/vr/ - Retro Games

there was an opl soundfont thing you could use in winxp to make midi files sound like fm synth

but anyway, I always like how the jazz jackrabbit games sounded. very synthesizer-y.

Tokimeki Memorial has an excellent YM3812 soundtrack (which is the chip Sound Blaster cards use), but VGMrips is done so I can't post that. Ys II Special, a Korean MS-DOS remake of Falcom's game, has another example that sounds great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvjBBOVo2EU

Some of the more memorable tracks off the top of my head:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylpnz-vb3RQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB9h6LHYgN0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITIiXDXSs7g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCR02kWqYvg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjj9umuLn0w

>>2555683
I forgot XARGON; it's a game about shooting lasers out of your pelvis.

This is Adlib, but oh well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6It3k8sodu4

>>2555650
The Super Famicom wasn't capable of FM synthesis.

Sound Blaster cards were capable of multiple channels of PCM audio and musicians/programmers tended to showcase that feature most often, although compatibility with Ad Lib cards was supported with Yamaha YM series chips.

Well done FM music in DOS games was a rarity, as musicians were generally interested in more capable platforms like the Amiga. The absolute best DOS era music in done with PCM playback based tracker music, which went hand in hand with the vibrant demo scene and warez scene (via trainers and loaders). Many people who were around then often will remember intro loaders advertising cracker and warez groups more than the actual game they were tacked in front of.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iTZtbBWbGw4

That Jazz Jackrabbit soundtrack does sound great. I've never played any of Epic's games before Unreal, but I wouldn't expect to be disappointed with music based on that one.

>>2555710
I'm aware. I poorly worded my statement. The FM part was to differentiate with Sound Blaster midi.

>>2555710
>play Commodore 64 game on a pirated disk
>music for the scene intro is heads and tail above the music in the game itself
Looking at all the odd nicknames that scroll by on the screen, it makes me wonder whatever happened to some of those people.

In jail?
Gone home to become a family man?
Still hacking the planet?

Judging by the music in some of those intros, hopefully electronic music artists.

Some developers didn't really care about FM and just focused on MIDI music. LucasArts on the other hand knew what they were doing, and some others too. I don't want to take sides, but the FM soundtracks of Indy4 and Day of the Tentacle just put the midi versions to shame. They got personality.

I think that if the Genesis chip can do some fantastic techno, the YM3812 did better on orchestral-like tracks. I'm sorry but I just can't find more on YouTube without them being gameplay videos or non-FM tracks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qCX-c93XKs

>>2555743
>GREETZ TO NITE RIPPER, CRIMSON, ACIDEATER, 316 CREW, THG SWEDEN, BLACK KNIGHT, KILLDOZER, 823 PROPER, THE FINN, BASSHEAD, DOCTOR STOP, MOON UNIT
I used to spend so much time listening to tracker music and reading hundreds of handles of people I'd never meet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaRySBA6SfI

duke nukem 2 had a fucking killer soundtrack, if you want rocking FM music just look at bobby prince he always made awesome shit for PC games.

>>2555650
Huh-hah!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TolAEjEuDo

Also, the duke nukem 3d theme sounded the most rock/metal-ish in adlib mode, go figure.

>>2555650
>Dr. SBAITSO, by Creative Labs. Please enter your name.

>>2555946
Great stuff; just what I was asking for.

As for Duke 3d; it sounds fine, but its clearly converted midi music.

>>2555662
Jazz Jackrabbit actually used Amiga-style tracker music, like some of Epic's other games. It doesn't quite have the same limitations that pure FM synthesis has, but it's still a pretty awesome form of music anyway.

As far as good IBM PC FM synth goes, I'm a fan of Dune II's soundtrack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WKBjmJCBHw

Megarace also has a pretty good soundtrack. The best tunes are Maeva, Newfac, and Ngloop.

>>2555974
Fuck, forgot to put Megarace's soundtrack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZhT-X43p5M

>>2555979
This is fantastic.

Here's the ones I liked so much that I kept them (in MP3 format):

Duke Nukem II >>2555913
Dune II >>2555974
Zone 66:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDHsZapeMSE

And I also have the MIDI tracks for Tyrian and Descent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J20V8--Ny9Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MXc_olWk_s

>>2556007
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiit I almost forgot about Tyrian. Thanks!

Well I don't know much about the soundblaster, but hearing some of them reminds me of Whale's Voyage music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AzDt1vuPRU

>>2555962
Just compare them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JznNwG4Ki_o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiCylhUhhMY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si0uW_ueUeo

Which one flows together? Which one has the backing instruments actually sounding supportive? Which one sounds as "harsh" as they could make it? Which one has an atypical beat? And which one just sounds like a bad cover?

Doom is one of the few games which uses a non-default OPL3 instrument set to really stretch what the synth was capable of.

Don't get just any Doom soundtrack download, many are made with different soundfonts which defeats the whole point.

There used to be FLAC torrents produced by a German sound engineer on a dual-OPL card, this was considered the ultimate rendition of the soundtracks, though last I checked the torrents had no seeders.

You could probably get close to real with Chocolate Doom's OPL emulation. Fraggle put a lot of effort into it. Using an actual DOS PC with actual Yamaha card would be best, though it's a fuckaround loading the right drivers.

Maybe someone on the Doom thread here in /vr/ still has the FLAC files.

>>2556032
Roland sounds best, AWE32 sounds worst. Both are midi. But I don't think it is possible for the AWE32 to sound good; the instruments are terrible. SB16 is somewhere in the middle.

For good measure, the best thing in a bad port.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isjbaebcOQU

>>2556043
Actually, randomly searching AWE32 on youtube comes up with Descent which sounds really good. So I guess it can sound good.

I don't still actually have one of those things or anything.

>>2556007
A few more I forgot earlier...

Bio-Menace:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78LKo3arvNM

One Must Fall 2097
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15bvpznQP5M

Overkill:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5gwPzefurs

The last one is really old school, but impressive for the time, especially if you listen to it with Adlib (he's using some different card in that video, maybe MT32, not sure...)

900% sure that I heard Eric Herberling, the composer for the /vr/ Elder Scrolls games, say that the music for Daggerfall utilized the Sound Blaster in some way, and I think he mentioned making the music with a Roland GM Sound Canvas.

I know literally nothing about this sort of thing though so I was really excited when I could actually vaguely answer this.

>>2556043
>I don't think it is possible for the AWE32 to sound good; the instruments are terrible.
Fuck you, man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfdopKqxB1s

and before you say anything, awe32 and awe64 are the same thing (just extra 32 bullshit software voices that nobody uses ever)

>>2556043
awe 32 sounds good when you turn the 3d reverb and chorous all off apparently.

https://youtu.be/hFX63IGmbwY?t=2m8s

>>2556095
How does that sound better than the midi in the windows versions? What does he use for those?

FM versions are still better though.

>>2556119
he doesn't. I rendered that video myself, with my own AWE64gold.
ZUN himself uses some kind of Yamaha Keyboard for the Windows games iirc, but I don't know.

>>2556072
>One Must Fall 2097
This is tracker music, not synth. It uses samples and sounds the same on every computer regardless of soundcard.

>>2556072
>>2555683
OMF, Jazz Jackrabbit, and Epic Pinball all used tracker music, not FM.

>>2556232
My bad, m8. Here's Skyroads:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPYMwtjTC0c

>>2555718
Epic games had a tendency to have glorious soundtracks. Check out Jill of the Jungle.

>>2556253
The entire Epic Pinball soundtrack is amazing.

>"post soundblaster music"
>most of it are either tracker which is irrelevant
>or adlib music which ironically was sb's major competitor
>the only thing going for the thread are MIDI music, but they don't really sound that glorious

>>2556316
Well, it was more of a question than a "post music" thread. I don't care if people just post good PC music. At least one good FM soundtrack was posted, so the question "can it sound good" was answered in the affirmative. And that is really what I wanted to know, whether the SB had actual potential and was never utilized properly, or if it was just bad hardware. Seems the former.

>>2556316
>most of it are either tracker which is irrelevant
>or adlib music which ironically was sb's major competitor
Thing is, the only thing SoundBlaster can do that AdLib can't is digitized samples (since SB uses the same chip AdLib does for FM synth). Therefore, "SoundBlaster music" in this case would mean either tracker music (exactly what SB made available at that time) or as you said "adlib music".

I got a few more...

Tempest 2000:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEB4SOyOC0k

Invasion of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H5M5FAGq0c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw8ZUYrF9ok

Fox Ranger:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79Eas2IzneU

Ultima Underworld:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nvl7moRqPs

>>2556654
This thread is about OPL3 synth music, not tracker music.

>>2556043
The version Roland plays doesn't even sound like the same song! The second half of it sounds like the first half, instead of like the second half of the OPL version.

I'm sure AWE32 can sound very decent, it's just that the card is a mashup of FM synth, midi and wavetable, and the AWE line isn't even consistent at letting you use SIMMs for sample space expansion.

>>2556229
That makes no sense. The fact that OMF was tracker music meant that it sounded proper on gravis ultrasound, and did not sound comparable on OPL or Roland cards.

>>2557527
I haven't played Duke with soundblaster since the 90s, so I'll have to boot it up with DOSBOX. I don't even remember that part of the theme. It isn't there in the 64 version either.

>>2555710
>Sound Blaster cards were capable of multiple channels of PCM audio

Nah, as I recall, they only had one PCM channel. They kept increasing the amount of midi polyphony with later cards though.

Any game doing something like tracker music, would need to mix the sound in software and then output it as one stream. I recall way back when you could toy around with the quality settings in Open Cubic Player and Modplug Player, to get less cpu usage with tracker music.

It was the Gravis Ultrasound that could do multiple channels of PCM synth, and had its own memory to store the samples in.

>>2556035
>Doom is one of the few games which uses a non-default OPL3 instrument set to really stretch what the synth was capable of.

I'm not sure about the FM versions of the songs, but Doom 1-2 was composed on the Roland Soundcanvas SC-55. Any "definitive" version of its soundtrack is from that thing. And it DOES sound extremely impressive.

>>2556043
>But I don't think it is possible for the AWE32 to sound good; the instruments are terrible.

It depends. AWE32 emulated the FM sounds, as far as I recall (I only had a AWE64 and that one definitely screwed up on a few FM tunes). However it could do great wavetable synthesis. And it had its own memory, so wavetable synth sounded as good as the samples you used - same as, say, Gravis Ultrasound.

>>2556035
Or you could just listen to vulgar display of power

SkyRoads

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRrpyc3Amdc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd4pbMzrfS0

>>2557612
My fucking skynigger.

http://vgmrips.net/

yw

>>2557551
What does that matter?! Bobby prince had LOST some of those "original versions" made with fancy midi equipment, ie. those made for wolfenstein 3d. Doom had a separate optimized score version made just for soundblaster/adlib cards.

>>2557557
Its own memory? The AWE cards sometimes needed SIMMs, sometimes needed even more expensive proprietary memory.

>>2556095
>awe32 and awe64 are the same thing
AWE64 gold had better sound quality, if you like EMU8000 thats the one to get

>>2557642
>Its own memory? The AWE cards sometimes needed SIMMs, sometimes needed even more expensive proprietary memory.

Both cards had onboard memory already.

What you are talking about are the expansions. AWE32 used SIMMs, but Creative realized they could jew more money out of consumers, so they used a proprietary connector for the AWE64.

>>2557697
Creative made a lot of cut down cards. There a certain challenge to wrapping your head around all the revisions.

>>2555650
>proprietary eax sound
i sure don't miss hardware soundcards, fucking assholes

>>2558904
Hey, what are you running your mouth for? What did Aureal and their card makers do to you? The soundblaster Audigy line, and anything after that is NOT RETRO ANYWAY.

>>2556032
To be fair, the actual ingame midi sounds loads better in FM that Lee Jackson's full version, which was only really intended for the SC-55.

>>2557612
Those are seriously nice tunes!

>>2560946
Maybe he built his own parallel port DAC, like these things:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covox_Speech_Thing