Retro Game Audio

Reader responds: Regarding MSX Audio...

Mon, 07 May 2012 19:59:00 -0400

2PLAYER answered my question. You can visit his tumblr here.

Channels 7, 8, and 9 have 6 slots and are used to generate the 5 rhythmic sounds. Bass drum uses 2 slots with FM while the other 4 sounds are created using the OPL white noise oscillator combined with frequency data. So yes, you could make your own OPL drums with the 9 channels but this allows you to squeeze 5 drums out of 3 channels.

Thanks for the information! :D

A question for my readers: Regarding MSX Audio...

Mon, 07 May 2012 03:19:00 -0400

Hello everyone!

A couple weeks ago I responded to a question about the sound behind the MSX and the Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake soundtrack. But there’s actually something regarding the description of the soundchips in MSX-AUDIO and MSX-MUSIC that I’ve never understood when reading about them. I’d be interest if someone can provide an answer.

According to wikipedia and other sources, both MSX-AUDIO and MSX-MUSIC are described as having:

9 channels of FM sound (without drums), or 6 channels of FM sound + 5 FM drums.

Does anyone know why that is, or what that means? You can create percussive sounds with FM synthesis. And with the Sega Genesis YM2612, for example, that doesn’t require a special feature or different mode. You can use one of the 6 FM channels to make a drum sound as you would make any other sound.

Is there a reason you can’t use the first 9 channels however you want (ignoring MSX-MUSIC having presets)? Or is it that you can do that with MSX-AUDIO, but they found a way to create drums with less resources, making it better to have an option that allows for 5 channels of drums with only sacrificing 3 “normal” channels? Does that come from restricting the number of operators?

Perhaps I’m simply misreading a feature as a “rule”. With the drums enabled, I don’t understand why you couldn’t have 11 channels of drums. Any clarification would be great!

NES Audio: Reinterpretation of The Exorcist theme

Sun, 06 May 2012 03:41:00 -0400

Visiting a friend in Washington, D.C. this past weekend, we happened to run into the staircase from The Exorcist when I stopped for gas.

I was reminded of an arrangement I did of the “Exorcist theme” for the NES some years back. It’s not the entirety of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, just the segment popularized by the movie:

It was made shortly after I extracted the Sunsoft bass samples from Gremlins 2. I wanted to have a better understanding on how melodies worked in the sample channel, so I used it in this arrangement. I also hadn’t played around with much triangle percussion at that point, so creating this was a good learning experience!

Can you explain how the MSX2 sound chip works? I was listening to music from Metal Gear 2 and it's got some great sounds.

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 15:11:00 -0400

Sure! Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake on the MSX2 has one of my favorite computer game soundtracks from the 8-bit era. I’m not as familiar with MSX audio as I am with the NES, but I know a little bit about the soundchips they used and the general limitations they had.

A brief introduction:

MSX machines are a family of home computers from the early ’80s. Part of the ‘8-bit’ computer market, MSX competed with computers like the Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit, and ZX Spectrum. They were popular in parts of Asia, Europe, and South America, but mostly unknown in the United States. You can read more about the MSX here and on wikipedia.

(an MSX2+ [image source])

For audio, the MSX2 primarily used the Yamaha YM2149 programmable sound generator. It is a variant of the General Instrument AY-3-8910, which was used in many other systems like the Intellivision, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, and more. It is also similar to the Texas Instruments SN76489, the competing chip that was used in the Sega Master System.

This sound chip has three channels of sound, comprised of square waves and a noise generator (you can read an incredibly in-depth analysis here). This video demonstrates a youtube user’s favorite MSX music made with this PSG audio:

But Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake used a sound expansion cartridge for more advanced audio. Known as MSX-AUDIO, the cartridge contained the Yamaha Y8950, a sound chip that offered 9 channels of FM sound (or 6 if FM percussion is being used), and included an 8-bit ADPCM sampler. If you wanted to compare the audio to another system, it’s kind of like a more primitive Sega Genesis.

Three different cartridges for MSX-AUDIO were made by Philips, Toshiba, and Panasonic. Here’s what one of them looked like:

At the moment I’m having difficulty finding a complete list of games that used MSX-AUDIO in their soundtracks, but I know that Konami had several, including Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.

Something I like a lot about the Metal Gear 2 soundtrack is how it embraces the synthesizer aesthetic. The introduction to MG2 has one of the most cinematic-like openings of any 8-bit game I’ve seen, and the music has elements of ’80s horror / sci-fi themes. I’m reminded of music by John Carpenter (Halloween, Escape from New York, Assault on Precinct 13) at moments throughout MG2, reinterpreted with a Konami-esque sound.

There was also another sound add-on for the MSX known as MSX-MUSIC, which used the Yamaha YM2413 sound chip. It also offered 9 (or 6+ drums) channels of FM sound, but it was more limited than MSX-AUDIO because it allowed only one customizable voice at a time, with the rest being presets (more information here). MSX-Music was a built-in feature on some of the later MSX models. Fans of the Sega Master System will recognize the sound as the same FM chip used in some Master System games.

One of my favorite MSX-Music soundtracks I’ve heard is the MSX port of Final Fantasy. I generally expect console-to-computer ports from the ’80s to not do the best job converting the music, but I actually like the MSX version of Final Fantasy more than the original Famicom/ NES version:

The Legacy Music Hour - Episode 77: Sunsoft

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 13:39:00 -0400

Episode 77: Sunsoft

I was invited via skype as a guest on the most recent episode of The Legacy Music Hour podcast. I talk a little bit about Sunsoft audio, their use of melodic samples, and a couple other things. It’s a great episode with some excellent selections by Brent and Rob.

Episode tracklist:

Gimmick! - Masashi Kageyama - Good Morning (Introduction) - Authentic Entertainment/Sunsoft - Famicom - 1992

Super Spy Hunter - Naoki Kodaka, Nobuyuki Hara, Shinichi Seya - Staff Roll - Sunsoft - NES - 1992

Journey to Silius - Naoki Kodaka, Nobuyuki Hara, Shinichi Seya - Stage 3 - Sunsoft - NES - 1990

Batman - Naoki Kodaka, Nobuyuki Hara - Stage 3 - Sunsoft - NES - 1989

Blaster Master - Naoki Kodaka - Level 6 - Sunsoft - NES - 1988

Tel-Tel Mahjong - unknown - BGM 4 - Chat Noir/Sunsoft - Mega Drive - 1990

Fester’s Quest - Naoki Kodaka, Nobuyuki Hara - Outside - Sunsoft - NES - 1989

Super Fantasy Zone - Naoki Kodaka - Staff Roll - Sunsoft - Mega Drive - 1992

Pescatore - unknown - Unknown 1 - Tierheit/Sunsoft - Famicom - 1991 (unreleased)

Freedom Force - Naoki Kodaka - Stage 2: Terminal Walkway - Sunsoft - NES - 1988

Trip World - Tsutomu Ishida, Masayuki Iwata, Atsushi Mihiro, Phase Out - Credits - Sunsoft - Game Boy (Japan) - 1992

Benkei Gaiden - unknown - unknown - Sunsoft - PC Engine - 1989

Hebereke - Naoki Kodaka, Nobuyuki Hara, Shinichi Seya - Hebe’s Adventure - Sunsoft - Famicom - 1991

Tel-Tel Stadium - Shinichi Seya - Sound Test 0B - Sunsoft - Mega Drive - 1990

Batman: Return of the Joker - Naoki Kodaka, Nobuyuki Hara, Shinichi Seya - Ending - Sunsoft - NES - 1991

NES Audio: The Arpeggio Effect

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 00:01:00 -0400

A brief explanation and several examples of the arpeggio effect.

In an earlier post I talked about the arpeggio, and gave more specifics about how it works on the NES, although I wanted to make a youtube video with more examples. :)

The Legacy Music Hour podcast

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 23:46:57 -0400

http://legacymusichour.blogspot.com/

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-legacy-music-hour/id405561057

The Legacy Music Hour podcast was created by Brent Weinbach and Rob F. for the purpose of sharing and talking about video game music from specifically the 8-bit and 16-bit eras. No remixes, no covers, no video game inspired music -just pure, original music from the NES, SNES, Genesis, and more…

- -

I’d like to thank the guys from the legacy music hour podcast for the kind words and sharing retrogameaudio with their listeners in the last episode. I’d also like repay the plug by recommending The Legacy Music Hour to my followers on tumblr. Check it out!

I’ve been digging through their archives and I’ve discovered some awesome game music. I really appreciate the show and I’m looking forward to tuning in weekly.

nickmaynard: http://little-scale.com/ A midi interface for the...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 17:50:42 -0400

nickmaynard:

http://little-scale.com/

A midi interface for the Sega Genesis. Mine’s already on it’s way. So stoked.

NES Audio: Legend of Zelda, video display of sound channels

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 01:59:29 -0400

created by: 1ucasvb

I found some cool videos that show the waveform display for each sound channel. It’s a very nice way of demonstrating how the music is arranged.

NES Audio: Rob Hubbard Sawtooth Wave

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:02:02 -0400

A method for generating a sustained melodic sound from the sample channel:

As mentioned in the video, The Immortal by Rob Hubbard is the only soundtrack on the NES or Famicom I’ve found that uses this technique, and I’m under the impression that it is truly unique. Please send me a message if you know of any other examples!

For the famitracker users, you can download an instrument I’ve created that maps the sample to the corresponding notes on a piano for all 16 pitches. The lowest notes start at octave 3 for convenience: DPCM Rob Hubbard Saw.fti

I’ve been meaning to make a post on the recent creations...

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 20:57:00 -0400

I’ve been meaning to make a post on the recent creations of NES composer Neil Baldwin. He’s made several programs for creating NES music and sfx that push the sound limitations, and are capable of creating sounds rarely (or never) heard before in classic NES soundtracks. I’ll talk some more about his stuff in the future, but I wanted to reblog this post from Nick Maynard.

Skip to 52 seconds in if you want to hear the NES pulse wave channel make unusual sounds! :)

http://www.nes-audio.com/

nickmaynard:

NoisES by Neil Baldwin

this is a single channel of the NES. incredible.

NES Audio: Sunsoft Bass and Melodic Samples

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 12:33:57 -0400

A demonstration of how DPCM samples were used melodically on the NES.

Ripped from the Gremlins 2 nsf, you can experiment with the Sunsoft bass using this .fti file for famitracker. (sorry for the zshare link, i’ll replace this with a better home in the future)

Special thanks go to ~J-@Ð!~ for providing this handy DPCM frequency data chart. You can see just how much the intonation varies between the different speeds (pitches):

listening to NES music: an introduction to NSFs

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:19:22 -0400

I had someone ask me how I mute the different channels, and how they can do the same for the purpose of learning some parts more easily on guitar.

This is a great question, and it makes me realize I should’ve made a post about this earlier. The best way to listen to and examine NES music is with NSF (nintendo sound format) files. Different NSF players have different options, but channel muting is a pretty common feature. What’s great about NSFs is that they’re made of code extracted from ROM data, so it’s the actual game music (unlike MIDI recreations), and they’re very small in size. There’s two steps to get yourself set up.

Download the NSF.
Download an NSF player.

For step 1, arc-nova.org is probably the best current archive for NSFs. As a backup, there’s also Akumu’s NSF Archive. You should be able to find pretty much any soundtrack you’re looking for.

For step 2, I’d recommend a couple different players. If you’re using windows and don’t mind running winamp, notsofatso is a pretty excellent winamp plugin for nsfs. NSFPlay is another pretty good one. It comes with a piano display so you can watch all of the parts as they play. It was recently fixed to work on Vista and Windows 7, and has both a standalone version (NSFplay), and a winamp plugin (NSFplug).

For OSX, I’d recommend Game Music Box or Audio Overload.

Some NES emulators support NSF files as well, like Nestopia.

NES Audio: Duty Cycle Modulation

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 23:41:00 -0400

A quick explanation of the NES duty cycles and how they can be manipulated.

Famitracker instrument data for the given examples.

Gremlins 2:

Volume: 12 12 11 1 3
Duty Cycle: 2 1

Alien 3:

Volume: 0 7 6 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 0
Pitch: -1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 | 3 4 4 -3 -4 -4 -3 -4 -4 3 4 4
Duty Cycle: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1

Bad Dudes:

Volume (Pulse 1): 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 0
Volume (Pulse 2): 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 0
Duty Cycle: 0 1 3 0 3 1 2 1 0 2 2 3 2 1 0 2 3 2 1 0 2 3 3 2 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 2 2 1 1 0 2 0 0 2 0 0 2 3 0 3 3 0 2 3 2 0 1 2 3 0 1 1 0 0 2 0 1 3 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 3 1 0 0 0 2 0

Hi! Don't mean to bother you again but can I request how Super Mario Bros. 3 does the whole bongodrum/steel drum like sound? You can hear it clearll at the end of the music that plays when you lose a life. Thanks!

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 05:25:00 -0400

Super Mario Bros. 3 uses very lo-fi audio samples (1-bit DPCM) for those sounds. The NES’s 5th channel is dedicated to sample playback. Anytime you hear semi-intelligible vocals on the NES, like the “I’m bad!” from Bad Dudes, those are also samples.

The sample channel has some odd quirks and uses, so I’ll save a more detailed explanation for future posts.

NES Audio: Asterix Noise Instruments

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 19:49:00 -0500

Hello everyone! I had a couple people ask me for pointers on making noise instruments for NES music. It’s a little difficult to answer this question, because there’s no definitive answer on what makes good drums.

There are three main things to consider when making a noise drum. Volume, pitch, and duration. The “duration” is how long it takes for the volume to fade over time, or if the pitch changes over time as well (I guess that’s actually just two main things, over the course of time). Deciding if your snare should start on volume 11 or 7 and how long it takes to fade can depend on how everything else sounds. The appropriate size and shape of a noise instrument is dependent on the context.

But there’s a couple general ideas you can keep in mind if you’re trying to model your sounds after a real drum kit. Emulating the following instruments would be a good place to start:

Bass Drum
Snare Drum
Closed Hi-Hat
Loose Hi-Hat
Open Hi-Hat or Crash Cymbals

I’ll typically create an instrument for all of these before I even know if I’m going to need more or less. These sounds have a relationship to each other - the snare drum is usually the loudest, and it’s mid-to-high pitched. The closed hi-hat will probably be softer, shorter, and higher pitched than the snare. The loose hi-hat will be a little bit louder and last a little bit longer than the closed hi-hat. The bass drum might be kind of short like a closed hi-hat, or between the length of a closed hi-hat and the snare’s length, and it probably uses a lower pitch. A cymbal or fully-open hi hat might be like the loose hi-hat, but it’ll take longer to fade out.

We can use the noise percussion from Asterix as an example:

In the level three music, there appears to be six noise instruments.

Bass Drum: Vol [10 7 4 3 2 0], Arp [0 4 5 5 6], Use Pitch 9
Snare Drum: Vol [11 9 8 7 6 4 3 2 1 0], Arp [0 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3], Pitch 7
Snare 2: Vol [11 9 8 7 6 4 3 4 3 2 1 0], Arp [0 2 2 2 2 3 3 5 6 8], Pitch 7
Closed Hi-Hat: Vol [4 3 2 1 0], Arp [0 1 3 3], Pitch C
Loose Hi-Hat: Vol [7 5 4 2 2 1 0], Arp [0 1 3 1 3 1], Pitch C
Open Hat: Vol [6 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 2 1 0], Arp [0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 3], Pitch C

Asterix also uses the triangle for percussion, which is explained in a recent post.

If you’re writing NES music and you’re having trouble with the noise channel, I’d recommend sharing some of your WIPs on the famitracker or chipmusic forums. You might get suggestions on how to improve what you have. If there’s an NES game with certain instruments that you like, you can request the instrument data here. :)

Hope that helps!

Photo

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 03:36:09 -0500

NES Audio: Triangle Kick Drums

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:46:00 -0500

Pitch bends can be used to create heavier drum sounds with the triangle channel.

I’ll save triangle kick drum instrument data for a future post. Right now, the best way recreate the examples in famitracker is with v0.3.8 beta. They’re adding new options to the arpeggio envelope that will allow you to fix pitches that aren’t relative to the starting note. Just learned this today!

(An Alberto González kick drum recreated)

This matters because the pitch bends on some of these kicks aren’t relative to the note they sustain on (it’s the same pitch bend down regardless if you wind up on a C or F). So in the v.0.3.7 release you’ll need two different instruments for the pitch bend and the melodic note. I’ll wait for the v.0.3.8 official release, but if you want to go ahead the beta is available publicly on the famitracker forums.

Hey now. Interesting reads. I've never seen anyone go into depth about old game soundchips. What's your favorite music from an old game? Like what inspired your band?

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:41:00 -0500

Hey Ken! It can be difficult for me to pick any single favorites, but I could pick a few systems and list some of the first things that come to mind.

Amiga - Shadow of the Beast, Space Hulk, The Secret of Monkey Island
NES - Magician, Journey to Silius, Wolverine, Castlevania III, Overlord, Mega Man 2
Game Boy - Turok 2, Ottifanten Kommando Stortebeker, CV2: Belmont’s Revenge
Sega Genesis - Ecco The Dolphin, Ecco: Tides of Time, Ys III: Wanderers from Ys.
SNES - Final Fantasy IV, Super Metroid

Although I’m not sure it’s possible to pinpoint an inspiration for Cheap Dinosaurs. I had a band in high school that covered VG music, and through playing shows I met a band called Chromelodeon that played instrumental prog-rock. They were the first band I saw using chiptune hardware in original music. Eventually I played drums for them… then later on we disbanded.

But my friend Dino from Chromelodeon started writing music that used the Game Boy more heavily under the name of Cheap Dinosaurs, and eventually that turned into a full band as well. It has some former Chromelodeon members and other chiptune musicians (animal style, chipocrite, an0va).

Most of us have a strong, shared interest in vgm and chipmusic, but when it comes to writing music it’s mostly up to Dino’s creativity. I’m happy to be in a band with someone that I feel writes very original stuff- I don’t think we’ve ever had a conversation about a certain band or soundtrack that we wanted to sound like. The closest thing to that might be Goblin, who scored horror soundtracks in the ’70s and ’80s like the original Dawn of the Dead and Tenebre, although I’m not sure we sound that much like them. We’re big fans of instrumental and soundtrack music, including vgm but other types of music as well. :)

I grew up with an Amiga 500 and 2000 and made mixtapes of game music as a kid, but it wasn’t until the late ’90s when my brother picked up an old NES that I found a renewed and deeper interest in this stuff.

Sega Game Gear: Zan Gear soundtrack

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 01:16:00 -0500

This is a pretty cool soundtrack for the Sega Game Gear. It’s composed by Motoi Sakuraba, who recently did the music for Dark Souls.

I like how the tracks have a sort of through-composed style, going through many sections before repeating. The music may be a bit over the top at times, but it delivers a journey of tension and triumph.

The Sega Master System and Game Gear use the SN76489 PSG chip for their music. It has 4 sound channels: three square waves + noise.

Unlike the Game Boy and NES, it doesn’t have a third channel that’s different from the first two. They’re also fixed as square waves, while the GB and NES offer 4 duty cycles.

Game Gear music can be downloaded from smspower.org.