CVGM.net - Chiptune, Retro & Video Game Music

What's the problem? There are many PC sound cards and file formats.

Do we get too many PC platforms if we include them all?

Here is my initial suggestion, you can criticize this. This is just something from where we can start the discussion

early period
1. adlib (early non-general midi card which became a standard)
2. roland mt-32 (more expensive alterative to adlib)
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midi period
3. FM-midi music (includes sound blaster, sb pro, sb16 etc.)
4. sample based midi music (SB-AWE32 & Gravis Ultrasound etc...)
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tracker or tracker-like formats
5. S3M (this platform exists already but without files)
6. XM
7. IT (this platform exists already but without files)
8. Renoise
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other
9. MP3 (includes also non-PC stuff?)
10. Custom (anything that does not fit in the above categories)


Now if this looks messy, we could combine PC tracker music. This would mean we would put S3M, XM, IT and maybe Renoise to the same platform called "PC tracker formats". Tracker music sounds always the same, no matter what card is used (but card playing digital samples is needed of course).

I guess at this point I support combining PC tracker formats under one platform. Otherwise we get too many PC platforms...

Important topic !

First i will explain the idea i had about the "adlib" concept. I didn't see this as music recorded from an "adlib sound card" stricto sensu, so all the songs i put in this platform are not at the right place, sorry
I thought it was refering to "adlib" trackers, which finally have the same layout as sample based trackers, but use FM synthesis : Reality Adlib Tracker, Adlib Tracker II, ect... file format A2M, AMD, D00, HSC, HSP, IMF, MTK, S3M, SNG, RAD, RAW, SA2 ect... In fact this does not mean it's played by adlib cards, but it use OPL2/OPL3 FM synthetiser (i don't know what machine use the first OPL, except some SNK arcade games).
All those formats has quite distinctive sound, a bit like Megadrive, and are meant to be played on Adlib or Sound Blaster cards (SB, SB16, AWE32, AWE64), which share the same YM3812 or YMF262 sound chip...if i don't say bullshit. But all those YM things are complicated :/
I know that some demos use this kind of music. Nowadays, lots of people still create FM music on PC. Concerning the games, it's stuff like Wacky Wheels.
All that could be designed as FM or rather OPL maybe ? Because FM is also found in master system / mega drive, ect...

S3M, IT, XM are almost the same thing, it could be merged in one platform maybe ? I think yes too. It's just samples and simple effects, but nothing like reverb / delay / compression.

Renoise is quite different because it permits the use of VST instruments (non samples) and effects over samples. It's not the same era. The difference is that a Renoise song is never diffused as a .RNS file, because there is all the vst plug-in elsewhere on the computer. That's a big difference, because the link for mods/xm/it/s3m will often give tracked source file, while the link for a Renoise song generally gives a mp3.
But it's also very different from Cubase / Reason / Fruity Loops and others.

I introduced MIDI for games like the classic Transport Tycoon : it's not OPL FM synthetiser, it's not tracked music, and the songs can be downloaded as MIDI files (often) and played then on the sound card of your choice and will give the same result as if you play the game with this sound card. I'm not a MIDI specialist so i don't really know what is the technical difference with FM / OPL when played on the same sound card, but it's really a different thing.

MP3 is a very strange category, as it can be evrything. What can we find on PC except trackers ? Reason, Cubase, Fruity Loops, Ableton, ect.. modern programs, which can be considered as PC custom ? It seems that custom and mp3 are a bit the same. But mp3 is also non-PC.

So i agree with everything, except with the fact that we should make a disctinction by soundcard. In my opinion, the file format and sound chip prevail. For example, let's say we have an "adlib" OPL track. There is only one source file. Then you can play it with the sound card of your choice, an adlib, SB16 or sb pro have similar sound chip anyway, but there is one source file using one type of sound chip. But sure we should precise the hardware used for recording in the "Infos" field.
The type of soundcard used is very important when talking about MIDI, you are right. But should MIDI be kept as a category ? Is there a lot of games using MIDI ? Are those games considered as "classic" ? I don't know

technical difference between FM & OPL?

Well, FM simply refers to creating different sounds by using frequency modulation. That is how 80s digital synths and many sound cards create sound.

OPL refers to certain model of Yamaha sound chip which creates FM sounds.

FM music would be a huge category but PC-FM-based-MIDI music is narrower.

But now there is a further question:

When I was speaking about Midi FM stuff I had in my mind all those numerous games (doom, commander keen, wacky wheels) which were usually played with Sound Blaster FM music (these games often support AdLib card too, like Wacky Wheels).

However, I do not know whether those games always use Sound Blaster cards' General Midi sets or do they generate instrument sounds of their own from SB cards' FM chips. So I don't know whether we should call this category PC-MIDI-FM or simply Sound Blaster FM

Latter category would include only Sound Blaster FM cards (instead of all FM cards with GM standard) but PC FM Midi music was played mostly through different Sound Blasters (SB, SBpro, SB16) so this is not so big difference.

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I agree we don't need to include renoise to tracker music platform.

I think AdLib _sound card_ should prevail as a platform of its own. No any question about it. It was the PC's main sound source since 1987 until Sound Blasters arrived. If there is also some adlib file format, then that's whole different thing. It can be another platform but AdLib sound card must stay there.

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So here is my current suggestion:

1. PC AdLib (early non-general midi card which became a standard)
2. PC Roland MT-32 (more expensive alternative to adlib, non-GM)
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3. PC Sound Blaster FM (SB, SB pro, SB16)
4. PC Sample Based MIDI (SB-AWE32 & Gravis Ultrasound etc. when used with midi-music)
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5.PC tracker formats (mostly XM, S3M, IT)
6.Renoise (assuming it is so important it won't fit in PC Custom)
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7. MP3 (includes also non-PC stuff?)
8. PC Custom (anything that does not fit in the above categories)

What about making the platforms according to sound chip ? It's just that AdLib cards can have same soundchip than 1st SB or later SB.

- OPL3 = Creative Labs Soundblaster Pro 2.0, Creative Labs Soundblaster 16, Creative Labs Soundblaster AWE32, Creative Labs Soundblaster AWE64 Value / Standard / Gold, but also AdLib Gold.

- OPL2 = Adlib as you said, but also first SB wich shared the same sound chip ?

I'm ok for platform #5 and #6, also for #4 and #2. There is just this thing about sound chip for AdLib and SB serie.

If early Sound Blasters and AdLib sound totally same, then they can be in the same platform. I didn't know this before, but it seems they have the same sound chip and so they probably play music that sounds the same.

BUT you seem to group FM cards (like sb16) and sample based midi cards (like AWE32) in the same platform even though they sound totally different. That hardly is an appropriate categorization.

AWE32 may still have OPL-3 (which I didn't know before, why does it still have it?) but it uses sampled midi instruments to play midi music (like Gravis Ultrasound) which means it sounds totally different to SB16.

So it seems instead of two categories, we have three:
1. OPL-2 (Adlib, early SB)
2. OPL-3 (SB Pro 2.0, SB16)
3. Sample based midi (AWE32 & later SBs, GUS + more)

Some cards in cateogry #3 may still have OPL-3 but that's irrelevant if they play midi music through some other chip

So do we keep all these three categories as separate platforms?

That seems to be quite a good distinction. At least we learn a lot of things I'm justr eading that some AdLib trackers using OPL3 can be played on AWE32 and later, but i don't know how it could sound.
That OK for me for the moment ! Now we have to find OPL-2 songs

So at the moment OPL-2 class is empty since we don't have any AdLib recordings or early SB recordings. But I hope we find something like Dune and Ski or Die soon.

Under what category should music using an XG midi module be uploaded?

Also is uploading music from games that use CD soundtracks ok?

if XG midi songs are from PC I think they could put under a platform "PC sample based MIDI music" since it's not deserved just for GM-standard. PC music can be always put to "PC Custom" category if one is not sure which category to use. All arcade music goes to arcade category at the moment.

Those platform categories (of individual songs and also categories in general sense) can be changed later if somebody gets better ideas. So far everybody has met some surprises when we learn more about old gadgets...

Uploading stuff from CD soundtracks is OK especially if it's the same music which appears on game. If there are some differences that's not necessarily a problem either.

I uploaded an recording of an XG midi in the "pc sample midi" section.

It's difficult to categorise "midi" music because midi is just a way to communicate with sound devices, but i would guess when it comes to game music that it is appreciated to have the music in the category of the actual computer playing the game.
Let's take MT-32 for example... games on PC and using MT-32 should be in the PC MT-32 category, games on Atari ST using MT-32 should maybe be in a Atari ST MT-32" category? or maybe a general MT-32 category? Many japanese computer (X68000 and PC-98) games use midi and mostly the ones from Roland (MT-32 and Sound Canvas) but the actual music sound the same even if the midi data is sent from an PC or whatever computer, so thats what i ment to categorize the music from actual gameplatform and not soundhardware.

Also in some (not too common) games/demos use midi sound togheter with FM/PCM of the computer, again thats mostly for Japanese games.
And some tracker music can use FM sounds together with the samples.. but i don't remeber the name of the actual tracker that had this support (first thought it was the S3M format but i can't remember exactly?)

I think people are often primarily interested to know from which computers/consoles songs are taken from. If two totally different computer platforms had identical sound chip, I would still categorize them to different platforms.

MT-32 is of course "sample based MIDI" from PC but it has now a category of its own since MT-32 was many years a sole high quality MIDI device for PC and there is quite much MT-32 stuff available.

I have no knowledge how many MIDI gadgets there are for PC (and for other machines) but I guess we would get too many platforms if we would separate them all.

It is not the purpose that platform categorization would be as logical as possible. Instead, convenience may override strict logic if these two are in conflict with each other.

What is the best categorization depends on what kinds of songs we have. For example if we will get lots of Sound Canvas stuff, we may make new platform for it and so on...

But the discussion continues and we have to keep watching how situation evolves...

OPL2-OPL3.
In my opinion, there is maybe not enough differences between the 2 systems for 2 categories. Could be merged in 1 OPL2/3 platform. Well, there is differences :
* twice as many channels (18 instead of 9)
* simple stereo (hard left, center or hard right)
* 4 channel sound output
* 4 new waveforms (alternating-sine, "camel"-sine, square and logarithmic saw)
* 4 oscillator mode, pairing 2 channels together for a maximum 6 channels
* reduced latency for host-register access (the OPL2 had much longer I/O access delays)

But my problem is : i find a game, i'm pretty sure it was released at the OPL-2 era, but i record it on a OPL-3 soundcard. I put it in the OPL3 category because it's what i used, when i'm sure it sounds the same than OPL-2. Or shall I class it as OPL2 ?
And how can I be sure that a game use OPL2-OPL3 ? Games for OPL2 don't have Adlib Gold or SB 16 and more in their setup menu ?

I feel a bit lost with categorization hehe

How about renaming "PC other sample based MIDI devices" to "General Midi"?
I added the "Touche" GM recording in that platform even if i recorded it from my MU1000, as it still only uses the sounds from GM standard. But a notice about wich device it is recorded from could be recommended.

All major Midi modules have their own platform anyway and songs using their unique instruments/effects are put there.

No feedback at all?
I especially like to know what Ultrasyd (as he created the platform) and Franz_koopa (as he added lots of info to it) thinks, just so i don't change something that will anger people.

Since my last post i have added some Warcraft 2 recordings that use the General Midi standard and played on my MU1000.

No problem for me. If i remember, i set "PC MIDI" as platform name or something like that, first. General MIDI is just enough ; )

General midi is ok with me (i think we talked about this in the oneliner before) as most people will assume this platform anyways, so go ahead and make the change.

We also need a generic 'MP3' category when there is no identified source at all, PC Custom is what I use currently when theres nowhere else to put it. What do you guys think?

FG, yes i know it was ok with you from the oneliner but thought maybe there could be opinions from others as well
So OK i will make it "General Midi".

About MP3... i would say "PC custom", "wild" and "Misc newschool" are difficult to choose platform for as it is now, maybe they all could be "MP3" only?
well maybe not "Wild" when i think about it as it is perfect for stuff recorded from audio cassettes that sometimes came with games or magazines.

And also i would like to know what platform Rob Hubbards synth music (from early 1980 or something?) should be added to?

Wild is a great category for rare platforms, and I also use it for tracks that have a mix of platforms together, like some of the GameBoy & SID combined tunes we have from Da! Heard It and 8 Bit Peoples.

We could probbably just rename PC Custom to MP3 and solve the problems? I rarely use misc. newschool platform at all, but some do, so I would leave it for the time being.

I would probbably put robs old synth stuff under Wild. He used to record a lot of his C64 music on a casio keyboard, and somehow pipe the midi to his C64 for further editing. The guy is a genius and was well ahead of his time back in the days

I would like a "Game CD" platform for all music that is stored as CD audio tracks for games... as it is now it will get lost in "PC custom" or "misc newschool".
Some systems that might use CD audio is for example Playstation, saturn, Mega CD but they have their own platform already wich this music can be uploaded... "game cd" would probably be mostly for PC and MAC games.

I recently added pinball fantasies Amiga CD32 music thats was from the CD and i added it to the "Amiga" platform, wich would be incorrect as it should be in PC custom or misc newschool i guess.

And also i would like a "orchestral" platform for the music that really is orchestral, i use "live" platform now when i upload orchestral music.