SNES soundtracks composed using a Genesis sound chip

WTF is this wizardry!?

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Zelda: LTTP: Hyrule Castle

Super Castlevania IV: Stage 1 Simon's Theme

Mega Man X: Stage 1

Contra III: Stage 1

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More on his Youtube page.

NOICE!

Castlevania IV remix, in particular, is legit!

That Contra III remix sounds like Gunstar Heroes, I wonder why

Fookin' cool, but the Genesis could never achieve that quality sound.

Wow, really surprised by these. Well maybe not so much surprised the Yamaha chip could push this out, but programming and arranging these tracks takes considerable skill. Kudos and thanks for the video links.

Mai_Lover said:

Fookin' cool, but the Genesis could never achieve that quality sound.

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I have a very limited understanding of FM synth but from what I've read tracks like these would take up more space on a cartridge, better sound = more space. Which is why a combination of the cost of cart size and limited sound tools gave the Genesis its reputation as a inferior sounding system vs the SNES.

GhostSeed said:

I have a very limited understanding of FM synth but from what I've read tracks like these would take up more space on a cartridge, better sound = more space. Which is why a combination of the cost of cart size and limited sound tools gave the Genesis its reputation as a inferior sounding system vs the SNES.

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Interesting.

GhostSeed said:

I have a very limited understanding of FM synth but from what I've read tracks like these would take up more space on a cartridge, better sound = more space. Which is why a combination of the cost of cart size and limited sound tools gave the Genesis its reputation as a inferior sounding system vs the SNES.

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Hmm, I'm not sure. AFAIK, the vast majority of Genesis soundtracks were programmed, as opposed to samples. The cart would have what boils down to a player piano music roll and the OPN chip would use that data to trigger sounds across different channels. The level of sound quality wouldn't vary, since the only thing on the cart is raw data rather than audio files; the sounds themselves are being generated by the audio chip. Think along the lines of the MIDI music in FF VII vs. the Redbook audio in sports games for PlayStation. (I'd imagine most of the speech like in Sonic 3, NBA Jam, Mortal Kombat, etc. would be sample based and therefore would take up a lot of storage space.)

EDIT: I'd also guess that the reason these songs sound so clean is because they're using emulated hardware. There are software plugins for DAWs that emulate specific vintage sound chips, so you can quickly program MIDI tracks. If these really were programmed by hand, like in LSDJ for GameBoy, I'd be surprised and super impressed.

The YM2612 could really crank out some great music... if the programmer was skilled enough. Sadly, most weren't, so that's why the system had quite a few mediocre sounding games.
Just as an example of what could be done, this is E1M1 from DooM remade in VGM Music Maker, so it's actually programmed for the YM2612. Compare it to the original E1M1 from the 32x DooM, and it's clear which one wins:

Can't decide if I actually like these better than the SNES originals???
Sounds crispier somehow?

Long overdue, thanks for posting! Here's also a nice place: http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

...all about sound engines. Here's the Mega Drive list: http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/Mega_Drive/Genesis_Sound_Engine_List

GhostSeed said:

Super Castlevania IV: Stage 1 Simon's Theme

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That's a weird choice to do considering it was already done in Bloodlines: