How Music Was Made On Super Nintendo

MY BOOK OF ESSAYS IS OUT NOW!
AMAZON: amzn.to/3dk14yu
EVERYWHERE ELSE: bit.ly/3qJEbHT
A closer look at the sound system of the SNES!
Get a 30 day free trial of VRV here: vrv.co/nerdwriter
Support Nerdwriter videos: / nerdwriter Subscribe: bit.ly/SubNerdwriter
Watch the most popular Nerdwriter episodes: • How Donald Trump Answe...
Facebook: / the-nerdwriter-3141415...
Twitter: / theenerdwriter
Patreon: / nerdwriter
SOURCES
snesmusic.org/files/spc700.html
ancientelectronics.wordpress....
web.archive.org/web/200512270...
www.squareenixmusic.com/featu...
/ eli5_why_does_snes_mus...
/ how_to_get_videogamey_...
everything2.com/title/How+vid...
musicproductionnerds.com/what...
karma-lab.wikidot.com/karma2:k...
/ enter-the-jungle-donke...
www.nintendojo.com/features/in...
theproaudiofiles.com/what-is-...
www.wikiwand.com/en/Korg_Waves...
MUSIC
Matt Cherne, "PRISM"
/ mattcherne
Watch More Nerdwriter:
Latest Uploads: • Video
Understanding Art: • What The Truman Show T...
Essays About Art: • What The Truman Show T...
Essays About Social Science: • How To Correct Donald ...
Popular Videos: • How Donald Trump Answe...
The Nerdwriter is a series of video essays about art, culture, politics, philosophy and more.

[@David3Wise]

Sadly - there was no tracker. It was a text editor called Brief and the code was then assembled and sent to the host PC. No luxury of real time editing. Fortunately, things have moved on with audio technology.

[@rsmith02]

David Wise Thanks for clarifying! Love your atmospheric work.

[@taz800]

David Wise David Wise himself, replying on a Nerdwriter's video referring to him! That's surreal! Dear Mr Wise, I will take this opportunity to express my utmost admiration and appreciation for your (as also Eveline Fischer's and Robin Beanland's) magnificent work on all DKC games that marked my youth. Graphics awed me when I first approached them, but music was what I appreciated and cherished the most after all . Reading about the technical challenges that you faced during its creation, to reach this result seems unbelievable and makes it that much admirable! Almost 23 years later I still enjoy your music and I don't expect to stop doing so, ever! (I even carry the whole DKC 1,2 &3 OST! in my mobile to always have access to and lose myself in it). All these years the cases that I have encountered of such qualitative game music are rare (pun intended) and far between. Whoever chose you then for the task, made a very Wise ( pun again ;) choice! I wish you the best! Best regards, Tasos Parisis

[@Kougeru]

Sterron Lopique I hope it's not him. Account is full of Moon Landing conspiracy videos lol

[@David3Wise]

Hi Kougeru. I’m an audio tech. I’d like to believe humankind has been to the moon. I remember when voip ( digital phone calls ) were introduced. And reading about how much more efficient digital audio is. And, how in a straight line, digital audio could reach the moon and back, in around the same time as in the moon landing videos. Except that digital audio hadn’t been invented, the audio signal to the moon wasn’t in a straight line and if using analog signals, you’d need a good dish and a lot of battery power to boost the signal. So from an audio perspective alone, how did they achieve communication that quickly? Discuss.

[@romaingauthier2653]

:(

[@ItsMikeArre]

The Donkey Kong country soundtrack taking me back to the good old days thank you Evan

[@Nerdwriter1]

Me too. Love that game so much.

[@mouthpudding7972]

Just started it on the SNES classic, it holds up incredibly well

[@omidfilms]

A simpler time that warms my heart

[@SensuousBanana]

Stickerbrush Symphony is just so good. Actually moving.

[@kiarariex]

Slow the fuck down. Not your talking speed but the background music/SFX.

[@FamiliarGecko]

0:15 *"Super Mario World"* _Plays music and footage from Super Mario All-Stars..._

[@bolson42]

But the music was from the all star version of World, so he wasn’t really wrong

[@pedromaneiro123]

@@bolson42 that was the all star version of smb1

[@awsomewolfminecraft4536]

Lol

[@thatreddude8796]

Whatagoober

[@argonianvideo4439]

ɥɐǝʎ ɥɐǝʎ ɥO there is no super Mario world in all stars.

[@clarissamcpigeon7857]

It's incorrect to say that SNES games had to fit the entire audio into 64Kb. That's just the audio RAM on the console itself - you could store extra soundbanks on the cartridge and swap them in and out. The audio subsystem also supported a number of other effects such as echo etc.

[@kaczmaracyck]

I guess he meant they had to fit each song onto only 64Kb of RAM.

[@TorutheRedFox]

@@kaczmaracyck even that's technically not correct as you could swap out samples during the playback of the song, kinda how water effects in Sonic games on the Mega Drive were done by swapping the entire palette partway through the screen draw

[@BierBart12]

4mb of cartridge space is still pretty low in the face of sounds. It's not a fair comparison(AAA producers don't put a single thought into optimizing anything), but look at modern games using hundreds of gigabytes for sound files alone, with the rest of the game taking up less than ten gigs.

[@iwanttocomplain]

Echo was the only effect... apart from something called an 8 tap fir filter. I think that’s like an EQ or something. Then noise reduction, but you can’t turn that off.

[@BladeV8]

This also ignores that you can squish music notation down a bunch in written code - lots of these soundtracks fit into only 4/8MB, but downloading playback of them even as mp3 is often a few hundred MB.

[@SNESdrunk]

A game's entire sound isn't just crammed into the soundchip all at once. It does it one level (or one room, or whatever) at a time.

[@fshiruba]

Have a great rest of your day!

[@kingbingus]

SNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNnnnnnnnnnnnnnnNNNNNnnnnnnn NNNNESDRUNK

[@intron9]

True, but sometimes it does hold every music. Specially in the early first-party titles like pilotwings, if you use vspcplay to load some sound card save state (.spc file) and change the 4-byte port of the module, you can scroll though the entire music library.

[@phillystevesteak6982]

He's not retarded. People make mistakes. It's not like he's trying to mislead people. I mean, WTF are you doing with YOUR internet life besides shit talking?

[@glencannondr]

intron9 lol except when the 4-byte port has a malleable logarithmic spurving which will prevent the photonic resonance modulator from load save states. in fact you would need a prefabulated amulite and a nonreversible tremmie with at least 0.2398 mjo to access any file. but that tech has not been invented yet.

[@VashStarwind]

Its really crazy to think how they had way less to work with back then, but still created some of the best tunes even by todays standards. I wish that all composers now a days, had to make at least one song using limited resources like that so they would know what it was like. I also wish someone would create some new sound tracks using the EXACT same programs and methods as they did back then, that would be very cool to see

[@andycraig6905]

Think of some of the old composers with modern equipment

[@VashStarwind]

@@andycraig6905 Bach or Mozart using a retro tracker.. haha. that would be super awesome.

[@jacobwilliams8042]

Big thing that you need to take into account is that the 64kb was ON THE SYSTEM RAM, the cartridge could hold more storage

[@T3KNUG3T5]

It was not. The 64kB was the Sound RAM for the SPC. The 128kB of RAM was system

[@MostlyPennyCat]

And the spc didn't have access to the bus and cartridge, I think. So it couldn't get new data, it could only be given new data. It was turnabout on the Mega Drive

[@tf_d]

@@MostlyPennyCat roms can be up to 96Mbit, and the SPC700 can be reprogrammed on-the-fly. You can't have a song with data that goes over 64kb in the Audio RAM but you can have multiple songs that are loaded in one after another, stored in rom and pushed to the Audio RAM when need be. The process is complicated af and beyond my realm of understanding, however if you want to see it for yourself then google Furry RPG SNES and run the SFC file on an emulator. There are 12 songs each using their own samples spanning a couple of Megabytes.

[@iwanttocomplain]

Yeah you can load in new samples of course. All the samples and notation (musical scores) used in the whole game don’t need to be loaded in. It’s just that loading new samples in might pause the system for a moment. The audio ram also holds the driver and the delay buffer if that’s being used.

[@edhc44]

DKC 1 and 2 had really stellar music, I never realized that Rare had pushed the SNES to its limits in all departments. Man, I miss Nintendo's Rare so much...

[@SleepingCocoon]

your content usually seems pretty well put together, but this one was... lacking. - majority of developers didn't use trackers, including Wise. don't know of any devkits with one. as far as i'm aware, a lot of music was written in Music Macro Language. if anybody can correct me on that, please do so! i'm more familiar with the 2A03 and YM2612, and have only converted tracker files to SPC format rather than write in anything traditional. - the 64kb of sound RAM isn't an entire game's sound data. you can load in a new bank when needed, and most games do between music tracks, scene transitions, etc. a number of games have quite a ton of sound data. as much as you want, really, given you have the storage. Star Ocean's entire opening is voiced. - two source misattributions in the first 22 seconds is pretty bad. the first example is Mario All-Stars, and the one attributed to CV4 is Dracula X. - the video is realistically just about David Wise's work and is an extremely shallow look into how music was actually made for the hardware. the amount of misinformation here sets a pretty shoddy precedent for somebody who seeks to produce informative video essays. i encourage you to edit the description with corrections.

[@WhitePointerGaming]

Yeah I was going to comment on the sound RAM point but you've already done it. I'll just restate it here for anyone else reading that it had 64KB of sound RAM. That's RAM. Random Access Memory. That means stuff is stored in there temporarily, then unloaded when it isn't needed anymore. That's how RAM works. You didn't need to store the entire game's soundtrack in that 64 KB, you only needed to temporarily store 1 track at a time. The sound data was contained on the cartridge storage and provided you had the space for it, you could store as much as you wanted. Most SNES games maxed out at 4 megabytes (a couple of JRPGs like Star Ocean exceeded this), and even given the storage required for game assets, when each music track is 64kb or less in size, that's still a good amount of music a game can have. Most games, including the DKC series, only had 1 track per level which repeated over and over. A few games had multiple tracks within levels that would play one after another but they would unload the first one before loading the second, and you can tell when this happens as there's a brief pause in the music.

[@calebdrew5684]

+Sleeping Cocoon thank you, it's good when contrarians on these comment sections are actually right, are concise and (god forbid) polite. The pressure's on Nerwriter1 to save some subscriptions here I think. It's fumbling of information like this that needs to be called out when the platform is not regulated with an obligation to be factual. I picked you up Nerdwriter, I could drop you. Fix this. Retract it.

[@IngoGarza]

@Sleeping Cocoon "your content usually seems pretty well put together, but this one was... lacking." It might be because this is the first time you know more about the subject?

[@bonjovi7399]

I expected it to run MIDI notes or something similar rather than record the whole music and play it back.

[@SleepingCocoon]

is that in regards to the echo effect? if so - yeah, it's a very strange "buffer" approach but also what allows it to have that strange polyphonic quality without actually using more channels. you can, of course, sequence in your own echo, and realistically it does sound quite a bit better doing that, it just requires some more (and sometimes clever) work to get it into the track without using a channel on it alone

[@mauswaffles]

Super Mario World *shows gameplay of SMB1 all stars*

[@hudde814]

And uses music from the latter as well. This is why *everyone* has trust issues, not just me.

[@mcguire82]

Or Dracula X instead of Castlevania IV

[@j4n1x19]

I feel... strangely TRIGGERED WTF IS THIS HOW DID HE MESS THAT UP PLEASE WHY?????

[@onreload]

a mistake, but might be that he was thinking of the All-Stars + World cart?

[@mauswaffles]

@@onreload maybe

[@cotelo]

Back in the day, even as a kid I realised that DK's OST was something else compared to every other SNES game available.

[@Nikku4211]

The 64 kiB of ARAM can be switched out, actually. Most games would load in a different song into ARAM, and some load different samples for that song. Some games actually stream notes into ARAM, constantly changing what's in ARAM every second. Some games like the Lion King and Tales of Phantasia stream samples into ARAM as well.

[@jevansturner]

There's a much bigger story behind that sound chip. Ken Kutaragi (yes, father of the PlayStation) developed the chip in secret. His superiors at Sony were very upset that he used manpower and resources without authorization, but they pitched it to Nintendo anyway. Nintendo adopted the sound chip -- which was a huge benefit to Sony. It also led to an agreement that would allow Sony to make a CD-ROM add-on attachment for the Super Nintendo and an all-in-one system for cartridges and CDs (much like the Sharp Twin Famicom had done for the previous generation). Later, Nintendo killed off the CD-ROM add-on deal because they realized the agreement with Sony basically gave away all the profits for the CD-ROM based software releases. Sony had basically completed development of the "PlayStation" SNES add-on, but the engineering team ultimately had to build a whole new system to salvage the work and investment they had already put in. You can definitely see how the SNES influenced the design of the original PlayStation controller. :)

[@sebione3576]

Interesting info thank you!

[@KickyFut]

There's a good book called "Console Wars" which is about the competition between Nintendo and Sega, a really great book! It touches in on this part of history from both Nintendo and Sega's sides....

[@poisonouslead85]

After Nintendo killed the project Sony shopped it to Sega, proposing the same sort of partnership. Like all good ideas, Sega of America loved it and because it was a good idea that Sega of America liked, Sega of Japan killed it.

[@SpeedySPCFan]

Interesting introduction to how the SNES works, but there's some inaccuracies. 0:16 That's Mario All-Stars, not SMW. 0:22 It says Super Castlevania 4 but it's showing Dracula X. 0:36 All of the channels in the NES, besides the first two, had a different function. 1 & 2 were pulse waves of variable width (4 unique total, 3 audibly different), 3 was a triangle, 4 was white noise, and 5 was DPCM sampling. 3:28 Not every composer used a music tracker. Only some did. Many of Ocean's musicians like Dean Evans used their own tracker called Medit, but other than that, I don't know of any other confirmation that other SNES developers used a tracker or that Nintendo's dev kit came with one. I think you also should have brought up some of the extra features the sound processor had - namely the echo effects that a LOT of games used.

[@Greenzsx87]

Thank you for pointing this out. I hoped someone would have. (y)

[@Tekkenfreek234]

Not only is the Castlevania bit inaccurate, the music isn't even from Super Castlevania IV.

[@videopsybeam7220]

And that particular arrangement of the Ground Theme was done by Soyo Oka, not Koji Kondo.

[@lh9591]

That's turbo graphx (sp) music. I am assuming computing wise more powerful than snes? Esp considering the port to snes was a down grade?

[@videopsybeam7220]

What? It's not like we're trying to insult him or anything. I thought I was helping.

[@minutodoalerta]

After watching this video I continue without knowing how the super Nintendo music was done

[@Crystalshopmusic]

😂

[@Nikku4211]

Well, luckily, this video is wrong, so you didn't miss much.

[@devpac7861]

😆🤣😂😹😆

[@chimmychuck]

@@Nikku4211 ?

[@TheBeeshSpweesh]

Many innacurate details. Wise didn't even use a tracker for the DKC soundtrack. The games can technically use more than 64 KB of audio data/driver code, but it usually had to be swapped in and out all the time.

[@MZMDev]

The music for "Super Mario World" you showed in the beginning was actually the Super Mario All Stars rendition of the original Super Mario Bros. Theme. You know that, right?

[@onecaleb9741]

Also he put a song from Castlevania Dracula X, and it said it was from Super castlevania 4

[@ricecream55]

@@onecaleb9741 this guy is a fucking mess lmfao

[@binouche2281]

No he doesn't know it, the rest of the video proves he's an idiot.

[@LANBobYonson]

David Wise is a legend

[@NateandNoahTryLife]

Amazing what they were doing with such limited resources. Created the soundtracks to so many childhoods.

[@jestexgarcia3601]

I can appreciate ALL the hard work and editing and work they put into the SNES video game music

[@lanerehms24]

Earthbound would like a word with you

[@kanuh]

oh shit xD

[@ru9275]

?

[@lanerehms24]

Ru look up he song “Porky Means Business” from Earthbound and wait for about 50 seconds. You’ll see why.

[@UnknownSource3]

*Earthbound would like to know your location.*

[@skeletonskeleton9010]

*Plok

[@amarguitar]

Nerdwriter new video days are the best days

[@westerling8436]

wtaf

[@SoParaholic]

Aggrreeeeeeeed

[@yashveersingh1795]

That music though 💕 Old is gold mate ...

[@arpitjain9208]

I'm curious, how do you choose the topics for these video essays? Because I've found more variety on your channel than any other channel I've come across on youtube.

[@allthingsfascinating]

The entire world is curious about that!

[@FagnerDeschain]

This video is not about sound limitations of a console, but what creative people are capable of doing. Evan is one of those creative people and this channel is the way he chose to express it to the world.

[@allthingsfascinating]

@@FagnerDeschain it's Evan :)

[@FagnerDeschain]

I don't know what you're talking about ;)

[@allthingsfascinating]

Hahaha! People can connect the dots. ;)

[@FelixSR]

Your editing is tremendous! LOVED THIS VIDEO!

[@nikunjarya6292]

this video's flow is immaculate man, thanks for inspiring me always the visuals just guide me through so nicely that I was just fully present in it. much love

[@DennisGr]

frugality breeds ressourceful behaviour. aquatic ambience probably being the best possible example what painstakingly crafting a piece of art is and looks like. good job on this one, very much down my alley as an IT guy.

[@danielheflick1529]

Your video title says this was how music was made on SNES in general, but I think you just wanted an excuse to extoll the virtues of David Wise and Donkey Kong Country.

[@PlasticCogLiquid]

Making a big deal about writing music with a tracker too.... I've been doing it since the early 90's, it's not an arcane art. Hell there is still a modern tracker that a lot of people still use, Renoise. It rules.

[@danielheflick1529]

Schallwelle 2.0, actually I think the analysis in this video is pretty interesting. Noting the way that early video game composers had to be equal parts musicians and programmers in order to effectively utilize the assets of this medium that was still very much in its infancy. I just found it kind of funny that this was more an analysis of how Wise's DKC score worked around the technological limitations of the hardware, rather than any kind of broader treatise on SNES musical development as the title of the video implied.

[@EggBastion]

Yeah, no shit eh?

[@scarlett5924]

yeah been using trackers on amiga years before youtubers are a plague they spend more time doing the vid than researching and understanding all they are doing is confusing people with incorrect info really most are not qualified to be making such info vids if you have 0 background in this department dont think you can spend a hour or 2 on google and think you should be explaining to other newbs how things work recipe for disaster all just to make a quick buck remember today youtube is most peoples encyclopedia which is so sad why things are getting worse than better

[@johneymute]

the snes soundchip is NOT all that limited,for 1 thing it can refresh it's 64K ram with new instructions and/or new samples to tell the chip how to play those samples at wich order ,duration etc,,in order to play new music, it's even possible to stream audio samples while those other soundchannels are playing music, tales of phantasia proves this. heck you can even stream fully uncompressed 16bit audio at 32khz audio to the snes soundchip at 128kbps,but it eats up lots of cpu and workram to do that with no room left to run a game. the BRR/adpcm audio format is only 4bits in size,but the snes makes it up by using a lowpass filter and guassian filter to blur out that unwanted noise to simulate 16bit audio,but the results can be amezing such as in ,,spiderman and x men,unirally,plok and rock & roll racing etc,,,,they just sounding way better then most other snes games.

[@KuraIthys]

adpcm approximates a 16 bit waveform because each block of 16 samples has a header that specifies the volume scaling of those samples, and selects one of four filters. - the range value in each header means each block of samples can vary dramatically in volume range from adjacent blocks, and the filters mean that a single output sample can be the product of 1 to 3 samples. this is lossy compression of course, but it's still closer to actual 16 bit samples than the 4 bits per sample values suggest. The final output is indeed 16 bits, but it isn't an accurate reproduction of the 16 bit sample it started out as. Of course, if you set the scaling factor to it's largest range, and use the null filter, which has no influence from adjacent samples, you do end up with the equivalent of uncompressed 4 bit audio... But there's rarely any justification to do that...

[@Vincent43746]

Earthbounds music too! "Pokey means business" is a great example of it.

[@thebasketballhistorian3291]

I'm no techy but I thought it was ridiculous he'd compare the 64kb audio RAM to a 6mb song's file size. Even modern computers wouldn't load the whole 6mb song in the computer's RAM but instead, just buffer a few seconds of the song. (Proof = if you play an MP3 file from an external drive and suddenly unplugged it, your computer would only continue playing like the next 3-5 seconds)

[@stonethemason12]

tales of phantasia made me nut in the intro. fuCKING singing in a SNES game i couldnt believe it...

[@hicknopunk]

The filters really, really helped the audio sound good.

[@thomaskaldahl196]

There aren't many education-oriented videos that I'd watch more than once. This is my fourth time watching this video. I love your animation style and video structure! You earned my subscription and my recommendation to many more people I know would enjoy this type of content!

[@heitorvrb]

2:05 CHILLS

[@humanoideric]

legendary track :)

[@LJdaentertainer]

Ah shieet

[@ahmedadem2227]

Your video editing skills are absolutely amazing. Keep up the good work.

[@paulnewhouse5126]

"limitations breeds creativity" Been trying to find the words to explain the brilliance of retro video games. You got it right on the mark!

[@robsouter84]

The music in DK Country was a joy to the ears. The effort the composer went to is not forgotten by the hundreds of thousands of fans who love this game. Very interesting how it was made. Thanks.

[@jevansturner]

The earliest SNES boards had a removable APU (audio processing unit). You could literally take out some screws and remove it from the SNES. Since the APU outputs perfect S/PDIF digital audio, some people have made portable a SNES music player out of the APU. It's a really cool project! You have to make a custom interface, but then you can just load the SPC data from a save state file (typically created from an SNES emulator on a PC) and just let the music run.

[@TheBigBadGRIM]

Nobou Uematsu (Final Fantasy series), Koji Kondo (Zelda series) David Wise (Donkey Kong Country), and Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger) are my four favorite music composers. They are legends in my book. There are plenty of games with amazing music (Nights into Dreams, Metal Gear Solids, World of Warcraft) but these four musicians stand out above everyone for me.

[@holysecret2]

Agree on Koji Kondo

[@phillystevesteak6982]

Excellent choices; I completely agree. However, I would also include Grant Kirkthorpe - as the king of goofy video game music.

[@cookieskoon2028]

Don't forget Jeremy Soule too! His work on Secret of Evermore is as under-appreciated as the game itself.

[@phillystevesteak6982]

Im sorry but i dont consider Jeremy one of the absolute greats. His melodies are alright at best... His strength lies in ambient textural-orchestral composition. He's pretty up there though

[@cookieskoon2028]

True, his strengths are unique, but that doesn't put him on a lower objective level. Subjectively, sure. Everybody is entitled to their opinion.

[@lucaspinheiro2450]

I absolutely love your profile !!! have been watching videos one after another!!! super well produced and your sound mixing made me start watching everything on my headphones!!! ... anyways thank you for the production value, for the amazing writing and the hours of entertainment!! you are my new favorite channel :D

[@sherman614]

DK2 had some of the best video game music of all time in my opinion.

[@legendtaco1]

Fun Fact, Kanye West wanted to become a video game programmer when he was 13 so he bought a turbografx 16 and had his mom take him to college classes to learn programming. He made a game but then discovered that he could program music onto the computer for his game, sparking his passion in music, which led him to his career as a producer, then years down the line as a solo artist

[@HUYI1]

wow that is interesting and cool, and people say gaming is a waste of time eh.

[@PavisGladius]

Wow ty..i did not know that

[@rattlethecages]

Is it time wasted if it's time enjoyed?

[@andrewa3906]

well thought out argument 10/10

[@Luministmusic]

I see what you're saying but I think it's a little bit odd to say that it's a waste of time. videogames can be gratifying experiences just the same as books, films / TV shows, music by a band you like etc. they are made by passionate people who try really hard to make a memorable impact on the user. I think it's interesting that people will happily binge watch TV shows, or read books for several hours a day etc but when someone talks about playing videogames in the same way they are looked down upon. I think that mentality comes from the stereotype that videogames are just a thing for nerds or teenage boys etc, nothing deeper than button-mash machines with bleepy bloop sounds. I understand that not all games are worth investing time in, but there are a lot out there with incredible immersive storylines, visual art styles, music or other content which merits time spent playing. sure at the end of the day you don't "get" anything out of it other than having enjoyed doing something you like, (or maybe some inspiration to make something yourself) but the same thing could be said for any form of entertainment.

[@mparagames]

0:15 Title says "Super Mario World" All-Stars version of Overworld SMB theme plays *TRIGGERED*

[@maxferdy7702]

I think it’s maybe because Super Mario All Stars has the sound font of Super Mario World

[@mparagames]

@@maxferdy7702 Does it really? Cause at least to me the songs in SMW and the all star games sound pretty different

[@AndreasSaag]

I knew all of this already but the sheer perfection of how it’s presented here blew my mind! Instantly subscribing

[@guinetik]

The Stickerbrush Symphony inspired me as a kid to learn to play the piano. I remember loading DK2 and going to that level just to listen to the music while I was doing something else. powerful stuff

[@humanoideric]

shoutout to Megaman, DKC, FF and Zelda music. so good with so little. quiet geniuses of modern pop culture in music

[@rafaeldasilvaoliveira4044]

Aquatic Ambience and Stickerbrush Symphony were always my favorites.unforgettable

[@MrSamPhoenix]

Yeah, DKC 2 has classics I still listen to till this day.

[@jomadmngz]

Your last lines on this video inspired me to don't give up with my school proyect, I have some limitations but I can be creative to get what I want. Thanks, nice video :)

[@cheapnoiseinthehouse5578]

Thanks to this video, I have a Wave station, which is my favorite synthesizer now.

[@baosia]

Oh... I've messed around with music trackers as a kid. Haven't thought about them in years though. This was a trip down memory lane

[@muriloholtzfoltran4611]

this video took me back to the good old days and reminded me of the people that took my SNES borrowed and never gave back. 😍

[@Cosmonautaz]

My mom gave my SNES to my cousin. I had a PS2 at the time, but I still miss my SNES :(

[@varaknus9103]

dude yeah...i shed some tears of profound feeling...aquatic ambience is beautiful

[@DanielQuasar]

I didn't want the episode to end! I wish this dived even deeper.

[@supahstarclod]

This is a very well explained video - game music is a fascinating topic and it's really cool to see you guys cover it. The aesthetics are on point too!

[@Nalinalinali]

*you guy

[@ryancarless7921]

This channel always appeals to the Nerd in all of us. Literally all I could think of was the King K Rool trailer

[@flamefusion8963]

This channel is great.

[@straightupkid]

One of THE BEST channels on youtube.

[@TimReviewsEveryNAWiiGame]

Going to be honest: the smash version of Gangplank Galleon kinda sucked. Lacked atmosphere of the original and had the weird rapping bits that don't fit at all.

[@GrayderFox]

Honestly, it struck me as more of an anthem for the series as a whole than anything else. It tries to fit all those influences in.

[@zanzanzanzan]

Agreed. It's become obvious that Nintendo hasn't really properly clued into how revered those games are for their tone.

[@ButterflyKenzo]

You always have amazing, thoughtful videos that dive into the complexity and beauty of writers and creators. I’m such a fan of videogamedunkey, id love to see you break down the brilliance and comedic style of his videos. Thanks for making great content that I look forward to watching every week. ❤️

[@cutcc]

Man people back in the day were super dedicated and resourceful--I love it. Very appreciative of their hard work =).

[@BoxheadRoss]

I just realized he used a song and footage from Super Mario All-Stars when he put up the Super Mario World title

[@HE360_Games]

Oh man, Super Nintendo was first time I heard full stereo orchestral music on a console and it was soooooo COOOOL! This takes me back to when I first played "Zelda: A Link to the Past" and "Contra III." It was an AWESOMEEEEE experience playing those games back then and blasting them through the stereo!! Listening to the music was partly why I even bought a Super Nintendo back then!!

[@ModernDayGeeks]

To this day any old Nintendo game soundtrack can be such a bop no matter what. Wonderful video showcasing SNES' amazing contribution to video game OSTs!

[@Oogs777]

Loved the editing of this video.

[@gedeonnunes5626]

Aquatic Ambiance sounds a lot like a Beach House song. ...or should I say Beach House songs sound a lot like Aquatic Ambiance?

[@lashtal]

Saw an interview with David Wise, said he used a Korg Wavestate (the original one, obviously) for "Aquatic Ambience". The wavestate lent itself to evolving musical textures, as opposed to static notes, sans-modulation. Hence the dynamic capacity for that piece particularly, which is something we hadn't really heard in a video game of that time- and it made the level so much more Immersable! David Wise also said that he was able to actually PLAY the game prior to composing any music for it, so he could get a FEEL for how it felt. I think that was a huge takeaway for any composer, who wishes to succeed when it comes to composing music for a game. See how it FEELS mechanically, to get a much bigger picture of where/how the music itself will compliment the overall piece. Edit: just wrote about the wavestation before seeing it in your video. But yeah... right instrumentation, right composer, perfect soundtrack.

[@hyperTorless]

Great video, very instructional ! I admire Mr Wise's work because it's not only a musical performance, it's also a technical performance -- and the two go together very beautifully.

[@CookieThug]

0:51 i love how Donkey Kong is getting jiggy with the legendary music

[@lifeiswonderful22]

Lets just talk about how David Wise is a legend.

[@alfredschlicht2662]

Misleading title, tho I love me some Mr Wise godly composition, this video didn't really give the information on how music was made in SNES. Disappointing video seriously.

[@BigOlSmellyFlashlight]

music tracker

[@thejasonknightfiascoband5099]

@@BigOlSmellyFlashlight thanks for mentioning that. I've never heard of that before. I'm gonna spend the next month Rain Manning out on that software.

[@AlbertHariken]

OMG... Is there any video here on YT that explains this correctly? Now, I really want to know ...

[@halonothing1]

They didn't use trackers.

[@whirlipede2084]

This is pure gold, great channel.

[@NoBody-nu6kx]

"Restrictions breed creativity". Great words of wisdom which can translate to many different circumstances

[@TudBoatTed]

Talk to Earthbound

[@ivang3021]

Smaaaash!!

[@Vincent43746]

Pokey means business

[@clarissamcpigeon7857]

Earthbound is honestly the craziest game I think I have ever seen. Holy shit is it insane.

[@TudBoatTed]

@@clarissamcpigeon7857 that's what makes it my favourite game of all time!

[@KrazyProductions]

Pokey Means Business is amazing, I can't believe it was run on such console

[@xmlthegreat]

There's something of an error in the video. When you say that 64kb of RAM had to hold all the music of the game, that's obviously untrue. The ROM/Cartridge had a maximum possible size of 128 Mbit or about 16 MB. The entire game would be stored in this size, but most games were 48Mbit or 6 MB in size. The various game development departments would have to compromise and compete and negotiate space for their respective space and layout requirements. Thus there was not a fixed size of space available for music storage on the cartridge. But while the system was running, the 64 kb limit was present for files to be loaded into the DSP memory. The rest of the video is accurate from then on. I'm not a highly knowledgeable person about electronics, so I am myself puzzled as to what the exact reason is that the memory couldn't simply be read constantly, but the most likely explanation is that the SMP didn't have DMA, so it would have to interrupt the main processor to constantly access the ROM. I am probably completely wrong on this....

[@kronbison]

Was thinking the same thing. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Super_NES_enhancement_chips#frb-inline

[@ThomCote88]

I don't actually know how it worked on the SNES, but yeah his statement sounded very wrong when he said the entire soundtrack had to be 64kb or less -- my guess would be that all the samples would account for much more than that. It sounded like he just didn't know the difference between RAM and storage space.

[@PetersonSilva]

Yes, thank you. It was contradictory to point out that all music had to be 64 kb and then present us with music that - specially all of the songs from a single game combined - obviously would not have been able to be stored in 64 kb

[@David3Wise]

DKC1, the entire soundtrack was in the 64k ram. DKC-2 had a 5k stac. We added an extra 14k ( or less ) of floating sample data which we used for level specific data. The memory exchange between cartridge and ram was so incredibly slow - that 5k was the absolute max we could exchange. So a total max of around 80k for audio for the whole game. Most of the cartridge went into storing the graphics - and any extra cpu for decompressing these graphics as quickly as possible.

[@xmlthegreat]

@@David3Wise ah, I did think there was some limitation around ROM access. Thank you for clarifying! And thank you for the music!

[@radcowley]

this is great. beautifully put together. subscribed!

[@DammerGuy]

Amazing video, absolutely well done. Love the editing and the way you synchronize the music and different sound effects. Great fucking job.

[@johneysupergd7796]

No it’s not true that all samples , music and sound effects has to be all fit in just 64K, in fact samples can be swapped in & out once needed, heck tales of phantansia even streames high quality voices during music playback in the intro, i wish snes street fighter 2 & killer instinct did this sothat they didn’t had to shorten those voices .

[@KuraIthys]

Yeah, but Tales of Phantasia is a 6 megabyte ROM, and even then I suspect that intro song alone could be taking up 1/3 of the cartridge space. Ultimately storage space became the biggest issue. For instance, DOOM on SNES has a lot of limitations, but one of the weirder ones is that all the enemy sprites cannot turn around - they always face the player. I don't think this is because the game couldn't have had rotating characters, but rather there just wasn't enough storage space to store the other angles. It likely had to fit all of DOOM into 4 megabytes or less, when the data file for the PC version is something like 25 megabytes... The hardware could do more, but the cartridges simply never managed to be big enough.

[@abdurrahmanf.a.5624]

Tales of Phantasia opening : The dream will never die. A game that pushed snes graphic and its sound chip. The opening song even had vocal on it

[@xahdiel8292]

Yes, that's right I love it. That video game over pass the limits. There was an additional accesory in order to play that game, isn't?

[@drawingablankesq]

That was certainly a huge frat for the SNES. I don't know about extra hardware, but if I'm not mistake it used a larger ROM to fit all that extra data.

[@johneygd]

drawingablankesq i believe star ocean used the S DD1 chip for decompressing data.

[@vuurniacsquarewave5091]

Over time, developers figured out how to load samples while the game was actively running, effectively getting around the 64kB RAM limit. You could still only have 64kB of data at any given moment, but one set of limitations was removed.

[@crossfirepeas4548]

"Limitation breeds Creativity" Wow that inspiring quote!

[@MissingNumber]

This was so informative! Whenever I think about SNES music, I immediately think of Donkey Kong Country, specifically, the underwater level music. It's one of my favorite video game tunes, so the fact you even covered that, plus the other songs from the DKC series, makes this even better!

[@YamchaBro]

Crazy that some of the best music of all time - DKC music, was created with such a huge limitation... David Wise is a legend and inspiration.

[@melonyswife]

Super Mario world *music from mario all stars*

[@amonvideos4765]

Disgusted Dedede true

[@flakobatako]

And Super Castlevania IV has music from Dracula X also...

[@gingerwhale871]

Got the feeling you went all out on the animation and style in this one. Verny nice!

[@priscillachant]

This was such a beautiful video, along with the beautiful music.

[@coolbrotherf127]

I've always wondered this.

[@latt.qcd9221]

2:00 "In order to make good music within these limitations, you had to be -creative- David Wise."

[@andrewsprojectsinnovations6352]

Not necessarily. I think Square did an exceptional job as well. Just listen to Celes or Terra's Theme (Final Fantasy VI, link below), or Chrono, Frog, or Schala's Theme (Chrono Trigger, link below). These two soundtracks hold up remarkably well today, and I still go back and listen to them at least a few times a year, usually as study music. Final Fantasy Soundtrack: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jaCln2NqociBo9E Chrono Trigger Soundtrack: kzbin.info/www/bejne/m3W9Y4pmfNWDlac

[@quetalsam]

Awesome video. Awesome graphics and explanations... I’ve loved it!

[@borp6912]

That DKC music is just a punch in the feels

[@subpoena.]

on 4:32 what is the effect called when the super Nintendo keeps getting less and less detailed?

[@Destructor2007]

The image of the SNES itself? That's a vector with less and less detail. Vectorizer or Adobe Illustrator will allow this.

[@4TheGreatHorde]

If you are in after effects its called mosaic.

[@Fingeroo]

If you have Photoshop, try the Cutout art filter, or the Posterize image adjustment.

[@MotobugGaming]

I was gonna subscribe but all the things you got wrong in this video makes me a little worried about the quality of your other videos

[@jamiegreig9699]

So you'd rather subscribe to a channel that gets things wrong and never admits it? If anything having that video only speaks to their credibility.

[@Real_Retrophilia]

A: Then elaborate on that, instead of just saying he's wrong. It's the difference between criticism and constructive criticism... B: All of his sources are in the description. C: If you worry about the quality of his other video's, just watch a couple more, and you know for sure. D: I don't think he's going to loose any sleep over you not subbing.

[@MotobugGaming]

jjledzep I’m gonna watch his other videos now

[@ofonruiz]

Videos in this channel have good production values but they need to put more effort on the accuracy of the information they provide. I like this channel, but if you are looking for better information and facts then try "my life in gaming" channel.

[@halonothing1]

Same. If he gets those things wrong, how am I to know he won't get something else wrong that I don't notice. Also, he didn't really explain anything about how it was done, besides a few vague points. Retro Game Mechanics Explained does a MUCH better job. And accurately.

[@blackasthesky]

Experimented with an old wavestation when i was 12 -- during that time i made Kind of psychedelic music comparable to Tangerine Dream, but less complex. Was a great experience.

[@gradjevinac09]

your style of making videos and knowledge on the topics you cover are amazing. it's insipiring. keep it up man

[@andrewsprojectsinnovations6352]

"...limitation breeds creativity." This is very true, and this is why SNES music always seems to have more "personality" than its contemporary Roland MT-32 (sometimes used for DOS games). The MT-32 is technically more capable, but when developers were forced to work within strict limits, they needed to invent creative solutions that varied from one company or sound programmer to the next. Like each system, each company's soundtracks had distinct, recognizable qualities to them.

[@xXLeandro12]

Really, isn't the limitation who makes breed the creativity far and beyond or something, you just have to make creative things for do something great in the limited target machine...

[@thelittlestgiant]

It’s insanely impressive how *good* a lot of the music on SNES games was, even when they were so limited by that system’s capabilities.

[@thaesino]

Wow. Subbed. Thanks for breaking down the process of how one of my all-time favorite video game tracks was composed.

[@slimpyman]

dude. keep these coming. im stunned at how brief, interesting, and informative this was.

[@Ryanin2D]

"Seownd" -Nerdwriter

[@Pulsed101]

Donkey Kong Country = Best platformer ever made.

[@Viper4ever05]

game was difficult as shit

[@Pulsed101]

Not that hard once you get used to the mechanics. My best advice for first time players, hold the run button.

[@notsunnydaysahead]

Pulse I think you misunderstood donkey Kong country with sonic the hedgehog 1

[@valiko.]

Pulse Very good game, yeah

[@benja14xd]

Or Plok...

[@NuSoul1993]

It was a pleasure to watch! Thank you

[@MrSAP1988]

I greatly appreciate this video, I learn a lot about one of my favorite unit of my childhood.

[@poweroffriendship2.0]

d o t h e m a r i o Swing your arms on side to side come on it's time to go d o t h e m a r i o

[@rawkinghorse]

So this was a shallow, phoned-in video filled with inaccuracies made solely to get people to click an affiliate link. Good job.

[@AlbertHariken]

OMG... Is there any video here on YT that explains this correctly? Now, I really want to know ...

[@thepumpkingking8339]

@@AlbertHariken All you need to know about SNES sound is " Ken Kutaragi "

[@halonothing1]

Retro Game Mechanics Explained. I dunno if they've made videos on music, but everything else on the SNES was very in depth and make no compromises to dumb content own or keep it short.

[@Video-Games-Are-Fun]

@@thepumpkingking8339 nobuo uematsu as well. amazing work on the final fantasy games...

[@lukamagicc]

Lets be honest. All that said, this is still 10000x the effort a Shane Dawson/David Dobrik/most vloggers put into any single video. This is more a David Wise appreciation vid and honestly I ain't complaining

[@Freedom35Productions]

Amazing!! David Wise is A guy I take my hat off to. Great video dude... didn't realise how much effort went into the music production of A game that holds fantastic childhood memories for me and millions of people.

[@fajita2]

Excellent video, well explained and put together.

[@jp3813]

Best video game musical score for me is still Chrono Trigger.

[@nintendude794]

Agree. Though I didn't play Chrono Trigger until the DS port; and DKC1 was my first game as a tot. :P

[@Countdownsmiles]

Batman and Robin on the Sega genesis holds a special place in my heart and ears

[@theorangecrusher]

this all day.

[@davidrieng5198]

THE. BEST. PERIOD.

[@witnesszer0]

i think ff6 was better

[@emmettturner9452]

It’s silly to compare to sample based recordings. No sample based synthesizer was expected to have enough memory to sample the entire song. The individual samples are each a musical element, like a piano key or drum hit, that gets repeated and manipulated to make the song just like you would do it on a synth without samples. The SNES could dynamically load music so the entire game’s music and sound effects were never supposed to squeeze into memory at once. It didn’t constrain composers in comparison to the past or contemporaries; it freed them up.

[@valiko.]

Yeah, if you think about it

[@valiko.]

I guess I expressed myself poorly. I was agreeing with you on the fact that it didn't constrain composers since the music on DKC was "next level shit"

[@emmettturner9452]

ⱵNST Oops. My fault. I summed up my post as “they don’t compare” and interpreted yours as “Yeah, [they do,] if you think about it.” Sorry!

[@valiko.]

Emmett Turner 👍

[@jasondrake6279]

This was really interesting to watch, thanks!

[@mann-nova9392]

Videos like this let me appreciate music from these games that I already loved so much even more.