Retro sound chips appreciation page

[ommadawnyawn2]

I've added a page for 1992 (still tweaking it a bit): minirevver.weebly.com/impressive-vgm-by-year.html

As you can see, there are now SNES games in the yearly lists. I've added a WIP SNES page to the main page; only 1990-1992 for now though and no links yet.

[ommadawnyawn2]

I've added youtube top 30 playlists for some of the yearly lists (1984-1986 for now). Is this something people are interested in?
minirevver.weebly.com/vgm-1984.html

Also changed some layouts a bit; this will be the format for each chip's page:
minirevver.weebly.com/paula-amiga.html

[condroid]

Good job! I had a look at the top 10 lists from 1984/85 and there are a few things you might want to change:

1984:
The NES version of Balloon Fight was released in 1985
Pitfall II (Arcade) is also a 1985 release despite the fact that the copyright says 1984


1985:
The FM Sound Unit for the Master System wasn't released until 1987. The Space Harrier music is probably form a later version of the BIOS.
Spellbound (ZX Spectrum) is a remix. The actual track from the 128K version (released in 1986) sounds like this. The original 48K version from 1985 doesn't have any music iirc.

[ommadawnyawn2]

Thanks. Luckily the arcade ver. of Balloon Fight had a nearly identical track, and C64 Pitfall 2 was 1984. I think I'll keep the other versions in the 1984 list next to the originals since they're so close in time and will get buried in the next year's list.

All YT playlists thus far:
1980-1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992

[Purple Moss]

You've been busy -- I gotta check out your page more often! I also like the Youtube Top 30 playlists, I'll listen to them later.

I have some new suggestions:

YM2608:
- FlixMix (フリックスミックス): Puzzle game released for DOS and PC-98. I think the soundtrack is the same for both versions. There are a few notable tracks, particulary this one! Man, that bassline! You might want to check the rest to see if they're up to par.

YM2151:
- Sotsugyou Shashin / Miki (卒業写真/美姫): A VN released for the PC-98, MSX PCs, the PC Engine, and the X86k, which in my opinion sounds the best. The PC Engine version was handled by a different staff, I think, so the music is different.

An SNES list, huh? That's quite a beast to tackle. At least it's easier to find info on the games and their soundtracks I know it only goes until 1992 so far, but I couldn't resist mentioning these:
- Front Mission: Gun Hazard: The Uematsu-Mitsuda duo collaborates once again, with two additional composers. A fine example of the modern industrial style that Uematsu would later take to FFVII.
- Tactics Ogre: An excellently composed orchestral soundtrack, which the SNES can do very well.

[ommadawnyawn2]

Thanks, FlixMix on PC-98 in particular sounds awesome!

Yup, actually going through every game for SNES so they will come up. I did it for MD so it's only fair, but it's taking a while. Great picks though.

[ommadawnyawn2]

Latest updates:
-Added a page for 1993 (will be revising it a bit for the next couple of days)
-Added a (WIP) page for sound blaster sample-based music (mod music, streaming pcm, sample-based midi) in DOS games
-Added some OPL2 & 3 and X68K games

minirevver.weebly.com/vgm-1993.html
minirevver.weebly.com/sound-blaster-pcm-music.html

[condroid]

I think there is very little music that was composed specifically for the SB AWE. Pretty much everything you have listed in this category is an emulated MT32/GM/GS soundtrack. And that emulation is not something that I would consider 'most impressive', at least not compared to how it would sound on the original hardware. Maybe you should just create a separate section for GM/GS hardware which could also include music from other systems. From what I remember, there is already an MT-32 page that you could use for soundtracks written for that module.

[ommadawnyawn2]

Yeah. I wanted to include AWE32 & 64 midi only after hearing some RAM expanded examples with custom soundfonts like Masterpiece (which should at least have been available around the mid-late 90s according a guy who hosted soundfonts back then at Rkhive.com), which sounded very good at times even for unsupported games.

Whether I separate those or not (GM can sound very different depending on the device so I'm not sure about having one page for it) it seems I'll have to do a lot of checking each individual game and uploading music myself. For the most part I can either not find an AWE upload, or I have to ask uploaders what setup is used when I do find something and hope I get an answer, so it's a bit of a mess compared to the platforms I've done before.

There's less than ten games that I know should have custom instruments with AWE32 by default, some of which I have to upload myself it seems.

[condroid]

I just checked the sound font archive I have on an old CD and the only Masterpiece version on there is from 1999, I'm not sure if there were earlier versions though. Going by my (sometimes faulty) memory, custom sound fonts didn't really take off until the arrival of the SB Live which just used system memory (instead of expensive on-board RAM) but by that time not many games even had MIDI soundtracks anymore.

Re: GM/GS section: I personally would just go with the 'best' version of a soundtrack you can find, although that's always going to be a bit subjective. Alternatively, you could go with 'authentic' and pick the module that the music was originally written for. That's relatively easy for Japanese games where 95% used Roland's Sound Canvas series as the reference platform. They almost always supported GS (instead of GM) and sometimes even have options for specific hardware (like SC-55 vs. SC-88). Plain GM is far less common and there are only a few games with specific XG support. American developers also often composed on the SC-55 but due to the bigger number of competing cards on that market this was usually done in GM mode, real GS support in DOS games is rare as only Roland hardware did (officially) support it.

[ommadawnyawn2]

I'd like to keep this pre-fifth gen (minus CD audio). So I was going to do SB-SB AWE64, Hardware Mixing GUS games, and MT-32 for PC. But I didn't realize GM was used as early as 1991, so I'll look into that a bit more later (after SB, GUS and SNES). Thanks for the info on GM and GS!

Do you know which midi devices for games were available before Windows 98? Couldn't find a list easily.

[condroid]

Aug 16, 2017 9:54:01 GMT -5 ommadawnyawn2 said:

Do you know which midi devices for games were available before Windows 98? Couldn't find a list easily.

You probably couldn't find a list because there are hundreds of GM-compatible devices including many professional synthesizers. In the 90s many hardware manufactures released entire lines of sound cards with MIDI functionality. Some of the most popular ones were made by Roland, Yamaha, Creative, Ensoniq, Turtle Beach, Orchid, Terratec, etc. Just to give you an idea, here is Roland's line-up and that doesn't even include their pro-grade synths.

[ommadawnyawn2]

Oh dear. Deprioritized.

[ommadawnyawn2]

I don't suppose there is an ost uploader on par with Dustin Odell but for SNES? It seems retro ost and game-movie have the highest quality uploads on YT even if not the most accurate to hardware, snesost among the worst; and vizzed, gbelair and vintagamer kinda hit and miss. That's after listening to all of 1991-1993.

[1983parrothead]

We must not forget that the international version of Terra Cresta arcade was the first to use a real FM-based Yamaha soundchip known as YM3526. Most others used YM2203, which was PSG.

vgmrips.net/packs/pack/terra-cresta

Sadly, most people who hear an arcade game will compare to the MD/GEN soundchip also by Yamaha called YM2612 without realizing before the Nintendon't ad, Sega of America had a commercial saying about "Bring arcades at home."