Favorite Audio Output Devices

I know some people that love the retro NES style chiptunes, some people love MIDI's in OPL, I've grown really partial to the Sega Genesis audio output mainly because it's so raspy and gritty. I loooooovvve it

Example 1
Example 2
Example 3

If these tracks were remade in high resolution it wouldn't sound nearly as good.

I own all those games. And if you think Rob Hubbard rules on the Genesis his C64 soundtracks will blow your pants off.

I love SID tunes, never really looked at anything else. One day I'd like to get hold of a HardSID Uno.

I had a Genesis and it was good enough at the time. Listening back now it isn't always as nice however the OST to Sub-Terrania by Jesper Kyd is still worth a listen for it's energy and layers. YouTube link.

NES is fun and nostalgic but hard to listen to for a long time.

When I want chip tune though I enjoy the sounds from a Commodore 64 SID chip. It isn't nostalgia either as I never owned one or even really knew about them till 10 years ago, I just adore the sound.

[Shameless favorite band plug]

Machinae Supremacy even use it heavily in their music. A couple albums worth of their music is available for free on their site.

http://www.machinaesupremacy.com/webography.php
http://www.machinaesupremacy.com/jetsnguns.php

[/Shameless favorite band plug]

Planky said:

I love SID tunes, never really looked at anything else. One day I'd like to get hold of a HardSID Uno.

Amen to this, my favorite too.

EDIT:
I don't know if this is included, but I'm a huge fan of the Yamaha A1NX synth, it has an entirely unique sound and is great for producing the grittiest of fat analog tones or the clean mechanical digital ones. I got mine for a steal and can't see parting with it.

Use3D said:

I own all those games. And if you think Rob Hubbard rules on the Genesis his C64 soundtracks will blow your pants off.

Rob Hubbard's Commando is so good, it could double as a movie soundtrack:

If I had to be all nostalgic about the crappy chiptune from my earliest games, this would be it:

The game was kinda lame, and yet one of the best three ever made for that platform. (On a total of maybe 15.)

For me, Genesis will always hold a place in my heart. I still listen to the Ranger-X soundtrack, as well as this soundtrack:

When I finally plugged mine into some subwoofers, I was blown away. I guess there's just something special about the FM synthesis chip on the Genesis.

I also fell in love with oldschool mod files from back when DOS was still around. I remember listening to tracks like this in FastTracker 2 and Scream Tracker:



Yeah, I know Purple Motion's "Unreal 2" is more epic, but I've always liked this one better.

EDIT:

Bank said:

I don't know if this is included, but I'm a huge fan of the Yamaha A1NX synth, it has an entirely unique sound and is great for producing the grittiest of fat analog tones or the clean mechanical digital ones. I got mine for a steal and can't see parting with it.

That is a very cool synthesizer. The layout sort of reminds me of an ESQ-1. As far as synths go, I love my PolyEvolver's sound, as well as the sound of a Prophet-5.

+ drugs
=
=

OPL3 forever.

I don't think I really have a favourite. There are too many awesome ways to make chiptunes. One sort that hasn't been mentioned here are the kind(s) for Adlib cards. Those come in infinite variety, from absolute crap to pretty cool. They're also crazy rare despite the existence of awesome software like Adplug.

Digging around these YouTube links has caused me to wonder if there is a single platform that doesn't have a port of OutRun.

SAPs, SIDs, AYs, in that order.

SAP:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCyeZHMCFbk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkd0ZX_imqI

SID:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4hZ9aepz7Y
and anything by Hubbard, Whittaker, Tel, Blidon, and many others.

AY:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMtc6iS1B4k
and stuff from this guy.

Maes will come here ANY minute.

SID for me, too. It was especially good when mixed with digitized sound. Turbo Outrun was my shit back then. No one had heard anything like this at the time.

Having now listened to all the suggested tunes in this thread, I think they all sound pretty awful. :P

Seriously, they are either tinny, or raspy or generally lacking in depth. I can accept that they are a good attempt to squeeze some decent sounds out of a set of primitive (and often cheap) hardware and some of the tunes are good but I certainly wouldn't want to just sit down and listen to an album full of music of that quality. It would hurt.

Enjay said:

Having now listened to all the suggested tunes in this thread, I think they all sound pretty awful. :P

Seriously, they are either tinny, or raspy or generally lacking in depth. I can accept that they are a good attempt to squeeze some decent sounds out of a set of primitive (and often cheap) hardware and some of the tunes are good but I certainly wouldn't want to just sit down and listen to an album full of music of that quality. It would hurt.

I knew I should have linked to one of these:

And the synth Bank mentioned


The Polivoks is also something I wish I could mess around with someday. It has a nice aggressive sound do it.

Now those were far more interesting. The last vid reminded me of a time when I knew a guy who had more money than sense and he had a few old-style synthesisers (must have been about 1980) and I used to mess around on them. Without any talent, all I produced was a series of noises but it was fun anyway.

Found this Sega Song from a game I suck at where I got raped outside the moment I stepped into the wilderness and never even knew how to play the game nor could figure out where to go or how to actually kill monsters.

http://sites.google.com/site/ghostlydeath/WarriorsoftheEternalSun-13-BeastmanCombat.wav.mp3?attredirects=0&d=1

MS GS Wavetable from XP and later. :P

WildWeasel said:

OPL3 forever.

Agreed. Anyone that says OPL3 sucks hasn't heard it done right.

Sweet! This is a good thread today.

Csonicgo said:

Agreed. Anyone that says OPL3 sucks hasn't heard it done right.

That particular song sounds ok, but it's a very specific kind of a song. OPL3's still going to sound like shit for rock and metal music, for example. Which makes me wonder why the hell anyone would want to play Doom with it (or OPL emulators), since most custom music in wads uses rock or metal music.

Most wads use shit imitations of rock and metal that shouldn't have left the sequencer of the fool who made them. It doesn't matter what kind of synth you use to play them; they suck.

Especially in older WADs from back when people were eager to include sequences from their favorite metal or rock band, and slapped in any version they could find on the net.

Jodwin said:
Which makes me wonder why the hell anyone would want to play Doom with it (or OPL emulators), since most custom music in wads uses rock or metal music.

Simply because, unlike you, we like it. Things don't need to sound like what they are derived from to sound enjoyable, and we feel OPL3 fits nicely in '90s-style game content. One of the coolest sounds in OPL3 is the distortion, if you ask me, which appears markedly in metal sequences.

HR2 is my favorite when it comes to metal midis in Doom wads.

As far as Dosbox OPL emulation goes, they all sound terrible. Edit: Map28 is the only one that still sounds okay.

I still love how ROTT and Descent sound on OPL, so I'd say Jodwin's claim is legit.

myk said:

One of the coolest sounds in OPL3 is the distortion, if you ask me, which appears markedly in metal sequences.

Or especially the goddamn equivalent of the "sawtooth" drone playing in E1M7. That, and the "overdrive guitar" equivalent have a noticeable "yeeeaaaaowwww" voice that I haven't got to hear on current MIDI yet (hopefully there are fonts emulating that).

Headphones and LOUDspeakers.

I recently pulled a 'Yamaha YMF724E-V' from an older PC I scavenged.

I installed the drivers, and I have it recognized by Windows 98/ME.

Anyone know of the best config for it? Does anyone have experience with this card, or derivative? Right now it's IRQ, and DMA, are detected properly by most DOS programs. But, I'm getting real faint output

I have to turn the in-game sound/music settings all the way up...

It's a Yamaha PCI card whose chip supports OPL3 playback in hardware. The chip itself is called a YMF724, the card is called a Yamaha XG-DS.

Are you plugged into the Line Out of the card? Try put some powered speakers on it or plug it into an amplifier.

Edit: Ironically, I just got my own XG-DS in the mail after posting here. You will see on the left side of the card image you posted there are two banks of jumpers. Mine has jumpers in a similar position, mine are marked JP1.

Putting JP1 in position 2-3 and 5-6 outputs "spkr out", which will be amplified on the card. Putting JP1 in position 1-2 and 4-5 outputs "line out" which would be the unamplified sound you are hearing.

I can get a high res photo later on if that's not too clear?