I like OPL but only in old games. I find it dissonant in ZDoom or such, where the more realistic (and awesome) instruments fit better. Seriously, I can almost hear the orchestra.
Also, pretty much any game on the Sega Genesis, which used a chip very similar to the OPL3, and furthermore it was used exclusively in a mode similar to the OPL3's 4-op, 6-channel mode all of the time.
Ironically, the ONE game they totally managed to screw up was Doom. That didn't sound even like 1-op music, let alone 2 or 4-op.
Also, pretty much any game on the Sega Genesis, which used a chip very similar to the OPL3, and furthermore it was used exclusively in a mode similar to the OPL3's 4-op, 6-channel mode all of the time.
Plus, Japanese developers never half-assed anything in those days. they used their whole ass.
gamul312 said: I have a YMF740 which I think does FM MIDI output.
This sounds like it's actually doing sample-based playback, similar to what you'd call a "ROMpler". It's similar to a soundfont, except you might not be able to change the sounds. But I also haven't looked up the specs on it. I'm just going off an assumption since it says it's XG, which is an extended form of the General MIDI Specification.
WildWeasel said: The overwhelming majority of wavetable and sampled MIDI devices actually make MIDI-based music practically unlistenable to me - it's a sort of musical version of the Uncanny Valley, where the more it tries to sound like "real" music, the less I enjoy hearing it. The whole point of MIDI, to me, is that it's supposed to sound fake, so the less like real instrumentation, the better. For things like that, I tend to stick to OPL or other such "synthesized" sounds - I've got a number of soundfonts that are actually just collections of chip samples, like Regression FM and GXSCC.
I think I should clarify what "wavetable" actually means, because Creative and Gravis screwed things up when they used it for marketing hype purposes. The AWE32/64 and Gravis Ultrasound cards DO NOT do wavetable synthesis. They play back samples. That's it. Their "wavetable" synthesis is just another name for sample playback. So is "soundfont".
Wavetable synthesis technically uses samples, but is actually a restrictive real-time form of additive synthesis. You take multiple single-cycle waveforms, combine them, and then use one or more modulators to control the mixture of them in real time. Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0bbsuO-MxY
Also, again, MIDI itself has no sound. MIDI does not sound like anything. It's a control protocol. So saying "MIDI" should sound fake doesn't make sense.
And yet, OPL-3 still sounds like absolute shit to me in every sample I've heard of it. Doesn't matter to me what it can do if it doesn't sound good to me.
yukib1t said: This sounds like it's actually doing sample-based playback, similar to what you'd call a "ROMpler". It's similar to a soundfont, except you might not be able to change the sounds. But I also haven't looked up the specs on it. I'm just going off an assumption since it says it's XG, which is an extended form of the General MIDI Specification.
I think I should clarify what "wavetable" actually means, because Creative and Gravis screwed things up when they used it for marketing hype purposes. The AWE32/64 and Gravis Ultrasound cards DO NOT do wavetable synthesis. They play back samples. That's it. Their "wavetable" synthesis is just another name for sample playback. So is "soundfont".
Wavetable synthesis technically uses samples, but is actually a restrictive real-time form of additive synthesis. You take multiple single-cycle waveforms, combine them, and then use one or more modulators to control the mixture of them in real time. Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0bbsuO-MxY
Also, again, MIDI itself has no sound. MIDI does not sound like anything. It's a control protocol. So saying "MIDI" should sound fake doesn't make sense.
This. Everything in this post.
I love wavetable synths. I can't stand sampled synths, especially ones that are samples of older, better synths! Why not just use the originals or at least a VST that does it instead of awful samples that you can't really modify the way you can with subtractive/additive/FM synths?
yukib1t said: This (YMF740/742) sounds like it's actually doing sample-based playback,
It's actually capable of both: it has both a Gravis Ultrasound-like ability to play samples from memory with pure hardware mixing, AND a sorta-OPL3 compatible mode, much like the more recent CMedia chips. Certainly not a genuine OPL3 though. Some Ensoniq cards used a variant of this chip too.
At least in Windows XP, if you install the Yamaha XG drivers you do gain hardware sample-based MIDI (with its own set of samples), but you lose the ability to use FM sound as a midi device.
Xeros612 said:
And yet, OPL-3 still sounds like absolute shit to me in every sample I've heard of it. Doesn't matter to me what it can do if it doesn't sound good to me.
Csonicgo said: I love wavetable synths. I can't stand sampled synths, especially ones that are samples of older, better synths! Why not just use the originals or at least a VST that does it instead of awful samples that you can't really modify the way you can with subtractive/additive/FM synths?
Well, wavetable synthesis is still sample-based. It's just very, very restricted in that it's a single-cycle waveform. For example, these are pics of some of the waves on the digital oscillators of my PolyEvolver synth (it has two voltage-controled analog oscillators, and two digital wavetable oscillators). But yes, wavetable synthesis is pretty spiffy. IIRC, Front 242 used a PPG Wave, which uses wavetable synthesis, quite a bit, and you can hear it on Headhunter.
Sample playback synths aren't all bad. The Korg M1 is still pretty spiffy, as is my JV-1010 (which is identical to the JV-1080, the most recorded synth module in history, except that it's 16-bit/44.1KHz and is half the width). Usually, except with the super cheap synths, you would take a sample and pass it through a series of filters and effects. This lets you modify the sound using other techniques as it plays back. I know for a fact that the JV-1080/1010 does this since I've made my own patches.
Also, tracker music is pretty much nothing but sample playback. The only exceptions I can think of are newer trackers, like Renoise (which lets you use VSTs and send MIDI data), and a super small handful of ones that actually took advantage of the AdLib support in some of the older trackers.
On a related note, here's an example from my JV-1010 that I multi-tracked. It's a MIDI file from Final Doom, so it only uses the General MIDI sample set:
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