Genesis Sound Quality

[Johnnie Ferrell No.3108387]

What the hell is this I'm reading about the Genesis having different revisions and some have horrible sound and some don't?

From what I could find, the best bet is a later revision Model 1?

[Sheri Hopkins No.3108394]

earlier ones with "High Definition Graphics" written on them are the best ones

later revision Model 1 and earlier revision Model 2 are the worst due to Sega putting in sound filtering that didn't match installed quad amps (there are three different types of quad amps that can be found in these models - one of them doesn't fit well and it sounds HORRIBLE, one fits OK but sounds a bit muffled, and one fits pretty good with just a tiny bit of noise in the background)

later revision Model 2s are fine though, they fixed the problem by then

[Willie Underwood No.3108402]

>>3108394
Okay, awesome.

I was worried it was complicated. I see now it just matters whether or not they have High Definition on them or not.

I was wondering how the fuck I was going to identify the proper Model 1 in a store or on an auction.

[Felipe Mcdaniel No.3108407]

>>3108402
A good Model 2 is easy to identify too, and they are pretty much as good as a HDG Model 1.

[Carol Schwartz No.3108409]

>>3108387
Technically the laseractive ones are the best as they have digital out.. just putting that out there

[Joann Adkins No.3108419]

>>3108407
yeah as this picture shows, the newer model 2s (with fixed sound) have a smaller motherboard

that's not to say that earlier model 2s are all bad, if you are lucky enough to find ones with the right type of quad amp, they sound perfectly fine and the noise in the background is mostly negligible unless you use headphones

you can fix any model 2 with the "Mega Amp" mod though, it replaces the sound filtering circuit completely with one that works good with anything

[Alfredo Lester No.3108427]

>>3108409
I have an RGB cable that connects to the headphone jack as well for stereo sound, so I'm probably just going with the model 1.

Plus I like the Sega CD for the Model 1.

[Beverly Horn No.3108448]

The Nomad actually has good sound quality as well.

[Dan Wilson No.3108451]

>>3108387
Didn't they all have horrible sound?

Actual Aerosmith Dude Looks Like A Lady
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acQ6jLe3R8E

SNES Dude Looks Like A Lady
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TRIUXzUrCY

Genesis Dude Looks Like A Lady
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k7Tq0XgfLI

Actual Aerosmith Rag Doll:
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udgSerJSubk

SNES Rag Doll:
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eipzunVGIm0

Gensis Rag Doll:
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn7eogs6Tgc

The later models had a single sound chip that did the work of earlier models 2 separate ships... so they had lower fidelity... but that didn't change that they all only had 1 PCM sound channel vs SNES' 8 and

If you like unrealistic beeps and white noise they are cool, I guess. But don't expect realistic sounding instrumentation... just Atari style chip tunes... outputted at just 24 khz vs 32 khz for the SNES.

[Faye Donovan No.3108453]

Megadrive has the best sound of any retro console, rivaled only by Master System+FM Unit.

[Ingrid Benson No.3108457]

>>3108451
>The later models had a single sound chip that did the work of earlier models 2 separate ships

But that isn't true. The PSG chip remained embedded in the same ASIC as the VDP while the FM chip remained discrete. In the Model 2 though the Z80 CPU also became embedded into the VDP ASIC.

[Tiffany Navarro No.3108458]

>>3108451
If you dislike synthesized music so much, what are you doing on a board where the majority of platforms use that style of music?

[Paula Yu No.3108462]

>>3108457
>>3108458
Just hide and ignore the Aerosmith shitter.

[Dan Rollins No.3108473]

>>3108458
I like synth, the Gensis "twangs and farts" just rubs me the wrong way, I guess. The NES had the best synth tracks.

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

[Thomas Salinas No.3108476]

>>3108451
>muh snes

[Alexandra Davila No.3108480]

>>3108473
Famicom sounded like garbage, outside of a few exceptions (Nintendo, Konami, Sunsoft).

[Aaron Carey No.3108491]

>>3108476
Damn, the Genesis had 2 CPUs? Didn't know that. Wonder why it was always such a downgrade from the SNES?

[Horace Galvan No.3108495]

>>3108491
Dual cores don't mean shit.

[Lillie Orr No.3108496]

>>3108491
>games running more smoothly at a solid 60fps
>a downgrade
you're one real delusional nintenkiddo

[Walter Deleon No.3108509]

>>3108491
It sure is mega driving the SNES off that screen. About 2/3'rds of that screen is pure Genesis goodness.

[Molly Potter No.3108513]

>>3108491
>mfw the left side has more colors than the right one

I hope you didn't post that trying to defend the Stupor Nintendo.

[Sophia Suarez No.3108529]

>>3108496
>>3108509
>>3108513
All 3 of you are Sega drones and trying to shit on a Nintendrone.

[Julie Lara No.3108531]

Yeah samefag. The Genesis sure had more colors. 500 vs 32000.

[Janelle Hamilton No.3108535]

>>3108491
honestly, ask yourself, which one of these looks more fun

the one that looks like it's in motherfucking widescreen

or the one that looks like you're gaming inside a postage stamp?

[Jenny Lara No.3108536]

>>3108491
So many colors!

[Wilbert Ingram No.3108538]

>>3108535
Do you have any idea what shape TVs were in the 90s? Take a wild guess. Now guess which one is letterboxed.

[Calvin Harding No.3108539]

BLAST PROCESSING

[Milton Arnold No.3108541]

>THREAD ABOUT MODEL 1 SOUND QUALITY

>SNES VS GENESIS

FUCK

[Robyn Wall No.3108545]

Nothing like a dozen colors too look at while listening to a fart machine fart.

[Jeff Avery No.3108548]

People who derail threads to shit on the SNES or Genesis should be fucking banned.

[Samuel Shea No.3108557]

>>3108548
Console wars in general should be fucking banned. There was absolutely no reason to mention the SNES in a thread that was specifically asking about the different revisions of the Genesis. No other console should even be a factor in this thread.

[Jessie Sanders No.3108559]

>>3108529
Nigga, I ain't a drone of nobody. I'm just laughing at this retard trying to shove his shitty pro-Nintendo opinions on everybody else. There's no reason to have console wars 25 years after the fact when all systems can be easily enjoyed playing.

[Amanda Zavala No.3108562]

>>3108491
The genny's second CPU was a Z80, included for Master System compatibility. Most games used it as a sound CPU, but some of the flight simulators that were released used it for extra computing power.

The SNES had a nice sound chip, vibrant color palette, and some neat hardware effects. The Genesis however had more raw computational power, enough that it could do effects in software that the SNES couldn't do without expansion chips. It also had a higher default resolution, 320x224 instead of 256x224.

I enjoy both systems, but I prefer the SNES purely from a subjective standpoint. I just have more nostalgia for it, and its popular titles have held up better over time.

[Timothy Hawkins No.3108565]

>>3108545
>>3108539
MY EYES

[Anonymous No.3108595]

>>3108541
because retards keep replying to the aerosmith shitter who loves to compare western garbage

[Anonymous No.3108614]

>>3108595
>western garbage
?

[Robert Redford No.3108617]

Nice information, I thought the early model 1 was the only good one. Looks like I'm getting a small shield model 2. They have stereo out the a/v port right?

[Anonymous No.3108642]

Why was the Genesis always so raspy and grainy sounding?

Genesis
http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/sites/default/files/ssf2files/Streetf2gen.mp3

SNES
http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/sites/default/files/ssf2files/Streetf2snes.mp3

Genesis
http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/sites/default/files/ssf2files/Supersf2gen.mp3

SNES
http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/sites/default/files/ssf2files/Supersf2snes.mp3

[Anonymous No.3108645]

>>3108451
Why'd you have to turn it into another of these debates, faggot?

[Anonymous No.3109518]

>>3108536
That would be dithered out on a CRT.

[Anonymous No.3109545]

>>3108642
The SNES had a proprietary DSP designed with the blessing of Ken Kutaragi himself, made with compressed formats and sampling-esqe features in mind, where the Genesis and co. used a pretty basic TI chip

[Anonymous No.3109570]

>>3109518
No it wouldn't.

[Anonymous No.3109574]

OK, I just checked and I have a bad one

What's the cheapest kind of good one? How do you tell the Model 1s apart?

[Anonymous No.3109579]

>>3109545
>Genesis and co. used a pretty basic TI chip

That's the Master System, which was also embedded into the Z80 but it's not by any means the primary sound device inside the Genesis.

[Anonymous No.3109587]

>>3108451
Is this guy using reverse trolling to try and make SNES fans look like delusional idiots or is he actually this stupid?

[Anonymous No.3109610]

>>3109570
100% of people were using RF and composite when this game was relevant.

Even with RGB I bet it would still dither if you turn down the sharpness on your CRT.

[Anonymous No.3109652]

>>3109610
>100% of people were using RF and composite when this game was relevant.

Whatever, the effect is not inherently connected to CRTs, since it works on every display as long as you use those two connectors.

>Even with RGB I bet it would still dither if you turn down the sharpness on your CRT.

Only later non professional CRTs had a sharpness option, and.. no, they still don't work wonders as the intended low-pass applied by the Genesis' composite encoder.

[Anonymous No.3109725]

>>3109652
There was an interview with the dude who made Lion's King on the Megadrive and he confirmed that the game looks less colourful with RGB since they specifically tried using the dithering effect that the composite video quality allowed for.

Hell the Playstation 1 used that to get more colours as well. And the Saturn used it to get transparencies.

Stop playing the games on shitty emulators that give you wrong aspect ratio, badly mangled up sound, no dithering, inaccurate resolutions, etc.

[Anonymous No.3109732]

>>3109574
>How do you tell the Model 1s apart?
All the info you will ever need on the different models of Genesis here:
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?7796-GUIDE-Telling-apart-good-Genesis-1s-and-Genesis-2s-from-bad-ones

[Anonymous No.3109737]

>>3109725
Are you okay?

[Anonymous No.3109815]

>>3109737
BUSTER WOLF

[Anonymous No.3109853]

>>3108535
Or maybe they just cropped the SNES one too much.

[Anonymous No.3109901]

>>3108617
ya

[Anonymous No.3110098]

>>3109579
>>3109545
>Genesis and co. used a pretty basic TI chip
>That's the Master System, which was also embedded into the Z80

What happens when two clueless know-it-all argue together?

[Anonymous No.3110104]

>>3110098
You get /vr/

[Anonymous No.3110108]

>>3109725
I played that game on my RGB megadrive through scart like every other frenchfags at that time so it always looked weird to me.

[Anonymous No.3110115]

>>3108387
I have a Gen 1 HDG version (with TMSS) that I modded for S-Video, and both the picture and sound are great

[Anonymous No.3110116]

>>3110115
related

[Anonymous No.3110123]

>>3108387
I had that model and the music was fucking great, so I guess so.

[Anonymous No.3110129]

>>3110098
Except the SN76489 and the Z80 are on the same die you uneducated moron. The Genesis FM chip is from Yamaha.

[Anonymous No.3110139]

I have a Model 2 VA1.8 (probably the worst model from that guide on the Sega site) and the sound is OK with only like one or two of the lower bass notes come out a bit squeaky. The picture is a bit crappy though with heavy pixellation and jail-bars.

[Anonymous No.3110147]

>>3110139
>heavy pixellation

What did he mean by that?

[Anonymous No.3110172]

>>3110147

kys m8

[Anonymous No.3110247]

>>3108387
X-Eye & CDX are the best picks

[Anonymous No.3110279]

>>3109545
Basically...

The SNES had a chip that composed music out of low quality samples, which is why everything sounds a bit muffled. The chip was developed by Sony.

The MegaDrive used a Yamaha YM2612 FM synthesis chip, meaning the sounds where synthesised on the spot inside the console. The technology used was similar to that used in the Yamaha DX7 synthesiser. The YM2612 chip's ability to make good sounds is all down to the musician who is programming it to understand awkward 4 operator FM synthesis.

The MD could also utilise the MasterSyetem chip alongside the YM2612.

[Anonymous No.3110292]

>>3110115
Why would you use S-Video when RGB is far superior?

[Anonymous No.3110693]

>>3110292
So I can get the waterfall in Sonic to blend without the dot crawl and multicolored text of composhit.

[Anonymous No.3110706]

>>3110292
RGB is a hassle in North America.

[Anonymous No.3110714]

[Anonymous No.3110725]

>>3110116
Did you remove the RF and use its hole for the S-video?

Where do you buy the parts to do this mod?

If you have a 32X does that need to be separately modded for S-video?

[Anonymous No.3110726]

>>3110714
why do you keep posting this its rather autistic of you.

[Anonymous No.3110727]

>>3108642
>>3108451

Pretty bad sound for the Genesis, to be quite honest famalams. It had trouble doing sounds other than old school "Atari beeps", i.e. one of its sound chips was capable of nothing but making 3 square wave tones and one white noise channel. BAKA.

And its oldschool FM chip only had 1 PCM (accurate samples) channel, vs 8 for the SNES.

[Anonymous No.3110735]

>>3110727
That's why those rock tracks are so cringy >>3108451 with only one channel of PCM available all they could do is try to replicate real guitar, bass, drums etc. with FM the same as a NES or Master System would do.

[Anonymous No.3110751]

Genesis did creepy atmosphere the best.
You could never get this sound on snes. Listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUioJ_3lDdg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUvOE1xil7g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyrGIgRC7NE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5RiwtCX14k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eja9CQ8PUfc

[Anonymous No.3110769]

>>3110725
I cut a new hole on the far right (looking top down) end.

I found a tutorial and diagram for it back in 2012 that listed everything i needed. I bought the electrical parts from Mouser

[Anonymous No.3110797]

>>3110751
cant forget splatterhouse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ArklhEoE-4

[Anonymous No.3110861]

>>3110751
Sounds pretty rubbish tbqh. If you're going to defend your console at least choose something it did right.

[Anonymous No.3110909]

Is this only a Genesis problem or does this concern the Mega Drive as well?

[Anonymous No.3110914]

>>3110909
As far as I can tell it concerns all Mega Drives/Genesis.

[Anonymous No.3111002]

>>3110714
(you)

[Anonymous No.3111260]

SNES had some shit music and great music
Genesis had some shit music and great music as well

Holy fuck it's like everything isn't black and white

[Anonymous No.3111281]

>>3111260
In this day and age in which people can easily emulate and enjoy both, we still have some diehard fags that want to argue over long dead consoles. Given that they have such different sound setups, it's like comparing apples to oranges. Won't stop some people from shitposting endlessly about it though.

[Anonymous No.3111384]

>>3111281
It all comes down to "muh childhood"

[Anonymous No.3111750]

>>3110129
>Except the SN76489 and the Z80 are on the same die you uneducated moron.

No, they aren't (except in the later Genesis 3 which were using GOAC), the Z80 CPU always was a discrete chip, you are probably confusing it with VDP which indeed ad the SN sound chip integrated starting from Master System.

By the way, I was only reacting at your claim that could be read like the "Master System was embedded into z80", which makes litterally zero sense, but thank you for confirming you are indeed a clueless know-it-all ;-)

>The Genesis FM chip is from Yamaha

Thank you Captain Obvious for this very important piece of information that has nothing to do with what I said. Or are you again trying to paint yourself as a console "expert" by posting random stuff you read from wikipedia?

Hey, did you knew the VDP chip which as a SN chip clone integrated is also from Yamaha?

[Anonymous No.3111804]

>>3110725
If you have the 32x just mod it and play your md games on it as well.

[Anonymous No.3111810]

>>3109901
Sweet, I'm trying to keep interconnects to a minimum.

[Anonymous No.3112021]

>>3108539
WTF were they thinking in the late 80s thinking they only needed 64 colors? That's 8-bit tier.

[Anonymous No.3112185]

>>3112021
>64 colors

It's 512 colors actually (and much more with the shadow/highlite feature), 64 is the size of the color palette for a single tile (8x8 pixels element) but palettes can be modified any time to maximize the number of colors per screen.

[Anonymous No.3112203]

>>3112185
That's a boldface lie. It was locked to 64 total onscreen so its actual colors were often even lower than that.

>>3108539
>>3108536

Only a Genigger could look at direct evidence of their consoles lack of colors and still bold face lie about it.

[Anonymous No.3112215]

Don't mind me...

Original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7tNDkEACSY [Embed]

SNES: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6O39QJCAhk [Embed]

Genesis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQd_QJZ94PI [Embed]

just passing through.

[Anonymous No.3112218]

Don't mind me...

Original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7tNDkEACSY

SNES: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6O39QJCAhk

Genesis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQd_QJZ94PI

just passing through.

[Anonymous No.3112357]

>>3112203

>That's a boldface lie. It was locked to 64 total onscreen so its actual colors were often even lower than that.

No, it's not, the Genesis is perfectly capable of displaying more than 64 colors per screen but it requires you to understand how its VdP work, which wikipedia-raised people like you off course don't...

These are actually 4 palettes of 16 colors each and each of them can be changed anytime by writing different values to CRAM.

There are a few demos showing 512 colors at once per screen ( this one in particular https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sQNcIKAIBF0 starting at 4:45) and some games switched palettes mid-screen using raster effects (basically, an interrupt programmed to trigger at some points of the screen) to display more than 64 distinct colors. Sonic games (underwater levels), Vectorman and Toy Story are just ones of the few examples.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9rjwECf2wQ

[Anonymous No.3112371]

>>3112185
>64 is the size of the color palette for a single tile

Completely false

[Anonymous No.3112394]

>>3112218
>using music from shitty licensed game as an example
lmao nintenyearolds, everybody

[Anonymous No.3112993]

>>3111281
except Genesis sound emulation sounds like ass

[Anonymous No.3113036]

FM synths are NOT easy to use.

The vast majority of games have music that legitimately converted from midis without much thought at all. FM from midi sounds like pickled dick, and SNES is only a bit better, with some mushy but more musical sounding instruments.

I like to use this as example:
https://youtu.be/6_IJYc9t3vQ?t=22m2s

It's Tim Follin bringing out what I consider the best of the genesis, without doing something like any of the awful examples posted here.

Do you think people used harsh, terrible instruments because the hardware forced them to? No, it's because they were lazy fucks.

[Anonymous No.3113496]

>>3108451
Hey you. Yeah, you. Fuck you.

Listen to the Skitchin' soundtrack. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyzBtP8TQUA

Also, emulated Genesis music like you posted always sounds worse than the real thing because emulators still can't properly emulate the sound chip.

[Anonymous No.3113501]

>tfw OP

I... I wish I could delete this thread.

[Anonymous No.3113510]

>>3108539
I like how that screenshot doesn't show that the resolution of the Genesis game is way bigger than the SNES one, and you wouldn't even see the dithering on a CRT.

[Anonymous No.3113518]

>>3109732
The link this guy posted should answer all your questions, OP.

[Anonymous No.3113527]

>>3110292
because Americans don't use SCART.

[Anonymous No.3113529]

>>3110909
Mega Drive too.

[Anonymous No.3113787]

>>3110292
>when RGB is far superior?

It really isn't that much better than S-video. It seems like all the underage kids believe it's RGB or bust for retro consoles.

[Anonymous No.3114183]

>>3112993
>>3113496

>People still using Gens these days

Genesis FM chip emulation has come a long way and it is now quite undistinguishable from real hardware now. The only thing not emulated properly is the DAC imperfection of the model 1 but the rest is pretty much on par

[Anonymous No.3114185]

>>3114183
>people play with filters and shit sound emulation
look Ma, I can imply too!

[Anonymous No.3114190]

>>3113501
good job, you unleashed anal-pained nintendrones

[Anonymous No.3114331]

>>3114183
I'm not talking about Gens. Even KEGA Fusion isn't completely accurate. Every emulator sounds too sharp compared to the real thing. You try playing Streets of Rage III on any emulator and it will sound like shit. Nothing like the real thing.

This is why people should stop posting emulator recordings.

[Anonymous No.3114383]

>tfw got the wrong genesis
>tfw SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
>tfw no high definition gaming
>tfw nintendorks shitpost in genesis threads because they're still mad after all this time
>at least I beat Ecco

[Anonymous No.3114392]

>>3114383
Tfw I bought a model 2 just so I wouldn't have the cord sticking out of the headphone jack.

[Anonymous No.3114402]

>>3114331
enable lowpass filter in Fusion or in any recent emulator (Regen or Genesis Plux GX), it sounds very close to real hardware...and definitively not "like shit" or "like ass", that's for sure.

[Anonymous No.3116987]

>>3110279
I thought SNES audio sounded muffled due to a gaussian filter applied before output?

[Anonymous No.3116997]

>>3108394
I have one of those late-revision model 1s. How can I tell which quad amps are in there?

[Anonymous No.3117001]

The best model is the original non-TMSS model 1. It's got the best sound and no wait for a piracy check. Using an RGB cable eliminates the rainbow banding that composite/RF have, and using one with audio breakout will give you stereo sound.

[Anonymous No.3119250]

Found a VA4 in the wild today, decided to do a quick comparison with the shit model to help illustrate the difference in quality. They're a little loud, but you can hear the passive buzz on the VA7 if you crank it.

VA4- https://a.pomf.cat/lkgcge.mp3
VA7 - https://a.pomf.cat/xmskth.mp3

Recorded from the stereo out on the front plugged in to the Sega CD to split it back in to RCA, if that matters.

[Anonymous No.3120975]

>>3119250
The difference in the sharpness of the drums is really really evident at 9 seconds in...

[Anonymous No.3121087]

>>3119250
my genesis doesn't say High definition graphics.
its a VA6.5, sounds good.