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SNES vs Genesis Sound
- Thread starter Beerman462
- Start date
I was a pretty staunch supporter of the Super Nintendo sound quality until GAF forced me to listen to the Contra Hard Corps OST. Now I think both chips have their merits, with Super Nintendo still having superior audio quality, but Genesis having an unmistakable cool sound. Of course, as many have mentioned, it all boils down to how it's used, with things like Chrono Trigger or Sonic 3 both having incredible tracks in their own rights.
Since Genesis is getting a lot of love currently, I'll share some lesser posted but still cool Super Nintendo tracks.
Treasure Hunter G - Demi Human Battle
Dragon Quest III - Heroes Challenge
Front Mission: Gun Hazard - Gun Hazard
Since Genesis is getting a lot of love currently, I'll share some lesser posted but still cool Super Nintendo tracks.
Treasure Hunter G - Demi Human Battle
Dragon Quest III - Heroes Challenge
Front Mission: Gun Hazard - Gun Hazard
Compression is not the right word, since that would imply there are significant audible compression artifacts which isn't true. The audio is stored in a 9-bit ADPCM format and then unpacked to 16-bit uncompressed again as it is being played, and what you end up hearing has very little to do with that directly.
I think what people are really trying to get at but simply don't have the knowhow to explain is how all the sounds have been manually edited and trimmed down in quality and complexity to their bare essentials.
tkscz
Member
Ok that I can hear, but when used right it still sounds great and for me better than some of the genesis sounds (again, not saying they sound bad, just enjoy the SNES sounds better). Thanks for clearing that up though.
Soltype
Member
On hardware there was a filter applied to all sound, I think it's a low pass filter.It really hurt the sound a lot, it made the pared down samples even worse.
PumpkinSpice
Banned
Just listen to the some of the Natsume and Hudson (Hagane especially) tracks, which are some of my favorites soundtracks on the system. Heck, compare SNES Super Mario 3 against the NES version and you'll notice the percussion isn't as crisp as it is on the NES version.
Some examples (FLAC):
SNES
Ninja Warriors - Stage 5: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4yqoaaevll8mxrt/12 Stage 5 - Harbor ~ Office (Lower Floor).flac?dl=0
Wild Guns - Carson City: https://www.dropbox.com/s/z82nzj44fzo81h9/57 CARSON CITY.flac?dl=0
Genesis
Super Fantasy Zone - Staff Roll: https://www.dropbox.com/s/l5kw1vjv8fk8rds/28 STAFF ROLL.flac?dl=0
Dangerous Seed - Stage Start: https://www.dropbox.com/s/yj9phulotva7cmi/22 STAGE START.flac?dl=0
cireza
Member
As someone who only plays on real hardware, I also find that MegaDrive sounds much better in real life than with emulators.
Laevateinn
Member
I wonder if a lot of people who hate on the Genesis' sound have only recently played on emulators. FM on real hardware is glorious.
That'd require them to actually play Genesis games instead of just looking up soundtracks of multiplatform ports on youtube to compare.
Not sure if this has been posted, but here is my contribution for SNES sound. Actraiser:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB9Pym-sdbs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB9Pym-sdbs
Journey
Banned
I was an early adopter of the Genesis and actually got my SNES a bit later in the gen, so I was quite used to the OG Genesis music before being marveled by some of the SNES soundtracks, FF III being one of the first games I picked up, followed by Chrono Trigger and I hadn't heard anything like it in all the time I played Genesis games.
2 things we learned from this thread: 1 how great the Genesis is at making interesting mixes when programmers used it like an instrument, and at the same time, how bad it could be at replicating music which was SNES' strength, even if the method used by the SNES resulted in a somewhat muffled sound.
The Genesis was a cool musical instrument, but the SNES wasn't trying to be one, it used a modern approach like what is used today. If Halo or the God of War soundtrack was attempted on the Genesis vs Snes, the Snes would pile drive the Genesis on a bed of spikes, sure the Snes version would have muffled chanting monks, but the Genesis monks would sound like an experiment from a digital renaissance fair.
If you can find anything on the Genesis that sounds similar to this, or at the same level, you will convince me:
https://youtu.be/TVcr7yQ9qbY?t=9m4s Start at 9 min.
MightyHedgehog
Member
Yeah, I think a huge part of the lack of Sega 16-bit and FM sound appreciation, in general, stems from the fact that most people listen to game music from YouTube and other popular sites where the vast majority of what is there are futzed-with emulator rips. That's going to favor the sample-based playback of the SNES' SPC sound over the real synthesis of a Genesis' Yamaha YM2612. Even today in 2016, almost all emulators for the Genesis/Mega Drive FM synthesis are still clearly not very accurate to the real thing, and sometimes, depending on the instrument or effect being played, shockingly off and mangle the intended result coming from actual reference development hardware in the model 1 units. On the SNES/SFC side, emulators tend to play that method of sound better than the real thing since it's much less of an issue to simply play back the samples that Sony-designed sound chip worked with. Most if not all 16-bit Ninty emulators do so with cleaner output.
If you're going to try and be fair to what the console are capable of and what was actually produced by each machine, it really helps to listen to the real thing, either directly, or by making sure that the rips are representative by not being overly processed and come from the actual hardware rather than emulators.
The problem I ran into when starting that little project was simply that there's only a few people out there who even have the knowledge to help. I don't have the link handy right now but I found everything I needed in one thread on the sega-16 forums.
Basically as I said in the thread I was getting ugly distortion out of the headphone port, which I noticed immediately as it sounded much worse than my other Genesis. It was an older non-TMSS model in great shape so I was interested in fixing it. Turns out that's what those older ones normally sound like (factory defect) but all it took was changing out some resistors to fix it. I used resistors slightly smaller than what I needed which ended up making it...somewhat louder. It's perfect for lower volume games like Thunder Force 4 but on Konami stuff I need to leave the slider at half or I blow my ears out.
I own multiple model 1s so I wasn't too worried about failure but it's really hard to screw up, I remember desoldering the old tiny flat resistors being the hardest part (I replaced them with regular resistors). I've played that system semi-regularly for over a year with the mod and have had no issues.
As others have said, no youtube or emulator really compares to what it sounds like.
cireza
Member
This is also my feeling when playing my SNES. Sound I find on internet or on emulator looks even better than the real thing.
Which also true for the picture. I play with SCART/RGB, and my SNES's output definitely sounds a bit blurrier than my MegaDrive's. That's because the MegaDrive's signal is indeed better, and only 1-chip SNES provide a really good RGB output. But of course, that's off topic.
Just wanted to say that the real thing can be pretty different than what we see or listen to with internet/emulators.
Most mega drive games ran at a higher resolution too. That might be part of it.
AtomicShroom
Member
I think two of the main problems with the SNES chip that gives its not-as-favorable reputation is that, first, most developers didn't bother using anything other than the shitty stock samples that came with the SDK, and second, that having a large amount of varied, high-quality samples required a lot of cartridge space which most developers couldn't afford.
This is one of the main reasons why some games sounds leagues above everything else. Games like DKC, Chrono Trigger, etc. The large cart sizes wasn't just mostly spent on the graphics, a large portion was allotted to the audio. And you can tell that they invested in either custom or high-quality samples. The deep bass in DKC2 is just like nothing else on the system and gives me chills even to this day.
This is one of the main reasons why some games sounds leagues above everything else. Games like DKC, Chrono Trigger, etc. The large cart sizes wasn't just mostly spent on the graphics, a large portion was allotted to the audio. And you can tell that they invested in either custom or high-quality samples. The deep bass in DKC2 is just like nothing else on the system and gives me chills even to this day.
LordKasual
Banned
This isn't really an objective answer, the Genesis had a flavor of sound that the SNES just didn't have.
The Sonic Team / Sega Technical Institute games will forever give the edge to Genesis for me.
The Sonic Team / Sega Technical Institute games will forever give the edge to Genesis for me.
EPSYLON EAGLE
Member
Speaking of the halo theme, I wonder how much of this dx7 choir you could pull off with the genesis' 4-op fm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm6zL_-sXlQ
Devilish had some pretty cool choir sounds. Not quite the same, but I think they'd actually sound better if you tried to do halo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm6zL_-sXlQ
Devilish had some pretty cool choir sounds. Not quite the same, but I think they'd actually sound better if you tried to do halo.
cireza
Member
Even on 256*224 games, MegaDrive is cleaner. It is pretty easy to observe if, like me, you have the correct setup at home
Choirs, string sections, etc sound the way they do simply due to the unison phenomenom from several voices layered on top of eachother. It's easy to accomplish but requires a lot of channels/polyphony. But with samples you can just bake entire sections into one single sample, making it a very economical solution. With 4op FM you can only do 2 voices at a time with a dual 2op setup, so to go further you need to sacrifice more channels, which is a problem when you only have 6 to work with (cleverly layering in some PSG tones can help as well). Devilish choirs sound good because the arrangement frees up a lot of channels for the choirs during those particular moments.
This is really the key advantage the SNES solution has when it comes to orchestral music, since it's very easy to get that "big" sound without the brute force approach of just layering voices in real time. But on the flip side, more sparse chamber style music actually lends itself better to the Genesis when the small details and articulations of solo instruments are more in the forefront. since they can be created dynamically in the sound programming and sequencing, while on the SNES you are usually just stuck with standard legato samples and have to fake stuff like staccato and tremolo with volume edits which doesn't sound nearly as convincing. In fact I can't even think of any chamber music examples on the SNES from the top of my head.
One thing that the Genesis can't do is true stereo panning, which leads to SNES leaving the impression of having a bigger soundstage on some soundtracks, I think.
Super EDF - Midnight Intercept
Chrono Trigger - Good Night
Plok - Beach
Obviously, if you use headphones it will be more noticeable. It's interesting to me how a lot of composers back then would really use stereo sound in a very noticeable way. Guess they were having fun with their new toy. Overall, panning or not, it seems to me SNES games took more advantage of stereo sound for music.
Super EDF - Midnight Intercept
Chrono Trigger - Good Night
Plok - Beach
Obviously, if you use headphones it will be more noticeable.
It's interesting to me how a lot of composers back then would really use stereo sound in a very noticeable way. Guess they were having fun with their new toy. Overall, panning or not, it seems to me SNES games took more advantage of stereo sound for music.
Journey
Banned
Lol, I had just typed it on the previous page and as I refreshed the page, a new one came up so I figured people missed it, so to answer your question, no, I copied and pasted that part though.
Journey
Banned
No, I'm talking real life jungle sounds, what you just linked sounds like a whistling dixie playing a baby piano. How can you even consider that as being remotely on the same level? You're hearing Wind, crickets, water, animal sounds over some nice percussion, not just a cheesy whistle over twangs.
Here's another sections, from Swamplands, out on some headphones, you feel like you're right in the jungle, it's that good!
https://youtu.be/TVcr7yQ9qbY?t=25m30s
sir_kevith
Member
One thing that rarely gets mentioned is SNES' impressive stereo imaging. I can't think of a single Genny title that impresses me as much as SNES in terms of separating out instruments. If you hook up big speakers to your SNES and listen to Earthbound music, it's pretty cool.
https://youtu.be/WgXqGBcGdX8?t=44s
Each instrument has its own space which brings it alive to me even if the sound quality isn't great.
EDIT: Whoops jett just mentioned it above lol!
https://youtu.be/WgXqGBcGdX8?t=44s
Each instrument has its own space which brings it alive to me even if the sound quality isn't great.
EDIT: Whoops jett just mentioned it above lol!
Journey
Banned
The Genesis is simply not even capable of replicating this:
Busy Marketplace sounds:
https://youtu.be/TVcr7yQ9qbY?t=38m15s
Busy Marketplace sounds:
https://youtu.be/TVcr7yQ9qbY?t=38m15s
Journey
Banned
But the Genesis didn't do this well, certainly nowhere near the way the Snes was capable of from what I understand, maybe because it lacked the compression needed to do this properly.
The Paula chip of the Amiga was a sick piece of music hardware as well considering it was released in 1985.
Not trying to dismiss the SID in any way, mind you.
That's a very different argument from "Genesis is simply not even capable of replicating this". If this were about which of the two was simply incapable of replicating what the other does, the SNES would have far more issues with what the Genesis does, as it fundamentally can't do it on any level, not just doing it worse.
SNES indeed was the first console to have all the ingredients allowing for positional audio: Full stereo panning, 16 bit mixing = higher dynamic range allowing for interplay of different loudness, fully programmable echo/reverb for spacious sound (even including FIR filter that could be used as EQ), possibility to invert channels which allowed games to support Dolby Pro Logic surround.
Only issue with these kind of audio tools are developers not knowing how to make good use of it, so Sony reduced the configurability of their sound chip a lot to a selected amount of presets when PS1 arrived.
Only issue with these kind of audio tools are developers not knowing how to make good use of it, so Sony reduced the configurability of their sound chip a lot to a selected amount of presets when PS1 arrived.
Actually it was the SNES that had more issues with streaming from the cartridge, as far as I understand. Obviously though, it had more channels and hardware decompression.
The genesis could do this though, running on just the z80.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9WzrJ5OyWA
Journey
Banned
Did you listen to the soundtrack I posted? We're talking higher level stuff, I mean it's like saying the PS4 is not capable of making music the same way Genesis does, but it doesn't have to, and neither did the Snes, it produced some amazing real world stuff, we're talking versatility, and I won't say Genesis was only capable of digital farts as someone said in an earlier post lol, but it's probably what Halos chanting monks would sound like if the Genesis attempted to replicate modern audio such as that, but Snes on the other hand would come pretty close using its method.
Point is, it's like arguing that a guitar can produce some amazing music, and you would be correct, but it doesn't mean it's better suited for a device that also needs to replicate voices, running water, animal and insect sounds like the Secret of Evermore that I posted, Halo's chanting monks, God of War or any other piece of modern gaming soundtracks.
One thing I do appreciate about the SNES' chip is how some composers embraced its moody and less clear sound and took advantage of it to give the music a darker or more atmospheric feel.
Super Metroid - Lower Brinstar
Shin Megami Tensei - Battle
Had these been made with clearer sound they'd have a totally different feel and wouldn't be as effective, IMO. The SMT one does have lots of different versions due to the different ports of the game, but I think the SFC version is king because of this (although ironically it has a very synthesized sound that would technically work beautifully on the Genesis, but we got a Sega CD port instead).
Super Metroid - Lower Brinstar
Shin Megami Tensei - Battle
Had these been made with clearer sound they'd have a totally different feel and wouldn't be as effective, IMO. The SMT one does have lots of different versions due to the different ports of the game, but I think the SFC version is king because of this (although ironically it has a very synthesized sound that would technically work beautifully on the Genesis, but we got a Sega CD port instead).
EPSYLON EAGLE
Member
Yeah, mixing high quality samples and music at same time is the Genesis weakpoint, but some very good arrangements are perfectly possibles.
Virtual Bart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LadovNjgJc&index=5&list=PLFSHdeZ6gP02c0oiQHpwVmWl4Z0NrTEN-
NIghtmare Circus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_TVx50UVik&list=PLirSddeMOYZ7KEPwzqrXh1X_TAOS0a-eP&index=18
Rad, thanks for the tip. I think for the moment my current TMSS MD1 (I think this was the only one available in Australia when it was launched?) sounds really solid, but I don't have it hooked up to anything amazing right now. Hadn't thought to listen to it with headphones (duh me) but I have a pair of Sennheiser HD-25s that I think will do it justice. Then I'd just have to wait for my Everdrive to come so I can enjoy a lot of the music I've only ever heard in emus.
The genesis is better at compression than the snes. And the genesis can play a sample back as clear as any other.
Yes I listened to the track posted.
That doesn't change my point though. If you're only talking about different levels of ability, then sure, it likely wouldn't sound completely accurate (specifically in regards to stereo separation, there should be little issue with the sample quality itself).
Fact of the matter is that neither console can accurately reproduce everything the other can... if that were the case, this would have been a very short discussion. However, this isn't like comparing a guitar to a sampler... it's more like comparing a guitar and a lower end sampler to a sampler. The Genesis has infinitely more ability to approximate what a SNES does than vice-versa. And the PS4 comparison doesn't hold up. I'm not saying it would have to be accomplished the same way. The PS4 could produce output akin to the Genesis in software, and could throw that out lossless. Let's not act like the SNES is a similar scenario at all.
Figure I'd throw in some of my favorite Genesis tracks.
The Wily Wars - Buster Rod G
Sparkster: Rocket Knight Adventures 2 - Password
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters - April O'Neil's Stage
The Wily Wars - Buster Rod G
Sparkster: Rocket Knight Adventures 2 - Password
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters - April O'Neil's Stage
Here's a cases in favor of good percussion on the Super Nintendo:
Super Turrican Stage 1-1
Super Turrican Sage 2-1
I don't think the sequel qualifies as it focuses more on an orchestra-like score.
Case in point: Dhalsim's Yoga Fire in Street Fighter 2.
Super Turrican Stage 1-1
Super Turrican Sage 2-1
I don't think the sequel qualifies as it focuses more on an orchestra-like score.
I feel like you're overselling a bit here. Samples are played back are usually at a much lower quality (if we're talking voices here), and have that very scratchy sound to them due to the lower bit rate. The SNES, on the other hand, does have a more muffle sound, but lacks that annoying scratchy noise the Genesis produces, and thus more pleasant on the ears.
Case in point: Dhalsim's Yoga Fire in Street Fighter 2.
SNES' issue with streaming is that the sound unit is a completely separate computer with its own processor including its own timer and instruction set, communicating with the main unit through a serial port. There is a hack to do streaming through the IPL without any SPC-700 code, but that will use all of the SNES' resources (like the abused IPL already does). The SNES' advantage is that through streaming audio can use the full capability of 16bit 32kHz Stereo audio (DAT quality), but of course doing that from a space starved cartridge is inane.
The Mega Drive doesn't do decompression in hardware, it has to be done in software (and given enough processing power everything can be done in software anywhere so that's bound to be a skewed comparison). And the sound output will always be limited to 9 bit (FM) and 8 bit (ADPCM for channel 6) respectively.
That's a good point. The technical background is, that given the same low sample quality Mega Drive (and other systems like N64, GBA etc.) doesn't apply any interpolation, thus the harmonics will be mirrored upward until the upper end of the system's playback rate. The SNES on the other hand has a forced Gaussian interpolation. Gaussian interpolation is excellent for preserving the exact harmonics that a (however low quality) sample has. The result is that samples with muffle sound (due to low sample rate to conserve space) will always sound as muffled as they are, with no fake harmonics that are not in the sample itself (this is where emulators and SPC players can "improve" the audio, trying to reconstruct information that's actually not there).
Not a good case, though. It's widely known now that Capcom had shitty, buggy sound drivers on the MD that resulted in scratchy, poor sounding samples. Someone even rewrote the driver with stunning results:
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?28108-Street-Fighter-2-new-Z80-PCM-sound-driver-project
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hZOrpJP7DUw
s_mirage
Member
"More pleasant to the ears" is somewhat subjective. Personally, I don't like the muffled sound the SNES produces much at all. I'd take clear, if slightly rough sounding, samples over ones that sound like they've been recorded through a closed door. The lack of high frequencies in sounds that should have them really irks me.
A direct comparison:
Mega Turrican Stage 1-1 (best part of the track is missing in the SNES version for some reason)
This is IMO a rare case were a multiplatform game sounds good on both machines, but I prefer the Genesis here.
Interpolating low sample rate sounds is really a double edged sword, since the added aliasing does in several cases add some extra crispness that most would regard as beneficial. There are some games that would benefit from turning it off, and then there are others like Super Metroid where it would probably just end up sounding like a digital mess.
Look at how people complained over the audio in the new Duke Nukem 3D remaster. IIRC the original sound files were all in 8khz which adds a hefty dose of aliasing, but this all disappears after they added interpolation/filtering in the new version which removes all the high end byproducts (or whatever you'd call it).
Speaking of fake harmonics, I did recently take note of some freak occurences in some SNES instruments where loops with more prominent amplitude fluctuations will start yielding some kind of amplitude modulation when played at fast enough frequencies, which in turn produces extra inharmonic content. I've always had this gut feeling where some music feels off-key but only when notes are played above a certain pitch threshold, and after taking a closer look at the samples this is the conclusion I came to.