Genesis Soundchip=Rock Music?

[recme]

SNES chips are better. SNES can produce overall better quality sound, easier. <- Key Word right here.


Sonic Ice Cap Zone recreated to SNES Sound chips. Good song, but overall the boom and bass are non-existent I don't feel like a cool snarky Hedgehog who's better than other people but is a cool guy about it anyway here.

easier? what was easier, may i ask? i dont really understand. sure, snes was better, but what exactly was easier for making music for it?

also, that sonic recreation is not even snes music. its a recreation of smooth criminal using the same instruments of ice cap zone... on genesis hardware. basically, youre saying that the boom and bass isnt very great, insulting genesis music.

[Koh]

I think he's talking about it from a technical standpoint. Since the SNES chip is higher grade in instrument quality output, that's what he means by producing it easier than the Genesis. Think about it in terms of graphics for example. If you're working with 16 bit graphics, by definition, it's easier to produce higher detail on the graphics, just because you have a lot more colors to work with than 8-bit graphics. Bringing it back to the SNES chip, by definition of the hardware, it's easier to produce higher quality sound than on the Genesis, since its hardware is inferior. But this says nothing on preference C:.

From what I've noticed, because of the higher quality sound output from the SNES chip, it was more suited for orchestral type things, as seen in Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest or Zelda. Since the Genesis' was lower quality, and more gritty, that atmosphere suited rock/techno/etc. type music more. But this isn't to say the SNES CAN'T do that type of music, nor does it say the Genesis CAN'T do orchestral type music.

Take this for example.

[recme]

handling samples were probably hard back then. try dumping an ost from a snes game and look at all the samples. iirc, around 200 samples are in every average snes game. 200 samples + programming your music (yeah, music used to be programmed...) = hard to manage

orchestral? that song only showcases a harp, the 50% pulse wave main (and its echoes), and a piano.

sure, it shows that the genesis can have great instruments, but it does not show that it can make a symphony out of it, like good ol snes over here

[Koh]

I'd have to hunt for other examples, since I haven't played many Genesis games that went for that sort of route. It was really just to show that it's possible to have that type of music on the Genesis, even though it was more suited towards more gritty, miasma-like songs. Take the Phantasy Star 4 Battle theme for example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsXcw4EIyLk

The lower quality of the Genesis chip giving that gritty sound enhances its atmosphere and tension. If you were to take the same song and put it on SNES, that grit would be lost, as well as the atmosphere changed. You could probably put it on the PC Engine or NEC PC-9801 with minimal change, though.

Actually, here's a good comparison of the same song on the two systems. Madou Monogatari's Battle Theme.

SNES: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2maFhSxzT1g
Here they make use of that panning feature, which is nice. But compare it to its Genesis counterpart.

Genesis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt0tG4QQdW0
It doesn't have the panning, but the grit makes the background effect sound more poisonous, so to speak, or miasmic. More danger.

Now compare it to the NEC PC-9801 version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeCzyjYwUFo
Pretty close to the Genesis one (this one came first, though), and it also has the gritty, poisonous effect.

[Omegajak]

Wel it's not JUST Rock music. I'll say this. in terms of Hip Hop and Bass the Genesis delivered more all of the Streets of Rage Games and Toe Jam and Earl sound more rustic and urban.

Ripple Dot Zero comes to my mind. As well, as does Vectorman. Also, yes I'm speaking from a technical standpoint. If you didn't see me get schooled go back a page. We all just got a in-depth lesson about Sound Chips and Channels. The SNES was a more musically inclined system as it was more 'classically' trained and tempered which in all honesty produces the best music.

[Gors]

It doesn't have the panning, but the grit makes the background effect sound more poisonous, so to speak, or miasmic. More danger.

This "gritty" instrument is the defining feature of YM synth chips. It's achieved via filtering of the 4 ADSR graphs for each instrument.

Basically, a YM synth instrument is the sum of 4 graphs: imagine a 4-layer photoshop file: the whole image is the instrument and each detail in the individual layers are the ADSR graphs. If you move one of the layer's hue slider, the layer will change color and it wll affect the entire file. This way, you can simulate a harsh start that gets muffled over time.

The SNES cannot reproduce this sound natively, but can sample these sounds separately and piece them together in the composition, heard here:



The instruments in 0:10 and the bass in 0:20 are actually various samples in different states to simulate filtering - and due to that, it takes more space in the cartridge. (however these waves were usually short and looped so it's actually more nuisance to insert than difficult).

[Koh]

You can kinda tell that they're separate samples on the SNES one, because the fading out isn't as smooth. Maybe that's one of the advantages the Genesis and NEC chips have over the SNES. They don't have the panning, but they have the ability to do that effect freely and smoothly.

[Gors]

I've researched more on the SNES soundchip and it appears that SNES was capable of doing all that Genesis could:

The S-DSP is capable of producing and mixing 8 simultaneous voices at any relevant pitch and volume in 16-bit stereo at a sample rate of 32 kHz. It has support for voice panning, ADSR envelope control, echo with filtering (via a programmable 8-tap FIR), and using noise as sound source (useful for certain sound effects such as wind). S-DSP sound samples are stored in RAM in compressed (BRR) format. Communications between the S-SMP and the S-DSP are carried out via memory-mapped I/O.

maybe it's not exactly as proeminent because you could record the sample directly from the instrument itself - there was no need to program the sound further in most cases, I think. I'll research more.