chipmusic.org is an online community in respect and relation to chip music, art and its parallels.
You are not logged in. Please login or register.
I figured since this is an NES/SNES forum, I'll ask the question - is the only way to create SNES sounds via sampling or Mario Paint? I could probably go on a Google ADD journey today and figure out what the situation is, but I figured I'd see if there's anyone knee deep in it that could give me some resources to look at. I'm looking for anything that can be midi-synced, but options are pretty open at this point.
Last edited by Active Knowledge (Jan 10, 2010 7:18 pm)
Scratch that. If you want REALLY nice samples (with loop-points and stuff already set.) grab DOSBox and OpenSPC. Then use OpenSPC to convert some .spc files to .it then use something like MilkyTracker (or whatever tracker you prefer) to rip out the samples.
As far as I remember, most SNES tracks were mostly sample-based, so any tracker soft should do.
MIDI synched, hmm. SNES plays 16bit ADPCM sampels at 32kHz. The DSP interpolates. Due to limited storage space, often very short samples were used and then down pitched (which results in that fuzzy warm sound the interpolation creates).
I guess you could mimic it in a DAW to some degree by converting a source sample to ADPCM and back to PCM, then put it into an effect chain (Sampler->Downsampler->Interpolation[->maybe a crusher]).
SNES plays 16bit ADPCM sampels at 32kHz. The DSP interpolates. Due to limited storage space, often very short samples were used and then down pitched (which results in that fuzzy warm sound the interpolation creates).
Thanks! I've always wondered about writing for SNES too, and this is the kind of thing I'd like to hear more of. I know there hasn't been much interest in the SNES because it's sample-based (and by many accounts just generally crappy), but for my own possibly idiosyncratic reasons I would love know more about it. I'm sure just using a tracker and samples would be adequate, but I feel like the SNES does have a distinct sound (maybe that's just due to the down pitched samples like you mentioned, or some other constraints on the way the samples were usually produced/implemented).
::shrug:: Just expressing my interest, and I hope this thread continues.
That is just very basic info from Wiki. I'm sure I read some more in-depth documents on how the DSP works, but I'll have to dig up that link once I'm back from work
I know that SNES has built in reverb, that might help give it that unique sound.
I'm thinking of doing some work with SNES samples and IT2SPC. Hopefully that'll pull off that classic SNES sound at least to some extent. 
SNESMOD if you want real life SNES music. However SNES sounds to me like poor quality sampletracking, the only real distinctive feature is the reverb, so I don't know why anyone'd bother. No MIDI sync, sorry. 
AWFUL reverb, I may add.
Whenever I hear yet another SNES tune with reverb I cringe 
Here's the link to the tech docs:
http://www.zophar.net/documents/snes.html
And here's a cool thing that might help if you want hardware and can program a bit:
http://www.raphnet.net/electronique/sne … apu_en.php
Lots of awesome information in these links, thanks a lot for contributing everybody. I guess my main inquiry revolved around *why* there wasn't a lot of stuff going on with the SNES, and apparently it's because working with the system would be similar to just downsampling stuff in Live. I'm going to go over a lot of this stuff and see if there's anything worth it, but I assume I'll just do what I was originally planning on and start down the Genesis/MD path. :-)
However SNES sounds to me like poor quality sampletracking
Then you must be listening to some shitty SNES music! Check out Super Tennis, Starfox, and Sim City.
Quality stuff.
The composing is not in question, rather the poor quality of the sound itself.
The samples sound like absolute cack thanks to what ant1 has explained before!
No offense to akira, ant1 & others, but in defense of my own interest in making real SNES music despite the low sample quality: because of that and the reverb I guess, the SNES has a really distinctive sound even if it is, relative to some or even most measures, a crappy sound. Unless you take it for granted that if you're using samples you want them to be as high-quality as possible, I honestly don't know why it's puzzling that someone would want to duplicate the SNES sound. It seems to me analogous to using a slightly dated camera to achieve a certain look. It's a different motivation than using an NES sound chip or something, sure, but I think it could suit some music.
Also, thanks everyone for the great links, I'm gonna look into this bizness.