SNES vs. Genesis audio

AFIAK, the DSP is doing phase accumulation on a fixed output 32khz system (not a period divide down). The YM2612 is definitely doing phase accumulation, because you need fine resolution steps for frequency modulation (although it's still phase modulation). The 2612 doesn't have any sort of digital filtering (that I know of), so it uses a higher output.. something like 49-51khz. But you get "stepping" artifacts without it, not to mention the artifacts from playing the internal digital sinewave at higher frequencies (sample skips). All Genesis units filter the 2612 to lower than the max output. I suspect this was because of the above, but someone did find out that the 2612 does a funky sequential output of each channel independently - instead of mixing internally and requires external filtering to "group" them instead of just a simpe internall ADDER and a higher res DAC. So maybe it was for both reasons, dunno. Anyway, untouched Genesis systems had 32khz (16khz frequency response) or even lower, after filtering.



PSG in the SMS is pretty damn limited, if not grating on the ears. Specifically stating like that is a bit of a misnomer. Relatively speaking, it's probably closer to 8 in real world usage. But don't forget, quite a few Genesis games mixed up to 2 channels on channel six of the FM chip in direct write DAC mode (8bit, but still). No frequency scaling, but you really don't need that for drumkits and such. So technically, you could say up to 11 or so channels in some setups (games that actually did this). The stereo output on the 2612 is also kind of weak. While you do have control over it, it's only hard pan left or right per channel (FM only, PSG is mono). So if you want any sort of "balancing" or panning effect, you have to use 2 FM channel in sync to achieve this effect. Personally, I don't like hard panned channels. Even less so with earphones one (BITD, I thought my Genesis was broken when I used my head phones because of this >_> ). So, doing any real sort of stereo stuff will loose you a channel per pseudo channel on the Genesis.



Because most techno is about bending or shaping the sound over time. You can simulate low frequency "filter" changes on FM too. FM is perfect for changing the sound over a long period of time. This doesn't mean the SPC can't do techno, as there is "techno" that's pretty simple. But from a composers point of view, FM chip definitely gives you more freedom in this area. I mean, given the small amount of ram of the SPC. It's still subjective, but at least you have some real situations between the two that you can directly compare.



Voice samples , yeah - but quite a few Genesis games use the DAC for drumkits and such too. You don't really hear the distortion from those type of samples, versus something like voice and such. And in fact, it's not the resolution of the DAC. Or even that it has no volume control over the DAC in that mode, but the delivery system. There's no interrupt, or self feeding DAC, or DMA buffer. The z80 has to use cycle timing to produce output (as well as switch banks with its slow banking method).



Not even 16bit. 10bit or 12bit would sound great (and it does).



Ugh. Arpeggio usually grates on my nerves. It's OK sometimes, but most of the time I don't like. Japanese developers got a long just fine without it on the NES/Famicom.



^This. Bad SNES music is just average/forgettable. But bad FM grates on the ear drums.

I've heard plenty of impressive stuff on the Genesis. But BITD, it was all about trying to reach that realistic sound. SNES was cutting edge on this field, but nowadays - SNES comes off as cheesy rather than realistic since we've come along way. And Genesis sound is now more forgiving. The bad stuff is still bad, but the good stuff is great and the impressive technical music compositions on the Genesis just blows my mind. Listening back to a lot of SNES music, is seems clear to me that it (SPC) wasn't really pushed to its potential much, other than square's soft orchestral stuff. Yuko Koshiro is often cited for Genesis music, but his music for Super Adventure Island is awesome on the SNES. Shame he didn't get more involved with the sound chip (he didn't even write the music engine for that game, which he normally did on other systems). A lot of SNES games sounded like they uses stock samples of a dev kit.

As far as sound FX? SNES almost every time. I was very happy with the SNES sound FX (voice or otherwise). I never liked the FM generated sound effects in Genesis games. Even coming directly from NES to Genesis in 1990. I actually prefer NES PSG sound effects over most Genesis style FM sound FX.