The Yamaha 2612 sound chip is a brilliant chip to produce music but like anything, the outcome comes from people who are able to compose and even program the compositions as well as the various sound drives produced by various developers. SEGA had their various revisions of SMPS, Konami had their own, SEGA of America helped produce GEMS. There's a lot of brilliant soundtracks that come from Europe from composers such as Matt Furniss and Jesper Kyd, games such as Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2 and Wiz n Liz (Matt Furniss), there's also Sub-Terrania, Red Zone and The Adventures of Batman and Robin (Jesper Kyd). GEMS which had a bad reputation brought some great soundtracks in my opinion such as Sonic Spinball, Comix Zone and The Ooze coming from SEGA of America and games such as Aladdin, Cool Spot, RoboCop vs the Terminator and Mick and Mac in Global Gladiators (these last four may or may not have been composed by Tommy Tallerico.) Sonic 1 and 2 is an example where the composer did none of the sound programming to how we heard it coming from the game. Yes, Masato Nakamura composed the music for these games but let's take Sonic 1 where Hiroshi Kubota (credited as Jamita) took Nakamura's demo compositions and programmed them into the sound driver Sonic 1 was using. Finally when you mentioned Streets of Rage and then Streets of Rage 2, I'm surprised there was no mention of Motohiro Kawashima who composed about 2 or 3 tracks and then also co-composed one with Yuzo for the game.
I'll be honest, I didn't even realise that Nakamura didn't program the music! I'll pin your comment, so that everyone can see this - and the work of Hiroshi Kawaguchi! Thank you for your knowledgable and considered comment - I love constantly learning more, and getting to talk and celebrate this thing we all enjoy so much!
@@jamiewilliamson9829 No problem! All I want to do with my videos is celebrate the things we all love and enjoy, so the more we can all do that, the better!
Yuzo Koshiro is a titan among us. Not just composing the music. Not just designing the patches. He had nothing to start with. _Nothing_ He wrote his own comparing and programming tools himself on the his 8bit computer that came with a similar Yamaha OPN FM Synth. In assembler. On which he composed the music and used that to create the Z80 Assembler required to drive the YM2612 in the MegaDrive. That's beyond Mozart You're now up with DaVinci. And most of it was inspired by everything coming out of the British dance scene, you can hear various chart hits in every track from SOR2.
@@MostlyPennyCat "That's beyond Mozart" you got me there. Truly, the man is a genius. There are lesser known games, with more ambient soundtracks that Yuzo worked on, one of them being a personal favorite, Story of Thor 2 (Saturn).
@@Zazalahyene Inspired more so. Heavely inspired. I think it's cool you hear it back in soundtracks from inner city and such...good life. Awesome. Maybe not that origenal but still very cool. It was orgenal enough to call it it's own. Motohiro kawashima was more orginal in his tracks. Both where a killer duo.
Talented composers could produce great stuff with FM synthesis. See Sunsoft's Genesis Batman game. The less talented people used GEMS which was like making music out of farts.
@@StormsparkPegasus Aladdin music was made with GEMS and it is a masterpiece. I'm more concerned about the musical talent of these persons who produced horrible music with it.
Micro Machines 1 has a very soft sound. So does The Revenge of Shinobe. But many emulators generate a fairly rough approximation. But really _most_ drivers leaned into a rowdy and lively sound.
Hell yeah! It is an extraordinary piece of music! 🎵🎶🤘 If you're interested, here is the link to my arrangement of it, that I use at the end of the video: th-cam.com/video/ZXYk0sR1rU8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=Ri8mwI8URZFpyALc
Very good video, but there's some huge omissions about the music on the Mega Drive: It's already a cliché to say that American developed Mega Drive games sounds like crap but that is a bit unfair since there's very good music in some US Mega Drive Games like the first 2 Road Rash games, the Mortal Kombat Series, Kid Chameleon, the two Vectorman games, Toe Jam and Earl as you mentioned in the video (the elevator music between levels are pure samples only, no synth), Taz-Mania and the two X-Men games are good examples of awesome soundtracks on the Mega Drive by US developers. The X-men 2 Clone wars soundtrack was composed (and programmed by) Kurt Harland, the lead singer of Information Society. However, the biggest omissions in this video are the European Mega Drive games, specially because you are from Europe yourself. The European developers did an awesome job on the YM2612 too in games like Chuck Rock, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Battletoads and Battletoads & Double Dragon, Aladdin, Donald in Maui Mallard, and Flashback, just to name a few. And, of course, Red Zone, Sub-Terrania and The Adventures of Batman and Robin, three games by the awesome composer Jesper Kyd, who also push the limits of the YM2612 to a whole new level.
Thank you for the comment! I'll pin it, so that everyone can see these awesome soundtracks and games that you have mentioned. 👍🏻 The more people that get to hear and play great games, the better! Thank you for the contribution. 🙏🏻
@@TheNatCav3 Thank you, please, indulge me by allowing me to mention more awesome mega drive soundtracks in general. Hitoshi Sakimoto wrote his own (awesome) sound driver for the YM2612 and it shines in every game he composed and/or rearranged for the Mega Drive: Two Crude Dudes, Captain America and the Avengers, Midnight Resistance, Devilish, Verytrex and others. Even Double Dragon II sounds very good since it uses his sound driver but by a different composer. Motoi Sakuraba is another composer that was very skilled on the YM2612. Notable soundtracks from him and Wolfteam (his company) are El Viento, Sol Deace, Arcus Odyssey, Granada and Earnest Evans. Treasure, the company founded by ex Konami employees, did an amazing job in Gunstar Heroes. And speaking of Konami, pretty much anything by them on the Mega Drive sounds amazing. Anything by Technosoft, really, those dudes were awesome composers that also were very skilled programming the YM2612. Quackshot and Castle of Illusion by Shigenori Kamiya. The Shinobi trilogy: Revenge of Shinobi, Shadow Dancer and Shinobi III. Super Fantasy Zone by Naoki Kodaka at Sunsoft. By the way, Sunsoft is/was another developer full of awesome tracks in every console in which they released games. Capcom (in fact, an outsourced developer) did a very good job with the Mega Man Willy Wars soundtrack. Unfortunately, Street Fighter 2 Special Champion Edition is just an ok soundtrack and the Super Street Fighter 2 soundtrack sounds awful.
@@JonGallon You need to start pumping out video game music content on your channel! Thank you for the awesome recommendations, and for sharing your knowledge!
True. Not a word lied about that. Some knew how to work with the gems stuff and others didn't. Comix zone is an example of good work with the gems driver.
While I agree with you on almost everything but bruh Tazmamia sound track was crap.. The first stage doesn't even have background music other than blips and bloops
Aw man I am totally with you. I had a megadrive,a SNES and an Amiga back in the day and I loved the differences in sound capabilities on all three systems. I will always love the unique FM sounds the megadrive could create.the first streets of rage is still my favourite game music.
I was one of those rare ones who thought Streets of Rage 1 music was better than Streets of Rage 2. Don't get me wrong, Streets of Rage 2 had great music for the most part and sounded like an upgrade at first, but the problem I had with it was that the tunes were too upbeat and not gritty enough. The first game I felt captured a more gritty street sound more in tune with what was going on the screen, whereas SOR2 sounded a bit too much like club dance. I really love the music in Revenge of Shinobi too, those two were Yuzo Koshiro's best work in my opinion.
One of the greatest soundtracks on the Mega Drive is ''Lemmings'' and it's sad that it never gets a mention on videos like these. It's soundtrack gave us the cleanest and warmest mix of FM and PSG working together by Sunsoft. It used big, beefy FM drums and used the reverb effect a lot to create a real good stereo sound. Another good one is ''Zero Wing'' an FM Metal soundtrack where it literally sounds like Steve Harris is playing bass on it from Iron Maiden in fact a lot of the Cube Driver osts are gold on this system. ''Sagaia, El Viento, Sol-Deace, Snow Bros, Jewel Master and Gynoug'' are games with triple AAA soundtracks and arrangements.
Thank you for all those recommendations! I played Lemmings on PC, back in the day, so never experienced the Mega Drive music - but I'll add it to the list, along with the other games you mentioned! 🎵🎶👍
It's the composition that counts not whatever dog shit sound chip you use. Once you have patches established it's not about the sound chip or platform as much as what you do with the established patches. There's absolutely nothing astounding about any of the Yamaha sound chips used by Sega. It's the arrangements. All this waffle about the complexity of the chip is not really a thing when composing.
@ You're kinda right and kinda wrong. The arrangements yes, the compositions, not so much. You can have compositions by some of the greatest song writers in music on the Mega Drive sound like dog shit due to the music programmer or converter having little to no experience with how to arrange them in a good way, while you can have the simplest of songs like nursery rhymes and children's songs sound like masterpieces due to the music programmer knowing how to arrange them in an upbeat style. It's a subjective argument but to me ''Lemmings'' on the Mega Drive pisses all over the SNES, Amiga, Acorn Arc, Dos Computer, Nes, Master System and anything else that got a port of the game. Hirohiko Takayama knew how to arrange the simplest of music to make it sound like something from Sega's arcade games of the 1980's.
@Oysterblade84 "while you can have the simplest of songs like nursery rhymes and children's songs sound like masterpieces". Just not true. You can't polish a turd. No amount of unbridled vibrato on an FM pseudo electric guitar patch trying to emulate the ferocious wailing of a guitar hero will ever make Row Row Row Your Boat sound like a "masterpiece" on the Megadrive or anywhere else.
You can't imagine Thunder Force IV or Street of Rage 2's music on the Super Nintendo any more than you can Chrono Trigger or Donkey Kong Country's on the Genesis. The real takeaway is that we didn't really know how good we had it back when every console had its own signature sound.
@@TheNatCav3 Many retro enthusiasts and many on youtube praise the sound of SNES even though they pretend they are Camp Sega - to me - I never owned a SNES back in the day, and I know its sound through emulation - one game was enough to realize that the SNES sound is same as its "No blood" Shitendo policy - aka the sound is politically correct. Simple test - JUNGLE STRIKE - the sound of the SNES is muffled and guns sound like wet fart on plastic chair - while SEGA version - sound is grittier, way more metal and fitting and the guns are a 16 bit masterpiece in my opinion.
I wholeheartedly agree (as a chip composer, it's particularly fun to learn using different methods of sound emitting.) That said you'd be surprised of what the SNES' sound chip can do, since it's only limited by its sample bank's memory size. For example, listen to Kulor's Chemical Plant Zone port on SNES.
As a 16-bit fan, I enjoyed that video so much!! Something absolutely worthy of being talked about is Tim Follin's only work on the Genesis (a prototype that went unreleased) by the name of Time Trax. It's quite possibly the most refined use of the Mega Drive's chip in my opinion, without even using samples or the PSG chip. Although there is no denying Koshiro's incredible talent and generation-defining soundtracks, I feel like "most gifted at the time" title could easily be given to Tim, especially if you know more about his musical contributions.
First of all, thank you for shouting out Tim and Time Trax! It was part of the embarrassingly long list of games I had never heard of, but I just fired up the soundtrack and I'm speechless. You're completely right, and this is true mastery of FM synthesis. Amazing compositions and arrangements, taking full advantage of the technology to create something so emotional. Honestly, just wow. It is some truly incredible music - thank you for suggesting it! 🤘🎶🎵 PS The fact this never got released is a crime against humanity.
@@TheNatCav3 The funniest thing is that is was his first and only try at the Genesis, he reportedly even had to program the music in hex coding, that's insanely more difficult than GEMS. It is such a shame it was never released, did you know the correct playback speed for the soundtrack is between 50 and 60Hz according to Tim himself? (there are 55Hz uploads on YT). I also strongly suggest hearing Follin's (him and his late brother Geoff) other works on various consoles, everything they touched turned to gold. Especially if you love the SNES' sound chip like me, check out Plok, Spider-Man & the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge and Equinox!
This video invigorates me. That passion you have not only for the Mega Drive/Genesis, but also the Super Famicom/Super Nintendo, fills my heart with absolute joy. One of the best videos on TH-cam. Thank you so so much!
Wow - thank you! What an extraordinarily kind and generous comment! What a pleasure to be able to spend my time creating a video celebrating this thing we all love and enjoy so much!
Yuzo Koshiro was definitely one of the best composers during the 16-bit era. And not just for the MegaDrive/Genesis, but also for the SNES. Actraiser has one of the best soundtracks from that era, and being an early SNES game as well, it certainly laid the groundwork for orchestral soundtracks on the SNES.
So many beautiful songs on this console! Thank you for this great video. There is also a very important point between Japanese musicians and Westerners, a lot of musicians from europe and US were trained with Amiga or Atari computers and both systems offer Tracker styles music using samples or midi music. But in Japan chip music was developed with different computers, like MSX or PC88 (and often geared toward arcades machine) using MML (Macro Music Language) a type of Midi approach but with a lot of flexibility to command your sound chip allowing incredible nuances for your sounds (if you know how to do it) while using nearly no memory space compare to samples in tracker. Also the Megadrive was derived from the System 16 arcade PCB from Sega. and as you mentioned used this incredible Yamaha chip and was like a small DX7 synthesizer in our hands. Truly a marvel! 🤩
That's not really true, before the Amiga/ST, there was the C64 & Spectrum (amongst other 8 bit machines) that had sound chips that required real programming skill with very limited memory, the C64's SID effectively created the "chiptune".
With exemples like this Castlevania or Rocket knight adventures, that was for me the peak of the konami/sega "sounds alike" feeling. 16 bits, what a great time to be a gamer. Time flies...^^
What an amazing job at pointing yuzo koshiro's greatness! As importante as the legend itself, is your precision with the adjectives used in this tribute. Thank you for this vídeo.
Thank u nat for the video im fanboy of sega from 90s from africa morocco Thank u for the flavor of some sega ost's that still in our ears years from 90s i still remembre my 1st time having our beloved sega megadrive playing s.o.r and sonic all the night me and my big brother what memories it is exchanging games for free with others boys of the city in morocco meeting them in arcade stores or stores of games schools ...... btw stores are not officiel at that time in morocco just used cartgridge consoles exported from europe in those stores untill playstation comes with officiel stores
You nailed it sir! Well said and I 100% agree. The great music of the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis had no reason to be as epic as it was for a video game system aimed at "kid's" but because these composers crushed it, many of us still enjoy and even appreciate this music even more now as adults. Thank you. Glad I subscribed.
Excellent video. very enjoyable. Yuzo Koshiro was recently involved in the release of a synth called the liven mega synthesis, even including short sequences of some of his most celebrated tracks from Streets of rage and Shinobi. There is also the MegaFM which contains two Yamaha sound chips for authentic sound synthesis in music compositions.
@@TheNatCav3 thats so true that the scene of the megadrive today is as strong as the comercial games back in the day. I invite you to listen the homebrew music by the games made by fans with drivers so powerful that they can play 4 pcms instead 1, making music sounds like an arcade machine, or playing samples with CD-quality, only with original hardware without addons
I'm a few minutes in and I already love this video. Myself being an 80's kid, but a 90's teen (1980) I always loved video music. Grew up with Atari's and C64, later the (S)NES, Master System and Megadrive. The 90's were a great time and as you mentioned limitations invokes creativity. The fast paced tunes of Megaman 2 on the NES, the action of Star Fox on the SNES and the awesome house beats of Streets of Rage. Some fun things about some synths and the Yamaha YM2612: - The YM2612 is a cut down version of the legendary Yamaha DX7 - The DX7 was almost heard (together with the Roland D-50) in every 80's hit you know of, mostly paired with a Linn drum machine (Prince used the Linn LM-1, A-Ha - Take On Me and Wham - Last Christmas used the LinnDrum). I love 90's chiptune music (the early MIDI days in particular where most was based of Roland SC55/SC88 and SoundBlaster Wavetables). Midi was still used into the PS1 era. FF7, 8 and 9 used midi for its music. Subbed!
Fantastic video, even though there was no mention of the music of Ecco the Dolphin, which is sublime. This video brings back so much nostalgia. Love it.
Incredible retrospective on the Sega Genesis/Mega drive sound capabilities juxtaposed with historical context to the artists making those classic 16-bit soundscapes. You are the first person to compare the differences in sampling vs FM in a way the Everyman can understand. I thought once of making a video about the YM2612 chip.... But now I don't have to. Because you did it better than I could muster. Subbed.
Wow, what an incredibly kind and generous comment - thank you! I'm just so happy to be able to make videos about this thing we all love and enjoy, and knowing you liked it so much is amazing - thank you, again!
A few people have mentioned all of the games you have said, and I have since played all three, and you are one hundred per cent correct! All three have just incredible FM music, and all make beautiful use of the Mega Drive technology!
No mention of Comix Zone, that surprised me. I was so blown away the first time I heard that soundtrack, I remember cranking up the volume through my separates system, I think I spent more time listening to the music than I did playing the game. Great video, and Sonic music was my first love as well.
The ending theme on Sonic 2 is just so absolutely perfect after the climax of the final battle. A few hours of game play and not frigging dying, to get this amazing chilled out rendition is a hell of a moment.
One million per cent, bro! I still remember (finally) getting to the end with my brother, and watching him complete it. The feeling of actually getting to see that final cut scene, hearing that music... Just the absolute best times!
I love the way multiple square channels sound together like a primitive reverb on the SN76489 and interact with the YM2612 sounds so much! It makes chords sound so massive!!
The first time I saw and heard Chemical Plant Zone in Sonic 2 for the first time at a friend's house, it blew my tiny mind and I just had to have a Mega Drive. Still one of my favourite consoles, and this video was a great summary of why I still love so much of the music too.
Thank you - I'm very happy that you enjoyed the video! And absolutely, Chemical Plant will always hold that special place! Even though I'm still traumatised from trying to complete Act 2 as a child. 😬😵💫
Excellent video. You're able to articulate both in layman's terms and you're own words why you're so passionate about Mega Drive FM music. I'd make one small correction to your video - JP composers were excelling in FM programming and compositions because they'd already cut their teeth on Japanese home computers that used very similar hardware, the NEC PC88 being a good example. Japan had a very similar microcomputer scene to us in the UK and Europe, as it happens.
Fair! I knew the expertise was there, but I was not aware of how strong the home computing scene was - rather, I thought it was because of the arcades. I appreciate the additional info, and am very glad that you enjoyed the video. Thanks for dropping by!
This is a wonderful video and it's so pleasing to hear someone beating the drum for the Megadrive's sound capabilities. It's telling that you didn't even have to play classics from the likes of Shining Force, Landstalker or The Story of Thor to make your point! Thanks so much for this :)
I adore the music of Yuzo, and this video was an amazing insight into why the Megadrive absolutely blew me away in the 90s. I always played with high quality headphones and was constantly blown away by the sound. And I now know why. Thank you.
I have a videogame music radio format on my channel and as a SEGA fan since forever I have done more episodes dedicated to the MD than anything else. The greatness of some of those soundtracks is incredible. But I also found out something unexpected in Midnight Resistance (scored by Hitoshi Sakimoto) or Elemental Master (of course, it's Technosoft) and many more... Thanks for the video, always cool to see in-depth on this spectacular console (still my favorite to this day).
One title not mentioned much is Strider, which was part of the first handful of games I had for the system in my year 1 of owning it. I think I played it once in the arcades, saw that it was coming for the Genesis in a magazine and had to have it! It is part of my introduction to fm synth music before I eventually moved on to PC with adlib, then sound blaster 16 with OPL3. I think it absolutely deserves a spot in top lists for genesis/megadrive music lists. Its composer, Junko Tamiya, is also responsible for the soundtrack to Bionic Commando on the NES - all who've listened to these banging tunes swear by it, it is the law. And in 2025, I'm about to have fun programming the equivalent of a OPL3 inside the FPGA of my F256K2.
Man this video gave me such good vibes. All the memories of hanging out playing some Sega Genesis have really been conjured back up and I just got to thank you for the Nostalgia shot! I don't know about you or anyone else, but I could go for a part 2 to this video.
My all time favorite soundtrack is Burning Force, for Mega Drive. The game isn't great, but the soundtrack is absolutely amazing! I love it until this day! Another absolutely great soundtrack is Gaiares. Really fantastic. The Super Nintendo has really good soundtracks (for example, Super Castlevania IV) but most of time I enjoy more soundtracks from Mega Drive. Great video!
@@BlindTrustProject you should try the Universal Soldier soundtrack. It's got some really interesting tunes. Funnily enough, the SNES version of the soundtrack seems a little worse.
@@ribenasquashUniversal Soldier is actually a bastardized port of Turrican 2. If you want to hear some truly amazing music from the same composer (Chris Huelsbeck) on the SNES check out Super Turrican 1 & 2 as well as Jim Power in the Lost Dimension 3D. Mega Turrican on the Genesis doesn't sound bad either, but it shares a number of tunes with Super Turrican and that game definitely sounds superior.
@@davidaitken8503 I really enjoyed listening to the Universal Soldier soundtrack. The company The Code Monkeys made both version but the snes version didn't get released. "Some, but not all, tracks were composed by Chris Hülsbeck. This game was originally a port of Turrican 2, but had the license slapped on at literally the last stage of development." - vgmrips
You forgot the incredible Chris Hülsbeck. The music he has created for Mega Turrican was one of the best tracks you will ever hear on the Mega Drive/Genesis.
Embarrassingly, I had never played it - but a couple of people have recommended it here, so I had a listen, and... WOW! You're correct, it is an absolutely incredible soundtrack!
@@TheNatCav3 I met Chris Hülsbeck at the "World of Amiga" expo in cologne germany in the 90s. My buddy got his Turrican 2 Soundtrack CD signed by him. I also met the guys from Factor 5 who developed the Turrican games. If you liked the Mega Turrican music you should also listen to the music from the game Jim Power. 😁 You should also listen to the Maintheme from Turrican 2. It's not on Genesis/Mega Drive but Amiga 500. Fun Fact: Because the Genesis/Mega Drive did not had enough soundchannels he needed Chris Hülsbeck programmed AUDIOS Wave Slave MD, which he used for Mega Turrican.
Mind blown by the exact same first game on the Genesis. For me it was also Sonic 2 the first game I played while I still had NES... after that I couldn't play NES anymore.
Bloodlines has been completed long time ago but the music lives on. I listen to the OST several times a year spontaneously. It is that good and brings up so much good memories.
Finally someone recognizing the SPC's tracker-like functionality (loved the OctaMED insert) BTW Super R-Type has some interesting examples of using one sample for lots of sounds -- the breathing sound in one track is the standard Synclavier-like orchestra hit sample used in a lot of the other tunes. I've lately come to adore the Mega Drive sound, since I'm an FM fan and used the Adlib mode in Scream Tracker 3, but when I was 14, the SNES had the best music, to me.
Thunder Force 4 has one of the best soundtracks on the Mega Drive for sure. It even uses the PCM channel to play Voice Samples when you collect power ups or "1 UPs" The main reasons for companies avoiding using loads of PCM samples is because of their large size and static nature.
Yes, back then, I always wondered why games never reused the "SEGA" voice sample when booting Sonic 1. It was crystal clear in it (and horrendous sounding in The Story of Thor, I remember). It was years later that I learned it's because there was a good chunk of unused space on the cartridge that allowed them to use it as it was huge in size (to fit in a cartridge).
Gotta give a shout out to Chris huelsbeck. Of course he is most famous for his outstanding work on the Amiga, particularly turrican 2 and apidya but when he turned his talents to the megadrive with mega turrican it was just as good. That thumping PCM Percussion and slapping base sounds mark him out as a master.
If you want some more megadrive music goodness I thoroughly recommend you check out the artist 'savaged regime'.he did the music for xeno crisis,a modern megadrive game and has a TH-cam channel with loads of amazing stuff including Yamaha FM covers of some SNES music. The fidelity he gets out of that synth is absolutely incredible and is something I would have previously thought impossible. Let me know what you think if you check it out.@@TheNatCav3
I can only hope and pray for a repeat of the Great 16-bit Console War. Neither before nor since has such talent and competition collided to produce so many masterpieces!
The 16-bit era also included the Mega CD/Sega CD, which gave you CD quality audio with 16-bit games. It was an amazing time. I still think the best sounding (non-CD) game on that system was the Sunsoft Batman game. When people knew what they were doing, it was inferior to the SNES but could still sound great. When people didn't know what they were doing, they used GEMS.
I'm sorry but, as stated in this video, the Mega Drive doesn't sound inferior to the SNES in all instances. Good luck rendering a Streets of Rage soundtrack on the SNES without using compressed samples that will inevitably make it sound worse.
I'm glad I've finally found someone who has the exact same opinion as mine regarding the TMNT game! I recall playing it on my Mega Drive and being blown away by the overall experience, specially the music; I thought to myself: "Well, if it sounds this great on the Mega Drive, how much better could it sound on the SNES?" - only to be let down by those abrupt sample cuts, which ruined the experience for me. I also love how some Mega Drive games sound when their music seems to be based on the MOD samples used on the Amiga computer, like the music in Mega Turrican, for instance. It sounds pretty amazing! Great video, thanks for sharing.
@@Richard.Linder The competing din of the arcades just tended to make that hard to hear. I associate arcades with Magic Sword's low health alarm and SF2's super moves etc. "NEW DYNAMIC! BbbbbBBBaseballSTARS!!!!
Thank you for this video. Since the nineties, I've became obsessed with Mega Drive's music. Those tones are the very core of early advanced videogames, from the arcade of late 80s to the console gaming of the early 90s, which I consider the peak era of gaming. I've been so obsessed at the point that today I produce even some kind of chiptune music through some VSTs on my workstation, specifically the YM2612 simulations. I make music as Glitch Dreamer. Sorry for the intrusion, I'm here just for sharing my experiences with some other people. 👾 (subscribed)
Adventures of Batman&Robin, Comix Zone, Golden Axe 3, Shining Force, Splatterhouse 3, Mega Turrican, Warlock (I don't care what anyone says, that intro theme on the Genesis version sounds so much better than the SNES one), Gargoyles, and of course, every single one of Treasure's games
It's also technically challenging to make good SNES music. Recording and playing samples at first glance seems easier than programming FM. But on SNES you have to deal with limited memory and an extremely slow method of loading samples along with the tuning and loop point quirks. To really push it, then you have to look into manually programming the DSP and some of the advanced features, which actually includes being able pair channels for fm synthesis.
@@TheNatCav3 Thanks. These days I focus on the pc engine mostly. I think it has the most unused potential of the 3. I'm working on a new demo and might have some new videos on the channel soon.
I was a Christmas 89 guy with my Genesis and I will always love the Ghouls n' Ghosts sound track. I especially loved the theme for level 2. Also Sword of Vermillion had a great sound track. So many great memories of that console... I still have my "tower of power" (Model 1 Genesis with the Sega CD and 32x)... Love it!
Ahhh, wonderful! I only ever managed to play the Sega CD at a friend's house, and have never played anything on the 32x - a man can dream! Thank you for sharing your wonderful memories!
This was a great video on retro gaming music which is my favorite time period of gaming and how you presented the differences between FM and Sample playback.
There is so much nostalgia running through me right now, I'm actually buzzing. As a kid, I never really put much thought about the music in the games that I played. I remember I would hum out a tune, but other than that, that was it. But now, whenever I hear a track, especially if it's from Sonic or SOR. It actually stops me in my tracks. I don't just listen, but have to follow it.
Really nice and well produced video! Love me some FM synth. The two Sparkster games on MD and Snes is my goto example of what is essentially the same soundtrack but arranged to make optimal use of each consoles strengths.
BTW, Yuzo Koshiro has remastered versions of his classic Mega Drive soundtracks on Bandcamp (under the producer 'Data Discs'). They sound awesome! A great way to help the guy continue to do the work we all love, I suppose. >Earthion looks great also
Good video, thank you. I'm surprised GleyLancer did'nt get mentioned, in my opinion it is the absolute pinnacle of Mega Drive music - perhaps graphics too.
I hear ya. Gleylancer is a product of the ''Cube - Noriyuki Iwadare'' sound engine so it's another triple AAA soundtrack. Anything on that driver slaps hard.
The main reason that it wasn't in the video was that I hadn't played it before, but after having just listened to some of the soundtrack, wow... You're absolutely correct, incredible!
I didn't really pay much attention to the differences between the megadrive and snes when I was growing up so that was an interesting video to watch to see the differences between the different chipsets used.
I love that you compared both TMNT games. I think the Mega Drive version is light years ahead, and the things the FM synth could do that the sample based system couldn't are almost NEVER mentioned when people talk about 16 bit music . Another clear example to me is the SunsetRiders soundtrack. Thanks for such a cool video. A few other great Mega Drive soundtrack examples for me would be Master of Monsters, Gaiares, Ristar and MUSHA.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it! And btw, your username and display pic are so good that I had to go and show my girlfriend, lol. 😎 The first video on my channel is me just nerding out to T2, if you'd like a laugh.🤭
I started to make music on the Amiga using Soundtracker which essentially did sample based music. Fun fact: I am back to using FM synthesis because this is what many VST instruments to be plugged into a DAW provide. I know both worlds from back then and fully understand why all of my friends brought their own cassette tapes. It was awesome! :)
Thanks for the great video, it brings back so many memories! It is also evident how much all of these Japanese video game score composers were heavily influenced by the great prog music being made in Japan at that time, like Casiopea
Yamaha also made FM sythesis chips for their own synthesizers, as such, chips like the 2612 were very similar (albeit a bit cut down) to those used in electronic music of the day. It's also why the Mega Drive thrived when used for certain genres, especially those based on electronic dance, such as Yuzo Koshiro's work in Streets of Rage/Bare Knuckle, since he was a regular in the Tokyo club scene.
11:14 The Mega Drive can, in fact, produce music like Final Fantasy 3/6. Not that they didn't have their strengths as platforms, but it wasn't an incompatibility that prevented music like that existing.
Of course not. But what is hard for MD is creating believable, organic sounding acoustic instruments. Not that it stopped anyone from creating good music like that for MD, but It will usually sound thin and synthetic because that is what it is, a synth. Where MD's strength was creating music that was not acoustic in nature. Distorted electric guitars, techno beats etc. Or just creating sounds that mimic no real life instrument. All those are things where SNES' simple but rather limited MIDI nature is not optimal. SNES' strengths (for what it is, a video game console) were in creating classical sounding epics that transfer beautifully into real orchestra shows.
Last 40+ years, i only seen people bragging about the sound chips in legendary Commodore 64 and Amiga, but partially because those two systems also had the most legendary game composers. Rob Hubbard who invented game music. Ben Daglish, Chris Huelsbeck, Charles Deenen, Martin Galway, Mark Cooksey, David Whittaker, etc. First time i ever seen anyone mention the sound chip in Mega Drive. Nothing wrong with it of course.
Fm synthesis is still really f-n hard even with new plugins. It is just really difficult. After 20 years of doing music and using synths I still only use presets.
I think that understanding this makes some FM music hit even harder, when you hear a patch that sounds amazing. Having the knowledge that the person worked and worked to create it only enhances the emotional power of the music!
There is something about the sor1 character select and hilltop zone from sonic 2 that just epitomizes the 16bit era for me. I also find the "attract mode" music for arrow flash to be highly memorable! Great vid!
I love the Jetzons song Hard Times, which was used as the basis for the Ice Cap Zone in Sonic 3. I also grew yp with a Megadrive. The music from Sonic 2 was epic.
I've grown up with the magnificent piece of hardware. When my dad took me to the supermarket and told me "choose what you want", that was HARD. Should I go for the SNES or the MD? But I was more of a Sega boy, so I chose the Megadrive. I loved this console so much! Maybe the graphics or music was not on par with the SNES, but I'm more of a "sub-par" system fan (I owned an Atari ST before the MD), but I thoroughly enjoyed playing with the Megadrive. I'm one of those ppl who prefer the MD music for TMNT :p Even these days I purchase some new games for my beloved system, such as Demons of Asteborg, Jim Power or Ultracore! Thanks for having made this video fellow MD music enjoyer!
thats an understatement. i never understood why MD and snes sounded so different. i understood they had different chips but never knew why they sounded worlds apart.
Fantastic. Subscribed! You know, with all the work being done on the Genesis/Megadrive in the modern homebrew scene I think a follow up to this video would be excellent. If you really want to go deep into the weeds, there are even websites with chiptune competitions like Battle of the Bits which explore all kinds of sound chips, and what some of those composers can produce is just mind blowing. In any case, this video is very well done and I quite enjoyed it. I hope you make more like it in the future :).
Thank you for the very generous and kind comment! I just spent some time looking through the Battle of the Bits website, and my mind is completely blown. There are so many clever, passionate, creative people doing amazing things - thank you for hooking me up! 🎵🎶
The Yamaha 2612 sound chip is a brilliant chip to produce music but like anything, the outcome comes from people who are able to compose and even program the compositions as well as the various sound drives produced by various developers. SEGA had their various revisions of SMPS, Konami had their own, SEGA of America helped produce GEMS. There's a lot of brilliant soundtracks that come from Europe from composers such as Matt Furniss and Jesper Kyd, games such as Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2 and Wiz n Liz (Matt Furniss), there's also Sub-Terrania, Red Zone and The Adventures of Batman and Robin (Jesper Kyd). GEMS which had a bad reputation brought some great soundtracks in my opinion such as Sonic Spinball, Comix Zone and The Ooze coming from SEGA of America and games such as Aladdin, Cool Spot, RoboCop vs the Terminator and Mick and Mac in Global Gladiators (these last four may or may not have been composed by Tommy Tallerico.)
Sonic 1 and 2 is an example where the composer did none of the sound programming to how we heard it coming from the game. Yes, Masato Nakamura composed the music for these games but let's take Sonic 1 where Hiroshi Kubota (credited as Jamita) took Nakamura's demo compositions and programmed them into the sound driver Sonic 1 was using.
Finally when you mentioned Streets of Rage and then Streets of Rage 2, I'm surprised there was no mention of Motohiro Kawashima who composed about 2 or 3 tracks and then also co-composed one with Yuzo for the game.
I'll be honest, I didn't even realise that Nakamura didn't program the music! I'll pin your comment, so that everyone can see this - and the work of Hiroshi Kawaguchi!
Thank you for your knowledgable and considered comment - I love constantly learning more, and getting to talk and celebrate this thing we all enjoy so much!
@TheNatCav3 I'm editing it as I got my names wrong. It was Motohiro Kawashima who helped with Streets of Rage 2 and 3. Hiro is the composer of OutRun.
@@jamiewilliamson9829 No problem! All I want to do with my videos is celebrate the things we all love and enjoy, so the more we can all do that, the better!
Yuzo Koshiro is a titan among us.
Not just composing the music.
Not just designing the patches.
He had nothing to start with.
_Nothing_
He wrote his own comparing and programming tools himself on the his 8bit computer that came with a similar Yamaha OPN FM Synth.
In assembler.
On which he composed the music and used that to create the Z80 Assembler required to drive the YM2612 in the MegaDrive.
That's beyond Mozart
You're now up with DaVinci.
And most of it was inspired by everything coming out of the British dance scene, you can hear various chart hits in every track from SOR2.
@@MostlyPennyCat "That's beyond Mozart" you got me there. Truly, the man is a genius. There are lesser known games, with more ambient soundtracks that Yuzo worked on, one of them being a personal favorite, Story of Thor 2 (Saturn).
Yuzo Koshiro was taught to play piano as child in the 70s by Joe Hisaishi, composer on most of Hayao Miyazaki's films.
whoa, i did not know that!
Oh wow
And his sister drew all the characters on the streets of rage series. 😅
Many of Koshiro's compositions on the Bare Knuckles series are pure euro dance ripoffs, tho...
@@Zazalahyene Inspired more so. Heavely inspired. I think it's cool you hear it back in soundtracks from inner city and such...good life. Awesome. Maybe not that origenal but still very cool. It was orgenal enough to call it it's own. Motohiro kawashima was more orginal in his tracks. Both where a killer duo.
The music and level design of Sonic 2 and 3 had a life long effect on me
@@2012Ascenscion same!!
Glad I also grew up with the Mega Drive music. Particularly love that gritty sound, as in Thunder Force IV, not Sonic Spinball.
Talented composers could produce great stuff with FM synthesis. See Sunsoft's Genesis Batman game. The less talented people used GEMS which was like making music out of farts.
@@StormsparkPegasus Aladdin music was made with GEMS and it is a masterpiece. I'm more concerned about the musical talent of these persons who produced horrible music with it.
Micro Machines 1 has a very soft sound. So does The Revenge of Shinobe. But many emulators generate a fairly rough approximation.
But really _most_ drivers leaned into a rowdy and lively sound.
Hydrocity zone act 2 is my absolute favorite song of the entire 16bit generation
+1 for this. Absolutely epic.
Hell yeah! It is an extraordinary piece of music! 🎵🎶🤘 If you're interested, here is the link to my arrangement of it, that I use at the end of the video: th-cam.com/video/ZXYk0sR1rU8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=Ri8mwI8URZFpyALc
@TheNatCav3 i have an hour of driving to do this morning and I will do this listen to your arrangement! Thank you!
@@kinorai Nice one! Just promise to keep to the speed limit, once it drops! 🚗 🎶🎵
@@TheNatCav3 😬😬😬 I already told the police that you would pay for my speeding ticket... Because in a sense, it's your fault! 😜😜😜
Very good video, but there's some huge omissions about the music on the Mega Drive:
It's already a cliché to say that American developed Mega Drive games sounds like crap but that is a bit unfair since there's very good music in some US Mega Drive Games like the first 2 Road Rash games, the Mortal Kombat Series, Kid Chameleon, the two Vectorman games, Toe Jam and Earl as you mentioned in the video (the elevator music between levels are pure samples only, no synth), Taz-Mania and the two X-Men games are good examples of awesome soundtracks on the Mega Drive by US developers. The X-men 2 Clone wars soundtrack was composed (and programmed by) Kurt Harland, the lead singer of Information Society.
However, the biggest omissions in this video are the European Mega Drive games, specially because you are from Europe yourself. The European developers did an awesome job on the YM2612 too in games like Chuck Rock, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Battletoads and Battletoads & Double Dragon, Aladdin, Donald in Maui Mallard, and Flashback, just to name a few. And, of course, Red Zone, Sub-Terrania and The Adventures of Batman and Robin, three games by the awesome composer Jesper Kyd, who also push the limits of the YM2612 to a whole new level.
Thank you for the comment! I'll pin it, so that everyone can see these awesome soundtracks and games that you have mentioned. 👍🏻 The more people that get to hear and play great games, the better! Thank you for the contribution. 🙏🏻
@@TheNatCav3 Thank you, please, indulge me by allowing me to mention more awesome mega drive soundtracks in general.
Hitoshi Sakimoto wrote his own (awesome) sound driver for the YM2612 and it shines in every game he composed and/or rearranged for the Mega Drive: Two Crude Dudes, Captain America and the Avengers, Midnight Resistance, Devilish, Verytrex and others. Even Double Dragon II sounds very good since it uses his sound driver but by a different composer.
Motoi Sakuraba is another composer that was very skilled on the YM2612. Notable soundtracks from him and Wolfteam (his company) are El Viento, Sol Deace, Arcus Odyssey, Granada and Earnest Evans.
Treasure, the company founded by ex Konami employees, did an amazing job in Gunstar Heroes.
And speaking of Konami, pretty much anything by them on the Mega Drive sounds amazing.
Anything by Technosoft, really, those dudes were awesome composers that also were very skilled programming the YM2612.
Quackshot and Castle of Illusion by Shigenori Kamiya.
The Shinobi trilogy: Revenge of Shinobi, Shadow Dancer and Shinobi III.
Super Fantasy Zone by Naoki Kodaka at Sunsoft. By the way, Sunsoft is/was another developer full of awesome tracks in every console in which they released games.
Capcom (in fact, an outsourced developer) did a very good job with the Mega Man Willy Wars soundtrack. Unfortunately, Street Fighter 2 Special Champion Edition is just an ok soundtrack and the Super Street Fighter 2 soundtrack sounds awful.
@@JonGallon You need to start pumping out video game music content on your channel! Thank you for the awesome recommendations, and for sharing your knowledge!
True. Not a word lied about that. Some knew how to work with the gems stuff and others didn't. Comix zone is an example of good work with the gems driver.
While I agree with you on almost everything but bruh Tazmamia sound track was crap.. The first stage doesn't even have background music other than blips and bloops
Aw man I am totally with you. I had a megadrive,a SNES and an Amiga back in the day and I loved the differences in sound capabilities on all three systems. I will always love the unique FM sounds the megadrive could create.the first streets of rage is still my favourite game music.
We'll be jamming to the music from Streets of Rage forever! 🎵🎶
All 3 systems were legends in their time, and hosted some real musical treasures.
I was one of those rare ones who thought Streets of Rage 1 music was better than Streets of Rage 2.
Don't get me wrong, Streets of Rage 2 had great music for the most part and sounded like an upgrade at first, but the problem I had with it was that the tunes were too upbeat and not gritty enough.
The first game I felt captured a more gritty street sound more in tune with what was going on the screen, whereas SOR2 sounded a bit too much like club dance.
I really love the music in Revenge of Shinobi too, those two were Yuzo Koshiro's best work in my opinion.
One of the greatest soundtracks on the Mega Drive is ''Lemmings'' and it's sad that it never gets a mention on videos like these. It's soundtrack gave us the cleanest and warmest mix of FM and PSG working together by Sunsoft. It used big, beefy FM drums and used the reverb effect a lot to create a real good stereo sound. Another good one is ''Zero Wing'' an FM Metal soundtrack where it literally sounds like Steve Harris is playing bass on it from Iron Maiden in fact a lot of the Cube Driver osts are gold on this system. ''Sagaia, El Viento, Sol-Deace, Snow Bros, Jewel Master and Gynoug'' are games with triple AAA soundtracks and arrangements.
Thank you for all those recommendations! I played Lemmings on PC, back in the day, so never experienced the Mega Drive music - but I'll add it to the list, along with the other games you mentioned! 🎵🎶👍
Lemmings on the Acorn Arc was my favourite version of the soundtrack. The megadrive was my 16bit console, and I loved it!!
It's the composition that counts not whatever dog shit sound chip you use. Once you have patches established it's not about the sound chip or platform as much as what you do with the established patches. There's absolutely nothing astounding about any of the Yamaha sound chips used by Sega.
It's the arrangements.
All this waffle about the complexity of the chip is not really a thing when composing.
@ You're kinda right and kinda wrong. The arrangements yes, the compositions, not so much. You can have compositions by some of the greatest song writers in music on the Mega Drive sound like dog shit due to the music programmer or converter having little to no experience with how to arrange them in a good way, while you can have the simplest of songs like nursery rhymes and children's songs sound like masterpieces due to the music programmer knowing how to arrange them in an upbeat style. It's a subjective argument but to me ''Lemmings'' on the Mega Drive pisses all over the SNES, Amiga, Acorn Arc, Dos Computer, Nes, Master System and anything else that got a port of the game. Hirohiko Takayama knew how to arrange the simplest of music to make it sound like something from Sega's arcade games of the 1980's.
@Oysterblade84 "while you can have the simplest of songs like nursery rhymes and children's songs sound like masterpieces". Just not true. You can't polish a turd. No amount of unbridled vibrato on an FM pseudo electric guitar patch trying to emulate the ferocious wailing of a guitar hero will ever make Row Row Row Your Boat sound like a "masterpiece" on the Megadrive or anywhere else.
You can't imagine Thunder Force IV or Street of Rage 2's music on the Super Nintendo any more than you can Chrono Trigger or Donkey Kong Country's on the Genesis. The real takeaway is that we didn't really know how good we had it back when every console had its own signature sound.
Preach. What a great time to have been a gamer! 🎵🎶🕹️
Kids who were lucky to enjoy both consoles, experienced the best of both worlds.
@@TheNatCav3 Many retro enthusiasts and many on youtube praise the sound of SNES even though they pretend they are Camp Sega - to me - I never owned a SNES back in the day, and I know its sound through emulation - one game was enough to realize that the SNES sound is same as its "No blood" Shitendo policy - aka the sound is politically correct. Simple test - JUNGLE STRIKE - the sound of the SNES is muffled and guns sound like wet fart on plastic chair - while SEGA version - sound is grittier, way more metal and fitting and the guns are a 16 bit masterpiece in my opinion.
@@volf3r505And so what can we learn from that comparison?
I wholeheartedly agree (as a chip composer, it's particularly fun to learn using different methods of sound emitting.)
That said you'd be surprised of what the SNES' sound chip can do, since it's only limited by its sample bank's memory size.
For example, listen to Kulor's Chemical Plant Zone port on SNES.
Seriously, incredible video. Thanks so much for making it.
@@xii_7-y7m My pleasure - I'm glad you enjoyed it!
As a 16-bit fan, I enjoyed that video so much!!
Something absolutely worthy of being talked about is Tim Follin's only work on the Genesis (a prototype that went unreleased) by the name of Time Trax.
It's quite possibly the most refined use of the Mega Drive's chip in my opinion, without even using samples or the PSG chip.
Although there is no denying Koshiro's incredible talent and generation-defining soundtracks, I feel like "most gifted at the time" title could easily be given to Tim, especially if you know more about his musical contributions.
First of all, thank you for shouting out Tim and Time Trax! It was part of the embarrassingly long list of games I had never heard of, but I just fired up the soundtrack and I'm speechless. You're completely right, and this is true mastery of FM synthesis. Amazing compositions and arrangements, taking full advantage of the technology to create something so emotional. Honestly, just wow. It is some truly incredible music - thank you for suggesting it! 🤘🎶🎵
PS The fact this never got released is a crime against humanity.
@@TheNatCav3 The funniest thing is that is was his first and only try at the Genesis, he reportedly even had to program the music in hex coding, that's insanely more difficult than GEMS.
It is such a shame it was never released, did you know the correct playback speed for the soundtrack is between 50 and 60Hz according to Tim himself? (there are 55Hz uploads on YT).
I also strongly suggest hearing Follin's (him and his late brother Geoff) other works on various consoles, everything they touched turned to gold.
Especially if you love the SNES' sound chip like me, check out Plok, Spider-Man & the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge and Equinox!
@@Plasmariel I love SNES music, too, so I will absolutely be checking those out - thanks for the recommendations! 🎶🎵
@ Oh yeah! Most Plok soundtrack uploads don't have interpolation on sadly, so look for Plokfan's uploads of it.
@ 🫡
This video invigorates me. That passion you have not only for the Mega Drive/Genesis, but also the Super Famicom/Super Nintendo, fills my heart with absolute joy. One of the best videos on TH-cam. Thank you so so much!
Wow - thank you! What an extraordinarily kind and generous comment! What a pleasure to be able to spend my time creating a video celebrating this thing we all love and enjoy so much!
Yuzo Koshiro was definitely one of the best composers during the 16-bit era. And not just for the MegaDrive/Genesis, but also for the SNES. Actraiser has one of the best soundtracks from that era, and being an early SNES game as well, it certainly laid the groundwork for orchestral soundtracks on the SNES.
So many beautiful songs on this console! Thank you for this great video.
There is also a very important point between Japanese musicians and Westerners, a lot of musicians from europe and US were trained with Amiga or Atari computers and both systems offer Tracker styles music using samples or midi music. But in Japan chip music was developed with different computers, like MSX or PC88 (and often geared toward arcades machine) using MML (Macro Music Language) a type of Midi approach but with a lot of flexibility to command your sound chip allowing incredible nuances for your sounds (if you know how to do it) while using nearly no memory space compare to samples in tracker.
Also the Megadrive was derived from the System 16 arcade PCB from Sega. and as you mentioned used this incredible Yamaha chip and was like a small DX7 synthesizer in our hands.
Truly a marvel! 🤩
Thanks for stopping by! I'm glad you enjoyed the video, and that we could spend a bit of time celebrating this thing we all love! 🎵🎶🙏
That's not really true, before the Amiga/ST, there was the C64 & Spectrum (amongst other 8 bit machines) that had sound chips that required real programming skill with very limited memory, the C64's SID effectively created the "chiptune".
Great video, fantastic choices. I get chills listening to the Megadrive - I still have and use mine frequently!
Great video my dude!
Obrigado! Thank you for stopping by!
With exemples like this Castlevania or Rocket knight adventures, that was for me the peak of the konami/sega "sounds alike" feeling.
16 bits, what a great time to be a gamer.
Time flies...^^
Preach! It was such an amazing time, with so many incredible games!
What an amazing job at pointing yuzo koshiro's greatness! As importante as the legend itself, is your precision with the adjectives used in this tribute. Thank you for this vídeo.
Thank you, that's very kind to say - I just want to celebrate this thing we all love and enjoy so much!
Thank u nat for the video
im fanboy of sega from 90s from africa morocco
Thank u for the flavor of some sega ost's that still in our ears years from 90s i still remembre my 1st time having our beloved sega megadrive playing s.o.r and sonic all the night me and my big brother what memories it is exchanging games for free with others boys of the city in morocco meeting them in arcade stores or stores of games schools ......
btw stores are not officiel at that time in morocco just used cartgridge consoles exported from europe in those stores untill playstation comes with officiel stores
Wow, thank you for sharing these beautiful memories!
You nailed it sir! Well said and I 100% agree. The great music of the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis had no reason to be as epic as it was for a video game system aimed at "kid's" but because these composers crushed it, many of us still enjoy and even appreciate this music even more now as adults. Thank you. Glad I subscribed.
Thank you for saying, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Excellent video. very enjoyable. Yuzo Koshiro was recently involved in the release of a synth called the liven mega synthesis, even including short sequences of some of his most celebrated tracks from Streets of rage and Shinobi.
There is also the MegaFM which contains two Yamaha sound chips for authentic sound synthesis in music compositions.
No matter how long time goes on, 16 bit Genesis music will never get old!
Preach! ✊🏻
@@TheNatCav3 thats so true that the scene of the megadrive today is as strong as the comercial games back in the day.
I invite you to listen the homebrew music by the games made by fans with drivers so powerful that they can play 4 pcms instead 1, making music sounds like an arcade machine, or playing samples with CD-quality, only with original hardware without addons
Yuzoboy WOULD be the goat to say that 😂
Awesome video. I love MD music. Thanks!
Holy moly - that is extremely generous of you, thank you x one million! 🙏🏻🎶🎵
Gotta love that YM2612 FM synth.
Preach. 🎶🎵🙏
and don't forget its compagnon audio chip SN76489 in the megadrive !
I'm a few minutes in and I already love this video. Myself being an 80's kid, but a 90's teen (1980) I always loved video music. Grew up with Atari's and C64, later the (S)NES, Master System and Megadrive. The 90's were a great time and as you mentioned limitations invokes creativity. The fast paced tunes of Megaman 2 on the NES, the action of Star Fox on the SNES and the awesome house beats of Streets of Rage.
Some fun things about some synths and the Yamaha YM2612:
- The YM2612 is a cut down version of the legendary Yamaha DX7
- The DX7 was almost heard (together with the Roland D-50) in every 80's hit you know of, mostly paired with a Linn drum machine (Prince used the Linn LM-1, A-Ha - Take On Me and Wham - Last Christmas used the LinnDrum).
I love 90's chiptune music (the early MIDI days in particular where most was based of Roland SC55/SC88 and SoundBlaster Wavetables). Midi was still used into the PS1 era. FF7, 8 and 9 used midi for its music.
Subbed!
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed the video, and thanks for such an interesting, insightful comment!
Fantastic video, even though there was no mention of the music of Ecco the Dolphin, which is sublime. This video brings back so much nostalgia. Love it.
You're right, that is a great soundtrack! There's just too much awesome music on the Mega Drive/Genesis!
Evidently, Novotrade created their own sound driver based on an early version of GEMS.
Ecco definitely has the Pink Floyd feel they were going for.
Incredible retrospective on the Sega Genesis/Mega drive sound capabilities juxtaposed with historical context to the artists making those classic 16-bit soundscapes. You are the first person to compare the differences in sampling vs FM in a way the Everyman can understand.
I thought once of making a video about the YM2612 chip.... But now I don't have to. Because you did it better than I could muster.
Subbed.
Wow, what an incredibly kind and generous comment - thank you! I'm just so happy to be able to make videos about this thing we all love and enjoy, and knowing you liked it so much is amazing - thank you, again!
Not enough folks bring up Jesper Kydd's phenomenal work on Batman and Robin, Subterania and Red Zone.
A few people have mentioned all of the games you have said, and I have since played all three, and you are one hundred per cent correct! All three have just incredible FM music, and all make beautiful use of the Mega Drive technology!
No mention of Comix Zone, that surprised me. I was so blown away the first time I heard that soundtrack, I remember cranking up the volume through my separates system, I think I spent more time listening to the music than I did playing the game. Great video, and Sonic music was my first love as well.
I love Comix Zone! I think, for me, I always remember that game more for its god-tier visual presentation, more than the music. Amazing game!
That game was hard af for me back then so I definitely get having more time on the sound test than the game itself
great video, took me way back to the best years of my childhood, pretty much appreciated pal
Thank you for saying, I'm very glad you enjoyed it!
The ending theme on Sonic 2 is just so absolutely perfect after the climax of the final battle. A few hours of game play and not frigging dying, to get this amazing chilled out rendition is a hell of a moment.
this is the original track by Masato Nakamura (on guitar here)
th-cam.com/video/Ie7-MRFv79U/w-d-xo.htmlsi=I_iH4zS45ULkmon7
One million per cent, bro! I still remember (finally) getting to the end with my brother, and watching him complete it. The feeling of actually getting to see that final cut scene, hearing that music... Just the absolute best times!
An often forgotten amazing soundtrack on the Mega Drive was Dynamite Headdy, one of my favourites.
Agreed - what an amazing game it is!
I love the way multiple square channels sound together like a primitive reverb on the SN76489 and interact with the YM2612 sounds so much! It makes chords sound so massive!!
Fantastic and exciting video!! Thank you very much!!
You're very kind - I'm glad you enjoyed it, thank you!
The first time I saw and heard Chemical Plant Zone in Sonic 2 for the first time at a friend's house, it blew my tiny mind and I just had to have a Mega Drive. Still one of my favourite consoles, and this video was a great summary of why I still love so much of the music too.
Thank you - I'm very happy that you enjoyed the video! And absolutely, Chemical Plant will always hold that special place! Even though I'm still traumatised from trying to complete Act 2 as a child. 😬😵💫
Excellent video. You're able to articulate both in layman's terms and you're own words why you're so passionate about Mega Drive FM music. I'd make one small correction to your video - JP composers were excelling in FM programming and compositions because they'd already cut their teeth on Japanese home computers that used very similar hardware, the NEC PC88 being a good example. Japan had a very similar microcomputer scene to us in the UK and Europe, as it happens.
Fair! I knew the expertise was there, but I was not aware of how strong the home computing scene was - rather, I thought it was because of the arcades. I appreciate the additional info, and am very glad that you enjoyed the video. Thanks for dropping by!
This is a wonderful video and it's so pleasing to hear someone beating the drum for the Megadrive's sound capabilities. It's telling that you didn't even have to play classics from the likes of Shining Force, Landstalker or The Story of Thor to make your point! Thanks so much for this :)
My pleasure, I'm glad you enjoyed it - I'm just happy to be able to celebrate this thing we all love and enjoy so much!
I adore the music of Yuzo, and this video was an amazing insight into why the Megadrive absolutely blew me away in the 90s. I always played with high quality headphones and was constantly blown away by the sound. And I now know why. Thank you.
I have a videogame music radio format on my channel and as a SEGA fan since forever I have done more episodes dedicated to the MD than anything else.
The greatness of some of those soundtracks is incredible.
But I also found out something unexpected in Midnight Resistance (scored by Hitoshi Sakimoto) or Elemental Master (of course, it's Technosoft) and many more...
Thanks for the video, always cool to see in-depth on this spectacular console (still my favorite to this day).
Awesome, bro! Subscribed!
One title not mentioned much is Strider, which was part of the first handful of games I had for the system in my year 1 of owning it. I think I played it once in the arcades, saw that it was coming for the Genesis in a magazine and had to have it! It is part of my introduction to fm synth music before I eventually moved on to PC with adlib, then sound blaster 16 with OPL3. I think it absolutely deserves a spot in top lists for genesis/megadrive music lists. Its composer, Junko Tamiya, is also responsible for the soundtrack to Bionic Commando on the NES - all who've listened to these banging tunes swear by it, it is the law. And in 2025, I'm about to have fun programming the equivalent of a OPL3 inside the FPGA of my F256K2.
Man this video gave me such good vibes. All the memories of hanging out playing some Sega Genesis have really been conjured back up and I just got to thank you for the Nostalgia shot! I don't know about you or anyone else, but I could go for a part 2 to this video.
Thank you! I really loved making this video, so part two is definitely possible!
My all time favorite soundtrack is Burning Force, for Mega Drive. The game isn't great, but the soundtrack is absolutely amazing! I love it until this day! Another absolutely great soundtrack is Gaiares. Really fantastic. The Super Nintendo has really good soundtracks (for example, Super Castlevania IV) but most of time I enjoy more soundtracks from Mega Drive.
Great video!
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it! And I haven't played Burning Force, nor Gaiares, but they're going on the list!
Gaiares Soundtrack is a staple of my childhood. I can still sang them from memory. So catchy.
Mega Turrican soundtrack is also an absolute banger.
@@BlindTrustProject you should try the Universal Soldier soundtrack. It's got some really interesting tunes. Funnily enough, the SNES version of the soundtrack seems a little worse.
@@ribenasquashUniversal Soldier is actually a bastardized port of Turrican 2. If you want to hear some truly amazing music from the same composer (Chris Huelsbeck) on the SNES check out Super Turrican 1 & 2 as well as Jim Power in the Lost Dimension 3D. Mega Turrican on the Genesis doesn't sound bad either, but it shares a number of tunes with Super Turrican and that game definitely sounds superior.
@@davidaitken8503 I really enjoyed listening to the Universal Soldier soundtrack. The company The Code Monkeys made both version but the snes version didn't get released.
"Some, but not all, tracks were composed by Chris Hülsbeck. This game was originally a port of Turrican 2, but had the license slapped on at literally the last stage of development." - vgmrips
Motohiro Kawashima doesn’t get the respect he deserves for Streets to Rage 1,2&3.
Yuzo overshadows him - but he needs more love man.
That's true, most of the good songs in sor3 are from Kawashima😂
You forgot the incredible Chris Hülsbeck. The music he has created for Mega Turrican was one of the best tracks you will ever hear on the Mega Drive/Genesis.
Embarrassingly, I had never played it - but a couple of people have recommended it here, so I had a listen, and... WOW! You're correct, it is an absolutely incredible soundtrack!
@@TheNatCav3 I met Chris Hülsbeck at the "World of Amiga" expo in cologne germany in the 90s. My buddy got his Turrican 2 Soundtrack CD signed by him. I also met the guys from Factor 5 who developed the Turrican games. If you liked the Mega Turrican music you should also listen to the music from the game Jim Power. 😁 You should also listen to the Maintheme from Turrican 2. It's not on Genesis/Mega Drive but Amiga 500.
Fun Fact: Because the Genesis/Mega Drive did not had enough soundchannels he needed Chris Hülsbeck programmed AUDIOS Wave Slave MD, which he used for Mega Turrican.
Mind blown by the exact same first game on the Genesis. For me it was also Sonic 2 the first game I played while I still had NES... after that I couldn't play NES anymore.
Bloodlines has been completed long time ago but the music lives on. I listen to the OST several times a year spontaneously. It is that good and brings up so much good memories.
Finally someone recognizing the SPC's tracker-like functionality (loved the OctaMED insert) BTW Super R-Type has some interesting examples of using one sample for lots of sounds -- the breathing sound in one track is the standard Synclavier-like orchestra hit sample used in a lot of the other tunes.
I've lately come to adore the Mega Drive sound, since I'm an FM fan and used the Adlib mode in Scream Tracker 3, but when I was 14, the SNES had the best music, to me.
Interesting! Thank you for this insight, and the recommendation - Super R-Type it is!
Kudos to Savaged Regime, Chiptunedraijin and silverRIFF who make amazing remix for the Megadrive.
Thanks for shouting them out - I'll go and check out their stuff!
@@TheNatCav3 They deserve more views.
What an incredibly well put together video! Simply some of the greatest music ever imo
Thank you for the very kind comment! I'm glad you enjoyed the video, and I agree - so many absolutely amazing tunes!
Thunder Force 4 has one of the best soundtracks on the Mega Drive for sure. It even uses the PCM channel to play Voice Samples when you collect power ups or "1 UPs" The main reasons for companies avoiding using loads of PCM samples is because of their large size and static nature.
Yes, back then, I always wondered why games never reused the "SEGA" voice sample when booting Sonic 1. It was crystal clear in it (and horrendous sounding in The Story of Thor, I remember). It was years later that I learned it's because there was a good chunk of unused space on the cartridge that allowed them to use it as it was huge in size (to fit in a cartridge).
That intro to the SoR theme gives me chills every time
Great video! I love the music from the 8 and 16-bit era. What they could do with such limitation is insane!
Preach! Those limitations brought out the most insane creativity! 🎵 🎶
Got this video recommended to me and, being a big Genesis/Mega Drive fan, was quite pleased. 👍
Thank you, this makes me very happy to read. 🙏🤘
Gotta give a shout out to Chris huelsbeck. Of course he is most famous for his outstanding work on the Amiga, particularly turrican 2 and apidya but when he turned his talents to the megadrive with mega turrican it was just as good. That thumping PCM Percussion and slapping base sounds mark him out as a master.
Absolutely insane soundtrack! I just had a listen, and you're one thousand per cent right - wow! Thanks for the recommendation!
@TheNatCav3 you're welcome,glad you like it!
If you want some more megadrive music goodness I thoroughly recommend you check out the artist 'savaged regime'.he did the music for xeno crisis,a modern megadrive game and has a TH-cam channel with loads of amazing stuff including Yamaha FM covers of some SNES music. The fidelity he gets out of that synth is absolutely incredible and is something I would have previously thought impossible. Let me know what you think if you check it out.@@TheNatCav3
Love the video buddy, really enjoyed that
Thank you for saying, I'm very glad you enjoyed it!
Awesome video ❤ I think my favorite soundtrack on MD is shinobi 3. But it's a hard one. There's so much fantastic music on the system.
Thanks for stopping by! And no objections on that one, Shinobi III is an outrageously incredible soundtrack.
The 16 bit days gave me some of best memories.
@@Shannon-ul5re I'm right there with you. 🙏🎵🎶
I can only hope and pray for a repeat of the Great 16-bit Console War. Neither before nor since has such talent and competition collided to produce so many masterpieces!
brilliant video my friend! documentary quality...
You're very kind, thank you - and I'm really happy you enjoyed the video!
The 16-bit era also included the Mega CD/Sega CD, which gave you CD quality audio with 16-bit games. It was an amazing time.
I still think the best sounding (non-CD) game on that system was the Sunsoft Batman game. When people knew what they were doing, it was inferior to the SNES but could still sound great. When people didn't know what they were doing, they used GEMS.
I'm sorry but, as stated in this video, the Mega Drive doesn't sound inferior to the SNES in all instances. Good luck rendering a Streets of Rage soundtrack on the SNES without using compressed samples that will inevitably make it sound worse.
I'm glad I've finally found someone who has the exact same opinion as mine regarding the TMNT game! I recall playing it on my Mega Drive and being blown away by the overall experience, specially the music; I thought to myself: "Well, if it sounds this great on the Mega Drive, how much better could it sound on the SNES?" - only to be let down by those abrupt sample cuts, which ruined the experience for me. I also love how some Mega Drive games sound when their music seems to be based on the MOD samples used on the Amiga computer, like the music in Mega Turrican, for instance. It sounds pretty amazing! Great video, thanks for sharing.
Mega Turrican - also an outstanding recommendation! I had a listen after someone else suggested it, and wow!
Sega only had one channel of samples and they tended to use that for SFX...
Loosely related, but it always amazes me that arcade games had such effort put into soundtracks when you could barely hear them in an arcade.
For many arcade games, the music was an integral part of the experience. It added to the atmnosphere and excitement, and created lasting memories.
@@Richard.Linder The competing din of the arcades just tended to make that hard to hear. I associate arcades with Magic Sword's low health alarm and SF2's super moves etc. "NEW DYNAMIC! BbbbbBBBaseballSTARS!!!!
Love the 16bit era. My favorite. I was blown away by the intro music in thunder force 4. The final song in streets of rage 2 almost made me cry.
The very best of the best of the best!
Thank you for this video. Since the nineties, I've became obsessed with Mega Drive's music. Those tones are the very core of early advanced videogames, from the arcade of late 80s to the console gaming of the early 90s, which I consider the peak era of gaming. I've been so obsessed at the point that today I produce even some kind of chiptune music through some VSTs on my workstation, specifically the YM2612 simulations. I make music as Glitch Dreamer. Sorry for the intrusion, I'm here just for sharing my experiences with some other people. 👾 (subscribed)
Thank you for coming to share your passion!
I need a YM2612 AUv3 for iPad so bad!
@@TheNatCav3 thanks to you for your friendly response!
@@SproutyPottedPlant once you start, it's impossible to stop yourself. Especially once you learn the basics of FM synthesis.
I’ve ALWAYS wanted to hear the actraiser OST on Genesis hardware.
Great video, man!
Thank you - it's very kind of you to say! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
I feel sword of vermilion needs a mention when it comes to awesome mega drive music. Shit goes hard
I just checked it out, and damn. Magnificent!
@@TheNatCav3 yeah, it's a solid soundtrack. Some really great and catchy music in there.
@@TheCromulentMan Phantasy Star IV Intro
Fantastic video! Very well put together! Love it :)
Thank you - you're very kind! Some amazing stuff happening on your channel, as well - subscribed!
Great video!
Thank you!
Adventures of Batman&Robin, Comix Zone, Golden Axe 3, Shining Force, Splatterhouse 3, Mega Turrican, Warlock (I don't care what anyone says, that intro theme on the Genesis version sounds so much better than the SNES one), Gargoyles, and of course, every single one of Treasure's games
Amazing recommendations - thank you!
If i remember correctly for Streets of Rage 2 music it was not just using the YM2612 but also 3 channels of the SN76489 chip (just squares waves)
Like the "noise" channel from the Master System chip, yes.
If there is a Multiverse, there must be one where the hardware never evolved and they are still in the glorious 16 bit era
It's also technically challenging to make good SNES music. Recording and playing samples at first glance seems easier than programming FM. But on SNES you have to deal with limited memory and an extremely slow method of loading samples along with the tuning and loop point quirks. To really push it, then you have to look into manually programming the DSP and some of the advanced features, which actually includes being able pair channels for fm synthesis.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and insight! You have some fascinating content on your channel, as well!
@@TheNatCav3 Thanks. These days I focus on the pc engine mostly. I think it has the most unused potential of the 3. I'm working on a new demo and might have some new videos on the channel soon.
@ Awesome. Well, I am subbed, so I'll be sure to check it out!
I was a Christmas 89 guy with my Genesis and I will always love the Ghouls n' Ghosts sound track. I especially loved the theme for level 2. Also Sword of Vermillion had a great sound track. So many great memories of that console... I still have my "tower of power" (Model 1 Genesis with the Sega CD and 32x)... Love it!
Ahhh, wonderful! I only ever managed to play the Sega CD at a friend's house, and have never played anything on the 32x - a man can dream! Thank you for sharing your wonderful memories!
This was a great video on retro gaming music which is my favorite time period of gaming and how you presented the differences between FM and Sample playback.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it! 🙏✊
Well done. A high quality video with high quality sound. Thx. You got a new subscriber.
Thank you 🙏🏻
Amazing video man! as a game dev and musician i love to learn how the megadrive audio works. Best regards from San Luis, Argentina.
Thanks for stopping by!
There is so much nostalgia running through me right now, I'm actually buzzing.
As a kid, I never really put much thought about the music in the games that I played. I remember I would hum out a tune, but other than that, that was it.
But now, whenever I hear a track, especially if it's from Sonic or SOR. It actually stops me in my tracks.
I don't just listen, but have to follow it.
Really nice and well produced video! Love me some FM synth. The two Sparkster games on MD and Snes is my goto example of what is essentially the same soundtrack but arranged to make optimal use of each consoles strengths.
Nice - thank you for the recommendations, I'll check them out! And I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
BTW, Yuzo Koshiro has remastered versions of his classic Mega Drive soundtracks on Bandcamp (under the producer 'Data Discs'). They sound awesome!
A great way to help the guy continue to do the work we all love, I suppose. >Earthion looks great also
Good video, thank you. I'm surprised GleyLancer did'nt get mentioned, in my opinion it is the absolute pinnacle of Mega Drive music - perhaps graphics too.
I hear ya. Gleylancer is a product of the ''Cube - Noriyuki Iwadare'' sound engine so it's another triple AAA soundtrack. Anything on that driver slaps hard.
The main reason that it wasn't in the video was that I hadn't played it before, but after having just listened to some of the soundtrack, wow... You're absolutely correct, incredible!
I didn't really pay much attention to the differences between the megadrive and snes when I was growing up so that was an interesting video to watch to see the differences between the different chipsets used.
I love that you compared both TMNT games. I think the Mega Drive version is light years ahead, and the things the FM synth could do that the sample based system couldn't are almost NEVER mentioned when people talk about 16 bit music . Another clear example to me is the SunsetRiders soundtrack. Thanks for such a cool video. A few other great Mega Drive soundtrack examples for me would be Master of Monsters, Gaiares, Ristar and MUSHA.
Great video. This is literally the soundtrack of my early teenage years.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it! It's an easy thing to celebrate when there's just so much amazing music! 🎵 🎶
Mate, that was a great video, I really enjoyed it. I love the Megadrive and yeah, that includes the banging tunes it's capable of producing.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it! And btw, your username and display pic are so good that I had to go and show my girlfriend, lol. 😎 The first video on my channel is me just nerding out to T2, if you'd like a laugh.🤭
@TheNatCav3 Cool, I'll check it out, I love T1 & T2, they're some of my favourite films.
nice depict of Genesis sound architecture, even swith some valuable info regarding the origins from GEMS!
I'm glad you enjoyed it - thanks for stopping by!
I started to make music on the Amiga using Soundtracker which essentially did sample based music. Fun fact: I am back to using FM synthesis because this is what many VST instruments to be plugged into a DAW provide. I know both worlds from back then and fully understand why all of my friends brought their own cassette tapes. It was awesome! :)
Thanks for the great video, it brings back so many memories! It is also evident how much all of these Japanese video game score composers were heavily influenced by the great prog music being made in Japan at that time, like Casiopea
Love and grew up with the mega drive too great video 👍
Thank you for stopping by! 👍
Yamaha also made FM sythesis chips for their own synthesizers, as such, chips like the 2612 were very similar (albeit a bit cut down) to those used in electronic music of the day. It's also why the Mega Drive thrived when used for certain genres, especially those based on electronic dance, such as Yuzo Koshiro's work in Streets of Rage/Bare Knuckle, since he was a regular in the Tokyo club scene.
11:14 The Mega Drive can, in fact, produce music like Final Fantasy 3/6. Not that they didn't have their strengths as platforms, but it wasn't an incompatibility that prevented music like that existing.
Of course not. But what is hard for MD is creating believable, organic sounding acoustic instruments. Not that it stopped anyone from creating good music like that for MD, but It will usually sound thin and synthetic because that is what it is, a synth. Where MD's strength was creating music that was not acoustic in nature. Distorted electric guitars, techno beats etc. Or just creating sounds that mimic no real life instrument. All those are things where SNES' simple but rather limited MIDI nature is not optimal. SNES' strengths (for what it is, a video game console) were in creating classical sounding epics that transfer beautifully into real orchestra shows.
@@MaaZeusthe mega drive is REALLY good at natural organ sounds though.
Last 40+ years, i only seen people bragging about the sound chips in legendary Commodore 64 and Amiga, but partially because those two systems also had the most legendary game composers. Rob Hubbard who invented game music. Ben Daglish, Chris Huelsbeck, Charles Deenen, Martin Galway, Mark Cooksey, David Whittaker, etc.
First time i ever seen anyone mention the sound chip in Mega Drive. Nothing wrong with it of course.
Fm synthesis is still really f-n hard even with new plugins. It is just really difficult. After 20 years of doing music and using synths I still only use presets.
I think that understanding this makes some FM music hit even harder, when you hear a patch that sounds amazing. Having the knowledge that the person worked and worked to create it only enhances the emotional power of the music!
Can’t forget the Road Rash series on the genesis, also had some excellent music that’s enjoyable on its own.
💯! The Road Rash games are insanely fun, and were extremely cool back in the day - and I love how creative the music was (and is)!
There is something about the sor1 character select and hilltop zone from sonic 2 that just epitomizes the 16bit era for me. I also find the "attract mode" music for arrow flash to be highly memorable! Great vid!
I'm glad you enjoyed it, and yes, that character select music in Streets of Rage is absolute god-tier stuff!
Ice cap zone on sonic 3 is ridiculously good and mega turrican is also worth a mention
I love the Jetzons song Hard Times, which was used as the basis for the Ice Cap Zone in Sonic 3. I also grew yp with a Megadrive. The music from Sonic 2 was epic.
100% agree with everything said, since I experienced the same feeling 30+ years ago. 😊
I've grown up with the magnificent piece of hardware. When my dad took me to the supermarket and told me "choose what you want", that was HARD. Should I go for the SNES or the MD?
But I was more of a Sega boy, so I chose the Megadrive. I loved this console so much! Maybe the graphics or music was not on par with the SNES, but I'm more of a "sub-par" system fan (I owned an Atari ST before the MD), but I thoroughly enjoyed playing with the Megadrive.
I'm one of those ppl who prefer the MD music for TMNT :p
Even these days I purchase some new games for my beloved system, such as Demons of Asteborg, Jim Power or Ultracore!
Thanks for having made this video fellow MD music enjoyer!
My pleasure, and thank you for sharing those memories!
This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen
If that's even ten per cent true, you're already being too kind - thank you!
thats an understatement. i never understood why MD and snes sounded so different. i understood they had different chips but never knew why they sounded worlds apart.
Fantastic. Subscribed! You know, with all the work being done on the Genesis/Megadrive in the modern homebrew scene I think a follow up to this video would be excellent. If you really want to go deep into the weeds, there are even websites with chiptune competitions like Battle of the Bits which explore all kinds of sound chips, and what some of those composers can produce is just mind blowing.
In any case, this video is very well done and I quite enjoyed it. I hope you make more like it in the future :).
Thank you for the very generous and kind comment! I just spent some time looking through the Battle of the Bits website, and my mind is completely blown. There are so many clever, passionate, creative people doing amazing things - thank you for hooking me up! 🎵🎶
@@TheNatCav3 Absolutely! Keep up the good work dude :).