"The only exceptions were Tempo and Toughman Contest" And Knuckles' Chaotix! I haven't heard Toughman Contest but Knuckles Chaotix is possibly the best use of 32X soft-mixed stereo drums.
You're completely right! I only realized this well after I had finished the final editing pass on this video, whoops. The general point still stands though. The SH-2 was only used for drums, even though the chip could support multichannel mixing and resampling, similar to the GBA.
Oh nonononowait Kolibri too! I just remembered there's some strings in there. I'd have to listen to it again, but I seem to remember some drums being mixed in?
Yeah, giving this a second listen, there's definitely a few tonal PCM parts being softmixed in Kolibri. Couldn't say if it's through 32X PWM or through the YM2612 DAC though!
oh nooo! I just ripped some audio and gave it a quick look, and it's 100% using the SH-2! softmixed and resampled just like a GBA tune. I can't believe I missed that!
People really need to stop fighting over which consoles (SNES or Genesis) had a better sound chip. The two chips simple aren't comparable. The Genesis is a synthesize: essentially an instrument-the SNES is a sampler, it just plays audio files in a sequence. It's like comparing a CD to a piano. They simply function differently.
@ben owen its the other way around for me... i STILL have both systems from back in the days, but the SNES is the one System I keep coming back to. It just has this awesome library of games and - for its time - outstanding hardware capabilities. Still like my Mega Drive very much, too, but nothing can touch the SNES in my retro ambitions.
It bugs me when people say "when it was properly used it was ok, or had a good composer" because that goes for a penny whistle. It bugs me when people say the SNES chip was more advanced or sounded better because on the whole the Genesis generated for more engaging and exciting music which was every bit as advanced and did not have to be twangy. Composers just liked that sound. It was cool and edgy and kind of a stock musical style of the time. The other musical style that was very en vogue was techno. So in the SMD you had a pretty decent synthesiser you can craft any driver you like for and create bizarre and wonderful synthesised effects. The SNES had far too little memory to handle 8 channel 16 bit sound and the effects and music on the SNES are very unclear, not exciting, and send you to sleep. The SNES has a dreadful sound chip. The Sonic 3 track sampled in this video is miles better than any music ever generated on the SNES. Mostly due to the SNES sound chip not having direct access to the cartridge, unlike the Mega Drive . Which is why the Amiga 500, a machine 6 years older than the SNES far outshines it in audio capabilities, with it's 512KB main RAM to the SNES's 64KB audio ram. The Mega CD, for reference has 64KB pcm ram. I would say the Mega CD hardware combined with the Mega Drive is more powerful than a NeoGeo MVS.
Though I grew up with the SNES, I always found there was a certain charm with Genesis music. The instruments felt like an in-between point between the NES's chip-tuney sound and the SNES's more sample-liked sound. This, along with some really awesome compositions, made Genesis music really special.
As an avid researcher, this is such an awesome video I keep coming back to. I’ve also been sharing it with my friends, and they LOVE IT! You’re definitely really passionate about how much hard work you put into all of this extensive research. I deeply respect that. Fun Fact: The word “Genesis” can mean “new beginning.”
I knew from your first video I watched that I would be utterly hooked on your channel. As a music producer, electronic musician and synth player, lifelong gamer, and video game soundtrack lover - who's first system was the Sega Genesis his dad got him at Toys R Us with Sonic, 32X and Virtua Racing. well basically nothing could make me happier than these videos. thank you
Ah... more of this please; really interested in behind the scenes of creating Genesis/Megadrive music. (In particular, that guitar sound used on the first Road Rash game that sustains into a cool vibrato + feedback effect.)
Good stuff. You could follow this up and talk about more subtle things like SSG-EG and LFO, FM algorithms, the ladder effect or multiple sample channels on YM2612 (the SN76489 could also play samples, as heard in After Burner 2), though it might not be as interesting to the casual viewer.
The next video I have planned is just going to talk about GEMS. I'm not sure how interesting I could make the details you listed since they don't have a story behind them in the same way that these chipsets are intertwined with the history of the console, you know?
I suppose it could be something along the lines of explod2a03's NES audio series if you're interested in that, but it's more like a tutorial/niche interest thing. Looking forward to the GEMS vid.
Nice, another channel to fight against the utter ignorance of this great console, against the tides of Watchmojo and AVGN Snes fanboyism that utterly dominate the retro internet atmosphere. Absolutely love the Gen sound chips, the YM 2612 and the 8-bit PSG, in capable hands, its sound provides rich, clear CD quality audio overall. Even some orchestral stuff is amazing like Sortie from Gauntlet IV, the Devilish and Monster World IV soundtracks, truly an underappreciated system, but still I can't stress enough how much I enjoy both consoles. My kudos to the channel!
Not to completely disparage the SNES, but this entire channel was basically started because I was surprised at the gems on the Genesis that nobody seemed to talk about! Glad to see it getting some traction.
Yeah man, it's bad, like...really bad lol. The level of ignorance regarding the 16-bit consoles (particularly the Gen) is quite pathetic actually when a little research, an open mind and playing the games is all it takes. Some folks actually think the Snes runs Starfox on vanilla hardware...and Sonic is the only game on Genesis worth playing...you know, stupidity like that lol. I love both consoles alot but it's obvious which one needs more love and attention to detail. I look forward to your material!
Even on its own, the Genesis has superior sound quality over the SNES; it's sound *versatility* that the SNES wins at, barring the added capabilities provided by the Sega CD and 32X (particularly the Sega CD, given its compatibility with Redbook audio). As for the whole _Star Fox_ thing, the Genesis actually is capable of native 3D rendering, but it's slow as shit, even compared to _Star Fox_. No matter which of the two 16-bit consoles you look at, you'll need some extra chips if you wanna get playable 3D games (the Genesis's SVP chip is actually way better than the Super FX chips, but was just never used outside of _Virtua Racing_ because it was too damn expensive).
It's *very* refreshing to see someone understand that. The sound versatility vs sound quality thing just goes wayy over everybody's heads. The Snes has a much wider range of instrumentation, but the raw and clear Fm sound throughput, is undefeated on a Model 1 Gen. Titles like Midnight Resistance, Vapor Trail and Comix Zone make this abundantly obvious. And yeah I'm aware of that, but it's still cool that the Gen can render polygons natively, to see it done in a practical manner check out F1 Grand Prix Championship, Red Zone or Adventures of Batman &R. Also Sonic 2's special stage tubes are composed using some fancy 3d trickery, pretty cool stuff.
In general, the Genesis and the Super Nintendo both have their own ups and downs that more or less balance each other out. The one thing that matters to me is that they both have plenty of worthwhile resources to take advantage of and that they both have a strong library of games that do just that. Also, I didn't know the special stages in _Sonic 2_ were rendered with polygons; I always assumed it used something similar to _Rad Racer_ on the NES; that's pretty cool!
The Sega Genesis is a very capable machine for its time. Anyone with doubts as to what the Genesis can do should listen to the first two Streets of Rage titles, Thunder Force IV, and the fan fix of Street Fighter 2 Championship Edition.
Interesting vid, though as a newcomer to your channel, i was kind of hoping it had more examples and samples of the differences between each gen of hardware
When you beat the game in Virtua Racing Deluxe the Sega logo pops up after the credits with a nice lil guitar sample for the jingle. The Genesis alone could never do that with such clarity.
The Genesis got a bad rap on sound due to lazy composition with the terriblr GEMS library, and Sega making terrible board revisions with awful pre-amps that distort the sound. Not to mentiom the initial genesis output was mono unless you bought stereo cables to put in the headphone jack...which most people didn't. It's why soundtracks can be AMAZING or insane garbage.
Nice! But here: 1:36 isn't the Mega Drive derived from the Sega System 16 arcade board (M68000 + Z80 combo, later reused by Capcom or SNK) and also uses some Mark III/Master System components for backwards compatibility purpose? Anyway, in the end, an awesome console with indeed great sound capabilities. The YM2612 or YM3438 + Sega PSG SN76496 is a fantastic sound chips combination and when I think about this, Tecno Soft often springs to mind, I mean, just listen to Elemental Master or Thunder Force IV soundtracks!
Let's not forget the YM2413 used as an FM soundchip for not just the MARK III/Master System, but MSX2 PC and even some late 80s ADK arcades like Sky Adventure, Sky Soldiers, Time Soldiers (precursor to Ninja Commando) and Gang Wars (precursor to Ninja Combat). But perhaps the first arcade to use FM sound was the international version of Terra Cresta by Nichibutsu in 1985. It used the YM3526.
Fantastic. Also, some advanced sound programmers used software sample mixing on the YM2612 DAC. Flashback: The Quest for Identity used the GEMS driver and it had 4-sample playback for sound effects (the majority are samples and you can rarely notice them interrupting each other), and Kevin Pickell's Electronic Arts driver did great with the Fifa and Fifa 95 soundtracks.
Never liked the SN76489 by itself in the Master System. Always felt it had a very weak and thin sound. It's works out much better as the higher range accompaniment to the YM2612 in the Genesis.
Two problems: 1. Terrible bass range - the lowest musical not is an A2 at 110Hz unless the mode this video calls "linked" is used to create a thin-sounding bassline with the noise channel 2. The noise channel - every time the pitch setting is altered the noise generator resets to its initial state, which give it a trademark "crackly attack" when the sound starts. I've tried to make splashier sounding music with it before ruclips.net/video/f-ooB-1h9zw/видео.html
The SN76489 was originally the sound chip in the TI/99 computer. The chip had a different name bax Ck then. After TI got out of the computer making business, they sold the chips individually.
Someone should make a sound driver that can abuse all of those features and bring them together to make complicated ochestras of music! Would probably be a pain in the ass to work with, but the resulting sound could be worth it :Y
@@ssg-eggunner The wiki suggests that it only supports the standard Sega Genesis/Mega Drive hardware. Still a really hecking cool project; natsumi is amazing at this kind of thing! But I don't see 32X or sega CD support mentioned anywhere.
Basically a cut down DX7 Chip. Listen to the bass instrument in Gen/Mega games and think of songs like "Papa don't preach" by Madonna. For me it was and still is beautiful. I had an Amiga that was similar to the Snes Sampled sounds. But mates had this console and there was something, special about that FM (proper Synth) sound.
I personally refer to the Genesis as a poor mans Sharp X68000 because thats what it was. In short, when it came to sound, Sega took a Yamaha YM2151 and got a similar, but cheaper Yamaha sound chip in the YM2612 for the Genesis. The question was simple for developing the Sega Genesis "How do you turn a $3000 computer into a $249 console??"
YES! finally someone who has decent ears! :) i just can't tell how much i told all the snes fanboys that the mega drive has WAY better sound (because it uses a real sound chip and not only those muffling samples the snes did). i always tell them that the ym2612 is a real synth, but all they do is laugh at me. i'm so happy right now to find someone who has not even the same opinion as me but is proving it with knowledge. :)
You are seriously deluded if you think the Mega Drive has a better sound chip than the Super Nintendo. Then again Sega fanboys always listen to their own ego rather than face reality. The video below shows what a SNES is capable of. ruclips.net/video/p_60V8UdYEY/видео.html&ab_channel=JohnsonDMG
I think it's worth mentioning that one SMD channel is able to split up it's 4 sine-waves and control each individually. With this trick and the PSG, the Genesis actually has 13 channels. Don't know how many times that was actually used. I think Furniss did it here and there.
>For channel 3, operator frequencies can be set independently, making dissonant harmonics possible. From wikipedia, don't know where else to look. And this recent track is using that trick. www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?32202-Infected-Mushroom-cover-(12-channel-madness
You can look at the official technical overview for the console! ia601707.us.archive.org/0/items/Genesis_Technical_Overview_v1.00_1991_Sega_US/Genesis_Technical_Overview_v1.00_1991_Sega_US.pdf ...starting with page 95. the thing about that, though, is that it sounds like this applies to FM channels 3 AND 6, meaning the Genesis can sort of have up to 16 channels without any add-ons. I'm not sure if anyone ever used this technique back in the day, though. Furniss made chords using Algorithm #7 (on page 94) but not using channel 3 (or 6) as far as I've checked.
If we're getting into that sort of stuff, you can actually split _every_ channel into 4 sine waves that can be keyed on/off individually! Although unless you're on channel 3, the only frequencies you can pick from for each sine are 15 steps in the harmonic series of whatever base frequency.
So cool. Subscribed. I was hoping to see more about what kinds of sounds could be generated. Or were they fixed? Chips like the SID (Commodre 64) and the OPL2 (Adlib, MS-DOS!) you could adjust the settings on each instrument to get different sounds...
So the Sega CD has a basically 8-channel tracker-friendly chip? I wonder how it was interfaced; like the SNES chip the tunes were basically software that ran independently. Is the Sega chip more like just an 8-channel D/A converter / mixer like Amiga / PC sound?
This video was uploaded one day after Overdrive 2 was shown at Revision, so there's no way it could have made it into the script. though even then, I'm not sure what I could have added other than a mention. it's good, but still bound to the stuff I mentioned in the video!
Thanks a lot for making this video! It was extremely informative to me and many others! Also, can you or anyone else please explain what the "Linked" Pitch ( 0:58 ) actually is? Thanks in advance!
basically, the noise channel only has three available pitches. once you activate linked pitch, you lose one of your three square wave channels, but you gain the ability to change the noise channel to any pitch. this can be used for a sweeping static sound or a pulse wave sound. does that explanation help?
@@GSTChannelVEVO Oh man thanks a lot!!!! I've always loved the Genesis sound and this cord will be my new message ringtone. Thanks again!! This has been my first interaction with a RUclips video and I appreciate your dedication and fine courtesy of doing this. Simply Thank You!!!!
@@Kutuztuk My channel is big enough to get new comments every day, but small enough that I can read all of them. I love hearing peoples thoughts and answering questions where I can. Thanks for watching
It's literally just a few registers! You basically send two numbers: one of them becomes the pitch, the other becomes the volume. (Repeat this for each channel, of course.) The SN76489 takes care of actually producing the sound.
Right, so volume = amplitude and pitch = frequency. That's clear. Now I need to investigate how the shape of the wave-function will make it sound different to if it was a clean sinusoid, how more detailed approximations of the wave itself will sound, etc... though I'm sure people have already thought about these things and solved them decades ago lol.
YHUAN01 Actually some of my favorite sound effects on the genesis aren't even sampled. You've probably played revenge of shinobi, but if you've never paid attention to the sound effects you should. The explosions are all synthesized and pretty decent, but others like the door sounds are impressively realistic.
I love a lot of the non sampled sfx as well. Especially the explosions in Shinobi. Sonic has had some good ones as well in some games. Sonic Spinball has some oddly satisfying explosion sounds that are honestly just a weird as hell bass.
Hmm, the Master System has three squares and a noise? Compared to the NES having two squares, a triangle, a noise, and DPCM. Man it's funny how all the stats between those two systems leap-frogged one another. NES has better sound, SMS has higher color depth, NES can't mirror BG tiles but SMS can't mirror sprite tiles... You just don't get such stark differences between systems like that anymore.
Well, leaving 32x and sega cd aside, the original Genesis' sound in and of itself wasn't bad at all. I think the whole criticism stems from comparing it to its contemporaries' audio abilities and then, yes, it seemed lacking.
FM-Synth has aged better than any other video game music imo, I also love th GB & GBC chiptune music, PSG synth, the Neo Geo Pocket Colour has geourgous sound too, the GBA actually has really sound, hampered by the poor DAC, but GBA games music really shines when played on a GC GBA Player thanks to the higher quality DAC, and the same for playing GBA on the DS or with MiSTer, then there is MIDI music, which I love too, Secret Monkey Island games for instance, and I also love the C64 SID sound and then back to FM-SYnth withthe Amiga, which also used Yamaha OPL2 music, with the option of Adlib music. But as I said, out of all of these, FM-Synth combined with PSG aged by far the best, it's the aduio equivilant of the SNES 16-Bit spite graphics, which have aged the best out of all the sytems imo, which is kind of why I'd argue the Neo Geo is probably the best example of graphics and audio for retro 2D games, as it combines the same Yamaha FM sound hardware as the Mega Drive with a higher quality DAC, and has even better 2D graphics than the SNES, if only you could make native ports of all the best Mega Drive and SNES games for the Neo Geo, you would have the perfect 16-Bit 2D library of games, might as well port all the best GBA, PCE and Amiga games to it while your at it, then again, It's cool to have all the variety f different systems and their quirks. That said, one day, it would be dope to have an FPGA system that has the definitive ports of all the best 8/16-Bit 2D games, with the best possible RGB quality, and the best real-time FM-synth audio OPL4 presentation, the recently done Batman Forever SNES demo port teaser example to the Mega Drive with the sountrack nativly presented in real-time FM-Synth is a great example of how much better it is over standard compressed sequenced PCM, not to say SNES games couldnt sound good with decent sequenced samples, like Super MArio World for example, but it could never compete with FM-Synth's real-time sound generation.
I'm not very familiar with the Mark III's FM sound unit, so I can't really say for sure. It appears to be closer to a 2-op adlib sound with several extra limitations. One of the Mark III's YM2413 channels can match the Genesis's FM sound if you only use 2 operators on the Genesis (and if you only use the regular sine waveforms on the YM2413), but otherwise I'd say they're fairly dissimilar overall.
hi man, excellent content from your channel! I am writing to you from Argentina, and I have a great project with a Russian sega umk3 rom hacker, there is a scenario that for the sega version never had the right music as it happens in arcade, would it be possible that you could try to recreate that track with the gem engine ?
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
"The only exceptions were Tempo and Toughman Contest"
And Knuckles' Chaotix! I haven't heard Toughman Contest but Knuckles Chaotix is possibly the best use of 32X soft-mixed stereo drums.
You're completely right! I only realized this well after I had finished the final editing pass on this video, whoops.
The general point still stands though. The SH-2 was only used for drums, even though the chip could support multichannel mixing and resampling, similar to the GBA.
Oh nonononowait Kolibri too! I just remembered there's some strings in there. I'd have to listen to it again, but I seem to remember some drums being mixed in?
Yeah, giving this a second listen, there's definitely a few tonal PCM parts being softmixed in Kolibri. Couldn't say if it's through 32X PWM or through the YM2612 DAC though!
oh nooo!
I just ripped some audio and gave it a quick look, and it's 100% using the SH-2! softmixed and resampled just like a GBA tune. I can't believe I missed that!
I wonder, is the 32x slightly more powerful than the gba? Because it seems that way according to the specs and how fast doom runs on both systems.
3:59 dang that animation is smooth
So smooth it scares me a little
I think this character is from Tempo for Sega 32X
@@bobsaturday5840 Damn that's crazy
@@bobsaturday5840 Wow, who knew?
People really need to stop fighting over which consoles (SNES or Genesis) had a better sound chip. The two chips simple aren't comparable. The Genesis is a synthesize: essentially an instrument-the SNES is a sampler, it just plays audio files in a sequence. It's like comparing a CD to a piano. They simply function differently.
when people still have arguments over which console has it better over 2 decades after.
SNES is not a CD. Just a sample mixer... You can play around with samples: alter pitch, volume and the like effects...
Sega does have a CD player...
@ben owen its the other way around for me... i STILL have both systems from back in the days, but the SNES is the one System I keep coming back to. It just has this awesome library of games and - for its time - outstanding hardware capabilities. Still like my Mega Drive very much, too, but nothing can touch the SNES in my retro ambitions.
AMIGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!
It bugs me when people say "when it was properly used it was ok, or had a good composer" because that goes for a penny whistle. It bugs me when people say the SNES chip was more advanced or sounded better because on the whole the Genesis generated for more engaging and exciting music which was every bit as advanced and did not have to be twangy. Composers just liked that sound. It was cool and edgy and kind of a stock musical style of the time. The other musical style that was very en vogue was techno. So in the SMD you had a pretty decent synthesiser you can craft any driver you like for and create bizarre and wonderful synthesised effects. The SNES had far too little memory to handle 8 channel 16 bit sound and the effects and music on the SNES are very unclear, not exciting, and send you to sleep. The SNES has a dreadful sound chip. The Sonic 3 track sampled in this video is miles better than any music ever generated on the SNES. Mostly due to the SNES sound chip not having direct access to the cartridge, unlike the Mega Drive . Which is why the Amiga 500, a machine 6 years older than the SNES far outshines it in audio capabilities, with it's 512KB main RAM to the SNES's 64KB audio ram. The Mega CD, for reference has 64KB pcm ram.
I would say the Mega CD hardware combined with the Mega Drive is more powerful than a NeoGeo MVS.
Though I grew up with the SNES, I always found there was a certain charm with Genesis music. The instruments felt like an in-between point between the NES's chip-tuney sound and the SNES's more sample-liked sound. This, along with some really awesome compositions, made Genesis music really special.
With the Genesis' twang is just... So good.
Think it's fair to call it a synth-tune?
Tempo looks so fucking adorable.
1:59 That should've been the Genesis Intro (If there was a real bios like the Master System).
Ahmad Moemen no it should've been this 2:12 like if you agree.
CalebGaming no.
Ahmad Moemen it really should've.
@@brookegross8974 I'm not liking your dumb comment.
@@brookegross8974 and no.
Master System was very popular here in Brazil!
I played a lot on my childhood!! :)
I heard people still sell games for it over there.
I was Brazil was a successful empire.
As an avid researcher, this is such an awesome video I keep coming back to.
I’ve also been sharing it with my friends, and they LOVE IT!
You’re definitely really passionate about how much hard work you put into all of this extensive research.
I deeply respect that.
Fun Fact:
The word “Genesis” can mean “new beginning.”
This is fantastic, would love to see more videos similar to this!
That was cool.
I knew from your first video I watched that I would be utterly hooked on your channel. As a music producer, electronic musician and synth player, lifelong gamer, and video game soundtrack lover - who's first system was the Sega Genesis his dad got him at Toys R Us with Sonic, 32X and Virtua Racing. well basically nothing could make me happier than these videos. thank you
I LOVE this! Great work bud!
Ah... more of this please; really interested in behind the scenes of creating Genesis/Megadrive music. (In particular, that guitar sound used on the first Road Rash game that sustains into a cool vibrato + feedback effect.)
The more I watch that Tempo intro, the more I love it
But can we all agree that the Ecco the Dolphin CD music was absolutely beautiful?
Yes we can. YES WE CAN!
Good stuff. You could follow this up and talk about more subtle things like SSG-EG and LFO, FM algorithms, the ladder effect or multiple sample channels on YM2612 (the SN76489 could also play samples, as heard in After Burner 2), though it might not be as interesting to the casual viewer.
The next video I have planned is just going to talk about GEMS. I'm not sure how interesting I could make the details you listed since they don't have a story behind them in the same way that these chipsets are intertwined with the history of the console, you know?
I suppose it could be something along the lines of explod2a03's NES audio series if you're interested in that, but it's more like a tutorial/niche interest thing. Looking forward to the GEMS vid.
Two words:
*TIME*
*TRAX*
Captain Darian Lambert!!! And his creditcard computer Selma!
you mean gauntlet IV?
dogen, both most definitely plus Devilish.
Mostly Gauntlet IV tho ;)
Two more words
Deez nuts
Nice, another channel to fight against the utter ignorance of this great console, against the tides of Watchmojo and AVGN Snes fanboyism that utterly dominate the retro internet atmosphere.
Absolutely love the Gen sound chips, the YM 2612 and the 8-bit PSG, in capable hands, its sound provides rich, clear CD quality audio overall. Even some orchestral stuff is amazing like Sortie from Gauntlet IV, the Devilish and Monster World IV soundtracks, truly an underappreciated system, but still I can't stress enough how much I enjoy both consoles. My kudos to the channel!
Not to completely disparage the SNES, but this entire channel was basically started because I was surprised at the gems on the Genesis that nobody seemed to talk about! Glad to see it getting some traction.
Yeah man, it's bad, like...really bad lol. The level of ignorance regarding the 16-bit consoles (particularly the Gen) is quite pathetic actually when a little research, an open mind and playing the games is all it takes.
Some folks actually think the Snes runs Starfox on vanilla hardware...and Sonic is the only game on Genesis worth playing...you know, stupidity like that lol. I love both consoles alot but it's obvious which one needs more love and attention to detail. I look forward to your material!
Even on its own, the Genesis has superior sound quality over the SNES; it's sound *versatility* that the SNES wins at, barring the added capabilities provided by the Sega CD and 32X (particularly the Sega CD, given its compatibility with Redbook audio).
As for the whole _Star Fox_ thing, the Genesis actually is capable of native 3D rendering, but it's slow as shit, even compared to _Star Fox_. No matter which of the two 16-bit consoles you look at, you'll need some extra chips if you wanna get playable 3D games (the Genesis's SVP chip is actually way better than the Super FX chips, but was just never used outside of _Virtua Racing_ because it was too damn expensive).
It's *very* refreshing to see someone understand that. The sound versatility vs sound quality thing just goes wayy over everybody's heads.
The Snes has a much wider range of instrumentation, but the raw and clear Fm sound throughput, is undefeated on a Model 1 Gen. Titles like Midnight Resistance, Vapor Trail and Comix Zone make this abundantly obvious.
And yeah I'm aware of that, but it's still cool that the Gen can render polygons natively, to see it done in a practical manner check out F1 Grand Prix Championship, Red Zone or Adventures of Batman &R. Also Sonic 2's special stage tubes are composed using some fancy 3d trickery, pretty cool stuff.
In general, the Genesis and the Super Nintendo both have their own ups and downs that more or less balance each other out. The one thing that matters to me is that they both have plenty of worthwhile resources to take advantage of and that they both have a strong library of games that do just that.
Also, I didn't know the special stages in _Sonic 2_ were rendered with polygons; I always assumed it used something similar to _Rad Racer_ on the NES; that's pretty cool!
You, my bro, earned yourself a subscriber!
Thanks for such a nice video on how the SMS, SMD, and others' sound chips worked!
1:58 sound of the gods and angels.
lol
Man that was good. Really a nice job and a very enjoyable and informative video.
The Sega Genesis is a very capable machine for its time. Anyone with doubts as to what the Genesis can do should listen to the first two Streets of Rage titles, Thunder Force IV, and the fan fix of Street Fighter 2 Championship Edition.
I love the sound of the RF5C. It sounds so pure and clean.
Interesting vid, though as a newcomer to your channel, i was kind of hoping it had more examples and samples of the differences between each gen of hardware
Yeah... all I really heard was the number of channels used and the fact that they were either called PSG, FM or CD audio.
When you beat the game in Virtua Racing Deluxe the Sega logo pops up after the credits with a nice lil guitar sample for the jingle. The Genesis alone could never do that with such clarity.
The Genesis got a bad rap on sound due to lazy composition with the terriblr GEMS library, and Sega making terrible board revisions with awful pre-amps that distort the sound. Not to mentiom the initial genesis output was mono unless you bought stereo cables to put in the headphone jack...which most people didn't.
It's why soundtracks can be AMAZING or insane garbage.
*cough, Sonic Eraser...
2 words:
thunder force
Savaged Regime
What about Chiptuned Raijin?
that's 7 words
This was pretty cool! Thanks (:
what I love about this is that the author is clearly having fun doing these videos
I always felt that the synthy sound of the Megadrive aged better than the samples of the Amiga/SNES, they kinda sound janky today
Nice! But here: 1:36 isn't the Mega Drive derived from the Sega System 16 arcade board (M68000 + Z80 combo, later reused by Capcom or SNK) and also uses some Mark III/Master System components for backwards compatibility purpose?
Anyway, in the end, an awesome console with indeed great sound capabilities. The YM2612 or YM3438 + Sega PSG SN76496 is a fantastic sound chips combination and when I think about this, Tecno Soft often springs to mind, I mean, just listen to Elemental Master or Thunder Force IV soundtracks!
Looks like Sega used to love reusing hardware
@@zalternative1 I know it's probably a joke but I mean sound chips are both music instruments and hardware components.
seriously under-rated content
lovely stuff
That Sonic Adventure 7 clip cracks me up.
someone made "the only thing they fear is you" in this thing
Also, a number of SEGA CD games used the YM2612 for sound effects.
Let's not forget the YM2413 used as an FM soundchip for not just the MARK III/Master System, but MSX2 PC and even some late 80s ADK arcades like Sky Adventure, Sky Soldiers, Time Soldiers (precursor to Ninja Commando) and Gang Wars (precursor to Ninja Combat).
But perhaps the first arcade to use FM sound was the international version of Terra Cresta by Nichibutsu in 1985. It used the YM3526.
Fantastic. Also, some advanced sound programmers used software sample mixing on the YM2612 DAC. Flashback: The Quest for Identity used the GEMS driver and it had 4-sample playback for sound effects (the majority are samples and you can rarely notice them interrupting each other), and Kevin Pickell's Electronic Arts driver did great with the Fifa and Fifa 95 soundtracks.
That was the Zilog Z80 doing the sample mixing, not the YM.
I think you’re taking about Toy Story with the 4 channel sample playback at the title theme.
So much 90s "chicka-wocka chicka-wocka" here.
Never liked the SN76489 by itself in the Master System. Always felt it had a very weak and thin sound. It's works out much better as the higher range accompaniment to the YM2612 in the Genesis.
Two problems:
1. Terrible bass range - the lowest musical not is an A2 at 110Hz unless the mode this video calls "linked" is used to create a thin-sounding bassline with the noise channel
2. The noise channel - every time the pitch setting is altered the noise generator resets to its initial state, which give it a trademark "crackly attack" when the sound starts.
I've tried to make splashier sounding music with it before ruclips.net/video/f-ooB-1h9zw/видео.html
It feels like a cheap ay-3-8910 clone
The SN76489 was originally the sound chip in the TI/99 computer. The chip had a different name bax
Ck then. After TI got out of the computer making business, they sold the chips individually.
All about that video game music. Great channel and looking forward to anything else you produce \m/>.
Someone should make a sound driver that can abuse all of those features and bring them together to make complicated ochestras of music! Would probably be a pain in the ass to work with, but the resulting sound could be worth it :Y
Yea
Kid named fractal driver:
@@ssg-eggunner The wiki suggests that it only supports the standard Sega Genesis/Mega Drive hardware. Still a really hecking cool project; natsumi is amazing at this kind of thing! But I don't see 32X or sega CD support mentioned anywhere.
@@Pacca64 oh now i see what you meant
I've heard that someone coded a XM Player (16ch) for the 32x (i forgot the name of it)
One day, I want to hear a song that uses all 22 channels of audio in the tower of power
AAAWESOME VIDEO, loved it
2:59 thats some nice metroplan city music right there lol. also hi kaze's quest fans.
Cheeky video. Very cool.
THATS why the past themes in Sonic cd couldn't be changed from Jpn to us!
3:34 That middle chip ID (name) looks as if it spells hedgehog...
Toasty it does lol
:3
SoNiC tHe hEdGheHoG cOnFiRmeD!
@@Octo4533 Sanic
Hermoso vídeo informativo, hermosas bandas sonoras como Devlish salieron de la 16 bit de Sega.
Saludos compañero.
Devilish? Querrás decir Bad Omen.
japanese master system also had Yamaha 2413 which have FM unit
1:58-2:03 sounds kinda like a logo or something
Someone should to do an Sega Genesis CD 32x to take advantage of all the soundchips!
2:16 gold digguh
i want to see someone compose music for all of those channels
I'm still getting over that two channel samples from Ristar
Tempo is a very underrated game
Basically a cut down DX7 Chip. Listen to the bass instrument in Gen/Mega games and think of songs like "Papa don't preach" by Madonna. For me it was and still is beautiful. I had an Amiga that was similar to the Snes Sampled sounds. But mates had this console and there was something, special about that FM (proper Synth) sound.
I personally refer to the Genesis as a poor mans Sharp X68000 because thats what it was.
In short, when it came to sound, Sega took a Yamaha YM2151 and got a similar, but cheaper Yamaha sound chip in the YM2612 for the Genesis.
The question was simple for developing the Sega Genesis "How do you turn a $3000 computer into a $249 console??"
With OPN2 and SN76489 on my hand, I SUMMON YOU! SEGA GENESIS! ( I love the SSG-EG envelopes )
Very nice video!
1:59 why does this sound similar to the all chaos emerald sound from sonic 3
That tempo character was grooving
22 channels of which you can reproduce only 6 at the same time, what a shame
YES! finally someone who has decent ears! :) i just can't tell how much i told all the snes fanboys that the mega drive has WAY better sound (because it uses a real sound chip and not only those muffling samples the snes did). i always tell them that the ym2612 is a real synth, but all they do is laugh at me.
i'm so happy right now to find someone who has not even the same opinion as me but is proving it with knowledge. :)
You are seriously deluded if you think the Mega Drive has a better sound chip than the Super Nintendo. Then again Sega fanboys always listen to their own ego rather than face reality. The video below shows what a SNES is capable of.
ruclips.net/video/p_60V8UdYEY/видео.html&ab_channel=JohnsonDMG
shut up nerds
Evil Trapezium That video is not demoing the synth capabilities of the SNES...
The SNES doesn't have a synthesizer though. It's just near CD quality music all done via it's Sony SMP sound chip.
SNES is worlds away from CD quality music. Mega Drive has a higher qualtiy sound. Event he NES and SMS have higher qualtiy sound.
4:21
You forgot the DualPCM, so 23 channels.
the genesis was so fucking good
Great video. Subscribed!
No mention of the Zilog Z80? 😟
I think it's worth mentioning that one SMD channel is able to split up it's 4 sine-waves and control each individually. With this trick and the PSG, the Genesis actually has 13 channels.
Don't know how many times that was actually used. I think Furniss did it here and there.
source? I've never heard of this
>For channel 3, operator frequencies can be set independently, making dissonant harmonics possible.
From wikipedia, don't know where else to look. And this recent track is using that trick.
www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?32202-Infected-Mushroom-cover-(12-channel-madness
You can look at the official technical overview for the console!
ia601707.us.archive.org/0/items/Genesis_Technical_Overview_v1.00_1991_Sega_US/Genesis_Technical_Overview_v1.00_1991_Sega_US.pdf
...starting with page 95.
the thing about that, though, is that it sounds like this applies to FM channels 3 AND 6, meaning the Genesis can sort of have up to 16 channels without any add-ons.
I'm not sure if anyone ever used this technique back in the day, though. Furniss made chords using Algorithm #7 (on page 94) but not using channel 3 (or 6) as far as I've checked.
That sounds amazing.
If we're getting into that sort of stuff, you can actually split _every_ channel into 4 sine waves that can be keyed on/off individually! Although unless you're on channel 3, the only frequencies you can pick from for each sine are 15 steps in the harmonic series of whatever base frequency.
i love this channel
how dare you not talking about knuckles chaotix
The problem is that often times genesis OSTs were made lazily using the same god damn horrid sounds
Stardust speedway sounds like futurebass that's incredible
So cool. Subscribed. I was hoping to see more about what kinds of sounds could be generated. Or were they fixed? Chips like the SID (Commodre 64) and the OPL2 (Adlib, MS-DOS!) you could adjust the settings on each instrument to get different sounds...
Except for the SN76489, all of the chips had fully customizable sounds. (The SN76's limitations were discussed in the video.)
You should do the Super Famicom capabilities next.
EDIT: He did.
quality content
0:41 Why does this remind me of the Specimen 4 song from the game Spooky's house of jumpscares?
So the Sega CD has a basically 8-channel tracker-friendly chip? I wonder how it was interfaced; like the SNES chip the tunes were basically software that ran independently. Is the Sega chip more like just an 8-channel D/A converter / mixer like Amiga / PC sound?
What my childhood sounded like
So it's kinda got an Atari, and an Adlib Gold, with CD adding a Gravis Ultrasound, and 32x something similar to the SNES chip?
Replace gravis ultrasound with cd player lmao
Well. Gravis Ultrasound can sound way better due to higher RAM.
3:00 So I guess that's why the past tracks tend to have a very different sound to the present, good and bad future tracks.
And also is why the past tracks sound the same in all regions.
What about the soundtrack for the Mega Drive demo Overdrive 2? Needs to be mentioned I think 🙂
This video was uploaded one day after Overdrive 2 was shown at Revision, so there's no way it could have made it into the script.
though even then, I'm not sure what I could have added other than a mention. it's good, but still bound to the stuff I mentioned in the video!
mentioned in the comments is good enough then - funny timing btw 😄
I feel people don’t thank YAMAHA enough
Thanks a lot for making this video! It was extremely informative to me and many others! Also, can you or anyone else please explain what the "Linked" Pitch ( 0:58 ) actually is? Thanks in advance!
basically, the noise channel only has three available pitches.
once you activate linked pitch, you lose one of your three square wave channels, but you gain the ability to change the noise channel to any pitch. this can be used for a sweeping static sound or a pulse wave sound.
does that explanation help?
@@GSTChannelVEVO Thanks a lot for the explanation!
I believe Star Wars on the 32x used the 32Xs sound chip also
The sega genesis is amazing at rendering timpani and steel drum
2:43 what song?
IMPORTANT: you didn't mention about sega fm sound unit which is an addon for the sega mark III
it used a yamaha idk but it was a real addon
Is there a way of getting a .vgm file of the channel demonstration shown at 1:58?
I rendered it out for you, check the description!
@@GSTChannelVEVO Oh man thanks a lot!!!! I've always loved the Genesis sound and this cord will be my new message ringtone. Thanks again!! This has been my first interaction with a RUclips video and I appreciate your dedication and fine courtesy of doing this. Simply Thank You!!!!
@@Kutuztuk My channel is big enough to get new comments every day, but small enough that I can read all of them. I love hearing peoples thoughts and answering questions where I can. Thanks for watching
Shinobi 3 sounds great
Idk why but when the 32X gets inserted to the mega drive a notification popped up censoring it
1:59 I always come back here just for this chord🤌
How do the square waves create sound? Is there more detail on the transformation between these signals and some audio output?
It's literally just a few registers! You basically send two numbers: one of them becomes the pitch, the other becomes the volume. (Repeat this for each channel, of course.) The SN76489 takes care of actually producing the sound.
Right, so volume = amplitude and pitch = frequency. That's clear. Now I need to investigate how the shape of the wave-function will make it sound different to if it was a clean sinusoid, how more detailed approximations of the wave itself will sound, etc... though I'm sure people have already thought about these things and solved them decades ago lol.
also, thanks a lot for explaining it!
And yet the explosions still sound like flatulence.
sure if the composer was bad! remember the arcade that all gamers wanted to have? they used nearly the same hardware as genesis.
Yeah, that tends to happen when you make an explosion sound using FM Synth and not something recorded lol
YHUAN01 Actually some of my favorite sound effects on the genesis aren't even sampled. You've probably played revenge of shinobi, but if you've never paid attention to the sound effects you should. The explosions are all synthesized and pretty decent, but others like the door sounds are impressively realistic.
I love a lot of the non sampled sfx as well. Especially the explosions in Shinobi. Sonic has had some good ones as well in some games. Sonic Spinball has some oddly satisfying explosion sounds that are honestly just a weird as hell bass.
I've also heard a really good FM wind blowing sfx in a game. Can't remember what game it was though.
Hmm, the Master System has three squares and a noise? Compared to the NES having two squares, a triangle, a noise, and DPCM. Man it's funny how all the stats between those two systems leap-frogged one another. NES has better sound, SMS has higher color depth, NES can't mirror BG tiles but SMS can't mirror sprite tiles... You just don't get such stark differences between systems like that anymore.
Why didn't you mention the mark III's Yamaha YM2413 FM sound?
mostly because it's tangential to the progression towards the megadrive.
@@GSTChannelVEVO oh, OK, thanks😊
Awsome video, I am a HUGE FAN of your channel!!!
Very informative
Well, leaving 32x and sega cd aside, the original Genesis' sound in and of itself wasn't bad at all. I think the whole criticism stems from comparing it to its contemporaries' audio abilities and then, yes, it seemed lacking.
FM-Synth has aged better than any other video game music imo, I also love th GB & GBC chiptune music, PSG synth, the Neo Geo Pocket Colour has geourgous sound too, the GBA actually has really sound, hampered by the poor DAC, but GBA games music really shines when played on a GC GBA Player thanks to the higher quality DAC, and the same for playing GBA on the DS or with MiSTer, then there is MIDI music, which I love too, Secret Monkey Island games for instance, and I also love the C64 SID sound and then back to FM-SYnth withthe Amiga, which also used Yamaha OPL2 music, with the option of Adlib music.
But as I said, out of all of these, FM-Synth combined with PSG aged by far the best, it's the aduio equivilant of the SNES 16-Bit spite graphics, which have aged the best out of all the sytems imo, which is kind of why I'd argue the Neo Geo is probably the best example of graphics and audio for retro 2D games, as it combines the same Yamaha FM sound hardware as the Mega Drive with a higher quality DAC, and has even better 2D graphics than the SNES, if only you could make native ports of all the best Mega Drive and SNES games for the Neo Geo, you would have the perfect 16-Bit 2D library of games, might as well port all the best GBA, PCE and Amiga games to it while your at it, then again, It's cool to have all the variety f different systems and their quirks.
That said, one day, it would be dope to have an FPGA system that has the definitive ports of all the best 8/16-Bit 2D games, with the best possible RGB quality, and the best real-time FM-synth audio OPL4 presentation, the recently done Batman Forever SNES demo port teaser example to the Mega Drive with the sountrack nativly presented in real-time FM-Synth is a great example of how much better it is over standard compressed sequenced PCM, not to say SNES games couldnt sound good with decent sequenced samples, like Super MArio World for example, but it could never compete with FM-Synth's real-time sound generation.
Tempo game uses Megadrive's pcm,theres somewhere a video showing playing this track on a plain MD (through Everdrive).
OCT 2021 CHECK IN
Having a Genesis is similar to a Mark III with the FM sound unit in sound terms?
I'm not very familiar with the Mark III's FM sound unit, so I can't really say for sure. It appears to be closer to a 2-op adlib sound with several extra limitations. One of the Mark III's YM2413 channels can match the Genesis's FM sound if you only use 2 operators on the Genesis (and if you only use the regular sine waveforms on the YM2413), but otherwise I'd say they're fairly dissimilar overall.
hi man, excellent content from your channel! I am writing to you from Argentina, and I have a great project with a Russian sega umk3 rom hacker, there is a scenario that for the sega version never had the right music as it happens in arcade, would it be possible that you could try to recreate that track with the gem engine ?