mothcompute

great osdev actually 🏳️‍⚧️

@mothcompute

real internet bug

guys help im frozen in time

i post more on my FediPub Activityverse: @mothcompute@vixen.zone it is where i talk about all my fun projects

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mothcompute
@mothcompute
cathoderaydude
@cathoderaydude
cathoderaydude
@cathoderaydude
8bitdemongirl
@8bitdemongirl asked:

I feel like you have some opinions on the soundcards/chips of various 80s and 90s computers and consoles, so I'm curious which you like the most and least (feel free to judge based on either "what old game soundtracks I like" and/or "what can these machines sound like when used as dedicated instruments modern-day" as you see fit)

I grew up primarily playing games with a soundblaster in OPL mode. I got a wavetable card fairly quickly, but even at age 10 or 11 my reaction was uhhhh... I can never find the picture but you know the one that's like "when squaresoft does HD remasters" and it's a cat sprite with "high definition" fur textures that looks like shit? yeah it was like that.

most game music was intended to play through total shit tone generators and when you add 'better' samples and effects it just sounds embarrassing. like, "midi-driven player piano in cheap sushi bar" type embarrassing, where the high quality of the sounds is rendered comical by the total lack of expression of the score being played through them.

In recent years I've wavered a bit on this. It used to be that if I wanted to listen to the doom soundtrack and i pulled it up on youtube, if it was played through a Roland anything I'd roll my eyes and go look for an OPL version. That's changed; while many of those still sound absurd, some actually appeal to me more than the FM versions I was used to for so long. still, a lot of it just completely misses me.

Ironically I never owned a Gravis Ultrasound, but I've listened to GUS-intended versions of game soundtracks on youtube, and Roland-intended versions, etc. and... man, I have to admit, I have the same response that I do when I listen to games that came out on the FDS that used the extra sound channels - namely, I think they mostly sound terrible.

I believe those songs were composed specifically for the extreme limitations of the original FC hardware, and then the FDS channels were added, not the other way around - and what they put in those extra channels just guts the impact of the music for me. It just sounds awful. I don't like FDS Metroid or Zelda or Castlevania II (CV3 is good tbh) because they all add elements that just dilute the melody, take the punch out of it.

This is also often how I feel about "enhanced" DOS soundtracks, and for the same reason: anyone composing for the PC would have been an absolute fool to target the Roland, a thing that like 50 people had. People had adlibs and things with adlib compatibility, and I would be astonished if hardly anything wasn't composed for those first, then "upgraded" for Roland and GUS after the fact. I am not opposed to artists taking second stabs at things (god knows I do it enough), but I do believe that, very frequently, ones initial "final draft," the first version of a work that they'll let anyone see, has the most heart and soul that they can manage; a later attempt to stick the landing better isn't doomed to be less sincere, by any means, but I think it's definitely a big risk.

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in reply to @cathoderaydude's post:

sirocyl
@sirocyl

for me, it really has to depend on what the soundtrack is written for, in the first place. if it's wavetablizing music that was written for an OPL using some midi passthrough, of course it's going to sound horrible. if it's written in a tracker with a wavetable in mind (earlier Epic soundtracks come to mind), that's different.

DOOM is a rare piece imo that handles Roland and Adlib well enough by their own merits (I haven't heard the GUS version enough to judge). It feels like it was, in fact, composed for both, and the right DMX patches were used to give both the best instruments, timbre and response without changing the melody significantly, if at all (the DMX engine could use multiple MIDIs for different sound drivers; but iirc only one track in all of DOOM/DOOM2 used this.)

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giwake
@giwake

i usually prefer the roland wavetable sounds, they don't work on everything but usually they sound fine. i don't really like FM synthesis because i've always found it to sound a bit too harsh on my ears, but it does have its place.

i recently watched a video on system shock 1 and i feel like the music for that was definitely written more for FM synths than wavetables, especially when it comes to stuff like the weird glitchy noises that happen throughout the music. that's definitely an interesting use of FM and definitely something that you wouldn't get with a wavetable synth.

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dog
@dog

Hope you don't mind me nerding out here - I've had an MT-32 since the late 90s and it's always been one of my fave devices, so I've kind of passively absorbed a ton of info about period MIDI stuff.

This is also often how I feel about "enhanced" DOS soundtracks, and for the same reason: anyone composing for the PC would have been an absolute fool to target the Roland, a thing that like 50 people had. People had adlibs and things with adlib compatibility, and I would be astonished if hardly anything wasn't composed for those first, then "upgraded" for Roland and GUS after the fact.

You'd be surprised! Often that was definitely true; for example I've got a copy of Ocean Software's in-house tracker, where the same program was used to compose for Amiga/Adlib/MT-32/SC-55/SNES, and it's very clear that (depending on the game) Amiga, Adlib or SNES was the primary and anything else was a conversion.

But the MT-32 and SC-55 were the lead more often than you'd think. Part of that's for economic reasons - take a look at old Sierra catalogues, and you'll see that they'd actually sell you an MT-32. They were a dealer for it! The first Sierra soundtracks that support the MT-32 came out at pretty much the same time as the Adlib, so it wasn't a question of composing for the device most customers had - it was MT-32 vs PC beeper or PCjr as the device most people had. And if you were going to target one device as the primary, you might as well target the one that you're selling. Makes a better selling point.

At other companies, sometimes people targeted the MT-32 over Adlib just because it's more fun to compose for. Composers are artists just like anyone else - it's more interesting to work with the more expressive hardware even if you know fewer people have it. Your boss might not want you to spend that much time on the fancier hardware, but you'll have more fun working with it. It also probably integrated better with MIDI-based composing environments, making it easy to start with a full MIDI synth and pare back to Adlib later. Not everyone targeted a MIDI synth first but some people sure did.

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maiden
@maiden

there's an fds game - falsion; it's like. i genuinely cannot remember what that arcade game was called. it's like star fox but sprite-based - that i found the soundtrack of and i swear the best song on the soundtrack is the final boss theme because they reserved the wave channel for the boss sound effects. it's disappointing

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