The day the gaming music died

UPDATED 7/15/2009
READ FROM THIS LINK BEFORE COMMENTING, (because I'm sick of having to explain in a wall of text clarifying my position): http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3175178




...or just simply lost its identity.

Guest Starring Chadwarren *raises middle finger*

I know I didn't use the BEST examples for people to raise. Not a single Mega Man game in this video which I should have done.

This is made for SLIGHTLY educational purposes, none are my works.

*ERROR* I shouldn't have made that MT-32 comment. The Roland is CLEARLY ahead of FM and perhaps equal or better than the SNES.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Game
• Music
• FM
• Adlib
• SPC700
• Super
• Nintendo
• CD
• Sega
• Genesis
• Arcade
• Gameboy
• NES

[xan1242]

NES itself has 4 channels,not 5,but it is expandable with chips on cartridges.

[KeijiKG]

@xan1242

No, it has 5. Two square wave, 1 triangle wave and 1 noise channel. There's a DPCM channel for samples, but it's mostly used for voice and sounds like the drums on Super Mario Bros. 3.

[professors84]

You know Chad Warden was just a troll right?

[KeijiKG]

@professors84 Well this is a 3 year old video, so you're kind of banking on the fact that I wouldn't learn anything until you just posted. So really you're the one who's late to the party.

[KeijiKG]

@KeijiKG

So to be more direct, I've known that for a while now.

[HardWarUK]

Nice info and nice video and nice music and I agree - but SID rules in 8 bit (Commodore 64!) and you didn't included it!

[KeijiKG]

@HardWarUK

Chalk it up to personal Myopia I guess.

[uN1Qu3DZ]

yup, the music in DOOM was absolutely sick. if i'm right, it was composed so it sounds the same when it's played backwards, to piss off all those silly people who thought there are satanic lyrics backmasked into rock music...

that is, if there wasn't enough satanic graphics in the game itself, hehe.

[vladpiranha]

It's funny how that the tones of the NES can't really be reproduced with new tech.

[xan1242]

@Maskakoopa Action 52 has an expansion PCM.

[Maskakoopa]

@xan1242 Only in japan me' boy, only in japan...

[NightshadesPromise2]

Gaming died with the first generation of 3D consoles (PS1 / N64). The graphics used to look so clean, but now it's just block polygons. Even the new 3D stuff kinda sucks most of the time.

[xan1242]

@KeijiKG Oh I forgot about DPCM channel,nevermind...

[xan1242]

@TheMovieCreator (Sorry for late response)

It was a LA synth with MIDI interface.

MIDI is widely used in videogames.(maybe even today)

Prime example is the Final Fantasy series,since the 7th,Nobuo started using MIDI and it made it a lot easier for him to make music for next three Final Fantasy games,as well as other Square's games and remakes.Until PS2 era,it was the actual hardware (or softsynths) playing actual MIDIs,now you get recorded playback from MIDI synthesizers.

[supersmashbro596]

koji kondo- the motzart of the video game world. truly nintendo music still are great even to this day, but the snes/nes music are the best

[TheMovieCreator]

It si worth mentioning that the MT-32 was not a PSG, but a MIDI-synth. MIDI makes it way less complicated for artists to make music, but it does provide some limitations for how much flexibility programmers have over the sound generator.

But I would say that the sound isn't the issue; It's the arrangements in terms of the sound. The range of sounds a PSG can provide is quite limited, so much more effort was put into the arrangement. Still, there are a lot of recent games that has good music.

[wocko1]

Mate, you are so right about what TRUE video game music really is. Heck I built a retro game PC and I'm using a Roland MT-32 and a Roland Sound Canvas SC-55mkII for DOS game MIDI music.

You were right about that Tiny Toons Mega Drive (Genesis) vs SNES, another fine example is Police Quest I VGA (1992) for the PC which can either use the MT-32 or the SC-55 or even OPL2. And it sounds best using the MT-32 (1987) where the SC-55 (1991) is the "new" tech.

Shame you didn't make any mention of SID