Crazy Sample Usage in SNES Music

[@1yrFamily]

The audio chip consists of an 8-bit CPU, a 16-bit DSP, and 64 KB of SRAM and is completely independent from the rest of the system. It is clocked at a nominal 24.576 MHz in both NTSC and PAL systems. It is capable of stereo sound, composed from 8 voices generated using 8 bit audio samples and capable of applying effects such as echo.

[@ashkirby8896]

Where’s Hong Kong 97, Abstract Map, and various Earthbound tunes with heavy sampling?

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

yeah Hong Kong 97 probably deserved a mention, lol Abstract Map is something I had forgotten about, but it absolutely qualifies as really clever sample usage to get a modern genre out of the SPC Earthbound was actually quite economical with its samples, overall. It doesn't have anything as extreme as the examples in this video

[@Nikku4211]

@@GSTChannelVEVO When you wanna do the Megaton Walk.

[@BinaryCounter]

X-Band song 4 is probably worth a mention too. It has both a drum loop and a super compressed bar of rap lyrics

[@fungo6631]

@@GSTChannelVEVO Hong Kong 97 could use roughly double the sampling rate and still fit into the 64K of RAM.

[@zorilla0]

Came here to say this. VLDC9 Abstract Map was a surprisingly faithful and detailed SPC adaptation of a vaporwave song of an obscure Italo disco song from 1983. I can't think of anything else on the SNES that sounds anywhere near as sophisticated as this.

[@dogebad]

seeing GST mentioning oneohtrix point never is geeking me out wayyyy too much

[@Night_Goat]

the crossover i never knew i needed so bad

[@forgado7396]

Another little fun fact, that OPN song actually samples an old Spearmint Gum commercial. I think for the SNES port they also pulled samples from the commercial instead of the song itself, but I could be misremembering some things. Great video btw!

[@Kutuztuk]

I've always wondered how that elevator music would've sounded if it were generated by the SNES, with a proper piano sample, and not reproduced. 😉

[@johneygd]

Well am suprised that that elivator song is an actual recording rayher then being synthesized,now if a synthesized version only took 8KB of 16KB of space that would blow my mind,also who ever knows that if that song was synthesized it may could,ve use higher quality samples,but still trough am stun and i never knew that some game developers were so dumb to store an actual music recording if they could just synthesize them exactly 1 to 1.

[@aldo_pinheiro]

Ok, you blew my mind revealing the OPN track was a rendition for the SNES ngl. Absolutely love your channel. Thanks for being amazing.

[@Caesar_Online]

Didn't expect to come across 0PN in a SNES video but it feels right

[@j.a.8224]

I always wondered what the samples were like to get that sound for the elevator music in the JP game when I played it... answer is "it IS the samples!" Huh! Amazed they had space for the rest of the soundtrack at that rate!

[@TABBYMUSIC]

The moment you mentioned OPN i instantly subscribed.

[@soupy-san]

I knew something was up with that OPN sample you first played back haha

[@fungo6631]

You should have mentioned Tales of Phantasia as well. Oddly enough, I think that ROM space was more of an issue than anything. Long samples don't need much note data, so you can use almost all of the 64K. The issue is indeed, why would you use half the RAM, when you can use almost all of it?

[@RSK412]

my mind immediately goes to Earthbound. Which coincidentally I am currently replaying.

[@fullsdready]

Earthbound does sample quite a bit of songs, but not by using a lot of samples. Makes sense? A bit confusing, I know.

[@MoustiluigiRandom]

@@fullsdready Yeah, instead of using several bar longs samples like Revolution X, it mixes regular sequenced instrument samples with full on samples (akin to what Wyatt did for Casio Mario World, recreating Sleep Dealer, Cryo, Manifold, Child Soldier by OPN).

[@Archer690Channel]

iirc super bomberman 4 had a sampled drumloop that made use of phasing to give it a nice flanging effect, also if we only talk about using the sound chip to its limits the x-band modem deserves a mention

[@tcscomment]

why?

[@andreavasquez4355]

I never knew the SNES music had so many limitations. Almost every SNES game has amazing music.

[@dacueba-games]

5% of snes games have amazing music

[@breadtheloaf-yf5tc]

​@@dacueba-gamesThere's like 1,750 of them. So that's at least like, 100 games with amazing music (despite what you're saying probably not being true already)

[@1yrFamily]

​@@dacueba-games 500% don't be jealous

[@1yrFamily]

All the information is almost wrong in this video....😮

[@1yrFamily]

All the information is almost wrong in this video....😮

[@dedecoVGMDJ]

mannn recreating sleep dealer on a snes was awesome! gotta check that rom hack

[@datapod]

yeah i remember watching a video of it a while back and being caught way off guard by the opn songs lol

[@vidjenko8349]

Shame you didn't include Super Bomberman 3, that game has tracks with samples that super clear and impressive. I always liked how the bomberman games had very good music.

[@ashthedragon]

Loved this video, there is so many interesting things you can show us from behind the scenes. Hope you make more of these "narrated videos"!

[@BetweentheBeans]

the Sleep Dealer bit gained you a new subscriber. you fooled me, and Replica is my sixth most listened album this year. excellent work.

[@grongy6122]

I had an idea to chop Queen's Another One Bites the Dust into SNES/Amiga module tracker using looped samples (bassline, drums etc., this song actually fits perfectly for this kind of sampling), not sure if I will complete it though. I think with all of repeatable parts it would actually fit in those 64kb, excluding Mercury's vocals, of course.

[@SuperJet_Spade]

The song from Rap Jam does have a nice sampled chord. That said, I've used an iconic drumloop myself on a song I made for the SNES (End of the Tour from my album Snestopia), and I chopped it up into two parts, though it still took up quite a lot of space.

[@KTJohnsonkidThunder]

Traz Damji (forgot how to spell his name) sorta used that technique for a drumloop sample in NBA Live '95 for BOTH the Super NES & Genesis. It's a bit more clear in the latter.

[@Akasen1226]

That elevator music from Jurassic Park holds a special place in my mind.

[@mothsinthecanyon]

Just watching this because it seems like a cool subject and then halfway through the video suddenly becomes about one of my favorite songs ever, i thought i was tripping

[@MDPToaster]

It’s always nice to see a new video

[@k-leb4671]

Yo, I recognise that track at the beginning! Holy crap, that is one blast to the past. I have that album downloaded on my computer but I haven't listened to it for like 5 years at least.

[@nicco1690]

literally just subbed and you uploaded also keep up the mixes and great work!

[@Alianger]

The style or technique used by oneohtrix is also called plunderphonics, which originated in the 80s. That's a nice namedrop!

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

I'd argue that plunderphonics is more of a technique than a style, since I keep seeing DJ Shadow and The Avalanches labeled as "plunderphonics". 🤔

[@Alianger]

@@GSTChannelVEVO Yeah the music can still sound wildly different so I guess I'd agree

[@LunarDelta]

The example that first came to mind for me is the opening for Tales of Phantasia.

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

I believe ToP dynamically loaded those vocals in, meaning it wont fit in a single .SPC file, in contrast to everything featured here. It's still quite a feat though!

[@LunarDelta]

@@GSTChannelVEVO Doh! Good to know though. :)

[@Nikku4211]

@@GSTChannelVEVO You know the SNSF format? It supports dynamic loading of samples since it's not just an SPC ARAM rip. There is even an SNSF rip for Tales of Phantasia, for both the official Japanese dub, and unofficial English fandub.

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

I'm aware of the format, yeah! I don't really use it much though

[@Nikku4211]

@@GSTChannelVEVO Is there a reason you don't use it, or is it just rare?

[@jasonblalock4429]

Speaking of insane use of samples, how about taking a look at the title theme for the NES "Skate or Die 2" sometime? To this day, I have a hard time believing that some mad genius made a MOD-style track for NES on a commercial cart when rom chips were still super expensive.

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

I'm pretty sure that's just really clever use of the DPCM channel. Hubbard's use of the DPCM channel for a bassline was more interesting to me (which I covered in my Artist Feature about him!)

[@Nikku4211]

@@GSTChannelVEVO It's so clever, the samples aren't even DPCM, but raw PCM shoved to the NES' delta counter.

[@Something9008]

The burp in Earthbound is one of the clearest samples I remember. One of the EB OST youtube videos start with it.

[@StarLightNow]

So happy I found this channel. Thanks for the video :)

[@Laundry_Hamper]

Brent W went nuts identifying samples from a game called Rejoice! Aretha Oukuku no Kanata on an ep of LMH a while back - classic hip-hop pulls. I think they played track 20, not sure what ep it was on though...or how much cartridge space was given to the samples 🙃

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

Rejoice is a gem of a soundtrack, though I don't remember many samples in it. This makes me wonder if you've confused two titles or something. 🤔

[@Laundry_Hamper]

@@GSTChannelVEVO Found 'em! The track was on LMH ep. 221 - per a comment from Brent on their blog, and a reply, the three samples that tweaked them were from The Emotions - Rejoice (1977), Hashim - Al-Naafiysh (The Soul) (1983) and that same disc's b-side, It's Time.

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

oh dang, you're right I had to go digging through the SPC file. check this out: rejoice: 9kb just feel it: 4kb it's time: 2kb combined, that's 15kb of samples. still less than the space of a single break in Rap Jam. It's also way more typical sizes for SNES instrumentation.

[@RetroSegaDev]

GST I geek out when you do videos like these :D

[@RetroSegaDev]

Kinda weird a matter of days ago I was wondering how well this could be done with PCM on the Sega Genesis...

[@tasosrizopoulos868]

More Megadrive please!

[@breadtheloaf-yf5tc]

Wow, "Sleep Dealer" honestly has a really crazy sound to it.

[@Plasticshavings]

I recommend checking out the curious george gba soundtrack because for the gba, it's actually insanely impressive

[@cube2fox]

Back in the day, the 64 KB of SRAM for audio must have been expensive. The SNES was quite ambitious in its sample based audio system. Perhaps a bit too ambitious for early developers, thinking of the first SNES games which often had quite distorted sounding samples, like Zelda: AlttP.

[@TheSuperPlayer707]

I think the long guitar sample on Nuts and Bolts from Donkey Kong Country 3 deserved a mention. It's almost so long as the Elevator Music from Jurassic Park, but it's a lot more compressed. Anyway, it's a sample of 7 seconds long, it deserved a mention to me.

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

I'm not sure what you're talking about, to be honest! ...unless you're referring to the guitar riffs in the GBA version?

[@TheSuperPlayer707]

@@GSTChannelVEVO no, the one from the original version. On internet, the sample it's called "zillion guitar", and it's the one that it sounds on the middle point of the track (for reference, kzbin.info/www/bejne/a6PHYYSmqtt-iqs at the 0:33 seconds). It's a long sample of 7 seconds long that Eveline Novakovic used from a stock (I don't remember which one) but that what it calls, "Zillion guitar". Just explore the samples of DKC 3, it's there but it's a sample heavily muffled (something that's obvious). I know it because I helped Jammin' Sam Miller on the restoration. Correct me if I'm wrong but I remember that it's a long sample.

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

ah, that's a sequenced riff. it's what I'd consider common practice on the SNES. I decided to look into the song, and none of the samples are above 4kb in size. the original "zillion guitar" sample may have been longer, but Eveline broke it down to a single note and re-sequenced it.

[@TheSuperPlayer707]

@@GSTChannelVEVO oh. I see. Thanks for clarifying, man. And yes, I see a plenty of games that sequenced various samples on small pieces, like Chrono Trigger.

[@Protoman00]

It’s been so long since I’ve seen the guy at 0:30! I forgot what that video is called!

[@Protoman00]

@_ Pobert-Eii _ YOO THATS RIGHT LOL!!! That used to be my jam

[@themadmallard]

I know this is old, vid, but in case you haven't yet seen it, take a look at the XBAND modem's usage, its crazy.

[@Kektzecuggle9270]

This channels so awesome

[@lerigouarte]

Excellent video! Thank you for the informations. +1 subscriber. I'm on a personal project with a SNES game. How do I know the sample rate that an audio has to re-insert into the SNES game? I use the SNESSOR tool to extract the audios. But, for now, I'm only able to insert audio that is at 8000hz, which is the tool's default rate. It is possible to change it in the program, but I don't know what the sample rate is 😅 In any case, congratulations on the content. It was explained in a very didactic way and the video is well edited 👏

[@DonWafle]

Glad to see "Wyat's" ports in Casio Mario World

[@nyanpasu64]

4:37: Dynamic channel allocation, or deliberately overlapping consecutive notes to avoid a gap in between?

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

99% sure it's wanton dynamic channel allocation, since it affects the bass as well. there's no good reason to overlap notes in that register.

[@dantescanline]

excellent video! and with the oneohtrix point never sample too :)

[@starbirdplays6474]

Opn mentioned, subbed

[@tomypower4898]

YES!

[@Maxime-pk6cu]

Wow! Motown made games too? 😍 (Sorry if it seems obvious, im finally bringing myself up to speed on the SNES-verse)

[@ChaunceyGardener]

I can't understand the premise of the video. BIggest in size? Biggest length? Biggest hits? To me the most amazing use of sampling in SNES music is the Super Bomberman 3 soundtrack because of the variety of samples and how well is integrated using the low bitrate "scratchiness" as advantage. "Select 2" (v=u68T3wEOihY) is the jam.

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

Biggest in sample size. I'm kind of assuming that anyone watching will know what a sample is in this context, but that might be a bad assumption on my part. The song you linked has a handful of samples: a drumloop, a piano, and a bass. the drumloop is the biggest, but overall it's a nice and small package. This doesn't mean bad (in fact, pretty much every song that Jun Chikuma wrote is hella good), but it does mean economical. This video is about the less economical sample usage. The cases where composers treated the SPC-700 like a sample-based workstation instead of a humble sampler.

[@heyguysinternet]

...Hm? Biggest in size. The whole video was looking at the sample sizes.

[@ChaunceyGardener]

​@@GSTChannelVEVO What threw me off was how most of the examples are quite different situations. Rap Jam's sample is a long, uncut and very clear (maybe 22khz) sample. Toy Story's is also long but very downsampled. RevX is the oddball: short sample and still sounds like crap compared to arcade source. I guess the source of confusion is the title of the video when your intention was showcasing interesting uses of sampling as in the description. Not being critical, just explaining my confusion.

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

oh! ok, I see what you mean. I quite appreciate this feedback, honestly from my perspective: I wasn't sure what to title this video, and ended up going with "The Biggest Samples in SNES Music" because that's what kicked off the entire idea for the video. It might be worth changing the title to something that better encapsulates the full script, but I'm not sure what that should be. Maybe "Crazy Sample Usage in SNES Music" is fine? I'm going to ask around a bit.

[@scm64entertainment44]

The SNES samples are fine as they are. They don't need to be perfect.

[@slendi9623]

Really makes you appreciate the devs on what they had to work with

[@Pr0jectFM]

What's ironic is that almost everything you showed off could've been done in higher quality on the Genesis

[@fungo6631]

LOL, no! With the same rules in place, hell no! The SNES can stream audio to the S-SMP. Sure the Z80 is more powerful than the SPC700 but turns out you need half the bandwidth for the same sample rate on the SNES, thanks to ADPCM. 18 kilobytes per second are enough for 32 KHz audio if my calculations are correct.

[@Pr0jectFM]

@@fungo6631 I didn't mean the same rules in place because the Genesis isn't so limited in how big the size of the sample can be

[@fungo6631]

@@Pr0jectFM The SNES also isn't limited. Did you read my comment? You can update the SPC RAM on the fly, just like the Z80 RAM.

[@Pr0jectFM]

@@fungo6631 Oh okay. Why don't any of the examples in the video do that?

[@fungo6631]

@@Pr0jectFM Are you stupid? The guy said that the SPC format doesn't support that. The SPC files are just a RAM dump. Please, take a listen at the Tales of Phantasia opening, and tell me that it fits in 64K.

[@nojot0]

An interesting approach... Especially in Jurassic Park...

[@grongy6122]

Actually it had second sampled elevator theme too, weird that it's not here though...

[@Sh-hg8kf]

Since it just RAM end of the day, what is stopping someone from swapping samples in and out as they're needed? Yuzo Koshiro did that with Actraiser

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

in Actraiser, the RAM content was only swapped out between different songs. it's possible to swap out the RAM content mid-song, which only a handful of composers did. this technique has only one downside: it breaks the ability for people in the future to make SPC rips of the soundtrack :P

[@Sh-hg8kf]

@@GSTChannelVEVO That is a very true point yes. Speaking of crazy sample usage, have you seen this ultra faithful recreation of Go Strait From streets of rage 2 on the snes? Some guy penned it down, sounds EXACTLY like the genesis version minus some gaussian interpolation Lemme see if I can get a link

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

@@Sh-hg8kf I did see that! kinda funny that nintendoes what genesis also does, lol

[@chowmein0941]

With the use of homebrew software, can you expand the memory of the SNES to get Warioware like vocal songs on the system? For example: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e3q5iXp5rJKjjZI

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

kind of? what you can do is swap out vocal samples mid-song and chain together a complete vocal line, BUT this requires the use of the main CPU instead of just the SPC700. you can hear this applied in the intro to Tales of Phantasia.

[@imcrowbug]

last place i expected to hear replica

[@Goto10Gaming]

Great video, thank ya 👾

[@JohnZyski]

REally interesting video.

[@bbtund81]

is sample bank change possible though in snes?

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

yep! a few games do this, such as claymates

[@RSK412]

bad memory economics

[@scm64entertainment44]

Sure the SNES doesn't have great cpu processing like the genesis, But that's because it doesn't need it. The snes is just fine as it is.

[@backwardsface3046]

why did your mic get worse

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

Is it worse? :( I upgraded from a literally broken mic to a cheap crappy one...

[@f.k.b.16]

Napoleon Dynamite : Sleep Dealer is like the worst song ever made. Kip: Yeah right Napoleon, like anyone could ever know that. Uncle Rico: You know what Napoleon.... You are right! I agree with you for once!

[@hacktrixapii]

Audiophiles thought that 64kbps was bad, m8 hows 8

[@babubapbapbabuAKAjeffyandfrenz]

snjs

[@emul8orgamer]

snes devs were so fuckin stupid back then bruh 😂😂

[@MoustiluigiRandom]

MAIS NON TROP BIEN

[@METATRONmusic]

don't copy that floppy lmao

[@johneymute]

So basically some game devs did just wasted unusual space by storing actual low quality recordings rather then storing high quality samples and resyntheses them???? If so how stupid could you ever be as a game developer, BUT what i would like if you gonna discuse about a sound swapping technic to overcome because many later games did make use if this,this allows for more and much higher quality audio samples on snes,