks and flaws of original hardware. In short, I LOVE HOW THE HARDWARE ORIGINALLY SOUNDS. That's it. If I never made this experiment, I would have been recording audio straight from various hardware and saving them for my collection. I firmly believe that every hardware is unique and its individual quirks should be perfectly preserved via proper emulation, or better, lossless hardware recordings. Even if the Namco N163 sounds like crap, it's what it is, and it should sound like that. Now, for the people who say, "[the stuff I tried to do in this video] doesn't make it better". You know what? "Better" depends on the goal of the individual. If you're trying to say that "smoothing out the triangle wave doesn't make it better", then in the perspective of recreating the sound of the original hardware, of course that's bad. But for the purposes of THIS VIDEO, whose goal is to make an experiment and hear how the NES *could* sound like if its flaws were not present, then it doesn't matter. The NES is trying to make a triangle wave. However, a triangle wave does not have steps. I merely helped the NES achieve what it was trying to achieve. And the result was interesting to hear, so I shared my findings. I never claimed that "the NES should sound like this" or anything similar. If anything, I learned to appreciated the NES more-by fixing its flaws, I understood just how many sacrifices it had to make to even generate the sounds it can generate. Again, for the last time, I fully support the faithful recreation of hardware audio. I hope you understand. Feel free to continue writing your comment even if it is "you killed the NES and it will come to haunt your dreams". However, if that is the case, as writing and explaining the same thing over and over again is tiring, and there are other comments on different topics that could spark a more interesting conversation, I may not be able to reply to your comment. Please understand.
You killed the NES and it will come to haunt your dreams! In all seriousness that was extremely fascinating, even if I didn't understand a good portion of it, haha. I absolutely love the NES and things like the VRC6 Chip I only discovered about a week ago and I was floored that the NES could output even something like that. Making the sounds even crisper is a work of art. That's some awesome stuff, really good job! I'd love to hear the Level 1 Theme of the Japanese version of Castlevania 3 with the crisper sound, that track slaps. I hadn't seen your channel until today but I'm definitely going to keep an eye on it in the future!
I would not be against of an option for cleaner NES sound output. It is somewhat NES equal to the HD mode 7 feature in higher end SNES emulation and it has few games that can get use out of it.
Would you be willing to do these for some of the tracks of Super Mario Bros.? In particular its castle and underground themes. They seem to heavily rely on the triangle wave channels to make the most of their music. Also potentially the player miss and game over jingles.
Its so funny to think people are undermining your work only because they don't like what they hear. You've done an amazing investigation and work on this, i am truly amazed and i wish you keep at it. Congratulations.
Your effort and ones like it don't take away from the efforts to accurately emulate the original hardware. Everyone gets the best of both worlds. I don't know why people get so angry about it.
The jagged triangle wave was a product of limitted hardware capability yes, but the added bonus to that is that if the triangle were used as a bassline (which it very often was) those higher harmonics would help it to be more audible on the shoddy speakers most CRT TVs had back then. A straightup triangle would be totally lost on those in the lower registers.
I'm actually listening on headphones for that reason .. my computer (Macbook Air M1) has pretty decent speakers but all 'bass' you hear is just psycho-acoustic stuff the brain makes up as it goes along .. my first computer, Atari ST, with the YM2149 chip didn't really do bass and, in reality, even the mighty SID chip doesn't really excel on bass. The beauty of these spruced up tracks is the clear and deep bass that sprung out of them - even though I sort of like the original quantisation noise on the FM chip :) I have a Yamaha DX7s which although supposedly much cleaner sounding than the original DX7 is still very noisy .. but not in an annoying way :)
@@croolis The SID can do excellent bass especially if you have the right speakers, old stuff such as Jeroen Tel's works and modern SID music such as Jammer and LMan's creations are great examples of such with plenty of bass
As a sound designer, this makes me appreciate how sounds inform composition. The pieces have a very specific character on the original chips that is missing with the improved performance - because the pieces were written to make those original chips sound as best as they could *with* the flaws. Then you hear the newly written tune at the end, and my god those upgraded chips sound f'n goood. Nice work!
yes!! limitations shaping the very creative process itself on older and more limited hardware/software is one of my favorite aspects of retro game art and music. its honestly beautiful to me! it reminds me of that brian eno quote about the limitations of a medium being what defines it and what will be missed and emulated once those limitations are defeated
That’s one of the reasons I love old 8bit and 16bit era game music- the character they were able to wring from those chips is great. Those old tunes lose something when they are upgraded.
"I understand this video is rough and crude" This is one of the nicest edited videos I have seen in an extremely long time. Absolutely wonderful, visuals told what they needed to and let the music take charge.
@@ShuckleShellAnemia Agreed! Having that beautiful song playing and an actually good scroll-speed for the text just let me relax through to the end. Greatest video editing of it's kind for sure
FM synthesis is the most beautiful thing in this world to me. It's a totally unnatural sound, a sound you can never hear in nature. It's one of the few things humans have created from whole cloth, without trying to mimic or improve on nature. My favorite sound is the OPN2, but the OPLL (and VRC7 by extension) is very closely related to it. I've never heard an OPLL as clear and clean as the VRC7 in this video, though. Thanks for this.
That is a very wonderful take on FM synthesis. I never thought of it like that! As in the pinned comment, I fully support recreating the original sound of the hardware. But I have to admit-personally, a cleaner-sounding VRC7 is really good when it comes to quiet, relaxed music. The noise is a bit distracting when you're trying to listen to the very fine details of the song. Thanks for your support!
Not exactly disagreeing here, but one of the major draws of FM synthesis was it's ability to very faithfully reproduce a number of real world instruments like pianos, guitar plucks, bells, etc. that subtractive synthesis could not. However, I agree that, if taken to its extremes, FM synthesis becomes very alien indeed.
@@soviut303 You''re absolutely right of course; it was created to mimic real-world sounds. It just happens to be able to do something altogether unnatural, which I think is fantastic.
@@soviut303 I agree with you wholeheartedly, furthermore when taken to extremes... ANY natural sound becomes completely alien. In fact, there are sounds in the world we have not heard yet that would be completely alien to us.
It's the magic of FearofDark being at work here! Check out his his other stuff man, he goes crazy with his chiptune. Rolling down the street in my katamari being my favourite
Classic games were an artform. I'm sure most people like me really don't appreciate them until we see them broken down and how purposeful every bit of information had to be.
If you want to see another example of this, check out Modern Vintage Gamer's videos on the Game Boy & Game Boy Colour's graphics systems. They had to do some crazy shit to get what they wanted to work.
Honestly I like this style of editing. Subtle, toned down, focused, but informative, and relaxing with the finished product playing on the background. No excessive "try hard" stylization or special effects, and reading your descriptions instead of having them spoken to me allowed me to digest the information better. Thank you
It's so cool seeing the limitations of these different sound chips, and then hearing them without those limitations! Crazy that this video was just uploaded today, I was just trying to find some info on the NES's sound chip and instead I found this super cool experiment. I'd love to see more information on how exactly you did the interpolation for the triangle and sawtooth waves, and maybe even a breakdown of some of the code! I'd also love to hear Dr Wily's Castle from Mega Man 2, and the Fire Emblem theme. Can't wait to see more videos by you!
Hello! Thank you very much for your comment. I have been very interested with NES audio ever since I was a teen, and I have been wanting to do this since two months ago. This is actually a modified NSFPlay. Everytime the NES CPU sets the frequency of the triangle wave, I set a counter for how long it takes to complete a whole cycle of the waveform, and based on that an a counter (which has 32-bits precision, meaning a smooth waveform can be generated), a linear interpolation code generates what value should be output at the time. This is exactly how I also approached the VRC6's sawtooth wave. I will be very glad to upload Dr. Willy's Castle (is that the second Dr. Wily stage?) and Fire Emblem. Expect it in the coming days :) Thanks!
@@KYLXBN That makes a lot of sense, thanks for the reply! Sounds somewhat similar to how I implemented waveform synthesis in my programming class last year. I've always appreciated electronics but it wasn't until recently that I really understood how amazing they are. The clever tricks they used back then are absolutely inspiring. This video definitely makes me want to try to make a synthesizer with one of the arduinos I have laying around. I'm not sure which stage Dr Wily's castle is from (I've never actually played Mega Man II, or even the original Fire Emblem lol) but it's this banger: ruclips.net/video/WJRoRt155mA/видео.html
If I remember correctly, at Westwood Studios, the Roland MT-32 was what they actually composed the music on. So while their games contained converted/rearranged music files for a whole range of sound cards, playing it on MT-32 would give the 100% original version.
I never got to experience any advanced roland cards on any dos games... when I finally heard some of them on youtube, they didn't sound right to me, I preferred the adlib/'sb versions :-)
I would love to see an option to toggle this on in emulators or trackers as an "enhanced" or "hi-res" option for people to see how it changes the music in real time. Especially on something like the FPGA clones that exist these days.
for people wondering the name of each tune here: 0:00 super mario bros. 3 - water world, or, world 3 map; 0:51 fearofdark - rain dance; 1:35 journey to silius - intro screen; 3:31 akumajou densetsu - déjà vu; 4:24 akumajou densetsu - demon seed; 5:14 lagrange point - within the deep darkness; 5:44 fearofdark - the coffee zone.
It should be noted that composers of the time tended to be aware of these limitations, and often relied on said quirks to achieve interesting effects: the stepped triangle wave has a shimmering quality to it which can enhance a track's liveliness, or even used to ominous effect in Journey to Silius, where the sounds acquire sort of a sci-fi vibe that is a bit choked out when cleaned. The last track, The Coffee Zone, also benefits greatly from the quantization noise, which makes it sound like there's a drummer playing brushes throughout the song; it speaks more of "jazz band in a seedy bar" to me that way. On another note, this topic reminds me of any debate where technology limitations make anything fuzzier and warmer: vinyl vs CD; CRT vs LCD; valves vs transistors and so on and so forth. There's just an aura of maybe nostalgia to any technology which degrades an otherwise pristine source signal, and stripping them down to their essence to be revealed as generated invariably makes them feel aseptic. You just can't substitute for said "loss in translation", to the extent of actively trying to replicate these flaws that were once perceived as undesirable.
Yeah distortions like that have been a thing for a while - distorted guitars notably being big in rock and related. But even back then old compositions for sound chips and MIDI relied on the sound they actually had
@@badbeardbill9956 Exactly. That is the reason I mentioned the valves VS transistors debacle: it is absolutely possible to make great sounding solid state guitar amps nowadays, in fact there is a whole market for them. I like both, personally, because they have different characteristics that work well in their respective genres. And sure, you could build a clone of a vintage Fender amp and swap out any part you'd like, but any change done to its sound signature cannot be considered an improvement, because every element contributes to creating its identity. That's the issue at hand here: this fellow cannot claim to have created the "perfect" NES sound, because that spot is already taken by the original design. As a matter of fact, whenever emulators struggle in recreating a 1:1 sound print of the original systems, it is tendentially because an emulation often fails to recreate the little imperfections which made the original design special (especially egregious with OPL-based sound systems, which are dependent on so many more elements to work their magic).
@@BeastOfSoda vacuum tubes are objectively better for translating the true sounds of the instrument because they're more perfect. Analog systems beat digital for sound reproduction. An absolutely perfect 16 inch record would sound *cleaner* than CD audio, though not by much. You can't physically tell the difference between 99% of decent 16 or 12 inch record and CD though, if you can then your track is worn or dirty(or your player is fucked).
@@vyor8837 Eehhh... not quite. That's a subjective topic which has been going on ever since transistors were invented, and there is no clear winner there as long as the components are not brought beyond their physical limits; but I will not argue that, because we were making a slightly different point. We were talking about transistors VS valves in the specific application of guitar amplifiers. I mentioned earlier that transistors and amps do not sound that different, as long as the signal passing through them does not exceed their rating, which is normally what you want in a hi-fi or somesuch; but with amps, those specs are routinely stressed, like when you're cranking the gain to intentionally overdrive or distort the signal. When you're saturating valves and transistors in such a way, the sound is getting mangled in both cases, but these components behave very differently: with transistors, the signal usually gets clipped past a certain point, while with valves it breaks down and frays in a different manner, which sounds warmer and less "screechy" than with transistors. Which is a similar thing to what happens on vintage consoles, with their "imperfect" components that alter the sound in a less than ideal, but beautifully iconic way. Change any of that with an audibly different part (for better or for worse), and you've butchered the original sound.
Man a channel like this has only existed and survived in the old day of youtube. The fact were being treated this well by whom ever this is, is a blessing of fresh air and a trip back down memory lane into the better days of the RUclips. 2006-2012 GOLDEN YEARS!
I am really sad that RUclipsrs have to resort to clickbaiting, thumbnails with overreacting faces, "like the video, subscribe, click the notification bell, and comment!!!", among other things...
Even with the initial knee jerk "but the imperfections make it better!" reaction, I am absolutely floored by the resulting work. I'm a YM2612 guy at heart, but the sheer versatility of the Nintendo sound processors always catches me off guard. Amazing work, you have a new subscriber!!
Agreed, I love making stuff for the Mega Drive but these chips are so beautiful in their own right. If there's one thing to take away, Yamaha knows their stuff.
I really appreciated this. I am a 57 year old, life long video game player, software engineer, synthesizer fan, hobbiest creator of electronic music, and lover of many of the old video game sounds. Nostalgia :) Of course there's a charm to the flaws of the sound generators in old electronics. But that doesn't mean someone can't improve on them if they like. I think there's enough room in the world for different approaches to the "old 8-bit music." I even attended this amazing video game concert once, featuring an orchestra, and other instruments. And of course, music from games like Zelda is being played in countless ways on youtube, and why not?
I've never played in a NES but I really love the "chiptune" songs, originally made from chip limitations, but now is an entire music style (just like "pixel art", originally from hardware limitations, is now an art style).
I still actually love (and prefer) the sound of original, unmodified hardware. I'll be honest and say that I dislike songs that claim to be "8-bit" but are made in FL Studio with 25 channels and high quality drum samples.
@@KYLXBN I’m thinking about getting into producing chiptune. Is there a good software specifically for creating 8bit tracks? I’m a big Ableton user but you’re right it does seem to take away from the authenticity of these tracks
@@KYLXBN honestly I just go to Beepbox and use 3-4 channels, I mostly skipped one of them because I never knew the triangle was better for the basslines, but now I know, and I shall use this knowledge!
@@ghostplayermusic famitracker, famistudio or Lsdj. They'll all take a while to get used to, but it's worth it. Famistudio is the most like a DAW in terms of interface
In 6 months you went from 255 to 24.6k subscribers, that in it self shows the hidden community that you stumbled into and helped create. I love what you’ve done and brought me back to a forgotten style of music which I am grateful to be introduced to again. Thank you, and I hope you find more fun in doing this now than ever as your community grows.
I love the video but it cant say “how it supposed to sound” The composers were actually using the limitations to get the specific vibe, feel and even some arrangements… the original sound is what it is supposed to sound like. Better tech cant beat composers choices within the limitation of their era
@@heitorcornelius yes, although i dont think he meant that it should have been this way. its still a really interesting idea and important to look past that fact specifically for this video. i agree that the music was meant to sound like it was originally, so i feel like this should be treated as just a fun little experiment. i do agree some of the wording could have been better though. it is 100% true that old music was meant to be played on old hardware/physical media/instruments. “what the NES tried to do” could be changed to “how the NES and its music producers made an imperfect sound chip better than perfect”, “my upgraded chip” replaced with “my modified chip” etc, etc,
@@sealwheel "although i dont think he meant that it should have been this way." well, not so sure about this... his entire argument and words used, seems to supports the contrary of what you're saying. Anyway... I still think the video was awesome, as I mentioned.
I’ve seen a lot of people arguing about how the composers used the inaccuracies with their equipment to their advantage, and something similar happened with plasma screens and old TVs. Lots of sprites from back then look loads better when on the screens they were designed for with the color fuzz and gaps in pixels. In some of the Sonic games they used the TV screen to take a unicolor waterfall sprite and when displayed on a TV, it got these even vertical lines of different shades of blue.
not only that, but you only got the effect from the fuzzy, but most common composite video and wouldnt from the cleaner but pretty rare scart/component. devs really thought about their playerbase with these sorts of things
Yeah a lot of artists used the deficiencies to artistic effect, turning the downsides into advantages. So things like this will make the songs sound inauthentic. But you know what, just listen to them how you want, you're the one listening to it not them.
Plasma screens were notorious for ruining the look of standard definition content like the NES... Same with LCD and LED displays that followed a few years later.
This feels like the audio equivalent of turning old animations into 60 fps ones with interpolation software. It's interesting to see the end result, but it's also interesting to see how clearly the original animators (or the original sound designers) clearly knew and could take advantage of their limitations. Just like how making an old Disney movie 60 fps might make it seem smoother, but lose some of the original animation's timing, this makes the original games' audio much cleaner, but it loses the original's actual sound. I do prefer the originals, both ways, but this is really cool. And it always makes me wonder what new songs would sound like if they were played on these old sound chips.
It's extremely interesting. A lot of people, myself included, pursue "perfection", when it comes to audio. Whether that be a "cleaner" mix, higher quality samples, or in this case, more smooth and less jagged waveforms. However, everyone's perfect is different, and all of these different sounds are nothing more than sounds, they just exist and have different properties. There are advantages and disadvantages to each, and the goal in music is not to be obsessed with cleanliness and orderliness but rather to take each sound as it is and do what sounds best with it!!!
I agree that the original audio is original but I don't think it's fair to compare this hardware modification to 60 fps AI interpolation, because when making extra frames, the AI is taking lots of mild guesses. While in this experiment here (If I understood correctly) the uploader modified the hardware to take already existing data and output it in another way. Obviously the developers (or should I say the composers) intended for the original audio to sound the way it does on the original hardware, but I doubt that they were always happy about the way they had to make their music sound because of the limitations they had to work with. Whether making the jagged curves and lines smooth sounds better is really subjective, since when they are jagged they give a song this nostalgic charm that old consoles with this limited hardware had. But I think that most of us can agree that relaxing music without the extra noise does sound quite better and well, relaxing. So well, it's up to taste, but I believe that this experiment did make many things sound better.
hehe also it is interesting on how programmers had to work with those huge limitations. In the coding aspect, there were insane tricks of self generating code. Nowadays we see those tricks on programs containing 10 mins of music & 3D animations in FullHD, all packed in 64KB of code (the DemoScene guys do that).
@@gusstavv Some of the stuff made can get very creative, using Page0 memory, full fast 3D on hardware that has no business running it, SID on the Atari ST where there is no chip for it. Some of these people are great nowadays. I wonder what would have been if they had been around in the heydays of these systems.
Although some of these fixes were very cool, I find that the NES triangle wave works better with bitcrushing. It just has a much crunchier, agressive sound that I think makes it work exceptionally well as a bass instrument. I would have never been able to think of the bitcrushing as a bad thing. I will admit tho, at high pitches some of the harmonics in the 2A03's triangle can become quite annoying. If there was a way to filter or EQ it while keeping it 4 bit, that would be a dream. The VRC6 saw harmonics CAN be specially annoying since they are very dissonant and audible at regular low pitches; but in a full song, they are always going to be masked by other instruments so it's not that big a deal. Fixing non linear mixing is also good but, and since so many NES soundtracks are well thought around it, it would probably work just in certain ocassions. Idk though, I should probably take a listen to many of your fixed soundtracks to actually tell. Over all, really cool content! I'd love to see more in-depth chiptune analysis like this on RUclips. The only other people doing similar work in the Internet as far as I'm aware are Bucky and Patrick from Retro Game Audio.
Hello! Thanks for telling me your thoughts! I actually agree! The NES triangle sounds too quiet without the harmonics, and the harmonics actually help make the bass notes more noticeable. That is the case in most if not all songs. The VRC6 saw, on the other hand, I actually dislike... It is has less bits (3) than the NES triangle wave (4), and it sounds so bad with really audible harmonics... You are right that it gets masked with the other channels in a full song, but it can be heard when the other channels are not playing. I'd really rather have it without its extra harmonics 😅 As for the non-linear mixing, yes, I think that's true. Many programmers will have adjusted volume levels to mix the song better. Still, in a perfect world, channels should mix linearly, so I tried to force linear mixing. I will be uploading more tracks using the improved sound chip in the coming days, so please look forward to them! Thank you very much for the comment!
@@KYLXBN about the non-linear mixing: AFAIK, the NES CPU has 2 audio output pins - one for the square wave channels and another one for everything else - so you could do the mixing (well, at least the balance between squarewaves and everything else) externally, bypassing the audio circuits on the NESs mainboard entirely I've read about a mod that does exactly that - it requires lifting those pins and running the signals on separate wires into a mixing + amplification board for cleaner sound and whatnot - but wouldn't mixing it externaly (and thus, not have one channel affect the loudness of the other channels) introduce a risk of messing the mix up? I'd like to try a similar mod because i think it would be interesting to run the square waves through something like a subtle stereo chorus or add a tiny amount of stereo delay to "widen" the sound stage and make it more interesting ... to test this, i ran the regular mono output of the NES through a stereo delay+chorus guitar pedal and found out that it could indeed add to the sound if you dial the pedal in VERY carefully ... and that the harmonics of the triangle wave can become unpleasant very easy if you twist a knob just a bit too far ... so i'd really like to only apply this processing to the square channels - as they are usually used for BGM melody while the other channels are used for SFX, BGM bass and percussion - and i usually want percussions and bass to be tight with no wishy-washy delay effects .. plus, the harmonics problem is another reason NOT to process the triangle channel.
I agree with the OP -- the triangle's harmonics have always been a signature of the NES that I've found interesting from the days of olde, as an audio-obsessed kid, through to today. I think it was a very practical decision, as a way to make an analog waveform with digital switching, but also works really well given its ideal use as a bass instrument on TVs with small speakers. The harmonics allow for a psycho-acoustic effect where you may not hear the fundamental, but you hear the harmonics, and your brain fills in the lower octaves. This will still be present with a smooth triangle (but not with a true sine), just much less so. It can indeed get whistley at higher frequencies, like the latter parts of the Metroid theme, but so be it. I've really never been a fan of the VRC's extra channels. I just find sawtooth waves to be a bit raunchy for my taste. IMO, smoothing out the aliasing didn't help -- it made it sound more like a SID. I had a C64 as a kid as well, and I always felt the SID sounded like a porcupine walking down a hallway carpeted with sandpaper. I'm not a huge FM fan, but I do agree the mixing sounds better on the "fixed" version. I guess my ears just don't agree with quantization noise on more complex waveforms, but simple waveforms benefit from the increased complexity of the overtones. Just my 2c. All in good fun. BTW, I'm not _strictly_ a purist -- I actually really enjoy modified panning, with the square waves panned L and R, and the tri, noise, and PCM down the center. :-)
I think there are lots, especially in Japan, especially with Gameboys. Sabrepulse for example. It's just a niche thing. I also remember Yuzo Koshiro playing his Streets of Rage tracks live.
@@cjnf11 Yes there are, but sadly most of them play jrpg music compilations which while nice relaxing on my couch with a j is not what I'm into. I mean the banging crazy techno and electronica PSx was known for.
For the Castlevania bit I was initially like "No way this is better smoothed out, he's being ridiculous." But in context, with all the other instruments. Wow. What an improvement.
I can say this is a HUGELY underappreciated endeavor. And yes, I'd LOVE to listen to more clean NES tracks. The result, though subtle, it's simply delightful.
I'm an avid fan of analog synthesizers, so it's interesting seeing such compressed digital waveforms scaled up into a much closer replica of analog. Back in those days, the limitations of digital soundchips were seen as an inevitable liability, but today there's a nostalgic charm to the lofi sound of old soundchips. Cool video :)
Analog synths are awesome! I am a software engineer and I have no clue on how analog circuits work, but they amaze me to no extent. I can see how having a perfect triangle or sawtooth wave would be closer to how analog synths might sound, without distinct steps and having continuous values. Thanks for your comment!
I didn't understand most of the technical aspects of what you did, but it was interesting. I feel that I appreciate the imperfections of the original sounds much more now. Thank you for sharing!
When I was a kid I noticed that weird triangle wave sound. A real triangle wave sounds better, but to me, the original one is very different from the square waves (the real triangle just sounds very similar), so it adds complexity to the music.
This is why old electric music is so interesting to me. The limitations a lot of these producers had to work around is mind boggling in today's VST and DAW time. It's actually a little crazy genres like breakbeat and trance could even exist in the 90s and sound as good as it did.
The jagged edge wave feels authentic, but the smooth edge wave feels like the pause menu variant in retro-inspired modern chiptune osts indie games haha. Like the moment you press pause it seamlessly switches to the smooth edge version. I don't remember if that's Celestey or Cadence of Hyruley, but that's the vibes it's giving me! Each tool for each job :)
It could be because they do a lowpass filter on the music when you pause, which basically muffles the volume of the high frequency harmonics (that kind of "standing outside of a club" sound)
Oddly enough, I liked the static hum from the VRC7 in that one example you showed, it added a second layer of ambience. Yes, the white noise was annoying, but the little high pitched hum accompanied was a nice little extra note. But as far as everything else goes, my fucking god, good stuff. I didn't think Demon Seed could sound any more badass than it already does and then you crank bass up to 11. What a tune. You're doing god's work.
Hello! Thanks for the comment. I personally dislike the noise from the VRC7 output, but interestingly enough, you and my father actually like it :D My father said that it sounded like the rain which added something special to the song. I personally like it either way--but this was an experiment on how much we can make old sound chips sound as flawless as possible, and I though it was an interesting result :D But with all things considered, I still kinda lean towards the original sound of the hardware, to be honest. Just as others said, the composers put that into consideration when creating the music... or not, who knows :D But I like them just how they originally sound. No complaints. As for the VRC6, I know you are speaking figuratively with "cranking the bass up to 11", but just to be clear, there are no volume adjustments made to any of the sound chips. It's just likely that the sawtooth was able to cut through the other sounds more easily due to its harsh nature, which just became harsher after becoming an actual perfect sawtooth wave :D Anyway, thank you very much again for your comment!
If you buy Lagrange Point and listen to the music while playing the cartridge, you’ll encounter that thel VRC7 has an extra noise: a relatively high pitched ringing that slowly changes in pitch over time. It will be a different pitch each time a track starts. I made a recording of the whole soundtrack through the line output of a Sharp Twin Famicom years ago and gave it to the user nensondubois who uploaded it here to RUclips. The volume at which the 2A03 and expansion audio get mixed together in the analog domain is different between different Famicom models. The pre-1986 models and the Twin Famicom have a more equal balance, and the later Famicoms with an FF logo on the front and the A.V. Famicom make the expansion audio much louder. It seems from various official soundtrack releases by Nintendo and other companies featuring music with expansion audio that the behavior of the later models is what became the preferred behavior, as you might expect since those were what the contemporarily-produced Famicoms sounded like. The official Konami Lagrange Point soundtrack CD from the time is that way as well, but I prefer the balance of the earlier models for that soundtrack, so that’s why I used the Twin Famicom for my recording. It’s on a game by game basis, really. Like I like Metroid on the older models and Zelda on the newer ones. I personally like the brighter sound of the triangle wave with the stair-stepping more. But the RF output of the Famicom tends to have a strong low-pass filtering effect, and the Twin Famicom features one as well on its line audio output, so I wonder how much smoothing of the triangle wave that would do. The NES’s line audio is less filtered, but I’m sure most people playing those games prior to the late ‘90s or so probably did it through RF as well. Not to mention the vast majority of people using their TV’s speakers rather than quality standalone ones, further obscuring treble frequencies and distortions.
I’m not gonna lie, I know absolutely nothing about any of this but i’m still so intrigued by the differences in sound chips and their methods to create music.
It would be cool if this could be added to an emulator as a setting to toggle. I love messing around with emulators and ways to throw a modern twist into them so I'd be down to play around with something like that.
@Damion Manuel I like playing retro games designed for home consoles on the go on my phone with a controller, and emulators give you that kinda portability. I'm not really much of a fan of portables like the GBA, the only one I really like is the PSP so it's nice to have the option to play SNES and PS games on the go.
@Damion Manuel maybe I'll try an FPGA SNES, though afaik they haven't made one for the PS1. Then again a vast majority of the PS1 games I play are JRPGs so lag shouldn't be an issue there. Also since you seem to have a real SNES, I have to ask if the commands for Sabin's moves from FFVI are easier to input on the real deal then in an emulator. I know it could just be my controller, I'm using an 8bitdo SN30 Pro+.
I was just about to comment this. I'd love to try out all sorts of NES games and be able to easily switch to this cleaner soundchip! I'd probably even leave it on for most of them!
I agree. I'd love to see this integrated into software emulation. There is no right way to play, and while I like my pixels chunky, I do enjoy flicker-less NES emulation and could definitely do without some of the harshest artifacts of original NES sound. Great work overall.
The thing is, the NES's triangle wave is a very nostalgic sound. It's _distinctly_ NES. As in, when you hear it, it immediately registers as "NES music". That jagged triangle wave is unique to the 2A03 and you could argue that the charm is lost if it's smoothed out. I guess it depends whether you're after the NES aesthetic or want to use the chips to their fullest potential
@@HamguyBacon It's still a unique sound, that brings back memories. Of course they didn't intend for it to be like that, and the improved is better, but I prefer both the old and new. Both have their styles and feel.
@@HamguyBacon Yes they did? The reference hardware that they listened to their songs on was the NES' sound chip WITH the triangle imperfection, they weren't working on a "perfect" sound chip and then suffering from extra artifacting after finishing their work.
Gorgeous. The keyboard solo in the outro is shiver-inducing. As a brutalist, I found nothing missing from your presentation, and encourage you to not feel outdone by editing teams; you were genuine, and that is what matters.
Just got recommended this video, I have been into 90s pinball CPU/Sound boards & repairing them, seeing the interworkings of these old simple computers is amazing, and this is a great example!
EE here -- sampling and information being what they are, I'd humbly suggest trying to smooth the corners of the sawtooth, with an exponential curve (or filter), with time constant near the [original] sample rate. The idealized-sawtooth test is extremely grating on the ears; the risetime is -- well, I didn't record it to check, but I'm assuming it's at whatever the upsampled rate is? Which, mind, might be an intentional aspect, just as the steps of the original chip might be used intentionally by composers -- and so, likely plays better in some songs than others. But other methods of filling in that missing information can be tried, and are just as valid. That's the issue here, of course; the low sample rate implies missing information, but there's no way to recover, infer or imply what is actually missing. So it's up to experiments like this, to see what works and where (i.e. for what songs). Likewise, for interpolating PCM, it's hard to say; the aliasing might be intentional -- particularly for noisy samples like cymbals. The best you can do in terms of band-limited filtering is probably sinc interpolation (i.e., brick wall filter at Fs/2). Linear interpolation is probably ineffective because, consider the impulse response, a single sample standing up above the DC level: the line interpolates from zero at the previous sample, to peak, then back to zero on the following sample. A considerable amount of energy has been cut off from the rectangular-topped sample. Some of this energy has been moved to the base (the triangle base is 2 samples wide, versus a rectangle of 1), but due to RMS, the peaks are weighted more heavily so the total energy is significantly reduced. Instead, something like a cosine, with the peak/valley aligned to adjacent samples (i.e., a Hann window), might give a fairer weighting, while smoothing the edges (reducing aliasing/harmonics beyond Fs/2). Note that any upsampling/windowing process is equivalent to simply filtering the signal, so, a convolution in time domain (the fairly trivial FIR filter), multiplication in frequency domain (FFT, mul, iFFT), or passing it through an analog (or equivalent digital, IIR) filter of similar response. We could reflect on the noise generators as well. These chips have a short period PRNG (usually LFSR I think), using relatively few bits so the samples loop fairly often. This is used for anything from rumbling, thunder and explosions (at low sample rates), to wind and cymbals. The short repeating period gives it an unexpected tonal quality, while adjusting the sample rate gives it a sort of crude adjustable lowpass point. We could consider many ways to generalize this instrument: use a higher sample rate with a longer period; use white noise (i.e. more than 1 bit per sample); use true white noise (analog samples or TRNG); variable bandlimiting instead of sample rate; and various types of filters to implement that bandlimiting (a PRBS spectrum has a sinc envelope, or others could be tried as well). Nice work, cheers!
the low sample rate of the triangle wave actually increases information, not reducing it. If you look at the FFTs of either, the "lowres" one actually has more to it than the high-res. Ultimately we're just comparing different timbres here. It's a matter of taste which one you prefer.
@@eitantal726 that sounds contradictory to Nyquist though unless you're talking about foldover frequencies. Either way... signal processing was always fun.
@@cpK054L I think they mean that the low sample rate introduces more harmonics from the corners of the steps (mentioning FFTs is drawing me to that conclusion, not necessarily that I agree btw) but yes generally if the sample rate is below the frequency of the signal you decrease information. Anyways, in the case of rather ordinary regular waveforms, you could argue that it doesn't matter much. The triangles and squares the 2A03 is trying to generate could as easily be restored simply by linear interpolation between peaks in a ramp circuit or multivibrator. It isn't quite the same as taking an analog song and digitising it then playing it back through a DAC. Compositions were generally written with the specific limitations in mind, because doing otherwise is just plain stupid. So generally there was never any "missing" information in this context. The low-resolution computer noises were your instruments. Y'all seem to have the relationship here reversed. Interestingly, had Ricoh exposed the APU channels to the board, they totally could have used analog synthesis and mixers to get a solution similar to what is in the video. It looks like their triangle channel is using an incredibly simple ladder (hence the 4bit resolution) probably driven by an internal counter ping-ponging back in forth like a sweep circuit controlled by the internal APU registers. I know the 2A03 has been depackaged and die photos are around so someone probably does know exactly whats going on inside it. Also, the inherent "filtering" of creating RF output or passing the audio through RCA and the television likely did have a softening effect on the soundgen that is absent in emulator output. If nothing else, a slightly sluggish slew rate in audio channel amplifiers would have also "smoothed" the triangle though it would have been more muddy than crisp.
@@nicolaspinto2927 I was always trying to remember about harmonics... wouldnt harmonics happen regardless if you are sampling? F(T)*cos(jwt) yields 1/2 dd(T-t) + 1/2 dd(T+t)? I dont remember much because I dont apply this to many things but the FFT of a cosine would be the dirac delta at the positive and negative frequency so if you mix it with the sample frequency you would get 4 dirac deltas, and if undersampled youd have band crossover causing an alias. I actually dont remember the fourier of a triangle...wasnt it doesnt like every third harmonic of a sine wave? Pi/X amplitude where X is the harmonic? Edit just looked it up and it is an absolute disaster.... Also I believe you were right... there should be no encoding data in these waveforms... the NES could just be using DDS removing the need for decoders if the sound waves are just being played direct to the speakers. So "aliasing" and "sample rates" dont even matter in this context.
As a "producer" I am interested in synthesis and sound in general. I guess that's how this got in my recommended. This is very interesting and kind of inspiring. I have subbed with notifications lol. Please create more things like this
Really let's you appreciate how Journey to Silius devs (and probably others) composed their music to play with the janky triangle wave in mind to make some very rich textures and harmony not present in the smoothed version. Thank you for making this video, otherwise little things like that couldn't really be appreciated
It's amazing how much creativity and tuning was involved in designing such simple devices. In comparison nowadays everything is poorly optimized and if you complain they just tell you to buy better hardware...
I would love to hear Pollyanna, Bein Friends, Paradise Line, Magicant, the battle themes and the title/credits music of Earthbound Beginnings on this revised chip. Basically the whole soundtrack
I love how even without the limitations that the musicians were working with to enhance their music, it still sounds really bloody good. Yes, a little bit of charm is lost through emulation, but for the purpose of demonstrating, this video is absolutely perfect. Massive props.
This video was a delight, through and through. I really enjoyed hearing such clean versions of songs from old memories, countless hours playing games. Truly you are doing great work.
This video is a delight and your scholarly approach shows a deep understanding of the hardware and a worthy appreciation of both what is and what could be. You earned my subscription. I salute you.
This is so interesting. As someone who has worked a lot with FamiTracker, it’s so insightful to hear what these instruments would sound like with fundamental issues removed. Almost 10 years ago, I took a 5 minute wind band piece and put it into FamiTracker-it took two instances of a custom edited file with all of the expansions playing at once and a utility I found that syncs the playback of multiple instances of FamiTracker. Of course it’s not realistic, but it was amazing to hear it all come together, especially after months of working on it. I wonder how different it would sound with these changes.
With these improvements some tracks have a DS feel more than a classical 8bit feel. It's amazing how the dirtiness and inaccuracy of the sounds it's so much a part of the feel of that generation.
Listening to "the coffee zone" again made a throwback into my mind, and I remembered why I started making VGM and my digital fusion thing. Thank you for that work, it sounds gorgeous
I love how you used music from my favorite NES game, Journey to Silius! I absolutely love that game! If I had a record player, I’d buy the soundtrack the second it went up for sale!
As a former bubblehead sonarman, I find this extremely fascinating. I've had to look at lots of waves over many decades of overlapping tech so seeing how this one works triggered not only nostalgia for the old NES but also for my old job. Subscribed, belled, thanks!
This was very delightful. Thank you for taking the time to research and improve the NES audio. I had the wrong preconception that improving upon such things would remove the soul of the machine's sound output, but I'm happy to be proven wrong - it sounds familiar and even better at the same time.
Much as I can appreciate the craftsmanship that went into the refinement and cleanliness that are the changes you've made. I like my Chiptunes to have that sense of "dirt" and texture. That said, I love experiments like this. The process of distillment and purification of sound for the hell of it gives it a sense "can-do" scientific prowess that I can't help but admire.
the video: “we have reached and surpassed 255 subscribers!” *glances at the current subscriber count* 9.7k subscribers …..yeah, that’s definitely more than 255. (for real, though-seems like you’ve met your goal of RUclips recommending this channel to more people! crazy that in just two weeks you could make such a big jump in subscriber count. congrats on the new follower base, and props to you for making such an interesting and well-executed video! no need for crazy editing when everything is showcased perfectly. i wish you luck in the future!)
Other than some of the mixing issues, I prefer the sounds of the original. A lot of the music sounds like it was composed around these so-called "imperfections". That said, it is a cool experiment to do and a nice educational video.
Fearofdark also known as Steve is a person that has truely changed my life. I originally found his song rolling down the street in my katamari from a meme about pelo back in like 2019 or so and I thought not much about it until I started listening to more of his music until his songs became embedded with core memory’s in my mind that if I even think about it his songs will definitely be there. I hope he never stops making chiptunes because god this guy is probably one of the best chiptune composers I have ever listened to. So thank you Steve, Xavi
Pure. Chiptune. Bliss. I have very sensitive hearing, and I can hear sounds up to 18.2kHz. Because of this, I tend to bias my headphones towards top-end clarity, but those hisses have always been very noticeable and almost distracting to me. Hearing The Coffee Zone without any of that extra noise had me smiling from ear to ear the whole way through! I would love to hear more classic chiptune pieces covered this way! I can't say specifically which ones, I listen to so many I can't choose >.< I know there is some debate about whether we should improve upon older media or keep the original as is without modification, whether technically inferior or not. I say that both is good, and I like the ability to choose between the original version and any remastered releases. Your channel has been a hidden gem. The ability to visualize the waveforms of each instrument/channel adds so much more fun than just listening to it, and I love how it adds to critical listening. I think your edits were very well done. Less is more, and I wasn't lost at any point of the video. I have been subbed since less than a hundred, I think, and I have been showing your visualizations to people who are curious about the kind of music I listen to. Rant over. Excellent video, excellent choice in music. 10/10 would watch again.
Hello! Wow, 18kHz! That's awesome! Best I can go is a bit short of 16kHz. Still, I consider myself an audiophile, and I can feel your concerns! Some people actually disliked The Coffee Zone without the quantization noise. My father is one of those who liked the hissing, and he said that it sounded like rain. Still, just like you said, I think that neither is better than the other! I like how smooth the noiseless version sounded like, but I also like the retro feel of the one with the original noise. You mentioned critical listening with the aid of the individual waveforms. I never thought about it before, but I think it does help! For example, many C64 tracks add a very short burst of noise on bass notes, which I only noticed after seeing the waveform. I guess it adds a bit of a percussion feel to the bass instrument, making it sound closer to a pick or slap bass, I think? Thank you very much for your support. I really appreciate it!
@@KYLXBN Yeah, I definitely agree the quantization noise is part of the NES sound. I compare it to playing 240p/480i consoles on a crt vs upscaled on a flat panel. While it is easier to distinguish pixels and colors on the modern screen, the crt blurs the picture and interpolation creates extra visual effects whether intended or not. The imperfections create character, making simple scrolling backgrounds and animating sprites feel different than on a modern display, without even taking into consideration frametimes or input lag. It is neat you include your father in your projects. Sounds like a great guy, and I don't think I would have connected the extra noise with rain. Now I want to ask my dad what he thinks, considering he grew up playing NES games!
Beautiful video. And that VRC7 part which was almost rhodes like was gorgeous. I’m a big fan of the OPL family and it’s always a treat to hear music attached to that generation.
Indeed, the people's opinion are quite varied. Some liked the VRC7 without its noisy mixer, but some preferred it with the noise--my father included. They said that it adds a retro feel to the song, which I don't deny. Personally, I like it without noise since I want to hear the tiny intricacies of even quiet notes as they fade out, but I totally respect the preference of people. What we can't change is the fact that the VRC7 has noisy mixing, and it's what makes it THE VRC7. Thanks for your comment!
Damn this is good stuff. This kind of thing could really help others who may not know about or think much of classic video game composers to gain an appreciation for what these guys were able to accomplish. Those composers had to be disciplined in music theory as well as computer science but more than that, these guys were masters of creating mood and atmosphere you couldn't get anywhere else.
I see this work and I can only imagine what a fresh sound for the GBA era of games would sound like. Golden Sun tracks in particular. This is a really interesting and scientific video and I enjoy electronic sciences. Thanks for sharing your hard work!
I am glad that you have found it entertaining. But for the record, the NES is perfect already with all its limitations and quirks. Without it, it wouldn't be the sound we grew up with :D Thanks for your support!
I'd love to see this work put in as a setting for emulators we have now! You've done an incredible job of recreating some tracks with the fixes you found.
Just wanted to say I really enjoyed this video! I've been writing chiptune in a bunch of different programs for a while and I always noticed small differences in how certain waveforms were generated, so hearing were that difference came from was pretty interesting. I've always found the extra harmonics of the triangle to give a bit of an edge to some NES tunes, but the samples used in Mega Man 9 and the examples in this video showed me that there's a place for a ton of approaches to the NES sound. Also wanted to say that the editing was super smooth and I'm super excited for more stuff like this in the future!
Hello! Yes, the NES triangle waveform's extra harmonics actually makes it easier to hear especially at lower frequencies! Removing the harmonics actually felt like stripping the NES of its identity sound, but being able to hear the difference was really interesting to me. Some songs fared well, while others sounded... different. Can't say which is better, but I believe most people including me would prefer the original sound! Still, this was a nice experiment, in my opinion. Thanks for expressing interest! I really appreciate it.
Solid work. The original sounds, quirks, and limitations are all what makes it unique. These are the sounds of my childhood and I absolutely adore them. But I always knew there were limitations and wondered how it could sound if everything was "perfect" instead. It's always great hearing covers of songs with actual instruments and such, but this is something I've always wanted to hear.
Fearofdark's music puts me back in that position of sitting in my dad's old MS-DOS computer room in the house I grew up in messing around with DOS demos listening to exciting and blissful tracker modules from them. It's eternally wonderful, and I'm glad there are people like them who preserve the various forms of music in that vein and others on Soundcloud and elsewhere online. It's real treasures. 😊
Fearofdark's music needs to be more famous. I can't believe that only people like us know about him. His music crosses the boundary and is no longer niche, even though made completely with retro sound chips. The melody, chords, basslines, all are a beauty on its own. We need more of him in this world :D
The Solstice title theme by THE Legendary Tim Follin, sounds great but I've always fantasized about what would he do if he had the additional sound channels from the Famicom Disk System. With your improvements, it will sound even better! On second thought, the white noise is actually built into the song and is used to represent the cymbal "tsshh" sound
Tim Follin is the kind of guy to make 4 channels sound like CD audio. I can't begin to imagine giving him extra channels :D Thanks for the request; it will be uploaded shortly :D
1:35 Journey to Silius Intro (Original chip) 2:44 Journey to Silius Intro (Enhanced chip) Great video! Thought I'd toss these time stamps here for easy back-to-back comparisons. Your channel has really taken off since you left that message at the end of the video about having only 1111 1111 subscribers! Congrats!
This is probably the first time I've subscribed to a channel off of one video alone, without even checking out anything else about the channel. Fascinating stuff, plus I appreciate the attitude on preservation of these sorts of things from the pinned comment.
I was hoping that my standpoint about preservation of the original sound was obvious, since I thought that every chiptune lover prefers actual sound from the hardware (that includes me) but it was dumb of me to assume that and to leave it unsaid on the video, forcing me to make a pinned comment. I do apologize if it was confusing.
Fascinating! It's interesting seeing the changes, regardless if it is "better" or not. It's interesting to hear what could have been. Removing the quantization imo is the best change made here
Usted es el némesis de la entropía mi amigo. Excelente aporte. Se nota en cada palabra y segundo del video, todo el amor a la música, a los videojuegos. Tiene mi total admiración! A vuestra merced! Un abrazo enorme!! Saludos!!!
What I love about this video is leave me with curiosity to learn more about how the early sounds design worked in these consoles. “The Coffee Zone” instantly gave me this nostalgic Gran Turismo vibe and I love it. Thank you for an awesome video!!
Honestly this video is so well made and soothing. All the comments are respectful and provide calm meaningful discussion. 10/10 for 12am destinations review.
As a synthesist first and a game purist about 8 octaves later, I absolutely love everything that you did here. I especially loved the hi-res version of Demon Seed which expressed some overtones that were overshadowed by the original aliasing.
After watching this video, I had to go listen to Journey to Silius music using the "Nosefart" plugin for winamp, no expert here, but comparing that to the video here, it appears the plugin for winamp uses the linear fixes, so the triangle channel can be heard very well. I probably need to play the game again on NES to notice the difference, never thought the plugin was "fixing" the sound/music. This video was quite informative, keep up the good work. 👍
Highly respect your audio engineering knowledge and skills! I produce hip-hop beats without really having that technical knowledge but it sure would help when I'm trying to cut a specific stem from a sample and doctor it sound as clear as possible. Keep up the excellent work! 😁
Thanks, I am glad that you appreciate it. But I have to admit that I am not a professional regarding the matter. I am a software engineer by profession, but I have come to understand some concepts due to playing around with old computers as a hobby since I was in high school.
The triangle is my personal favorite 2a03 channel. I wouldn't change it for the world. There's so much that can be creatively done with it yet it's the most limited channel out of the 8 including VRC6.
6:40 What I like about the quantization noise is it reminds me of searching for a good FM channel to fall asleep to when I was a kid. Smooth Jazz was one of the channels that I could pick up so having that "ssssssss" lingering around really brings be back to those times. It's also like listening to vinyl, it's not perfect but has more soul than the perfect recording.
The clean sound of the improved chips are amazing. So clear and pure. Would be interesting to use the old jagged waves to make the theme for the "bad guy" or "boss" during a game. Really appreciate the hard work you put into this. The music is awesome and the programming that must have gone into making it (if using a tracker) is epic. Many thanks!
This is akin to removing the hiss from cassettes or the line noise from a guitar amp…technically cleaner, but missing the mojo of the format. It turns it into something else entirely. I will say that the VRC7 improvements are much needed, as the original just sounds objectively “bad” imo. But the quantized saw and triangle waveforms on the VRC6 and 2A03, as well as those specific square wave duty cycles they chose, are what I would argue to be the “sound” of that chip and thus why it is nostalgic in the first place. I did work on a game that was to emulate a nintendo GBA and I went to great lengths to emulate (what is imho) the horrible sound of that chip. Why? Because that’s a large part of the nostalgia factor. But this is a fun exercise and I think something worth exploring of its own merit! Cheers! I forgot how good FoD is. Man that tune is fantastic and sounds so much better without all that ugly aliasing.
Wow, the sound is really nice! I have never played Castlevania, but your edit of the soundtrack from Castlevania III is so good!!! And I'm interested in listening to more music from this game. Thank you for your job!
The sine and exponent tables have a canonical formula to how they were generated but the way they are mixed would probably make it a bit bothersome to preserve timbre if the core you're basing it off of doesn't have some kinda floating point alternative Envelope Generator iirc. If you want the formulas, just look for the OPLx decapped project. From there you can modify the equations to be more suitable for 16 bit sampling instead of the 10 bit or whatever it was they had. At some point I would like to do the same thing and expand the sine tables for my own fm synth core while still being mostly compatible in timbres with existing voice parameters for the 4op OPxx chips. I believe Steve Snake already managed to do this ages ago in Kega but of course none of that is open source.
Hello, nobuyuki! Thanks for your insightful comment. I actually have the formula for the exponent and sine wave tables, but the operations that are used to manipulate the values in the table before it is mixed together uses a lot of bitwise computations. Ideally, I would use floating point operations instead of pulling the values from a table. But trying to understand how the values are transformed before it is output and implementing them using non-bitwise operations is still a bit too difficult for me. Still, it is far from impossible, and will still try to do it in the future!
Nothing about this video was roughly edited :) It was a great experience, my attentiont didn't drift away like with other videos. I personally too like the original sounds but appreciate the dedication and certainly respect the "improved" results.
The strength in this video is that you don't have a team, no team could have done it this good as you have done it. Great and entertaining video and the editing was flawless, it lifts the whole video. Do what you do! Thank you!
Honestly everything sounded perfect up until you played coffee zone. It was kind of designed with those audio flaws in mind which makes it sound a bit more disappointing played through cleaner outputs. The quantization of the fm chip makes it sound like some kind studio synth and the triangle makes a bit more of an impact to the melody with the hiss. That said, this is a really cool concept. Makes me curious what a c64 would sound like.
Hello, there! I am very glad to hear your thoughts. To make it short, honestly, I agree :D I cannot say whether Fearofdark composed the song with the audio flaws in mind (I can only say so once I ask him) but I completely agree that the added harmonics on the triangle wave (which actually makes the triangle wave much more easier to hear), and the quantization noise (which my father describes as sounding like the rain) adds something special to the mix. I personally prefer the track without quantization noise, but I cannot deny that the jagged triangle wave adds something special. All in all, actually, I prefer the original sound of the chips. That is their identity, and removing all the flaws is just like stripping them of their identity. It's what makes the VRC6 different from the 6581 (which doesn't have a jagged sawtooth wave). It's why I keep hardware recordings of the chiptune I like ;-) This was just a fun (and probably interesting!) experiment and I thought it was fun doing this. Makes me also glad that I was able to hear how they would sound like if the faults were all removed, be it for the better or worse. Thanks for your comment!
@@KYLXBN I would definitely like to hear a retro composer like Fearofdark's thoughts on this! Personally I think I prefer the cleaner, "improved" sound you've created.
IDK, it kinda sounds like a dreamcast Knuckles song with the new output. Probably not the intended vibe but definitely worth hearing, at least as an alternative.
BEFORE YOU COMMENT: Please know my stance about emulating the quirks and flaws of original hardware.
In short, I LOVE HOW THE HARDWARE ORIGINALLY SOUNDS. That's it. If I never made this experiment, I would have been recording audio straight from various hardware and saving them for my collection. I firmly believe that every hardware is unique and its individual quirks should be perfectly preserved via proper emulation, or better, lossless hardware recordings. Even if the Namco N163 sounds like crap, it's what it is, and it should sound like that.
Now, for the people who say, "[the stuff I tried to do in this video] doesn't make it better". You know what? "Better" depends on the goal of the individual. If you're trying to say that "smoothing out the triangle wave doesn't make it better", then in the perspective of recreating the sound of the original hardware, of course that's bad. But for the purposes of THIS VIDEO, whose goal is to make an experiment and hear how the NES *could* sound like if its flaws were not present, then it doesn't matter. The NES is trying to make a triangle wave. However, a triangle wave does not have steps. I merely helped the NES achieve what it was trying to achieve. And the result was interesting to hear, so I shared my findings.
I never claimed that "the NES should sound like this" or anything similar. If anything, I learned to appreciated the NES more-by fixing its flaws, I understood just how many sacrifices it had to make to even generate the sounds it can generate.
Again, for the last time, I fully support the faithful recreation of hardware audio. I hope you understand.
Feel free to continue writing your comment even if it is "you killed the NES and it will come to haunt your dreams". However, if that is the case, as writing and explaining the same thing over and over again is tiring, and there are other comments on different topics that could spark a more interesting conversation, I may not be able to reply to your comment. Please understand.
You killed the NES and it will come to haunt your dreams!
In all seriousness that was extremely fascinating, even if I didn't understand a good portion of it, haha. I absolutely love the NES and things like the VRC6 Chip I only discovered about a week ago and I was floored that the NES could output even something like that. Making the sounds even crisper is a work of art. That's some awesome stuff, really good job! I'd love to hear the Level 1 Theme of the Japanese version of Castlevania 3 with the crisper sound, that track slaps.
I hadn't seen your channel until today but I'm definitely going to keep an eye on it in the future!
I would not be against of an option for cleaner NES sound output. It is somewhat NES equal to the HD mode 7 feature in higher end SNES emulation and it has few games that can get use out of it.
Would you be willing to do these for some of the tracks of Super Mario Bros.? In particular its castle and underground themes. They seem to heavily rely on the triangle wave channels to make the most of their music. Also potentially the player miss and game over jingles.
Its so funny to think people are undermining your work only because they don't like what they hear. You've done an amazing investigation and work on this, i am truly amazed and i wish you keep at it. Congratulations.
Your effort and ones like it don't take away from the efforts to accurately emulate the original hardware. Everyone gets the best of both worlds. I don't know why people get so angry about it.
The jagged triangle wave was a product of limitted hardware capability yes, but the added bonus to that is that if the triangle were used as a bassline (which it very often was) those higher harmonics would help it to be more audible on the shoddy speakers most CRT TVs had back then. A straightup triangle would be totally lost on those in the lower registers.
Indeed! You are right :D
I'm actually listening on headphones for that reason .. my computer (Macbook Air M1) has pretty decent speakers but all 'bass' you hear is just psycho-acoustic stuff the brain makes up as it goes along .. my first computer, Atari ST, with the YM2149 chip didn't really do bass and, in reality, even the mighty SID chip doesn't really excel on bass. The beauty of these spruced up tracks is the clear and deep bass that sprung out of them - even though I sort of like the original quantisation noise on the FM chip :) I have a Yamaha DX7s which although supposedly much cleaner sounding than the original DX7 is still very noisy .. but not in an annoying way :)
Could you somehow make it do either or? Like switch it on or off.
@@croolis The Commodore SID didn't do bass well? ruclips.net/video/Ht3v0JeAaQc/видео.html (24 second intro)
@@croolis The SID can do excellent bass especially if you have the right speakers, old stuff such as Jeroen Tel's works and modern SID music such as Jammer and LMan's creations are great examples of such with plenty of bass
As a sound designer, this makes me appreciate how sounds inform composition. The pieces have a very specific character on the original chips that is missing with the improved performance - because the pieces were written to make those original chips sound as best as they could *with* the flaws.
Then you hear the newly written tune at the end, and my god those upgraded chips sound f'n goood.
Nice work!
yes!! limitations shaping the very creative process itself on older and more limited hardware/software is one of my favorite aspects of retro game art and music. its honestly beautiful to me! it reminds me of that brian eno quote about the limitations of a medium being what defines it and what will be missed and emulated once those limitations are defeated
That’s one of the reasons I love old 8bit and 16bit era game music- the character they were able to wring from those chips is great. Those old tunes lose something when they are upgraded.
How does one go about to become a sound designer? Honest question
@@igunashiodesu Buy instruments, play them a LOT. Write music a lot. Find film makers near you who need sound & music.
@@anagramsound1565 nope, thats not how, you have to be connected as with most things
"I understand this video is rough and crude"
This is one of the nicest edited videos I have seen in an extremely long time. Absolutely wonderful, visuals told what they needed to and let the music take charge.
Sounds like their passion for clean audio also extends to video :)
@@ShuckleShellAnemia Agreed! Having that beautiful song playing and an actually good scroll-speed for the text just let me relax through to the end. Greatest video editing of it's kind for sure
It's crazy how a jaggy line is what makes the NES sound so definable. It sounds like a different thing all together
I would call it interesting, instead of crazy. It could also be curious, weird, funny, strange, fascinating, etc.
Quantization noise makes me feel like I’m in a peaceful backroom.
@@muskelinsame
That's why they made the comment and not you. @@arvaneret_329
1000th like
FM synthesis is the most beautiful thing in this world to me. It's a totally unnatural sound, a sound you can never hear in nature. It's one of the few things humans have created from whole cloth, without trying to mimic or improve on nature. My favorite sound is the OPN2, but the OPLL (and VRC7 by extension) is very closely related to it. I've never heard an OPLL as clear and clean as the VRC7 in this video, though. Thanks for this.
That is a very wonderful take on FM synthesis. I never thought of it like that!
As in the pinned comment, I fully support recreating the original sound of the hardware. But I have to admit-personally, a cleaner-sounding VRC7 is really good when it comes to quiet, relaxed music. The noise is a bit distracting when you're trying to listen to the very fine details of the song.
Thanks for your support!
One of the biggest reasons why I love the Sega Genesis.
Not exactly disagreeing here, but one of the major draws of FM synthesis was it's ability to very faithfully reproduce a number of real world instruments like pianos, guitar plucks, bells, etc. that subtractive synthesis could not. However, I agree that, if taken to its extremes, FM synthesis becomes very alien indeed.
@@soviut303 You''re absolutely right of course; it was created to mimic real-world sounds. It just happens to be able to do something altogether unnatural, which I think is fantastic.
@@soviut303 I agree with you wholeheartedly, furthermore when taken to extremes... ANY natural sound becomes completely alien. In fact, there are sounds in the world we have not heard yet that would be completely alien to us.
"The Coffee Zone" sounds so good. It's hard to believe something based on the NES soundchip could sound so clean!
It's the magic of FearofDark being at work here!
Check out his his other stuff man, he goes crazy with his chiptune.
Rolling down the street in my katamari being my favourite
I thought it sounded like a smooth otamatone. I've never heard any of the other songs, but I'm impressed nonetheless.
IT DOES SOUND SO GOOD! I'm addicted, this is a beautiful masterpiece
@@DanielPlok Have you heard Fast City yet? That one is my favorite; the climax at 3:30 with the transition shortly after is magical.
It goes so hard.
Classic games were an artform. I'm sure most people like me really don't appreciate them until we see them broken down and how purposeful every bit of information had to be.
Even modern chiptune IS an artform :D The imperfections make them the way they are :D
amazing what teams of artists and engineers could do with such small space to work with. Art under a few megabites, even kilobites!
@@FlatThumb I know right?!? And the crunching they had to do to make larger files compressed enough to fit in the limited game cartridge size, phew!
If you want to see another example of this, check out Modern Vintage Gamer's videos on the Game Boy & Game Boy Colour's graphics systems. They had to do some crazy shit to get what they wanted to work.
Wise words right there. I couldn't have said it better (mainly because I probably wouldn't have said anything at all).
Honestly I like this style of editing. Subtle, toned down, focused, but informative, and relaxing with the finished product playing on the background. No excessive "try hard" stylization or special effects, and reading your descriptions instead of having them spoken to me allowed me to digest the information better. Thank you
I don't agree with his thesis but the presentation is well done
This editing style reminded me of WhoIsThisGit. They cover older games in some of their series like "Creepy Bad Endings"
ind
I also like the fact that there is music in the bg
It's so cool seeing the limitations of these different sound chips, and then hearing them without those limitations! Crazy that this video was just uploaded today, I was just trying to find some info on the NES's sound chip and instead I found this super cool experiment. I'd love to see more information on how exactly you did the interpolation for the triangle and sawtooth waves, and maybe even a breakdown of some of the code! I'd also love to hear Dr Wily's Castle from Mega Man 2, and the Fire Emblem theme. Can't wait to see more videos by you!
Hello! Thank you very much for your comment. I have been very interested with NES audio ever since I was a teen, and I have been wanting to do this since two months ago.
This is actually a modified NSFPlay. Everytime the NES CPU sets the frequency of the triangle wave, I set a counter for how long it takes to complete a whole cycle of the waveform, and based on that an a counter (which has 32-bits precision, meaning a smooth waveform can be generated), a linear interpolation code generates what value should be output at the time. This is exactly how I also approached the VRC6's sawtooth wave.
I will be very glad to upload Dr. Willy's Castle (is that the second Dr. Wily stage?) and Fire Emblem. Expect it in the coming days :)
Thanks!
@@KYLXBN That makes a lot of sense, thanks for the reply! Sounds somewhat similar to how I implemented waveform synthesis in my programming class last year. I've always appreciated electronics but it wasn't until recently that I really understood how amazing they are. The clever tricks they used back then are absolutely inspiring. This video definitely makes me want to try to make a synthesizer with one of the arduinos I have laying around.
I'm not sure which stage Dr Wily's castle is from (I've never actually played Mega Man II, or even the original Fire Emblem lol) but it's this banger: ruclips.net/video/WJRoRt155mA/видео.html
@@KYLXBN you are brilliant
Pretty cool! Reminds me of how you can use a Roland MT-32 with various DOS games to get incredible sound that feels borderline orchestral.
Yes decimals!
If I remember correctly, at Westwood Studios, the Roland MT-32 was what they actually composed the music on. So while their games contained converted/rearranged music files for a whole range of sound cards, playing it on MT-32 would give the 100% original version.
MT-32 used a method called LA synthesis , which allows the synth to combine digital samples with analog waveforms
I never got to experience any advanced roland cards on any dos games... when I finally heard some of them on youtube, they didn't sound right to me, I preferred the adlib/'sb versions :-)
@@Uhfgood Ha, same. Nostalgia is a powerful thing.
I would love to see an option to toggle this on in emulators or trackers as an "enhanced" or "hi-res" option for people to see how it changes the music in real time. Especially on something like the FPGA clones that exist these days.
i came here to say the exact same thing. i would love an audio mod that had this option.
Yes, I am thinking of MAME
was going to comment this myself
@@CaelThunderwing Same.
#misterfpga needs this
for people wondering the name of each tune here:
0:00 super mario bros. 3 - water world, or, world 3 map;
0:51 fearofdark - rain dance;
1:35 journey to silius - intro screen;
3:31 akumajou densetsu - déjà vu;
4:24 akumajou densetsu - demon seed;
5:14 lagrange point - within the deep darkness;
5:44 fearofdark - the coffee zone.
Thanks dude!!
I thought 0:00 was great fairy fountain
Thanks bro
@@burhanuddinhaider It sounds like both to me and now I can't decide which one it is. Maybe it is partially both of they inspired each other
@@willwunsche6940 oh actually this is the water land theme, this is what inspired the creation of the great fairy fountain music
It should be noted that composers of the time tended to be aware of these limitations, and often relied on said quirks to achieve interesting effects: the stepped triangle wave has a shimmering quality to it which can enhance a track's liveliness, or even used to ominous effect in Journey to Silius, where the sounds acquire sort of a sci-fi vibe that is a bit choked out when cleaned. The last track, The Coffee Zone, also benefits greatly from the quantization noise, which makes it sound like there's a drummer playing brushes throughout the song; it speaks more of "jazz band in a seedy bar" to me that way.
On another note, this topic reminds me of any debate where technology limitations make anything fuzzier and warmer: vinyl vs CD; CRT vs LCD; valves vs transistors and so on and so forth. There's just an aura of maybe nostalgia to any technology which degrades an otherwise pristine source signal, and stripping them down to their essence to be revealed as generated invariably makes them feel aseptic. You just can't substitute for said "loss in translation", to the extent of actively trying to replicate these flaws that were once perceived as undesirable.
First
Yeah distortions like that have been a thing for a while - distorted guitars notably being big in rock and related. But even back then old compositions for sound chips and MIDI relied on the sound they actually had
@@badbeardbill9956 Exactly. That is the reason I mentioned the valves VS transistors debacle: it is absolutely possible to make great sounding solid state guitar amps nowadays, in fact there is a whole market for them. I like both, personally, because they have different characteristics that work well in their respective genres. And sure, you could build a clone of a vintage Fender amp and swap out any part you'd like, but any change done to its sound signature cannot be considered an improvement, because every element contributes to creating its identity. That's the issue at hand here: this fellow cannot claim to have created the "perfect" NES sound, because that spot is already taken by the original design. As a matter of fact, whenever emulators struggle in recreating a 1:1 sound print of the original systems, it is tendentially because an emulation often fails to recreate the little imperfections which made the original design special (especially egregious with OPL-based sound systems, which are dependent on so many more elements to work their magic).
@@BeastOfSoda vacuum tubes are objectively better for translating the true sounds of the instrument because they're more perfect. Analog systems beat digital for sound reproduction.
An absolutely perfect 16 inch record would sound *cleaner* than CD audio, though not by much.
You can't physically tell the difference between 99% of decent 16 or 12 inch record and CD though, if you can then your track is worn or dirty(or your player is fucked).
@@vyor8837 Eehhh... not quite. That's a subjective topic which has been going on ever since transistors were invented, and there is no clear winner there as long as the components are not brought beyond their physical limits; but I will not argue that, because we were making a slightly different point.
We were talking about transistors VS valves in the specific application of guitar amplifiers. I mentioned earlier that transistors and amps do not sound that different, as long as the signal passing through them does not exceed their rating, which is normally what you want in a hi-fi or somesuch; but with amps, those specs are routinely stressed, like when you're cranking the gain to intentionally overdrive or distort the signal.
When you're saturating valves and transistors in such a way, the sound is getting mangled in both cases, but these components behave very differently: with transistors, the signal usually gets clipped past a certain point, while with valves it breaks down and frays in a different manner, which sounds warmer and less "screechy" than with transistors. Which is a similar thing to what happens on vintage consoles, with their "imperfect" components that alter the sound in a less than ideal, but beautifully iconic way. Change any of that with an audibly different part (for better or for worse), and you've butchered the original sound.
Man a channel like this has only existed and survived in the old day of youtube. The fact were being treated this well by whom ever this is, is a blessing of fresh air and a trip back down memory lane into the better days of the RUclips. 2006-2012 GOLDEN YEARS!
I am really sad that RUclipsrs have to resort to clickbaiting, thumbnails with overreacting faces, "like the video, subscribe, click the notification bell, and comment!!!", among other things...
I miss the internet
not really, just depends on who you follow
@@KYLXBN The fact that they think they have to tell us that subscribing and commenting are a thing is really irritating
@@Brucer42O I miss Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism.
Even with the initial knee jerk "but the imperfections make it better!" reaction, I am absolutely floored by the resulting work. I'm a YM2612 guy at heart, but the sheer versatility of the Nintendo sound processors always catches me off guard. Amazing work, you have a new subscriber!!
Agreed, I love making stuff for the Mega Drive but these chips are so beautiful in their own right. If there's one thing to take away, Yamaha knows their stuff.
I really appreciated this. I am a 57 year old, life long video game player, software engineer, synthesizer fan, hobbiest creator of electronic music, and lover of many of the old video game sounds. Nostalgia :) Of course there's a charm to the flaws of the sound generators in old electronics. But that doesn't mean someone can't improve on them if they like. I think there's enough room in the world for different approaches to the "old 8-bit music." I even attended this amazing video game concert once, featuring an orchestra, and other instruments. And of course, music from games like Zelda is being played in countless ways on youtube, and why not?
I've never played in a NES but I really love the "chiptune" songs, originally made from chip limitations, but now is an entire music style (just like "pixel art", originally from hardware limitations, is now an art style).
I still actually love (and prefer) the sound of original, unmodified hardware. I'll be honest and say that I dislike songs that claim to be "8-bit" but are made in FL Studio with 25 channels and high quality drum samples.
@@KYLXBN MSSIAH? :)
@@KYLXBN I’m thinking about getting into producing chiptune. Is there a good software specifically for creating 8bit tracks? I’m a big Ableton user but you’re right it does seem to take away from the authenticity of these tracks
@@KYLXBN honestly I just go to Beepbox and use 3-4 channels, I mostly skipped one of them because I never knew the triangle was better for the basslines, but now I know, and I shall use this knowledge!
@@ghostplayermusic famitracker, famistudio or Lsdj. They'll all take a while to get used to, but it's worth it. Famistudio is the most like a DAW in terms of interface
In 6 months you went from 255 to 24.6k subscribers, that in it self shows the hidden community that you stumbled into and helped create. I love what you’ve done and brought me back to a forgotten style of music which I am grateful to be introduced to again. Thank you, and I hope you find more fun in doing this now than ever as your community grows.
Integer overflow!!!!!!!
32.7k subs 4 months after that.
@@hanstheexplorer Guy still didn't overflow a 16 bit integer though.
32768?
34.5K a year later
I am thankful to RUclips for recommending this
It was fun to see how NES tried to achieve and how you envisioned it.
Count me in on the RUclips bandwagon for amazing 8-bit music by the enthusiasts.
Just the channel I have been looking out for.
I love the video but it cant say “how it supposed to sound”
The composers were actually using the limitations to get the specific vibe, feel and even some arrangements… the original sound is what it is supposed to sound like. Better tech cant beat composers choices within the limitation of their era
@@heitorcornelius yes, although i dont think he meant that it should have been this way.
its still a really interesting idea and important to look past that fact specifically for this video. i agree that the music was meant to sound like it was originally, so i feel like this should be treated as just a fun little experiment.
i do agree some of the wording could have been better though. it is 100% true that old music was meant to be played on old hardware/physical media/instruments.
“what the NES tried to do” could be changed to “how the NES and its music producers made an imperfect sound chip better than perfect”,
“my upgraded chip” replaced with “my modified chip” etc, etc,
@@sealwheel "although i dont think he meant that it should have been this way." well, not so sure about this... his entire argument and words used, seems to supports the contrary of what you're saying.
Anyway... I still think the video was awesome, as I mentioned.
@@heitorcornelius yeah, the person who made the video DID put a response in the comments section though
I’ve seen a lot of people arguing about how the composers used the inaccuracies with their equipment to their advantage, and something similar happened with plasma screens and old TVs. Lots of sprites from back then look loads better when on the screens they were designed for with the color fuzz and gaps in pixels. In some of the Sonic games they used the TV screen to take a unicolor waterfall sprite and when displayed on a TV, it got these even vertical lines of different shades of blue.
not only that, but you only got the effect from the fuzzy, but most common composite video and wouldnt from the cleaner but pretty rare scart/component. devs really thought about their playerbase with these sorts of things
Yeah a lot of artists used the deficiencies to artistic effect, turning the downsides into advantages.
So things like this will make the songs sound inauthentic.
But you know what, just listen to them how you want, you're the one listening to it not them.
@@kargaroc386 great point!
Plasma screens were notorious for ruining the look of standard definition content like the NES... Same with LCD and LED displays that followed a few years later.
This feels like the audio equivalent of turning old animations into 60 fps ones with interpolation software. It's interesting to see the end result, but it's also interesting to see how clearly the original animators (or the original sound designers) clearly knew and could take advantage of their limitations. Just like how making an old Disney movie 60 fps might make it seem smoother, but lose some of the original animation's timing, this makes the original games' audio much cleaner, but it loses the original's actual sound.
I do prefer the originals, both ways, but this is really cool. And it always makes me wonder what new songs would sound like if they were played on these old sound chips.
I agree with your sentiments :D It is interesting, but in the end, what will remain in the archives is the original one. I prefer the originals, too!
It's extremely interesting. A lot of people, myself included, pursue "perfection", when it comes to audio. Whether that be a "cleaner" mix, higher quality samples, or in this case, more smooth and less jagged waveforms. However, everyone's perfect is different, and all of these different sounds are nothing more than sounds, they just exist and have different properties. There are advantages and disadvantages to each, and the goal in music is not to be obsessed with cleanliness and orderliness but rather to take each sound as it is and do what sounds best with it!!!
I agree that the original audio is original but I don't think it's fair to compare this hardware modification to 60 fps AI interpolation, because when making extra frames, the AI is taking lots of mild guesses. While in this experiment here (If I understood correctly) the uploader modified the hardware to take already existing data and output it in another way. Obviously the developers (or should I say the composers) intended for the original audio to sound the way it does on the original hardware, but I doubt that they were always happy about the way they had to make their music sound because of the limitations they had to work with. Whether making the jagged curves and lines smooth sounds better is really subjective, since when they are jagged they give a song this nostalgic charm that old consoles with this limited hardware had. But I think that most of us can agree that relaxing music without the extra noise does sound quite better and well, relaxing. So well, it's up to taste, but I believe that this experiment did make many things sound better.
hehe also it is interesting on how programmers had to work with those huge limitations. In the coding aspect, there were insane tricks of self generating code. Nowadays we see those tricks on programs containing 10 mins of music & 3D animations in FullHD, all packed in 64KB of code (the DemoScene guys do that).
@@gusstavv Some of the stuff made can get very creative, using Page0 memory, full fast 3D on hardware that has no business running it, SID on the Atari ST where there is no chip for it. Some of these people are great nowadays. I wonder what would have been if they had been around in the heydays of these systems.
While the smoother sound from the fixed triangle wave sounds cleaner, I prefer the retro, imperfect feel of the stepped triangle wave. Great video!
Yeah its much better.
We all do, really :D
@@KYLXBN Nah man I like the new one...
@@KYLXBN and I'm nearing 30 and have owned a SNES since childhood
@@poiu477 well that's probably why you like the the new one better. Snes is softer toned than NES.
I wish I could learn how to make chiptune music like this. It's just such an amazing fusion of musical, programing, and hardware knowledge.
You should get the guys at the MiSTer FPGA forum to include this in the NES core!
How is it going? Have u learnt anything yet? I’d also like to learn
Just dive in. It's not hard to start learning chiptune since it's a genre defined by limitations
@@rorz999 dive in how? I’ve downloaded bosca ceoil. Now what? What do I do?? I can spend hours clicking random icons and it won’t sound nice
Although some of these fixes were very cool, I find that the NES triangle wave works better with bitcrushing. It just has a much crunchier, agressive sound that I think makes it work exceptionally well as a bass instrument. I would have never been able to think of the bitcrushing as a bad thing. I will admit tho, at high pitches some of the harmonics in the 2A03's triangle can become quite annoying. If there was a way to filter or EQ it while keeping it 4 bit, that would be a dream. The VRC6 saw harmonics CAN be specially annoying since they are very dissonant and audible at regular low pitches; but in a full song, they are always going to be masked by other instruments so it's not that big a deal.
Fixing non linear mixing is also good but, and since so many NES soundtracks are well thought around it, it would probably work just in certain ocassions. Idk though, I should probably take a listen to many of your fixed soundtracks to actually tell.
Over all, really cool content! I'd love to see more in-depth chiptune analysis like this on RUclips. The only other people doing similar work in the Internet as far as I'm aware are Bucky and Patrick from Retro Game Audio.
Hello! Thanks for telling me your thoughts!
I actually agree! The NES triangle sounds too quiet without the harmonics, and the harmonics actually help make the bass notes more noticeable. That is the case in most if not all songs.
The VRC6 saw, on the other hand, I actually dislike... It is has less bits (3) than the NES triangle wave (4), and it sounds so bad with really audible harmonics... You are right that it gets masked with the other channels in a full song, but it can be heard when the other channels are not playing. I'd really rather have it without its extra harmonics 😅
As for the non-linear mixing, yes, I think that's true. Many programmers will have adjusted volume levels to mix the song better. Still, in a perfect world, channels should mix linearly, so I tried to force linear mixing. I will be uploading more tracks using the improved sound chip in the coming days, so please look forward to them!
Thank you very much for the comment!
@@KYLXBN about the non-linear mixing: AFAIK, the NES CPU has 2 audio output pins - one for the square wave channels and another one for everything else - so you could do the mixing (well, at least the balance between squarewaves and everything else) externally, bypassing the audio circuits on the NESs mainboard entirely
I've read about a mod that does exactly that - it requires lifting those pins and running the signals on separate wires into a mixing + amplification board for cleaner sound and whatnot - but wouldn't mixing it externaly (and thus, not have one channel affect the loudness of the other channels) introduce a risk of messing the mix up?
I'd like to try a similar mod because i think it would be interesting to run the square waves through something like a subtle stereo chorus or add a tiny amount of stereo delay to "widen" the sound stage and make it more interesting ...
to test this, i ran the regular mono output of the NES through a stereo delay+chorus guitar pedal and found out that it could indeed add to the sound if you dial the pedal in VERY carefully ... and that the harmonics of the triangle wave can become unpleasant very easy if you twist a knob just a bit too far ...
so i'd really like to only apply this processing to the square channels - as they are usually used for BGM melody while the other channels are used for SFX, BGM bass and percussion - and i usually want percussions and bass to be tight with no wishy-washy delay effects .. plus, the harmonics problem is another reason NOT to process the triangle channel.
I agree with the OP -- the triangle's harmonics have always been a signature of the NES that I've found interesting from the days of olde, as an audio-obsessed kid, through to today. I think it was a very practical decision, as a way to make an analog waveform with digital switching, but also works really well given its ideal use as a bass instrument on TVs with small speakers. The harmonics allow for a psycho-acoustic effect where you may not hear the fundamental, but you hear the harmonics, and your brain fills in the lower octaves. This will still be present with a smooth triangle (but not with a true sine), just much less so.
It can indeed get whistley at higher frequencies, like the latter parts of the Metroid theme, but so be it.
I've really never been a fan of the VRC's extra channels. I just find sawtooth waves to be a bit raunchy for my taste. IMO, smoothing out the aliasing didn't help -- it made it sound more like a SID. I had a C64 as a kid as well, and I always felt the SID sounded like a porcupine walking down a hallway carpeted with sandpaper.
I'm not a huge FM fan, but I do agree the mixing sounds better on the "fixed" version. I guess my ears just don't agree with quantization noise on more complex waveforms, but simple waveforms benefit from the increased complexity of the overtones.
Just my 2c. All in good fun.
BTW, I'm not _strictly_ a purist -- I actually really enjoy modified panning, with the square waves panned L and R, and the tri, noise, and PCM down the center. :-)
A side benefit of the triangle's steps is audibility of low notes on a small TV speaker of the day. They are a many octaves up.
Man if only there were a modern dj who did entire retro chiptunes sets. This is beautiful, unique and so nostalgic.
Binärpilot
I think there are lots, especially in Japan, especially with Gameboys. Sabrepulse for example. It's just a niche thing.
I also remember Yuzo Koshiro playing his Streets of Rage tracks live.
@@cjnf11 Yes there are, but sadly most of them play jrpg music compilations which while nice relaxing on my couch with a j is not what I'm into. I mean the banging crazy techno and electronica PSx was known for.
Anamanaguchi?
Jahtari
For the Castlevania bit I was initially like "No way this is better smoothed out, he's being ridiculous."
But in context, with all the other instruments. Wow. What an improvement.
A perfect sine wave is actually a bit painful to the ears, I have to admit that.
Yeah, Imagine trying to sleep with a loud 2500hz playing.
@@cyanisnicelol hehe tinnitus go brr
Dude that FM synthesis song at the end is divine. I had no idea the NES was so capable of this great sound.
You mean the track "Coffee Zone"?
@kovy6447 yes!
@@bub777 NO WAY it's just the NES, the NES in the track you mentioned was accompanied by other sound chips like the PAL MD/GENESIS for example.
@@45hindi theres a chip (VR6 as i remember) in the cartridge
I can say this is a HUGELY underappreciated endeavor.
And yes, I'd LOVE to listen to more clean NES tracks.
The result, though subtle, it's simply delightful.
I'm an avid fan of analog synthesizers, so it's interesting seeing such compressed digital waveforms scaled up into a much closer replica of analog. Back in those days, the limitations of digital soundchips were seen as an inevitable liability, but today there's a nostalgic charm to the lofi sound of old soundchips. Cool video :)
Analog synths are awesome! I am a software engineer and I have no clue on how analog circuits work, but they amaze me to no extent. I can see how having a perfect triangle or sawtooth wave would be closer to how analog synths might sound, without distinct steps and having continuous values.
Thanks for your comment!
i personally like the sound of the old triangle wave. i'd imagine that a lot of nes music was designed around its strange sound.
We all do, really :D
It sounds authentic and not perfect that's why I like it best for the first example, but not for the second example
Right there with ya, baby.
Nope
Some songs are impossible to smooth, like M.U.L.E for instance. That song still slaps two decades later.
I didn't understand most of the technical aspects of what you did, but it was interesting. I feel that I appreciate the imperfections of the original sounds much more now. Thank you for sharing!
For those wondering, 0:52 is the bass line of the song "Rain Dance" by Fearofdark :)
Fearofdark is my favorite chiptune artist! His song “The Coffee Zone” is used in this video as well.
@@notjames2121 cuz ur a weeb brah
Sweet thanks
When I was a kid I noticed that weird triangle wave sound. A real triangle wave sounds better, but to me, the original one is very different from the square waves (the real triangle just sounds very similar), so it adds complexity to the music.
And it is literally adding complexity - that aliasing (the staircase look) is actually adding harmonics and is a more complex waveform.
This is why old electric music is so interesting to me. The limitations a lot of these producers had to work around is mind boggling in today's VST and DAW time. It's actually a little crazy genres like breakbeat and trance could even exist in the 90s and sound as good as it did.
I think this is a clear example that “perfect” is not always better. I actually enjoy much better the roughness of the originals.
The original is more gritty, which fits some games better
Agree 100%
I agree, but The Coffee Zone is better this way
Facts lol ha ha😅😅😊😊😊😊❤❤❤❤
But that was going thru an analog TV
The jagged edge wave feels authentic, but the smooth edge wave feels like the pause menu variant in retro-inspired modern chiptune osts indie games haha. Like the moment you press pause it seamlessly switches to the smooth edge version. I don't remember if that's Celestey or Cadence of Hyruley, but that's the vibes it's giving me! Each tool for each job :)
its Candice of Hyrule
yeah celeste doesn't have specific pause music
It could be because they do a lowpass filter on the music when you pause, which basically muffles the volume of the high frequency harmonics (that kind of "standing outside of a club" sound)
Hearing the triangle wave as a proper triangle made me feel at rest, like I was finally able to relax.
Oddly enough, I liked the static hum from the VRC7 in that one example you showed, it added a second layer of ambience. Yes, the white noise was annoying, but the little high pitched hum accompanied was a nice little extra note.
But as far as everything else goes, my fucking god, good stuff. I didn't think Demon Seed could sound any more badass than it already does and then you crank bass up to 11. What a tune. You're doing god's work.
Hello! Thanks for the comment. I personally dislike the noise from the VRC7 output, but interestingly enough, you and my father actually like it :D My father said that it sounded like the rain which added something special to the song. I personally like it either way--but this was an experiment on how much we can make old sound chips sound as flawless as possible, and I though it was an interesting result :D But with all things considered, I still kinda lean towards the original sound of the hardware, to be honest. Just as others said, the composers put that into consideration when creating the music... or not, who knows :D But I like them just how they originally sound. No complaints.
As for the VRC6, I know you are speaking figuratively with "cranking the bass up to 11", but just to be clear, there are no volume adjustments made to any of the sound chips. It's just likely that the sawtooth was able to cut through the other sounds more easily due to its harsh nature, which just became harsher after becoming an actual perfect sawtooth wave :D
Anyway, thank you very much again for your comment!
If you buy Lagrange Point and listen to the music while playing the cartridge, you’ll encounter that thel VRC7 has an extra noise: a relatively high pitched ringing that slowly changes in pitch over time. It will be a different pitch each time a track starts. I made a recording of the whole soundtrack through the line output of a Sharp Twin Famicom years ago and gave it to the user nensondubois who uploaded it here to RUclips.
The volume at which the 2A03 and expansion audio get mixed together in the analog domain is different between different Famicom models. The pre-1986 models and the Twin Famicom have a more equal balance, and the later Famicoms with an FF logo on the front and the A.V. Famicom make the expansion audio much louder. It seems from various official soundtrack releases by Nintendo and other companies featuring music with expansion audio that the behavior of the later models is what became the preferred behavior, as you might expect since those were what the contemporarily-produced Famicoms sounded like. The official Konami Lagrange Point soundtrack CD from the time is that way as well, but I prefer the balance of the earlier models for that soundtrack, so that’s why I used the Twin Famicom for my recording. It’s on a game by game basis, really. Like I like Metroid on the older models and Zelda on the newer ones.
I personally like the brighter sound of the triangle wave with the stair-stepping more. But the RF output of the Famicom tends to have a strong low-pass filtering effect, and the Twin Famicom features one as well on its line audio output, so I wonder how much smoothing of the triangle wave that would do. The NES’s line audio is less filtered, but I’m sure most people playing those games prior to the late ‘90s or so probably did it through RF as well. Not to mention the vast majority of people using their TV’s speakers rather than quality standalone ones, further obscuring treble frequencies and distortions.
i liked the quantization noise more too. it added a sound scape. kind of like the noise of a vinyl record.
The noise actually sounded a bit like the Mega Drive's ladder effect on Model 1 consoles, so I automatically preferred that.
@@solarflare9078 what is the "ladder effect"?
I’m not gonna lie, I know absolutely nothing about any of this but i’m still so intrigued by the differences in sound chips and their methods to create music.
It would be cool if this could be added to an emulator as a setting to toggle. I love messing around with emulators and ways to throw a modern twist into them so I'd be down to play around with something like that.
@Damion Manuel I like playing retro games designed for home consoles on the go on my phone with a controller, and emulators give you that kinda portability. I'm not really much of a fan of portables like the GBA, the only one I really like is the PSP so it's nice to have the option to play SNES and PS games on the go.
@Damion Manuel maybe I'll try an FPGA SNES, though afaik they haven't made one for the PS1. Then again a vast majority of the PS1 games I play are JRPGs so lag shouldn't be an issue there.
Also since you seem to have a real SNES, I have to ask if the commands for Sabin's moves from FFVI are easier to input on the real deal then in an emulator. I know it could just be my controller, I'm using an 8bitdo SN30 Pro+.
I was just about to comment this. I'd love to try out all sorts of NES games and be able to easily switch to this cleaner soundchip! I'd probably even leave it on for most of them!
I agree. I'd love to see this integrated into software emulation. There is no right way to play, and while I like my pixels chunky, I do enjoy flicker-less NES emulation and could definitely do without some of the harshest artifacts of original NES sound. Great work overall.
The thing is, the NES's triangle wave is a very nostalgic sound. It's _distinctly_ NES. As in, when you hear it, it immediately registers as "NES music". That jagged triangle wave is unique to the 2A03 and you could argue that the charm is lost if it's smoothed out. I guess it depends whether you're after the NES aesthetic or want to use the chips to their fullest potential
The sound designers never intended it to sound that way, nostalgia is something that you remember from a long time ago.
@@HamguyBacon It's still a unique sound, that brings back memories. Of course they didn't intend for it to be like that, and the improved is better, but I prefer both the old and new. Both have their styles and feel.
@@HamguyBacon Who cares what it was intended to sound like, its nostalgic because it DID sound like it, Sherlock.
@@NeonAstralOfficial its nostalgic because you believe it sounded like that not because it did.
@@HamguyBacon Yes they did? The reference hardware that they listened to their songs on was the NES' sound chip WITH the triangle imperfection, they weren't working on a "perfect" sound chip and then suffering from extra artifacting after finishing their work.
Gorgeous. The keyboard solo in the outro is shiver-inducing. As a brutalist, I found nothing missing from your presentation, and encourage you to not feel outdone by editing teams; you were genuine, and that is what matters.
Thank you very much!
I agree wholeheartedly
Just got recommended this video, I have been into 90s pinball CPU/Sound boards & repairing them, seeing the interworkings of these old simple computers is amazing, and this is a great example!
EE here -- sampling and information being what they are, I'd humbly suggest trying to smooth the corners of the sawtooth, with an exponential curve (or filter), with time constant near the [original] sample rate. The idealized-sawtooth test is extremely grating on the ears; the risetime is -- well, I didn't record it to check, but I'm assuming it's at whatever the upsampled rate is? Which, mind, might be an intentional aspect, just as the steps of the original chip might be used intentionally by composers -- and so, likely plays better in some songs than others. But other methods of filling in that missing information can be tried, and are just as valid.
That's the issue here, of course; the low sample rate implies missing information, but there's no way to recover, infer or imply what is actually missing. So it's up to experiments like this, to see what works and where (i.e. for what songs).
Likewise, for interpolating PCM, it's hard to say; the aliasing might be intentional -- particularly for noisy samples like cymbals. The best you can do in terms of band-limited filtering is probably sinc interpolation (i.e., brick wall filter at Fs/2). Linear interpolation is probably ineffective because, consider the impulse response, a single sample standing up above the DC level: the line interpolates from zero at the previous sample, to peak, then back to zero on the following sample. A considerable amount of energy has been cut off from the rectangular-topped sample. Some of this energy has been moved to the base (the triangle base is 2 samples wide, versus a rectangle of 1), but due to RMS, the peaks are weighted more heavily so the total energy is significantly reduced. Instead, something like a cosine, with the peak/valley aligned to adjacent samples (i.e., a Hann window), might give a fairer weighting, while smoothing the edges (reducing aliasing/harmonics beyond Fs/2).
Note that any upsampling/windowing process is equivalent to simply filtering the signal, so, a convolution in time domain (the fairly trivial FIR filter), multiplication in frequency domain (FFT, mul, iFFT), or passing it through an analog (or equivalent digital, IIR) filter of similar response.
We could reflect on the noise generators as well. These chips have a short period PRNG (usually LFSR I think), using relatively few bits so the samples loop fairly often. This is used for anything from rumbling, thunder and explosions (at low sample rates), to wind and cymbals. The short repeating period gives it an unexpected tonal quality, while adjusting the sample rate gives it a sort of crude adjustable lowpass point. We could consider many ways to generalize this instrument: use a higher sample rate with a longer period; use white noise (i.e. more than 1 bit per sample); use true white noise (analog samples or TRNG); variable bandlimiting instead of sample rate; and various types of filters to implement that bandlimiting (a PRBS spectrum has a sinc envelope, or others could be tried as well).
Nice work, cheers!
the low sample rate of the triangle wave actually increases information, not reducing it. If you look at the FFTs of either, the "lowres" one actually has more to it than the high-res. Ultimately we're just comparing different timbres here. It's a matter of taste which one you prefer.
@@eitantal726 that sounds contradictory to Nyquist though unless you're talking about foldover frequencies.
Either way... signal processing was always fun.
@@cpK054L The extra information comes from choice of interpolation: nearest neighbor. (and not from the lower sample rate by itself)
@@cpK054L I think they mean that the low sample rate introduces more harmonics from the corners of the steps (mentioning FFTs is drawing me to that conclusion, not necessarily that I agree btw) but yes generally if the sample rate is below the frequency of the signal you decrease information.
Anyways, in the case of rather ordinary regular waveforms, you could argue that it doesn't matter much. The triangles and squares the 2A03 is trying to generate could as easily be restored simply by linear interpolation between peaks in a ramp circuit or multivibrator. It isn't quite the same as taking an analog song and digitising it then playing it back through a DAC. Compositions were generally written with the specific limitations in mind, because doing otherwise is just plain stupid. So generally there was never any "missing" information in this context. The low-resolution computer noises were your instruments. Y'all seem to have the relationship here reversed.
Interestingly, had Ricoh exposed the APU channels to the board, they totally could have used analog synthesis and mixers to get a solution similar to what is in the video. It looks like their triangle channel is using an incredibly simple ladder (hence the 4bit resolution) probably driven by an internal counter ping-ponging back in forth like a sweep circuit controlled by the internal APU registers. I know the 2A03 has been depackaged and die photos are around so someone probably does know exactly whats going on inside it. Also, the inherent "filtering" of creating RF output or passing the audio through RCA and the television likely did have a softening effect on the soundgen that is absent in emulator output. If nothing else, a slightly sluggish slew rate in audio channel amplifiers would have also "smoothed" the triangle though it would have been more muddy than crisp.
@@nicolaspinto2927 I was always trying to remember about harmonics... wouldnt harmonics happen regardless if you are sampling?
F(T)*cos(jwt) yields
1/2 dd(T-t) + 1/2 dd(T+t)? I dont remember much because I dont apply this to many things but the FFT of a cosine would be the dirac delta at the positive and negative frequency so if you mix it with the sample frequency you would get 4 dirac deltas, and if undersampled youd have band crossover causing an alias. I actually dont remember the fourier of a triangle...wasnt it doesnt like every third harmonic of a sine wave? Pi/X amplitude where X is the harmonic?
Edit just looked it up and it is an absolute disaster....
Also I believe you were right... there should be no encoding data in these waveforms... the NES could just be using DDS removing the need for decoders if the sound waves are just being played direct to the speakers. So "aliasing" and "sample rates" dont even matter in this context.
As a "producer" I am interested in synthesis and sound in general. I guess that's how this got in my recommended. This is very interesting and kind of inspiring.
I have subbed with notifications lol. Please create more things like this
Really let's you appreciate how Journey to Silius devs (and probably others) composed their music to play with the janky triangle wave in mind to make some very rich textures and harmony not present in the smoothed version. Thank you for making this video, otherwise little things like that couldn't really be appreciated
It's amazing how much creativity and tuning was involved in designing such simple devices. In comparison nowadays everything is poorly optimized and if you complain they just tell you to buy better hardware...
I would love to hear Pollyanna, Bein Friends, Paradise Line, Magicant, the battle themes and the title/credits music of Earthbound Beginnings on this revised chip. Basically the whole soundtrack
Hope he sees this because that's a great idea
Oh, I see you are a man of culture
YES PLEASE i love earthbound
Mega man 2 for me.
just call it "MOTHER" you dork. "earthbound beginnings" rolls off the tongue very poorly
I love how even without the limitations that the musicians were working with to enhance their music, it still sounds really bloody good. Yes, a little bit of charm is lost through emulation, but for the purpose of demonstrating, this video is absolutely perfect. Massive props.
This video was a delight, through and through. I really enjoyed hearing such clean versions of songs from old memories, countless hours playing games. Truly you are doing great work.
In my memory the music always sounded like the upgraded versions from the video😹. Holy crap what a low quality tunes we enjoyed with our imagination
This video is a delight and your scholarly approach shows a deep understanding of the hardware and a worthy appreciation of both what is and what could be. You earned my subscription. I salute you.
This is so interesting. As someone who has worked a lot with FamiTracker, it’s so insightful to hear what these instruments would sound like with fundamental issues removed. Almost 10 years ago, I took a 5 minute wind band piece and put it into FamiTracker-it took two instances of a custom edited file with all of the expansions playing at once and a utility I found that syncs the playback of multiple instances of FamiTracker. Of course it’s not realistic, but it was amazing to hear it all come together, especially after months of working on it. I wonder how different it would sound with these changes.
With these improvements some tracks have a DS feel more than a classical 8bit feel. It's amazing how the dirtiness and inaccuracy of the sounds it's so much a part of the feel of that generation.
The 8-bit generation was awesome! It had this distinct sound that no chip can imitate.
The imperfections are sometimes the art itself. It might be impressive to make a pure blue painting but no one is going to marvel at it.
@@KYLXBN eh famitracker sounds pretty spot on at least to a casual
Listening to "the coffee zone" again made a throwback into my mind, and I remembered why I started making VGM and my digital fusion thing.
Thank you for that work, it sounds gorgeous
I love how you used music from my favorite NES game, Journey to Silius! I absolutely love that game! If I had a record player, I’d buy the soundtrack the second it went up for sale!
As a former bubblehead sonarman, I find this extremely fascinating. I've had to look at lots of waves over many decades of overlapping tech so seeing how this one works triggered not only nostalgia for the old NES but also for my old job. Subscribed, belled, thanks!
This was very delightful. Thank you for taking the time to research and improve the NES audio. I had the wrong preconception that improving upon such things would remove the soul of the machine's sound output, but I'm happy to be proven wrong - it sounds familiar and even better at the same time.
I’m glad RUclips threw this my way. Really interesting video with some beautiful sounds and can’t wait to see what’s next from the channel 👍🏼
Thank you! More are sure to follow soon.
Much as I can appreciate the craftsmanship that went into the refinement and cleanliness that are the changes you've made. I like my Chiptunes to have that sense of "dirt" and texture. That said, I love experiments like this. The process of distillment and purification of sound for the hell of it gives it a sense "can-do" scientific prowess that I can't help but admire.
the video: “we have reached and surpassed 255 subscribers!”
*glances at the current subscriber count*
9.7k subscribers
…..yeah, that’s definitely more than 255.
(for real, though-seems like you’ve met your goal of RUclips recommending this channel to more people! crazy that in just two weeks you could make such a big jump in subscriber count. congrats on the new follower base, and props to you for making such an interesting and well-executed video! no need for crazy editing when everything is showcased perfectly. i wish you luck in the future!)
Thank you very much for your support! I deeply appreciate it.
I was thinking the same thing!!
Other than some of the mixing issues, I prefer the sounds of the original. A lot of the music sounds like it was composed around these so-called "imperfections".
That said, it is a cool experiment to do and a nice educational video.
Keep in mind some developers work around the limitations i.e MMC5
Fearofdark also known as Steve is a person that has truely changed my life. I originally found his song rolling down the street in my katamari from a meme about pelo back in like 2019 or so and I thought not much about it until I started listening to more of his music until his songs became embedded with core memory’s in my mind that if I even think about it his songs will definitely be there. I hope he never stops making chiptunes because god this guy is probably one of the best chiptune composers I have ever listened to. So thank you Steve, Xavi
Love him
@@jsihavealotofplaylists who wouldn’t. He is a mastermind
@@xavitheyt tracker music in general is neat
*truly
Exit Plan is a genius album
Pure. Chiptune. Bliss.
I have very sensitive hearing, and I can hear sounds up to 18.2kHz. Because of this, I tend to bias my headphones towards top-end clarity, but those hisses have always been very noticeable and almost distracting to me. Hearing The Coffee Zone without any of that extra noise had me smiling from ear to ear the whole way through! I would love to hear more classic chiptune pieces covered this way! I can't say specifically which ones, I listen to so many I can't choose >.<
I know there is some debate about whether we should improve upon older media or keep the original as is without modification, whether technically inferior or not. I say that both is good, and I like the ability to choose between the original version and any remastered releases.
Your channel has been a hidden gem. The ability to visualize the waveforms of each instrument/channel adds so much more fun than just listening to it, and I love how it adds to critical listening.
I think your edits were very well done. Less is more, and I wasn't lost at any point of the video. I have been subbed since less than a hundred, I think, and I have been showing your visualizations to people who are curious about the kind of music I listen to.
Rant over. Excellent video, excellent choice in music. 10/10 would watch again.
Hello!
Wow, 18kHz! That's awesome! Best I can go is a bit short of 16kHz. Still, I consider myself an audiophile, and I can feel your concerns!
Some people actually disliked The Coffee Zone without the quantization noise. My father is one of those who liked the hissing, and he said that it sounded like rain. Still, just like you said, I think that neither is better than the other! I like how smooth the noiseless version sounded like, but I also like the retro feel of the one with the original noise.
You mentioned critical listening with the aid of the individual waveforms. I never thought about it before, but I think it does help! For example, many C64 tracks add a very short burst of noise on bass notes, which I only noticed after seeing the waveform. I guess it adds a bit of a percussion feel to the bass instrument, making it sound closer to a pick or slap bass, I think?
Thank you very much for your support. I really appreciate it!
@@KYLXBN Yeah, I definitely agree the quantization noise is part of the NES sound. I compare it to playing 240p/480i consoles on a crt vs upscaled on a flat panel. While it is easier to distinguish pixels and colors on the modern screen, the crt blurs the picture and interpolation creates extra visual effects whether intended or not. The imperfections create character, making simple scrolling backgrounds and animating sprites feel different than on a modern display, without even taking into consideration frametimes or input lag.
It is neat you include your father in your projects. Sounds like a great guy, and I don't think I would have connected the extra noise with rain. Now I want to ask my dad what he thinks, considering he grew up playing NES games!
used to be able to until i damaged my hearing lmao
Beautiful video. And that VRC7 part which was almost rhodes like was gorgeous. I’m a big fan of the OPL family and it’s always a treat to hear music attached to that generation.
Indeed, the people's opinion are quite varied. Some liked the VRC7 without its noisy mixer, but some preferred it with the noise--my father included. They said that it adds a retro feel to the song, which I don't deny. Personally, I like it without noise since I want to hear the tiny intricacies of even quiet notes as they fade out, but I totally respect the preference of people. What we can't change is the fact that the VRC7 has noisy mixing, and it's what makes it THE VRC7.
Thanks for your comment!
In 2 weeks you went from 255 to 8.69K. Truly remarkable and quite inspiring. Keep up the good work gang. ❤️💪🏻
Thank you very much for your support!
Amazing dedication and clear explanation of the tech that made so much awesome video game music in the 80's
Thank you very much!
Damn this is good stuff. This kind of thing could really help others who may not know about or think much of classic video game composers to gain an appreciation for what these guys were able to accomplish. Those composers had to be disciplined in music theory as well as computer science but more than that, these guys were masters of creating mood and atmosphere you couldn't get anywhere else.
I see this work and I can only imagine what a fresh sound for the GBA era of games would sound like. Golden Sun tracks in particular. This is a really interesting and scientific video and I enjoy electronic sciences. Thanks for sharing your hard work!
Bwah, i never thought that the nes game's music had a hardware limitation and could sound better, you impressed me with your work
I am glad that you have found it entertaining. But for the record, the NES is perfect already with all its limitations and quirks. Without it, it wouldn't be the sound we grew up with :D
Thanks for your support!
I'd love to see this work put in as a setting for emulators we have now! You've done an incredible job of recreating some tracks with the fixes you found.
Just wanted to say I really enjoyed this video! I've been writing chiptune in a bunch of different programs for a while and I always noticed small differences in how certain waveforms were generated, so hearing were that difference came from was pretty interesting. I've always found the extra harmonics of the triangle to give a bit of an edge to some NES tunes, but the samples used in Mega Man 9 and the examples in this video showed me that there's a place for a ton of approaches to the NES sound. Also wanted to say that the editing was super smooth and I'm super excited for more stuff like this in the future!
Hello!
Yes, the NES triangle waveform's extra harmonics actually makes it easier to hear especially at lower frequencies! Removing the harmonics actually felt like stripping the NES of its identity sound, but being able to hear the difference was really interesting to me. Some songs fared well, while others sounded... different.
Can't say which is better, but I believe most people including me would prefer the original sound! Still, this was a nice experiment, in my opinion.
Thanks for expressing interest! I really appreciate it.
Solid work. The original sounds, quirks, and limitations are all what makes it unique. These are the sounds of my childhood and I absolutely adore them. But I always knew there were limitations and wondered how it could sound if everything was "perfect" instead. It's always great hearing covers of songs with actual instruments and such, but this is something I've always wanted to hear.
I am very glad that we share the same sentiments! Thank you for your support.
Fearofdark's music puts me back in that position of sitting in my dad's old MS-DOS computer room in the house I grew up in messing around with DOS demos listening to exciting and blissful tracker modules from them. It's eternally wonderful, and I'm glad there are people like them who preserve the various forms of music in that vein and others on Soundcloud and elsewhere online. It's real treasures. 😊
Fearofdark's music needs to be more famous. I can't believe that only people like us know about him. His music crosses the boundary and is no longer niche, even though made completely with retro sound chips. The melody, chords, basslines, all are a beauty on its own. We need more of him in this world :D
This vid has eventually led me to making myself a Dirtywave M8 headless.
Thanks so much for getting me into such an interesting hobby!
The Solstice title theme by THE Legendary Tim Follin, sounds great
but I've always fantasized about what would he do if he had the additional sound channels from the Famicom Disk System.
With your improvements, it will sound even better!
On second thought, the white noise is actually built into the song and is used to represent the cymbal "tsshh" sound
Tim Follin is the kind of guy to make 4 channels sound like CD audio. I can't begin to imagine giving him extra channels :D
Thanks for the request; it will be uploaded shortly :D
Here for more Follin brother's appreciation
Terminator 2 (by another Follin brother) has some really nice music too.
1:35 Journey to Silius Intro (Original chip)
2:44 Journey to Silius Intro (Enhanced chip)
Great video! Thought I'd toss these time stamps here for easy back-to-back comparisons.
Your channel has really taken off since you left that message at the end of the video about having only 1111 1111 subscribers! Congrats!
This is probably the first time I've subscribed to a channel off of one video alone, without even checking out anything else about the channel. Fascinating stuff, plus I appreciate the attitude on preservation of these sorts of things from the pinned comment.
I was hoping that my standpoint about preservation of the original sound was obvious, since I thought that every chiptune lover prefers actual sound from the hardware (that includes me) but it was dumb of me to assume that and to leave it unsaid on the video, forcing me to make a pinned comment. I do apologize if it was confusing.
This just became one of my top 10 favorite channels. The algorithm is really putting in work these last few months for me.
Fascinating! It's interesting seeing the changes, regardless if it is "better" or not. It's interesting to hear what could have been. Removing the quantization imo is the best change made here
Usted es el némesis de la entropía mi amigo.
Excelente aporte.
Se nota en cada palabra y segundo del video, todo el amor a la música, a los videojuegos.
Tiene mi total admiración!
A vuestra merced!
Un abrazo enorme!!
Saludos!!!
What I love about this video is leave me with curiosity to learn more about how the early sounds design worked in these consoles. “The Coffee Zone” instantly gave me this nostalgic Gran Turismo vibe and I love it.
Thank you for an awesome video!!
Honestly this video is so well made and soothing. All the comments are respectful and provide calm meaningful discussion. 10/10 for 12am destinations review.
Me watching this at 11:58PM
As a synthesist first and a game purist about 8 octaves later, I absolutely love everything that you did here. I especially loved the hi-res version of Demon Seed which expressed some overtones that were overshadowed by the original aliasing.
I've never heard anything so beautiful come out of an NES.
Almost brings a tear to my eye. Amazing....Thank you
After watching this video, I had to go listen to Journey to Silius music using the "Nosefart" plugin for winamp, no expert here, but comparing that to the video here, it appears the plugin for winamp uses the linear fixes, so the triangle channel can be heard very well.
I probably need to play the game again on NES to notice the difference, never thought the plugin was "fixing" the sound/music.
This video was quite informative, keep up the good work. 👍
Highly respect your audio engineering knowledge and skills! I produce hip-hop beats without really having that technical knowledge but it sure would help when I'm trying to cut a specific stem from a sample and doctor it sound as clear as possible. Keep up the excellent work! 😁
Thanks, I am glad that you appreciate it. But I have to admit that I am not a professional regarding the matter. I am a software engineer by profession, but I have come to understand some concepts due to playing around with old computers as a hobby since I was in high school.
The triangle is my personal favorite 2a03 channel. I wouldn't change it for the world. There's so much that can be creatively done with it yet it's the most limited channel out of the 8 including VRC6.
6:40 What I like about the quantization noise is it reminds me of searching for a good FM channel to fall asleep to when I was a kid. Smooth Jazz was one of the channels that I could pick up so having that "ssssssss" lingering around really brings be back to those times. It's also like listening to vinyl, it's not perfect but has more soul than the perfect recording.
It's warm and fuzzy, innit?
Similar feeling to vinyl hiss or rain subtly coming through a window
I prefer it with the quantization static
warm and fuzzy, compared with chill and clear, I don't know which one is better but I sure love both.
As an NES games programmer I really appreciate what you’ve done here
The clean sound of the improved chips are amazing. So clear and pure. Would be interesting to use the old jagged waves to make the theme for the "bad guy" or "boss" during a game. Really appreciate the hard work you put into this. The music is awesome and the programming that must have gone into making it (if using a tracker) is epic. Many thanks!
6:34 For those who want to listen to the remastered version of "The Coffee Zone", including myself.
Thanks dawg
This is akin to removing the hiss from cassettes or the line noise from a guitar amp…technically cleaner, but missing the mojo of the format. It turns it into something else entirely. I will say that the VRC7 improvements are much needed, as the original just sounds objectively “bad” imo. But the quantized saw and triangle waveforms on the VRC6 and 2A03, as well as those specific square wave duty cycles they chose, are what I would argue to be the “sound” of that chip and thus why it is nostalgic in the first place.
I did work on a game that was to emulate a nintendo GBA and I went to great lengths to emulate (what is imho) the horrible sound of that chip. Why? Because that’s a large part of the nostalgia factor.
But this is a fun exercise and I think something worth exploring of its own merit! Cheers!
I forgot how good FoD is. Man that tune is fantastic and sounds so much better without all that ugly aliasing.
Exactly! I fully agree with you.
this is very cool. amazing how the sounds and registers we need changes depending on everyone's listening setup. I love it
Wow, the sound is really nice! I have never played Castlevania, but your edit of the soundtrack from Castlevania III is so good!!! And I'm interested in listening to more music from this game. Thank you for your job!
The sine and exponent tables have a canonical formula to how they were generated but the way they are mixed would probably make it a bit bothersome to preserve timbre if the core you're basing it off of doesn't have some kinda floating point alternative Envelope Generator iirc. If you want the formulas, just look for the OPLx decapped project. From there you can modify the equations to be more suitable for 16 bit sampling instead of the 10 bit or whatever it was they had.
At some point I would like to do the same thing and expand the sine tables for my own fm synth core while still being mostly compatible in timbres with existing voice parameters for the 4op OPxx chips. I believe Steve Snake already managed to do this ages ago in Kega but of course none of that is open source.
Hello, nobuyuki! Thanks for your insightful comment.
I actually have the formula for the exponent and sine wave tables, but the operations that are used to manipulate the values in the table before it is mixed together uses a lot of bitwise computations. Ideally, I would use floating point operations instead of pulling the values from a table. But trying to understand how the values are transformed before it is output and implementing them using non-bitwise operations is still a bit too difficult for me. Still, it is far from impossible, and will still try to do it in the future!
As a tone deaf person I could not appreciate the differences, but obviously you're very passionate about this and I really enjoyed the video
Nothing about this video was roughly edited :)
It was a great experience, my attentiont didn't drift away like with other videos.
I personally too like the original sounds but appreciate the dedication and certainly respect the "improved" results.
The strength in this video is that you don't have a team, no team could have done it this good as you have done it. Great and entertaining video and the editing was flawless, it lifts the whole video. Do what you do! Thank you!
Honestly everything sounded perfect up until you played coffee zone. It was kind of designed with those audio flaws in mind which makes it sound a bit more disappointing played through cleaner outputs. The quantization of the fm chip makes it sound like some kind studio synth and the triangle makes a bit more of an impact to the melody with the hiss. That said, this is a really cool concept. Makes me curious what a c64 would sound like.
Hello, there!
I am very glad to hear your thoughts. To make it short, honestly, I agree :D I cannot say whether Fearofdark composed the song with the audio flaws in mind (I can only say so once I ask him) but I completely agree that the added harmonics on the triangle wave (which actually makes the triangle wave much more easier to hear), and the quantization noise (which my father describes as sounding like the rain) adds something special to the mix. I personally prefer the track without quantization noise, but I cannot deny that the jagged triangle wave adds something special.
All in all, actually, I prefer the original sound of the chips. That is their identity, and removing all the flaws is just like stripping them of their identity. It's what makes the VRC6 different from the 6581 (which doesn't have a jagged sawtooth wave). It's why I keep hardware recordings of the chiptune I like ;-)
This was just a fun (and probably interesting!) experiment and I thought it was fun doing this. Makes me also glad that I was able to hear how they would sound like if the faults were all removed, be it for the better or worse.
Thanks for your comment!
@@KYLXBN I would definitely like to hear a retro composer like Fearofdark's thoughts on this! Personally I think I prefer the cleaner, "improved" sound you've created.
@@KYLXBN I never found out, how did the sid chips manage to avoid quantization issues? The oscillators were pure digital there too, weren't they?
Well, let's just say there's a reason people prefer the 6581 over the 8580
IDK, it kinda sounds like a dreamcast Knuckles song with the new output. Probably not the intended vibe but definitely worth hearing, at least as an alternative.