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How do you look back at the N64/PS1 sound?

Prez said:
I'm surprised that Yamaha is barely mentioned. N64 sounds a lot like Yamaha to me but I guess I was wrong.
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Good point, but I think that's a lot to do w/ Yamaha backing the "wrong horse", as it were. Saturn and all.

Saturn's sound chip was damn powerful, too. And Genesis's sound chip is underestimated imho
 
Chrono Cross being midi based is completely blowing my mind.

Some soundtracks you can tell, like the PS1 Final Fantasy games but, it still sounds great.

I was never bothered by the N64 sound quality, though I always felt the PS1 put out "cleaner" sounding music.
 
jhmtehgamr20xx said:
Good point, but I think that's a lot to do w/ Yamaha backing the "wrong horse", as it were. Saturn and all.

Saturn's sound chip was damn powerful, too. And Genesis's sound chip is underestimated imho
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Ah, I don't think it had anything to do with Yamaha backing the wrong horse. A lot of 16bit and early 32bit arcade boards used Yamaha FM synth sound chips and Sega was no different in this respect. When they designed the Mega Drive/ Genesis, they patterned the hardware after their arcade boards, so a Yamaha FM chip was a pretty obvious choice. Though they also had sound hardware from the Master System in the Genesis as well for backwards comparability. Model 1 and 2 also had Yamaha soundchips in them to. And I think their model 3 board used the same soundchip as the Saturn. Dreamcast/ Naomi used some sort of 32bit Yamaha AICA sound processor.

The Neo-Geo AES and MVS also has a Yamaha FM synth chip in them because they were arcade hardware.




djtiesto said:
But N64 did give us the Buck Bumble Theme Song
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It also gave us this masterpiece:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm0Mg0T2Sl0&list=PLsU9MbvAi4kO8CiQgKUvIAGiQ0BV8l8oP
 
N64 sound was very limited technologically, but artistically some games like Banjo Kazoie and Perfect Dark were truly incredible!
 
Some of the best music ever. Ocarina, Majora, Mario 64, Banjo Kazooie, MGS, SOTN... fucking unforgettable soundtracks right there.
 
jhmtehgamr20xx said:
Good point, but I think that's a lot to do w/ Yamaha backing the "wrong horse", as it were. Saturn and all.

Saturn's sound chip was damn powerful, too. And Genesis's sound chip is underestimated imho
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Can't composers choose their equipment freely? I just guess that Roland, Korg and Emu were more popular among composers for sample-based synths.
 
i think nowadays kids are spoiled brats that doesn't understand about having fun. and the old gamers are just arrogant geeks that already forget about their humble beginnings.

their definition of fun always involving some 1080p, 60FPS, or 5.1 surround (7.1 next year)



give me any horrible 8-bit soundtracks and i'll still sing to the beat.
 
Hollywood Duo said:
Just because it's low tech doesn't make it bad music. On the flip side, just because something is uncompressed and has a full orchestra doesn't make it good. It's all about the actual music not the technology outputting it.
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Very true. I find that most modern game soundtracks to sound utterly bland and soulless.

Discoid said:
The Best is Yet to Come is fucking legendary in my eyes.
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So good. It sounds just like a Loreena McKennitt song, and that's a good thing because Loreena is so amazing.
 
Ishida said:
And also consider the MASSIVE talent of the composer, Yasunori Mitsuda.

He actually ADDED the sound of fingers sliding down the guitar chords in several of the tracks. And yes, the "screech" sound is also made by the PS1's synthetizer.

Listen to this track (With headphones, if possible). At several points (Second 00:20, for example) you can hear the "screeching" of the guitar chords. Since this was not recorded using real instruments, everything was generated by the sound chip. And lots of Chrono Cross tracks contain this little detail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMIr_IF2d04
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Mutha. Fucking. Mitsuda.
 
Final Fantasy VII had pretty basic samples compared to VIII and later titles. Not a big step above SNES even, you could tell Square was just getting their feet wet on the console not just in the graphics department.
 
To Far Away Times said:
Chrono Cross being midi based is completely blowing my mind.

Some soundtracks you can tell, like the PS1 Final Fantasy games but, it still sounds great.

I was never bothered by the N64 sound quality, though I always felt the PS1 put out "cleaner" sounding music.
Click to expand...

If it blows your mind, then you probably have a misunderstanding of what "MIDI" means. MIDI is a protocol used to send note and effect data to a synthesizer, and that's it. What it sounds like depends entirely on the synthesizer on the other end, and what its library of sounds is like, and how it handles modifying them via effects and such. A lot of music even on modern consoles was created using the MIDI protocol, it's just that the end product was recorded and played back as a streamed format like MP3 or whatever.
 
Yeah almost everything that doesn't use a licensed soundtrack or claim to be fully orchestrated uses MIDI, like Metroid Prime
 
Even 'fully orchestrated' tracks are often done via MIDI controlling extremely gigantic and expensive instrument banks. I've seen them in use. My music nerd friend even offered to let me install some of them, but I didn't even have the hard drive space to play around with it! Shit's neat.

But yeah, MIDI got a bad reputation because a lot of people had terrible soundbanks or synths on their computer. The communication protocol ended up confused with the 'sound'.
 
FyreWulff said:
Even 'fully orchestrated' tracks are often done via MIDI controlling extremely gigantic and expensive instrument banks. I've seen them in use. My music nerd friend even offered to let me install some of them, but I didn't even have the hard drive space to play around with it! Shit's neat.

But yeah, MIDI got a bad reputation because a lot of people had terrible soundbanks or synths on their computer. The communication protocol ended up confused with the 'sound'.
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Stuff made with modern sample libraries tends to sound more "uncanny valley" to me than Korg stuff from the 90's, because often people making orchestral music today don't know a damn thing about standards in orchestration and arrangement. So hearing realistic orchestral soundtracks done by people who haven't been schooled in the art becomes quite jarring.
 
N64 had some specific games that sounded really really good. Not talking about compositions alone, but technically.
Too bad people lump the N64's audio capabilities, as there are obvious exceptions for anyone caring to look (listen in this case)...
For me, Perfect Dark, Turok 2 and especially Jet Force Gemini blew me away with crisp sound quality & excellent surround sound effects, the latter two with orchestral music to boot!

Also i really liked the dynamic alteration of music in games like Mario 64 and even better in Banjo Kazooie (click clock wood ftw) depending to where you were located ingame.


Anyways, set aside 4 hours and feast on this:
Top 100 Greatest N64 Songs of All Time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0D8bcCl4yU
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/...endo-64-music-ranked-in-terms-of-quality.aspx
 
Jumping Flash made me feel like it had next gen sound at the time....no so much a midi.

Jumping Flash! 2 - Track 3 - World 1-1

Jumping Flash! 2 - Track 4 - World 1-2

tumblr_mslyw0WEFk1shus8eo1_500.gif
 
I really love the Snowboard Kids OST.

Shit is magical.


I particularly love the Shop Theme and Grass Valley as standouts. Just the harmonic progression in the Shop Theme is enough to give me goosebumps. So simple but effective.
 
BlazeVoi said:
Listen to the hit sounds on Fighting Force and the versus games (marvel super heroes vs sf & xmen vs street fighter).

Sounds so... impactful. mmmm~

It sounds like a truck crashing. I realize it was a mixture of low quality sound effects, but it was appropriate.

Capcom "Virtual Q sound".

EDIT:

For reference, Smasher:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9L0vE_a0FU

And MSHvSF:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBjYTnKZFP8
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Q Sound was truly a thing of wonder and whimsy.
 
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