Gear used on old shmup soundtracks

[louisg]

I'm always amazed at what obscure interviews and knowledge people here pull up, so I was wondering if anyone might know about the gear used on 90s CD soundtracks (or games with sample-based soundtracks like Souky). They often have this endearingly cheap production that sounds like a couple of old sample-based sound modules.

[clp]

Id also be very interested to know what production equipment / programs are mnost commonly used for shmup music production.

[battlegorge]

Maybe they used a tracker.
Like this one: http://famitracker.shoodot.net/

[Zebra Airforce]

Actually, I recall someone mentioning that ddpdoj's music was contained in .IT files. Maybe rtw or someone who knows more about it can confirm that.

[louisg]

I was thinking more about the CD soundtracks, which are likely going to be recorded off some kind of MIDI gear.

Re: IT format, it's a notoriously hard-to-support format and definitely not the most efficient for low processor usage or voice allocation, so I'd be surprised.. though I have heard before that at least some PGM games use some tracker format for their tunes. I'd guess more along the lines of an earlier and better-supported format like XM or MOD though.

[Ed Oscuro]

'90s redbook CD soundtracks -> MT-32, maybe SC-55

I wonder how many liner notes in my OSTs mention what gear was used instead of just "was recorded at X."

[ZOM]

'90s redbook CD soundtracks -> MT-32, maybe SC-55

I think this, most likely.
Also a possibility is SC-88 which AFAIK was Roland's first 64 voices SC hardware.

[Zebra Airforce]

I'd guess more along the lines of an earlier and better-supported format like XM or MOD though.

I believe you're right! Good call : )

[Rozyrg]

Modern shmups using tracker music!?

[DC906270]

i think the old consoles had their own on board sound chips which were controlled by the game cartridge via MIDI , or something? maybe old pcbs had their own sound chips in a similar way?

[kozo]

i think the old consoles had their own on board sound chips which were controlled by the game cartridge via MIDI , or something? maybe old pcbs had their own sound chips in a similar way?

Correct. SFC had the famous Sony chip, Genny, PC-88/98 and many arcade boards had variations of FM Synth (Raiden, Garegga), etc. They're all running notated "sheet music" ala MIDI, if not MIDI itself, played through the sound system of the console like an instrument. (side note: Yuzo Koshiro considers the PC-88 a musical instrument) Lots of older music was written on sheet music and then the sound programmer had the job of taking those notes that the composer wrote and sequencing them into the games. Once you hit the PS1/Saturn, you had people creating their own instrument packs and sound libraries as opposed to the built-in sounds of the NES and co (high quality synth programming would include Xenogears & FF Tactics) or just playing pre-recorded music like MP3s (Soukaigi, which is mostly live music) or even just redbook tracks like some forward-thinking PC-Engine CD games.

MIDI is often considered "cheap" but in truth, MIDI is like sheet music - it has no sound, it's just a text file - and the quality of the sound is only limited by the quality of the "instrument" playing it back. Blame Roland and Apple's crappy Sound Canvas for the general feeling of crap that surrounds MIDI. QuickTime's MIDI playback is awful and cheapy.

DDP DOJ and most Cave games are probably using either a custom instrument set, or IMHO more likely playing back pre-recorded music rather than "performing" it like older consoles. There's some real guitar work even as far back as Dangun in the original arcade music. I think the DOJ stuff is far to high quality to be put out in real time by an arcade board or even the PS2. It just doesn't have the juice for it, but I could be wrong. I can almost guarantee, though, that stuff like Ibara and Espy 2, Mushihimesama 1+2 are not realtime - they're crispy studio quality. Whether or not you enjoy the music itself, it's VERY polished stuff.

[TMR]

Modern shmups using tracker music!?

'Tracker data is a a block of note and effect data bundled together with samples, there's nothing to stop developers using that song data with whatever sound hardware the target machine has to actually play the sounds. There are drivers that play data from XM files on the C64 and i remember seeing a documentary where developers at Codemasters worked in Protracker with an Amiga and then transferred the song data to the Megadrive, assigning FM sounds on the way.

[emphatic]

DDP DOJ and most Cave games are probably using either a custom instrument set, or IMHO more likely playing back pre-recorded music rather than "performing" it like older consoles. There's some real guitar work even as far back as Dangun in the original arcade music. I think the DOJ stuff is far to high quality to be put out in real time by an arcade board or even the PS2. It just doesn't have the juice for it, but I could be wrong. I can almost guarantee, though, that stuff like Ibara and Espy 2, Mushihimesama 1+2 are not realtime - they're crispy studio quality. Whether or not you enjoy the music itself, it's VERY polished stuff.

Too bad the board won't output stereo. Someone should try and find a couple of solder points so you can bypass the mono amp on the board and get a nice line out for 'em. That would be so awesome.

[yosai]

Actually, I recall someone mentioning that ddpdoj's music was contained in .IT files. Maybe rtw or someone who knows more about it can confirm that.

.IT is the file format for impulse tracker which is/was a DOS based music sequencer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulse_Tracker

It's quite probable that the music was programmed in impulse tracker and a player was written specifically for the PGM hardware.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Take the 1997 release of Taitoi's powered FX-1B Raystorm PCB, the BGM tunes are output in crystal clear stereo 44.1kHz CD quality sound whereas on the PSX port of the same name, it uses Yellowbook audio for both Original and Arranged versions of the BGM tracks. It truly is a pleasure to listen to the famed old school Zuntata BGM on a Raystorm PCB.

PC Engine Fan X!

[Zebra Airforce]

@yosai - I'm familiar with the format, though I think louisg is correct about .xm files being more plausible.

re: guitars - the guitars in just about any namiki track sound sampled to me. I know that the guitar from ketsui's stage 4 has been used elsewhere, for example.

In any case, louis was talking about soundtrack CDs. Sorry for the derail : )

[PooshhMao]

I have a hard time believing that tracker software was used for game soundtracks that recent.
I used to be a HUGE tracker fanatic, still got loads of old S3M and XM modules I made back in the day kicking around.
(And occasionally mess around with NitroTracker on the DS)
It's great technology when you consider the limited resources it requires, but isn't particularly flexible and has this not-professionally-made sound to it due to the lack of proper compression and EQ'ing (although this could be circumvented by outputting each track separately and then processing that before remixing it again somewhere outside of a tracker)

[PooshhMao]

Too bad the board won't output stereo. Someone should try and find a couple of solder points so you can bypass the mono amp on the board and get a nice line out for 'em. That would be so awesome.

Storing stereo audio requires twice as much space as mono - doesn't seem logical to me that they'd essentially waste the ROM space this way. And if the soundtrack would be generated in realtime, why waste time with implementing panning when the end result would be played in mono anyway?

[louisg]

I have a hard time believing that tracker software was used for game soundtracks that recent.

I wouldn't be too surprised if a later format had been used for a system with limited capabilities, but my initial reaction when someone told me PGM used MOD was that MOD was a catch-all, like when people say MIDI or FM to mean any non-CD game soundtrack.

Though, listening to the Ketsui music, it does sound plausible. It sounds lo-fi to me in a way that might suggest that complicated instrument definitions with features like envelopes might not have been used. This is as opposed to something like the music systems you find in PSX and Saturn games with full instrument specs and automatic voice allocation. Tracker formats are something I would expect much more from a european-developed game though.

And then I remember once Alamone spotted a track that sounded like it ripped from a demoscene tune.. this was in DDP2, which is also PGM (the plot thickens?)

I'd be interested if anyone has any real proof of tracker formats being used in PGM games, because I dug through DDP2's files and only found one string which could possibly be a MOD header (though I can't of course rule out compression).

--
EDIT:
More info: it looks like that poential MOD header did pop up in the DDP2 sound rom.. the first half of the file
contains musical instruments sandwiched between some kind of data (probably sample rate, bittage, loop points). The instruments look like the bittage varies, which immediately rules out traditional .MOD format. I can't completely tell bittage right now because Audacity is acting weird. The sound effects come after. And if you don't crack up listening to this, then you've got no soul:
http://www.gorenfeld.net/lou/ddp2-haha.ogg

[PooshhMao]

I smiled

[Pulsewidth]

has this not-professionally-made sound to it due to the lack of proper compression and EQ'ing

Which is a very good thing, because "proper compression and EQ'ing" usually makes things sound worse.

[PooshhMao]

Which is a very good thing, because "proper compression and EQ'ing" usually makes things sound worse.

Huh? I don't think you'd find many people who'd agree with that. Unprocessed tracker music tends to sound pretty flat and undynamic on decent speakers - proper compression and EQ'ing makes music come to life.

Also; Aphex Twin fan?

[louisg]

Which is a very good thing, because "proper compression and EQ'ing" usually makes things sound worse.

Huh? I don't think you'd find many people who'd agree with that. Unprocessed tracker music tends to sound pretty flat and undynamic on decent speakers - proper compression and EQ'ing makes music come to life.

It depends.. bad EQing and compression is *probably* worse than not bothering, and imo compression should be used sparingly. It's very easy to apply compressors and not notice the effect unless you compare against the original signal again. Wow, this thread has gone in three different directions now.

[Pulsewidth]

Huh? I don't think you'd find many people who'd agree with that. Unprocessed tracker music tends to sound pretty flat and undynamic on decent speakers - proper compression and EQ'ing makes music come to life.

Also; Aphex Twin fan?

"Flat" is a good thing, as it means no frequencies are annoying, and compression makes things less dynamic not more.

More SAW 85-92 fan than Aphex Twin fan in general.

[louisg]

"Flat" is a good thing, as it means no frequencies are annoying, and compression makes things less dynamic not more.

It's subjective, but I'd consider flat generally not good.. it means that nothing in the mix really pops out.

Anyway, you'd be surprised how many sounds have problems before compression and EQing actually.. so those two tools are great at correcting specific issues and adding a little depth to the sound as well. Other common uses are for suppressing spikes on consonants in vocals and reigning in some of the dynamics of something like a slap bass.

When it gets dangerous is when someone uses compression to make the track "loud", which is kind of a fallacy. That'll result in everything sounding mushy, and no louder.

[Pulsewidth]

There's nothing wrong with applying EQ and compression to specific samples used by the tracker, it's when you start messing about with the whole output that you make things worse.

[louisg]

There's nothing wrong with applying EQ and compression to specific samples used by the tracker, it's when you start messing about with the whole output that you make things worse.

I think definitely that's a bad way to use compression.. The Rajirugi soundtrack for example is totally crushed sounding and I find it hard to listen to, even though the compositions are good. I think I have only used a master compressor once, and it was because I was too lazy to manually change the gain.

But, I think it is actually good to use a master EQ. I like to use one to gently raise the highs and lows, and turn down the mids, and then since I've done that I can use EQ sparingly on individual tracks (e.g. only for problem areas).

[Ex-Cyber]

DDP DOJ and most Cave games are probably using either a custom instrument set, or IMHO more likely playing back pre-recorded music rather than "performing" it like older consoles. There's some real guitar work even as far back as Dangun in the original arcade music. I think the DOJ stuff is far to high quality to be put out in real time by an arcade board or even the PS2.

There's no way that the pre-SH3 games are playing a fully prerecorded soundtrack. The ROMs are simply not big enough to contain a full soundtrack in any format that the hardware could play back in real time without sounding terrible. Even the SH3-based games are probably using some kind of sequenced format, given the presence of a YMZ770C and its associated flash chips. The more complex riffs are probably done with dedicated samples.

[louisg]

There's no way that the pre-SH3 games are playing a fully prerecorded soundtrack. The ROMs are simply not big enough to contain a full soundtrack in any format that the hardware could play back in real time without sounding terrible.

IIRC, It is actually compressed audio. Each stage music in Dangun and DDP are about 1-minute loops, and there are only three different main stage songs. I think it is ADPCM, because I remember digging through the ROM and was able to hear something that sounded vaguely music-like. I can revisit it if you want.

[Pulsewidth]

But, I think it is actually good to use a master EQ. I like to use one to gently raise the highs and lows, and turn down the mids, and then since I've done that I can use EQ sparingly on individual tracks (e.g. only for problem areas).

The "smile curve" EQ is the same type of problem as low dynamic range - it's trading long term listenability for short term impact. Like dynamic compression, raised highs and lows makes the music more tiring to listen to.

(except for low volume loudness compensation, in which case the listener can apply their own EQ)