It can often be emphasized how important music is to any gaming experience. In the current day that can often mean professional live band performances and orchestras, though on retro systems this was focused on far more primitive sound chips and coding. There are gamers of all ages that get particular enjoyment from retro style game music, with all of its unique sounds and beeps.
The 8-Bit Guy on YouTube - who we previously covered under his previous guise as the iBook Guy - has produced a top-notch video that explains elements of how retro music and sounds were made. He starts off with the earliest home computers and includes a look at the iconic NES sound chip; PC gamers of a certain age may also enjoy references to AdLib and SoundBlaster cards.
Check it out below and let us know what you think.
[source youtube.com]
Comments 10
These guys have no idea what FM means. This is all very misleading. The NES did not do FM synthesis.
Someone should tell us how to program the BU8844FV sound chip in the Wii remote.
I can only get it to make very basic sounds with Glovepie.
@NauticalCrimes I will check out the video later, but you are right. The NES & Master System both produce PSG (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmable_sound_generator). The Master System was capable of producing FM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_modulation_synthesis), although you had to mod the system (buy adapter for Japanese system) and only certain games support it.
@RadioShadow the Japanese master system had a very simple fm chip - which was removed from the console for international release - so only very few games supported it.
@kenzo the BU8844FV is just an adpcm decoder, right?
@NauticalCrimes
... I dont think they ever said NES did FM... At least not that I saw
@NauticalCrimes They say the NES has 5 channels for sound: 2 for Pulse, 1 for Triangle, 1 for Noise and 1 for PCM Sample which was rarely used. Nowhere in the video do they mention the NES being capable of FM.
Very fascinating!
That's a nice piece of history there, thanks for sharing.
@NauticalCrimes
Googled the datasheet :
http://datasheet.octopart.com/BU8844FV-E2-Rohm-datasheet-5330952.pdf
The BU8844FV sound chip has more capabilities than direct streaming of ADPCM. The question is what else can it do given the limited memory and input/output bandwidth of sound data in the Wiimote.
You have to say Nintendo made hard work of sound production in the Wii Remote, and it was not entirely successful. They could have, for better effect, used the dormant Bluetooth sound channel.
The Wii Remote design was locked in by 2005 and chip technology keeps advancing rapidly. After 10 years its all a bit archaic now, but strangely, out of all the Wii Remote functions, the audio features have not been fully reverse engineered (and may never be).
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