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SNES vs Genesis Sound

Malystryx

Malystryx

Neo Member
If the following YouTube video is to be believed I'd say it really depends on the song as to which sound chip comes out on top. In the case of the Super Mario World Overworld song I'd say PCM wins hands down.
 
Scopa

Scopa

The Tribe Has Spoken
I remember back in the 90s, I had a bit of a rivalry with Sega friends who tried to tell me that the Mega Drive was better than the SNES. Whenever I went over their house, they would be all like “See? SEE?! How good does it look?”.

And then an announcer would speak in NBA Jam or say “It’s in the game” for an EA Sports title and I’d be like:

tenor.gif




(I realise this thread is about the music)
 
Koala Driving a Ferrari

Koala Driving a Ferrari

Member
Scopa said:
I remember back in the 90s, I had a bit of a rivalry with Sega friends who tried to tell me that the Mega Drive was better than the SNES. Whenever I went over their house, they would be all like “See? SEE?! How good does it look?”.

And then an announcer would speak in NBA Jam or say “It’s in the game” for an EA Sports title and I’d be like:

tenor.gif




(I realise this thread is about the music)
Click to expand...

LOL. Revisionist history much? EA was a different company back then and published some genre defining titles. Unless they had some loot crates hidden in their yellow-tabbed Genesis/Megadrive cartriges that I'm unaware of, I'd rank them as "pretty good" during the 16 bit gen. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt though, perhaps you're a time traveller and you got your eras of EA confused.
 
B

Billy Lee

Member
Koala Driving a Ferrari said:
LOL. Revisionist history much? EA was a different company back then and published some genre defining titles. Unless they had some loot crates hidden in their yellow-tabbed Genesis/Megadrive cartriges that I'm unaware of, I'd rank them as "pretty good" during the 16 bit gen. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt though, perhaps you're a time traveller and you got your eras of EA confused.
Click to expand...

I think he is referring to the low quality voice samples produced by the Megadrive.
 
D

dogen

Member
Malystryx said:
If the following YouTube video is to be believed I'd say it really depends on the song as to which sound chip comes out on top. In the case of the Super Mario World Overworld song I'd say PCM wins hands down.
Click to expand...

As much as I enjoy that video, it's not necessarily how those games would sound on the system. I mean, they could sound like that, but he's using one of those "ultimate genesis soundfonts" afaik, meaning they just took instruments from a handful of genesis games.
If those games were ported they could end up sounding better, or worse.
 
Scopa

Scopa

The Tribe Has Spoken
Koala Driving a Ferrari said:
LOL. Revisionist history much? EA was a different company back then and published some genre defining titles. Unless they had some loot crates hidden in their yellow-tabbed Genesis/Megadrive cartriges that I'm unaware of, I'd rank them as "pretty good" during the 16 bit gen. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt though, perhaps you're a time traveller and you got your eras of EA confused.
Click to expand...

Billy Lee said:
I think he is referring to the low quality voice samples produced by the Megadrive.
Click to expand...
Correct.
 
Malystryx

Malystryx

Neo Member
dogen said:
As much as I enjoy that video, it's not necessarily how those games would sound on the system. I mean, they could sound like that, but he's using one of those "ultimate genesis soundfonts" afaik, meaning they just took instruments from a handful of genesis games.
If those games were ported they could end up sounding better, or worse.
Click to expand...

Actually if you read the description of that video the guy says this:

"As a big fan of MIDI and FM Chips, here we have some great game tunes playing on a dump (.SF2) of the Yamaha YM2612 chip. The sound produced here, actually the MIDI messages, is the EXACT way as the Sega Genesis would process and perform."

So that sounds like the firmware from the Yamaha chip itself being used not a soundfont from a few games no?
 
D

dogen

Member
Malystryx said:
Actually if you read the description of that video the guy says this:

"As a big fan of MIDI and FM Chips, here we have some great game tunes playing on a dump (.SF2) of the Yamaha YM2612 chip. The sound produced here, actually the MIDI messages, is the EXACT way as the Sega Genesis would process and perform."

So that sounds like the firmware from the Yamaha chip itself being used not a soundfont from a few games no?
Click to expand...

No, an SF2 is a soundfont. You can't dump the sound chip like that, it's too programmable. The amount of unique instruments you can make for it would be massive.
 
Sapiens

Sapiens

Member
Scopa said:
I remember back in the 90s, I had a bit of a rivalry with Sega friends who tried to tell me that the Mega Drive was better than the SNES. Whenever I went over their house, they would be all like “See? SEE?! How good does it look?”.

And then an announcer would speak in NBA Jam or say “It’s in the game” for an EA Sports title and I’d be like:

tenor.gif




(I realise this thread is about the music)
Click to expand...

Sounds fine to me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIhny1alQQI&t=15
 
D

dogen

Member
AtomicShroom said:
On Genesis though? Oh boy. Sounds like grating metal farts:

https://youtu.be/Nby4u-tPJP8?t=1m42s
Click to expand...

That's down to Matt Furniss's sound design. He usually made very synthy patches, but that's what he liked.

and sometimes it was awesome

https://youtu.be/WUWZCcBh06I?t=2448

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVOR1EseLEw


Beerman462 said:
Super Metroid

Super Metroid Music - Brinstar (Underground Depths)

Is there a Genesis track that touches this??
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if any went for that exact style so it's hard to think of anything you could compare.

but for the fun of it
Is there a SNES track that touches this??

https://youtu.be/TnkXMZk_4_4?t=1564
https://youtu.be/46-mGN1D9z8?t=182
 
Sapiens

Sapiens

Member
You’re not going to be able to argue with Nintendo obsessive who just use the same robot fart argument.

Best to ignore the idiots and provide awesome snes and md tracks for us all to appreciate with out retards blurting “robot fart” like they’re on a Jeremy parish podcast.
 
ReBurn

ReBurn

Gold Member
Velius said:
SNES sound chip is vastly superior and it's not even close.

The fact that there's even an argument is somewhat embarrassing.

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

This alone puts the discussion to rest. If this were the only game to ever come out on the fucking system it would be enough.
Click to expand...

One song from or game doesn't put the discussion to rest. The PCE and Genesis/MD had plenty of great tunes, many that sounded better than your example, imo.
 
Scopa

Scopa

The Tribe Has Spoken
Sapiens said:
Sounds fine to me:
Click to expand...

Sapiens said:
You’re not going to be able to argue with Nintendo obsessive who just use the same robot fart argument.

Best to ignore the idiots and provide awesome snes and md tracks for us all to appreciate with out retards blurting “robot fart” like they’re on a Jeremy parish podcast.
Click to expand...

Sapiens said:
Wow, you’ve really proven us all wrong. You must feel so great.
Click to expand...
Why are you taking this topic so seriously? Lighten up man.

It’s a discussion about the sounds of almost 30 year old video game machines. The war is over.
 
Koala Driving a Ferrari

Koala Driving a Ferrari

Member
caffeware said:
It's discussions like this that convince me that everything is relative.
Click to expand...

Indeed. It's great though as I love chip tunes and hearing a selection of soundtracks from games that I would never have played back in the day is fantastic.

I'm sure that this has already been posted at least once on the Genesis side of things but Vapor Trail deserves some representation on this page:

https://youtu.be/4mxdZz7tGhI?list=PL777C83918D01EF44

Cheesy 80s guitar and synth rock. Yeeeeess thank you. I'll take two.

My favourite part of Vapor Trail is that it has a voice sample that says "Vapor Trail" in a grungy Mega Drive sample everytime you press "start" or "pause". It gets me fired up everytime. Craft beer and 16-bit gaming ftw.
 
HoodWinked

HoodWinked

Member
I had a genesis growing up and even i can admit that the snes just had better audio.

however for very specific types of music the genesis can be really amazing compare new junk city of earthworm jim.

Genesis version of earthworm jim
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-AGFlvbuow

Snes version of earthworm jim
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-AGFlvbuow&t=121s

But i think more orchestraic audio like the intro to FF6 would have been close to impossible on a genesis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU1W7b4B2tY
 
cireza

cireza

Banned
HoodWinked said:
But i think more orchestraic audio like the intro to FF6 would have been close to impossible on a genesis
Click to expand...
Both consoles have different strengths and weaknesses, so of course you are going to find stuff "impossible" or difficult to do for the other console.

I personally prefer the quality of the sounds of the Genesis than the highly compressed audio that the SNES does. Also, you can achieve some pretty great stuff on Genesis too.

Some interesting Genesis covers :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCrJUfFfmT8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYZ_OBoY0eY
 
D

dogen

Member
Velius said:
SNES sound chip is vastly superior and it's not even close.

The fact that there's even an argument is somewhat embarrassing.

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

This alone puts the discussion to rest. If this were the only game to ever come out on the fucking system it would be enough.
Click to expand...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRicpWfML8Y

Here's a 4op FM soundfont playing a midi of that song (I haven't been able to find a good native cover of it). I'd say it's more different than worse, and the instrumentation isn't even handmade for the song.


Might as well link these too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzDtkmr6VJc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM0NkMmNIgo
 
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