Genesis - SNES audio comparison

Huge · Post by **Huge** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 5:33 pm

Shiru wrote:Complaining 'it's too repetitive' about techno or trance music is just ridiculous. It's supposed to be repetitive. Could you complain 'classical music sucks, it has no drums'?

... plenty of classical music uses drums - and numerous other types of percussion -, and there are many techno/trance tunes which focus on melodies and not just on repetitive uninspired drum festivals (not specifically thinking of RZ or B&R here).

Shiru · Post by **Shiru** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 5:51 pm

I'm sure you have understood what I meant - dominant pattern drumming like in rock music etc, which is not used in classical music because drumkits weren't invented at time.

I'm sure you know that 'techno' refers to many subgenres, but because we speak about Jesper Kyd, we speak about certain subgenre which has no focus on melodies. In any case, techno music is always repetitive, more or less.

Snake · Post by **Snake** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 9:04 pm

powerofrecall wrote:Well programmed FM has way more "oomph" than SPC/wavetable music does.

I pretty much agree with everything you've said

Can't say I'm a big fan of JKs style, but the B&R stuff is, indeed, pretty awesome.

powerofrecall wrote:As for the output of the console I'd like to see an MD emulator emulate the non-linearity and generally low quality of the output stage.

It isn't really the output stage that's the problem, it's all caused by distortion present in the chip. Obviously there isn't any point trying to fake this, you need to get it right. It's the last part of the puzzle that I really need to solve, but it takes time and a lot of effort, and real life (tm) keeps tripping me up

Christuserloeser · Post by **Christuserloeser** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 9:15 pm

"low quality of the output stage" seems to refer to what a model #2 outputs. - I think you can fake it by just setting your emulator to a sampling rate of 22khz, or better yet: 11khz.

Huge · Post by **Huge** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 10:13 pm

Shiru wrote:I'm sure you know that 'techno' refers to many subgenres, but because we speak about Jesper Kyd, we speak about certain subgenre which has no focus on melodies.

Good sir, you made me cover my face with the palm of my hand, verily.

Shiru · Post by **Shiru** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 10:28 pm

I don't understand meaning of this comment, as well I don't understand what reason you had to said obvious 'the rules has exceptions' in previous post.

powerofrecall · Post by **powerofrecall** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 11:29 pm

Snake wrote: It isn't really the output stage that's the problem, it's all caused by distortion present in the chip. Obviously there isn't any point trying to fake this, you need to get it right. It's the last part of the puzzle that I really need to solve, but it takes time and a lot of effort, and real life (tm) keeps tripping me up

Christuserloeser wrote: "low quality of the output stage" seems to refer to what a model #2 outputs. - I think you can fake it by just setting your emulator to a sampling rate of 22khz, or better yet: 11khz.

The MD2 is what I'm thinking of chiefly--it had an audible noise floor compared to the original MD. Heck if you could modulate in some kind of 50/60hz (+harmonics) distortion at like -32db you'd have a big piece of it. Of course, another big part of the sound is the television's speakers it's being played through... I've also noticed, and you'd totally be the man to ask here since you wrote the best emulation of it--does a real MD have some kind of nonlinear volume curve? The only difference between Fusion and real HW that I've noticed (besides the overall cleaner sound) is that the dynamics of the audio seem to be wider than the real thing. The HW to me seems to have a more "compressed" sound... also, have you ever considered implementing some kind of sound plugin system? Something like support for VST effects, or even a custom format? It would be neat in that you could say, pipe the individual channel outs into a plugin, like a send/return effect, and let a user apply effects to enhance--reverb?--or degrade the audio if they chose. If you did something like that I'd totally take a crack at writing some kind of simulation. It wouldn't be accurate "emulation" of course, but neither is screen filtering. Just a thought, it'd probably be work

Huge wrote: Good sir, you made me cover my face with the palm of my hand, verily.

It looks like this is less of a technical discussion now and more one of musical taste

Chilly Willy · Post by **Chilly Willy** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 11:46 pm

powerofrecall wrote:It's basically like a poor MOD format with teeny tiny looping samples.

I'm always looking for teeny tiny looping samples as that's what you need for music on the SEGA CD if you're not using the FM or CDDA. The PCM chip in the CD is designed for teeny tiny looping samples.

powerofrecall · Post by **powerofrecall** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 11:53 pm

Chilly Willy wrote:
powerofrecall wrote:It's basically like a poor MOD format with teeny tiny looping samples.
I'm always looking for teeny tiny looping samples as that's what you need for music on the SEGA CD if you're not using the FM or CDDA. The PCM chip in the CD is designed for teeny tiny looping samples.

I just never understood the point of having wavetable sound hardware and giving it no RAM to work with, haha... of course I guess that's like having full motion video with no decent color palette to work with either

Which I guess is probably why there is so much redbook audio on SegaCD games? I think though the biggest travesty was the Saturn's sound HW not really getting used properly.

TmEE co.(TM) · Post by **TmEE co.(TM)** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 11:58 pm

the MCD PCM chip does not have forced interpolation in it so it sounds much cripser than SNES ADPCM chip

Chilly Willy · Post by **Chilly Willy** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 7:05 am

powerofrecall wrote:Which I guess is probably why there is so much redbook audio on SegaCD games?

Sonic CD uses the PCM for wavetable music for the past and future. The present is redbook.

TmEE co.(TM) · Post by **TmEE co.(TM)** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 10:37 am

it does it only for past... at least EU version does.

Chilly Willy · Post by **Chilly Willy** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 9:48 pm

Well, ONE of those time periods uses the PCM wavetable instead of redbook.

Anywho, if anyone knows of any teeny tiny looping samples, I'd be much obliged for a link.

SmartOne · Post by **SmartOne** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 2:49 am

The Past songs use PCM samples for the instruments. Get it? Past? Supposed to sound older...?

By the way, the most accurate SPC player can be found in this thread: http://www.hcs64.com/mboard/forum.php?showthread=14893

It sounds much better than anything previously. (SNESamp, etc.)

Chilly Willy · Post by **Chilly Willy** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 4:26 am

SmartOne wrote:The Past songs use PCM samples for the instruments. Get it? Past? Supposed to sound older...?

Never thought of it that way. I guess that's why you're the SmartOne.