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I think ports of Sonic the Hedgehog songs should always be sampled


I really like the sound of the SEGA Genesis soundchip, and I think songs with SEGA Genesis samples would sound really good in hacks. And I'm also not sure why a sampled port of Green Hill Zone hasn't been made yet. It's one of the most popular songs in video game history, and it has been ported in multiple unsampled forms, so why isn't there a sampled version?
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I've heard recently that the SEGA Genesis uses FM samples, which are two samples combined into one or something. That might make it harder to convert into a single brr sample for the SNES's sound hardware. I'm not entirely sure though if its the case though. I do have to wonder if anyone has actually attempted to make an accurate sampled Green Hill Zone port... or any song originally for the SEGA Genesis.
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I actually attempted to make an accurate Sonic port using SPC2MML, yep, it didn't work because the ARAM size was too big. But there are very accurate SPC conversions of Genesis Sonic songs, so that should help.
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Id argue the opposite, as id like to see more songs come in unsampled, Sonic or otherwise, as I feel that it helps with hacks that do desire to be traditional, and helps with its context being SMW unless otherwise.

Where I do agree on having sampled music has to do with one thing - where the music when ported, do not have the instrumentation SMW uses that would translate well if at all and to my knowledge, its usually not the kinds of musics seen in mainstream games such as the Sonic series.

Forgive me for my ignorance on terminology and processes but if you work with addmusic and general SNES music can clarify for me here? K thanks.
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I always like sampled music but sometimes they feel complety out of place because of the contrast when playing a Mario game. Since most of the Sonic games are outside of the SNES, an unsampled version would sound bad in most cases and the samples are indepedent in a use within their original soundfont. But this is your opinion.
I also agree that we should have more unsampled custom music in the music section. While sampled ports in most cases sound better, they feel less accurate to the Super Mario World feeling. Both Hydro City Zone Act 1 and 2 ports are sampled and I guess that there was an unsampled port of Act 1 which I couldn't find in the section. I think that unsampled versions of every sampled port would be really nice for anyone who don't wish domination of sampled music in their hacks and vice versa for those who want music in their hacks to sound as close as the original themes.
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y'all should stop doing vanilla Mario hacks then ;)

No, but seriously; the problem with a song being unsampled is that, in a lot of times, you will need skill to make it work or even sound remotely close to the original song, and with a Sega Genesis game like Sonic, it's really hard since FM can't be replicated as well on the SNES (unless you sample FM of course, but that would make it sampled, so RIP I guess). I also don't like doing unsampled music myself since I want to get advantage of the hardware as much as possible, and doing sampled music seems more what I'd want.

No offense to all the porters who do unsampled music of course, I just feel like SMW samples are very minimalistic for a SNES game; yes, it was technically a launch title, but a lot of early Konami games had much more technically impressive songs and had great samples, so oops.
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There is TFM music maker, later renamed VGM music maker, which allows you to make Sega Genesis style music, but I don't know where I can find .vgm files of sonic games. If you can find that, then you open the files up in VGM music maker, play with instruments, pull up Audacity, record it, then convert it to .BRR, then use whatever hacking software you're using for music hacking.
As someone who had to use FM samples in Idol 9, I can say that capturing the FM quality in those instruments requires the samples to be big enough for the modulation effect to be noticeable, which means the samples will end up being, well, big. If you're to use just a couple of FM samples then you won't have much problem with ARAM, but making a whole port out of them is quite challenging.

You can circumvent ARAM issues by either making the samples shorter or downsampling them, but the former sacrifices the modulation effect I mentioned earlier, while the latter absolutely destroys sound quality for FM samples, which have some of their charm relying on their characteristic crisp sound. At the end of the day you'll find that neither of those options are worth pursuing, so you'll just end up with big samples anyway.

Lastly, I'd argue that SMW's soundfont can competently be used for Sonic music by the fact that there actually are competent unsampled Sonic ports out there, and also because some SMW instruments just do their job well for the task, like @4 and @6 to replicate the brasses and trumpets, @0 for square, the drums having about the same sound quality as Mega Drive/Genesis drum samples, etc.
Originally posted by Rainbow Man
I also agree that we should have more unsampled custom music in the music section. While sampled ports in most cases sound better, they feel less accurate to the Super Mario World feeling. Both Hydro City Zone Act 1 and 2 ports are sampled and I guess that there was an unsampled port of Act 1 which I couldn't find in the section. I think that unsampled versions of every sampled port would be really nice for anyone who don't wish domination of sampled music in their hacks and vice versa for those who want music in their hacks to sound as close as the original themes.

I could very easily imagine both of those songs sounding pretty competent enough without the use of any custom samples. I've been wanting to try porting the Hydrocity Zone Act 2 theme unsampled at some point, but I figured that the sampled one right now was pretty good as it is. Though I guess it seems that there are people that really do like using unampled versions of songs in their hacks.
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Originally posted by Hasuke
I actually attempted to make an accurate Sonic port using SPC2MML, yep, it didn't work because the ARAM size was too big.
How? Sonic the Hedgehog is a Sega Genesis title or is this SPC sourced from onsite/yours?
It is possible SPC2MML generates an incredibly bloated file. Before AMK I did XM->SPC and/or IT->SPC and the sequence data was, more often than not, very large.

Originally posted by Ultima
y'all should stop doing vanilla Mario hacks then ;)
No offense to all the porters who do unsampled music of course, I just feel like SMW samples are very minimalistic for a SNES game.

Some can argue it's grown a bit tiring. A person making a hack has hundreds of choices for unsampled music. The same, unfortunately, can't be said about sampled. It's still plenty but you won't have nowhere near the same amount of variety. LadiesMan's NSMB Soundtrack is probably the most complete/consistent sampled OST.

EDIT: Or was it ggamers' Asteriks & Obelisk?
SMW samples are cool and all, but sampled music adds a lot more to the custom music (especially these days).

As a lover of LAVA REEF ZONE ACT 1, I think Sonic songs should be sampled, yes, but not be an exact port. Take Wakana's remix of Oil Ocean Act 1 / her other sampled Sonic songs. She doesn't make it sound exactly like the original genesis version, but more like a desert / evil factory like jam. Now there are some samples I ran by that sound very similar to it's genesis counterparts, like in Ultima's remix of Lava Reef Act 1. The bass is a ripped version of the FM bass (which if I can remember might've been used in the original version of Lava Reef Act 1 on the genesis).

I lean towards what Ultima says about sampled music as it creates a way to take advantage of the SNES sound chip (and abuse the living shit with the MMX1 Override Guitar), but some songs can sound good unsampled. Gamma V's a good example of this.

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Originally posted by Hooded Edge
SMW samples are cool and all, but sampled music adds a lot more to the custom music (especially these days).

I'm amazed with how SMW samples are versatile. I find them underestimated in this aspect, particularly when sampled ports don't have their unsampled alternatives. When I start making SMW custom music, I'll try my best to make ports that sound as accurate and as awesome as possible using the original samples.

Originally posted by Hooded Edge
I think Sonic songs should be sampled, yes, but not be an exact port. Take Wakana's remix of Oil Ocean Act 1 / her other sampled Sonic songs. She doesn't make it sound exactly like the original genesis version, but more like a desert / evil factory like jam.

Couldn't agree even more. The section needs more sampled Sonic ports, but not exactly the original songs' copies. Even doing so you can create an absolute masterpiece! Also I may be thinking about making a sampled version of Green Hill Zone. I'll use SNES instruments that sound as accurate to FM samples as possible while keeping the entirety with as much charm as possible.
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When you say "sampled" do you mean streaming?
Originally posted by Drex
When you say "sampled" do you mean streaming?


It's mostly a term that's exclusive to this site; basically, "unsampled" means that it's using the default SMW samples that are present in AMK itself (the #optimized sample pack does count, but it's not the same as the #default sample pack where it's a direct rip of SMW's samples), and "sampled" means using pretty much anything outside of SMW's samples, which leans more to a actual SNES/SPC cover and not just SMW custom music/SMW styled. That's how I view this anyway lol

Originally posted by Hooded Edge
Now there are some samples I ran by that sound very similar to it's genesis counterparts, like in Ultima's remix of Lava Reef Act 1. The bass is a ripped version of the FM bass (which if I can remember might've been used in the original version of Lava Reef Act 1 on the genesis).


That's an sampled FM bass, yes, but it's not the one from the original song, it's a sampled bass from a Genesis game called Side Pocket IIRC; I'm not using it much nowadays tho, I'm mostly using a bass from a MD game called Verytex now, which IMO actually has a much better tone than the other one lmao
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So now what is "accurate?" It seems to get thrown around a bit too much. Is it having the correct notes/rests? Having the correct panning? Using similar/same instruments? Perhaps *trying* to capture the feeling of the original track?

Let's take DKC2 Forest Interlude. There are multiple versions but generally speaking I would call them adapted rather than accurate. They generally seem to be missing some chords and some versions squash the octave ranges. More importantly is the lack of melancholy/feeling of despair presented in the SMW versions.
My opinion but the point should come across. The dark, big bodied, sound of Dave Wise' instruments are difficult to replicate across SMW's goofy selection.
Originally posted by Brozilla
So now what is "accurate?" It seems to get thrown around a bit too much. Is it having the correct notes/rests? Having the correct panning? Using similar/same instruments? Perhaps *trying* to capture the feeling of the original track?

Let's take DKC2 Forest Interlude. There are multiple versions but generally speaking I would call them adapted rather than accurate. They generally seem to be missing some chords and some versions squash the octave ranges. More importantly is the lack of melancholy/feeling of despair presented in the SMW versions.
My opinion but the point should come across. The dark, big bodied, sound of Dave Wise' instruments are difficult to replicate across SMW's goofy selection.


What I bolded is what laypeople mean by when they use the word "accurate" to describe a port, usually ports that use either SMW or a different game's samples that isn't originating from the source music itself. Though a lot of ports of various video game musics I have seen over the years I can agree that they aren't very accurate, save for some, be it sampled or otherwise as per the music section...it is due to different community and moderation standards over the years with various iterations of addmusic that were adopted, from carol, to M, to 4.05... That's part of the reason why legacy ports are labeled legacy ports, not just on they being removed from the section but the fact that they were made during those time periods of this site's history.

But yeah, clarification of terminology is something that is necessary in these discussions.
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Originally posted by Brozilla
So now what is "accurate?" It seems to get thrown around a bit too much. Is it having the correct notes/rests? Having the correct panning? Using similar/same instruments? Perhaps *trying* to capture the feeling of the original track?

What I meant by 'accurate' was having correct notes/rests, correct panning, similar instruments and sometimes even trying to capture the feeling of the original track. I don't deny that a lot of themes are hard to make accurate, but it's still humanly possible. That's one of the reasons why the beginners should start with simple tunes without such effects as vibrato or pitch bends. And a lot of beginners do have mistakes, therefore their first ports are mostly rejected. When I start making music, I should be aware of that.
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Originally posted by Brozilla
So now what is "accurate?" It seems to get thrown around a bit too much. Is it having the correct notes/rests? Having the correct panning? Using similar/same instruments? Perhaps *trying* to capture the feeling of the original track?


All of those are types of accuracy.


Edit:

http://project2612.org/details.php?id=36

I think you can extract the instruments from these files.
I tried opening .VGM/.VGZ files in VGM Music Maker, and apparently VGM Music Maker only exports files in .VGM/.VGZ format.