Is the Genesis sound chips one of the best matches for music

[Hobie-wan]

I own a Model 1 with the stereo sound adapter, and the SNES and NES easily sound less tingy and less harsh on average.

There are many different genesis hardware revisions that look the same on the outside. So just having a model 1 or 2 or 3 doesn't mean much of anything for this. Some model 1's have bad sound and some don't.

Indeed. I can't find the page I used to have bookmarked that described all the different models. There are actually at least 6 or 7 of them internally.

[Redifer]

Sound is subjective. Some people will prefer the muddy, muffled, over-reverby sound of the SNES. Others the lively yet primitive PSG sound of the NES and TurboGrafx-16. Yet others the FM-ness of the Genesis. There's no right or wrong here. Unless you prefer the "buried underneath 5 pillows" SNES sound (just trollin' ya, don't take it too seriously.)

[arnold_the_bartender]

Indeed. I can't find the page I used to have bookmarked that described all the different models. There are actually at least 6 or 7 of them internally.

I posted it back on page 5. http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread ... m-bad-ones

From what I have read, there are some model 2s that have good sound, but they seem to be in short supply. But yeah, the model 2 and the late model 1 have done a lot to harm the Genesis' reputation in sound quality. It's too bad that Time Trax title screen music by Tim Follin was recorded on a Genesis 2. You can hear how scratchy it sounds. I would love to get a ROM of that. I'd definitely upload a better version.

Yeah. Basically there are fewer 3/4 motherboard ones out there and far less full motherboard revisions that have exceptional audio output. If only it was the other way around. I'm lucky for owning 2 3/4 motherboard versions but the other 5 or 6 model 2's I have are plagued with the problem.

[Xeogred]

I don't remember the music on The Wily Wars being that bad, but I only played a little bit at sevin's house. What did you not like about it?

I'll contradict what I just said above (about the comparison thing) and just say, I absolutely hated the music in comparison to the NES versions. Most tracks were dramatically slower or faster. That and well the game sucked too I thought, the physics and controls weren't like the NES versions, varied enemy placement as well I believe.

*vomits*


Ohhhhhhh yeah.

Wily Wars is something I should absolutely love... but it's an instant omega turn off whenever I try playing it, and I've tried it so much I give up. lol.

[Hobie-wan]

I posted it back on page 5.

Oops. Yes that's the page I was referring to.

[o.pwuaioc]

*vomits*


Ohhhhhhh yeah.

Ha, yeah, well, when you place them side by side, there's no comparison!

[BurningDoom]

I own a Model 1 with the stereo sound adapter, and the SNES and NES easily sound less tingy and less harsh on average.

There are many different genesis hardware revisions that look the same on the outside. So just having a model 1 or 2 or 3 doesn't mean much of anything for this. Some model 1's have bad sound and some don't.

There's an excuse for every reason why the Genesis sounds worse, isn't there? At the end of the day, no matter why, the Genesis sounds harsher and more tingy on many games. In stereo sound or not, the tingyiness and unrealistic sound effects on many games doesn't change.

Do you see 10 different models of SNES out there? No. Every SNES sounds great. Do you see people having to defend the SNES's sound by saying things like "Well some programmers knew how to use the chip, but most were just lazy. The sound chip had much unused potential." No, you don't.

I can fully admit that there are lazy programmers on both sides, and the SNES has some games that don't sound the greatest. But sooooo many Genesis games, popular ones included, have such similar, tingy sounding music and effects that it's not even difficult to point one out. Send me into a Play-N-Trade's Genesis section and I will close my eyes and point in a general direction, I bet you 3/4 of the time I can find a bad sounding Genesis game. SNES on the other hand may have some uninspired, bland sounding music at times, but you don't have nearly the amount of downright bad, nerve-grating music on SNES like a good amount of Genesis games do.

Whether all of that is due to a bad sound chip, model revisions, or people not caring enough about the music I can't really say. I don't know. But at the end of the day, no matter the reason, that's how it ended up.

[arnold_the_bartender]

There's an excuse for every reason why the Genesis sounds worse, isn't there?

Well that's a pretty blunt statement. I can go ahead and say that the NES sound terrible in comparison but no. They aren't excuses but facts. And it doesn't sound "worst." I already stated what the SNES and Genesis are the best at. Where one sounds "worse" in the other one does better. Besides, this topic is about the capability of the chipsets and how it sounds like.

Wily Wars composition is bad. Listen to what can be done instead.

[Redifer]

Mega Man the Wiley Wars sounds like ass because it used a crappy sound engine and a crappy sound guy. It's not because the NES has "better sound". For example, you take a game like Mega Man and have a symphony orchestra play it or some dude with a Korg keyboard. If they don't take their time making sure each instrument is appropriate and kind of just slosh it together like they did with Wiley Wars, yeah, it's gonna sound like ass, even with real instruments.

[Xeogred]

I probably don't need to clarify but yeah, I wasn't trying to suggest the NES is "technically" better than the Genesis there. So of course, it's definitely at the fault of whoever did the arrangements and compositions of the songs on the Genesis versions that made them suck to me. PresidentLeever's post above of Snake Man's theme is definitely better than what I posted though, so sorry for that (I had to go through a few videos of the NES version too, some definitely sounded terrible). Either way still sounds like a mess to me.


And arnold_the_bartender I already posted that song earlier, lol. All the more reason and proof that Mega Man music could have totally kicked ass on the Genesis, but whoever handled The Wily Wars did it pretty poorly.