Neo Geo CD vs. Cartridge music

Originally posted by Nick Goracke:
<strong>I hear a lot of people say that the music in Neo Geo CD games is a lot better than the cartridge counterparts. (OK, I lied, I just saw it mentioned in a couple reviews)

Anyways, is the difference pretty big? Is there a reliable place to download samples to compare?

Thanks.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Yes, there IS a pretty big difference. Many of the arranged soundtracks use real instruments, which is one of the major factors. In some cases, the original music is better than the arranged version (i.e. KOF '94 Japan Team theme). Also, some of the games don't even have arranged soundtracks (like Metal Slug and Fatal Fury).

Neo Bomber Man's site is a great source for MP3s, but if I want to hear ALL of the tracks (without waiting for it's MP3 file to be uploaded or re-uploaded), I usually buy the CD version of the game and play it in my CD player (that way, I can know for sure that said game has [or doesn't have] an arranged soundtrack).

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Originally posted by moog:
<strong>The tracks are only about 2 minutes long for CD games, so as to fit them all on a CD. [...] </strong><hr></blockquote>

That's BS, sorry. I have over 60 Neo CDs, and there are many tracks longer than that. FFS, AOF3, RBFF, RBFFS, VFG and whatnot.

The fact that most tracks are quite short is intended. Many AES/CD games have in-game music loops which aren't longer than 8, 16 or 32 bars, and instead of a real loop, CD game music fades out and starts again, but the track is the same.

It's not necessary to cut anything to fit it on a std CD, which holds 650 MB of data, the equivalent of 5200 Megabits. Even if the tracks were 12 mins long, they would still fit on that damn thing.

[ March 09, 2002: Message edited by: Takumaji ]</p>

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Originally posted by Takumaji:
<strong>
The fact that most tracks are quite short is intended. Many AES/CD games have in-game music loops which aren't longer than 8, 16 or 32 bars, and instead of a real loop, CD game music fades out and starts again, but the track is the same.

It's not necessary to cut anything to fit it on a std CD, which holds 650 MB of data, the equivalent of 5200 Megabits. Even if the tracks were 12 mins long, they would still fit on that damn thing.
</strong><hr></blockquote>

CD games do not offer continuous music.

AES games do not offer CD quality audio.

To directly compare the capacity of a CD to a cart when they store the music in a completely different way is BS my friend.
The CD stores them as Audio - about 10megs (80mbits by the way) for a minute. The AES uses low quality samples and midi so as to save space.

I'm glad you understand that the AES tracks are iterative, and I'm sure you understand that this allows the music to be more versatile and to adhere to the action on screen.

I also have quite a few Neo-Geo CDs and do not find that my enjoyment is spoilt by the way the music is handled, but I do feel in a trade off the AES deals with things better.

[ March 09, 2002: Message edited by: moog ]</p>

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Originally posted by moog:
<strong> [...] I also have quite a few Neo-Geo CDs and do not find that my enjoyment is spoilt by the way the music is handled, but I do feel in a trade off the AES deals with things better.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Interesting point. A refined thread topic for this would be something like "AES continuous sound loops vs CD hifi fade out tracks" I guess... uhm...

Anyway, this is more about how the music affects game play; still I think most CD OSTs/ASTs are better, fatter, and specially some of the (CD-)ASTs like RBFF or AOF3 feature phantastic pieces (RBFFS's Blue Mary's Blues anyone?).

Your mileage may vary.

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