PCE chip music

[ParanoiaDragon]

Question, kind of off topic, do you know anything about the X68000?  I've been listening to the ost for Castlevania for it, & the music, sounds kind of like a mix between the Turbo & Genesis.  I mean, it sounds like the BAWWWWOOW sound of the Genny, but, easier on the ears like the Turbo...kind of.  I'm diggin' what little I've heard so far.

[GohanX]

Reading through this thread just made me realize that I haven't had a hucard played through a stereo in a very long time.  The Duo is pretty much for CD games and the Express is for the hucard games these days. 

The post about R Type reminded me of something funny in the early days of my playing.  I bought a Duo with some CD games first, and it wasn't until a few months later that I bought my first Hucard, R-Type.  Being a big fan of the series, naturally it was awesome. However it made the next few hucards I bought sound like total trash.

Personal favorites:
R-Type
Parodius (note-I have played the SNES/SFC version and although it has "superior" sound quality, I like the PCE versions of most of the tunes better)
Salamander
Pac Land - no, really.  It only has one song, but I like it.  With the music and the in game sounds playing, it sounds like a whole lot is going on, and it reminds me of an old arcade with all the machines turned up too loud.

[Bonknuts]

Question, kind of off topic, do you know anything about the X68000?  I've been listening to the ost for Castlevania for it, & the music, sounds kind of like a mix between the Turbo & Genesis.  I mean, it sounds like the BAWWWWOOW sound of the Genny, but, easier on the ears like the Turbo...kind of.  I'm diggin' what little I've heard so far.

 The x68000 used a Yamaha 2151 FM chip. It's similar to the 2612 used in the Genesis, but with more features and more channels. It has more feedback options on operators(2612 has one feedback on op 1), multiple selectable waveforms (2612 only has one waveform - sine wave). The selectable waveforms makes a big difference between the chips (IMO) because they are also used for the operators. This means you can create more complex sounds then the 2612, but you can also create the same sounds as the 2612 if desired.

The 2612 also suffers from having only one DAC (unlike the PCE that has 6 DACs and other FM chips). It outputs each channel in sequence from 1 to 6 at 120khz intervals to a single DAC in rapid succession. There's a filter used to soften the effect to help mix the channels. There's also a small gap between each channel output which can cause problems with the PCM DAC output on sensitive samples at higher frequencies. The 2151 has no PCM channel so the x68000 has a separate dedicated PCM chip. The 2612 also lacks stereo panning.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Cool, verrry interesting!  Thanks for the info Tom/Mal!

[spenoza]

Bonknuts, you should create a demo ROM that shows us how a lot of these effects you've discussed sound in, say, Mednafen 

[Bonknuts]

Spenoza: I already have a WIP rom   Two actually. One is for an amiga 4 channel MOD engine, and the other is for a PCE tracker. Some people (composers) have shown some interest in the tracker. Hopefully we can get some PCE music support.

PD: Curious. Do you work with FM synths or wavetable synths?

[ParanoiaDragon]

I just compose, I don't know a whole lot about the various names of synths, but, I'm inclined to save wavetable.  My keyboard, the Roland Juno D is very organic sounding.  Not that there isn't stuff that sounds like FM, but, I'm sure it's not.  Either way, one thing I do know, is that it's midi   I'm just not to bright about technical stuff, I just make the music, without the jargon that tends to go over my head(or I just plain forget over time).