Author Topic: Happy Birthday PC Engine!  (Read 1569 times)

Kitsunexus

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Re: Happy Birthday PC Engine!
« Reply #15 on: March 17, 2007, 12:40:25 PM »
Awww, PC-Engine turned 20! Happy birthday!

And I don't really care which chip is more powerful in the 2A03 vs. HuC6280. They both have some great music, and both have sonic characteristics I adore.

Black Tiger

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Re: Happy Birthday PC Engine!
« Reply #16 on: March 17, 2007, 12:59:36 PM »
:?  Huh, Black_Tiger - are we disagreeing somewhere?  I was agreeing with Bonknuts's assessment of the PC Engine's sound chip and added that a snerd likely wouldn't appreciate the difference since it wouldn't compare to Sony's chip.  I don't hear much similarity between the the PCE and a Famicom, other than they both sound like 'video games'.  Maybe I've had too much gin tonight and am not reading your post correctly; nah, there's no such thing as too much gin.   :dance:

I agree with you. My point is that I'm no tech spec expert, but if an expert were to tell me that the sound chips in the NES and TG-16 are identical, it wouldn't matter, since they both have unique sounds and are both capable of beutifiul music.

Even the stuff that Turbo haters say is 'basically NES music' is more of a generational leap over NES music than 16-bit graphics are over 8-bit.


As for Turbo vs Genesis sound/music, you can't ever make any fair direct comparison because even if the same composer does both soundtracks, they aren't going to be equally skilled at 'programming' both. And even if a music programming automaton was someday created that was as skilled as is inhumanly possible at programming both, it'd still be a matter of personal taste since both have different types of sound and strengths and weaknesses.

Many PC Engine CD games have digitized samples that sounded perfect to me back in the day. Like Ys IV, which has at least one sampled effect per boss battle. The Genesis may be able to reproduce samples just as good, but I don't think it gets much discernably better to the human ear in the middle of a real game.

In my personal playing experience, it seems that Genesis generated music has a greater potential to be misused, particularly on the fm side. I've heard so many great Genesis soundtracks that were marred by the odd misued instrument(s) or were unbalanced.

I think that the Genesis SFII soundtrack in many places sounds better than any version, including the arcade, but is such a mixed bag that overall it may be least good of the 3 16-bit consoles. Least good is still good though.

Unfortunately, since the PCE CD format took off before developers really started to maximize HuCard potential, HuCards and therefore PSG/chip music was never a huge priority for developers(unlike Genesis and SNES carts). Most games with lofty aspirations were put on CD since it was less limited, cheaper and by the Super CD era, more popular.

Still, potential is only potential and we only have real actual games to play. There is probably some Turbo/PCE 'chip' music to rival the games Joe listed, but I'm not overly familiar with those games or PCE HuCards in general. But there are also some CD games with special system generated music(even though its not a great example of Turbo/PCE chip music, Dragon Slayer was an alternate PSG soundtrack).
« Last Edit: March 17, 2007, 01:40:48 PM by Black_Tiger »
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Bonknuts

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Re: Happy Birthday PC Engine!
« Reply #17 on: March 17, 2007, 01:19:01 PM »

 I still perfer some original musics on the NES over remakes - Ninja Gaiden for PCE and SNES come to mind.

 Btw, someone is working on a PCE music tracker.


 Hmm.. 20 years old - I wonder what we will see in celebration of this: never before seen prototypes, new games, demos, etc. I can't wait :D

Black Tiger

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Re: Happy Birthday PC Engine!
« Reply #18 on: March 17, 2007, 01:41:31 PM »

 I still perfer some original musics on the NES over remakes - Ninja Gaiden for PCE and SNES come to mind.

 Btw, someone is working on a PCE music tracker.


 Hmm.. 20 years old - I wonder what we will see in celebration of this: never before seen prototypes, new games, demos, etc. I can't wait :D

Don't get your hopes up too much.  :|
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nat

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Re: Happy Birthday PC Engine!
« Reply #19 on: March 17, 2007, 02:24:28 PM »
Nat, I'll be happy to post some MP3s and whatnot for ya.  I'll do it in this thread tonight.  Stay tuned...

Sweet!

Kitsunexus

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Re: Happy Birthday PC Engine!
« Reply #20 on: March 17, 2007, 02:29:53 PM »

 I still perfer some original musics on the NES over remakes - Ninja Gaiden for PCE and SNES come to mind.

Actually, while the NES version of that game's intro is great (and has a PHENOMENAL Minibosses cover) I must say I love the Sega Master System, you can't help but feel awesomeness when the sombre breakbeat kicks in after the Oriental melody and then when the last survivor is talking to him it kicks into the fast heroic ninja theme. I'll have to upload it to YouTube, it's amazing.

Kitsunexus

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Re: Happy Birthday PC Engine!
« Reply #21 on: March 17, 2007, 03:07:18 PM »
OK, so my video capture software is crap, so you'll just have to settle for an MP3 of the SMS Ninja Gaiden Intro:

http://savefile.com/files/561094 <This MP3 was WAV logged with KEGA Fusion 3.4, and encoded to MP3 at 320kbps, 48,000khz.

The cool thing about the SMS version is that the composer is "FUMI", a quick search on Google reveals that this is none other than Fumie Kumatani, one of my favorite Sega musicians!

Not only does she make some excellent music (and own a Nord Lead 3 and a KORG Triton), she's also smokin' hot! :


Rawr. ^__^

Joe Redifer

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Re: Happy Birthday PC Engine!
« Reply #22 on: March 17, 2007, 03:11:54 PM »
OK here we go.  First off I must stress that I AM NOT trying to say that the Genesis mops the floor with the Turbo or that I'd rather listen to Genesis music any day instead of Turbo/PCE HuCard music.  What I am trying to show is that for computer generated music, the Genesis is technically more impressive at what it can do.  Like Black_Tiger pointed out, it can be misused.  How often have you heard a Genesis game that has music that sounds like a broken kazoo?  Too often, I'm afraid. 

So with the following MP3s I am trying to show what I think that a TurboGrafx/PC Engine HuCard would have an incredibly tough if not impossible time equaling in sound quality.  The following are mainly short snippets of various songs from the sound tests demonstrating sound quality and not music composition quality (though many of the tunes are quite good).  Some games have a few examples that cross-fade into each other, and there is one second of silence between games.  Recorded in (((STEREO))) from a real Genesis (mine).  Try to imagine the PCE playing these musics (is that grammatically correct)?
http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/GenesisMusicExamples.mp3
- 8:48 - 12.21 MB

Here's the game list:
0:00 - Gauntlet IV - 4 songs
1:50 - Mega Turrican - 2 songs
3:00 - Midnight Resistance - 1 song
3:40 - Global Gladiators - 1 "song"
4:08 - Shinobi III - 1 song
4:30 - Thunder Force IV/Lightening Force - 3 songs
5:57 - Streets of Rage 1 - 2 songs - I know you said you've heard this, but it's here to demonstrate one thing that the PC Engine definitely cannot do... BASS.  Absolutely requires some great full range speakers/headphones that are capable of excellent bass.
7:08 - Zero Wing - 1 song
7:33 - Panorama Cotton - 1 song
8:16 - Castlevania Bloodlines - 1 song

Just for fun I did a quick voice MP3 as well just to show that the Genesis isn't a scratchy disaster when it comes to speech like snerds say it is.  The following MP3 is in mono from various games I own that I could remember off of the top of my head as having good quality voices.  Once again, recorded from my real Genesis 1 (launch unit).  Wow!
http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/GenesisVoiceExamples.mp3
- 49 freakin' seconds long. - 609 freakin' K's.

Enjoy.

esteban

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Re: Happy Birthday PC Engine!
« Reply #23 on: March 17, 2007, 03:28:12 PM »
This is a completely subjective topic, and I usually have fun diving in, but I'm too tired at the moment (for the record, I love chip tunes on all the systems mentioned).

I do have a question for the technical gurus: Has anyone mapped out the relationship between console and arcade music? I mean, consoles were on one path historically and arcade machines were on another... I'm interested in reading / finding out more about video game music from an arcade-centric perspective.
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Joe Redifer

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Re: Happy Birthday PC Engine!
« Reply #24 on: March 17, 2007, 03:34:25 PM »
Arcade music can be great (like Super Hang-On), but arcades can have special sound hardware customized for each game.  Sometimes they just use a standard board, but that board usually has kick ass sound quality even though you can barely hear it over all of the other games and dweebs around you.

Kitsunexus

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Re: Happy Birthday PC Engine!
« Reply #25 on: March 17, 2007, 03:35:46 PM »
http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/GenesisVoiceExamples.mp3
- 49 freakin' seconds long. - 609 freakin' K's.


Joe why didn't you use any samples from Pulseman? That game has some great voices.

Here they are:

http://savefile.com/files/561142 <This MP3 was WAV logged with KEGA Fusion 3.4, and encoded to MP3 at 320kbps, 48,000khz.


BTW Pulseman's story is freaky, the hero's father had sex with a computer, and that's how he was created! Don't believe me? Read the bios: http://volteccer.atomic-fire.com/info.shtml

And for the record, I'm a "SNerd". :P

Joe Redifer

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Re: Happy Birthday PC Engine!
« Reply #26 on: March 17, 2007, 03:37:39 PM »
Because I don't have Pulseman, and I'd rather record from real hardware.  If I had it, I'd likely have used it.

By the way, your links don't lead me to any downloadable files.  EDIT: Nevermind.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2007, 03:39:33 PM by Joe Redifer »

TR0N

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Re: Happy Birthday PC Engine!
« Reply #27 on: March 17, 2007, 03:38:33 PM »
Happy B-day to one of my favorite cult systems.

Now if only G4 would only do a icons special on it  :roll:

PSN:MrNeoGeo
Wii U:Progearspec

Joe Redifer

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Re: Happy Birthday PC Engine!
« Reply #28 on: March 17, 2007, 03:41:09 PM »
OK I listened to Pulseman's voices and they are kind of scratchy/warbly.  Still good, though.

Kitsunexus

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Re: Happy Birthday PC Engine!
« Reply #29 on: March 17, 2007, 03:53:39 PM »
Yeah, if I had a talking computer, I'd want it to sound like Rice from Pulseman. "SPARK BALL!"

In your Genesis clip, what game said "You've found a secret bonus point"?