How to make Sega Genesis music (in 1994)

[@Rasfa]

whatever musicians were paid at that time it wasnt enough

[@midinerd]

Whatever you guys are writing with no evidence is way too much.

[@shadoninja]

I mean..... 95% of retro music is terrible and no one talks about it anymore. There are maybe 30 songs that people remember from an entire era of gaming.

[@redboy3643]

@@shadoninja You may be right that people only focus on the good, but "maybe 30 songs" is the biggest load of horseshit. There are more good songs than that in the DKC trilogy alone.

[@shadoninja]

@@redboy3643 There are wayyyyy more than 30 good songs on the SNES. I am talking about the ones people hear and remember immediately.

[@wertyuser798]

@@shadoninja make it 60 and we will not burn your house

[@TommyTallarico77]

Yo! Thanks so much for the trip down memory lane! G.E.M.S. was definitely the best sound driver/editor that was made available to the general public during the first half of the 90's. I absolutely loved it... and this video really captured all of incredible stuff it could to for the time. Before G.E.M.S. (as the video rightly mentions)... we as composers/sound designers had almost nothing. So glad this video was made. It will hopefully be a part of video game history for many years to come. I wish more people documented stuff like this for future generations to learn about the challenges we faced in the early years. THANKS!! Amazing job!!

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

well, "the general public"...it's not like your average gamer had dev kits laying around :P but it was the most widely available tool for American developers, for sure. There were arguably better (cleaner) tools out there, but usually those were super secret and only used by a few people. (Jesper Kyd, Matt Furniss, Tim Follin...each had their own custom sound driver.) Luckily, GEMS was common enough that it can be downloaded and used again after all these years!

[@alexcazares4868]

Thank you for the best music and memories, Mr Tommy ! Greetings!

[@vuurniacsquarewave5091]

Your Earthworm Jim soundtrack is how this engine should've be used in all those games!

[@MasterLinkuei]

The legend itself!!

[@EnriqueStyle]

Tommy Tallarico Just amazing. A big fan of yours since I was little. I used (still) to listen to many Sega CD titles in my disc man that you composed!

[@JonHollandTV]

Wonderful video! I don't get into alot of "videogame music" discussions but I will say that this video would have saved me so much talking and explaining the past 25 years....lol. Thanks for making it and also explaining that even with G.E.M.S. software, it was still 1995 in the land of MIDI and computer-aided music composition! "Easier" was a long way from "Easy". But hey....we survived and have some fond memories and music to share from that era :) Cheers - Jon Holland (Vectorman Music Composer / Sound Designer)

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

I continue to be surprised as the people that used GEMS back in the day find this video! The sounds you pulled out of GEMS really leaned on the advantages of the system, which I respect (and still jam out to) ...even if you couldn't quite emulate a 303. ;) thanks for the comment, glad you enjoyed the vid!

[@JonHollandTV]

@@GSTChannelVEVO Thank you as well. :)

[@MaxOakland]

As a game dev, the mailboxes feature is extremely cool and exciting. I’d love to do stuff like that in my game

[@Arkouchie]

I'm guessing the reason it wasn't really used is that the game dev pipeline didn't usually work out so that the music was made during a period where the composer could talk to the devs and ask them to put in mailbox calls at the right times.

[@strafefox]

Brilliant video! Really cool to see GEMS in action!

[@Weyzar]

I never thought I'd see this channel here lol

[@phantasystar2k]

Your videos are awesome too and the best Ive ever seen regarding gaming history :D

[@strafefox]

@@phantasystar2k Thanks so much :)

[@Awe50meandhumble]

The YM2612 was truly a magnificent force of nature. Absolutely nothing can top the crisp, synth bass-y novelty of it.

[@scottythegreat1]

I describe the YM2612 is a watered down version of the YM2151. Sure, the YM2151 doesnt belong in the same family as the YM2612, but the YM2151 was meant for synthesizers, and arcade cabinets used them. the OPN style chips were designed for computers and consoles. Listen to the difference between arcade machines and the Sega, or listen to a game that was originally on the X68000 computer, youll notice the difference

[@Nikku4211]

The fact that GEMS made Mega Drive music much easier to make is exactly why there are so many games with crappy music that used it. It was often used by people who had no experience making music for video games, regardless of whether they had any general music experience or not. With the introduction of a more efficient method to do anything causes a whole influx of people who aren't willing to put in the actual effort.

[@vuurniacsquarewave5091]

Don't get me wrong, it's great that this allowed composers to make music easier... but too many people either didn't have the time or just didn't care to create custom sounds... that's where the problem really comes from. Some games, like Earthworm Jim sounded just fine with this engine.

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

no shade intended! your comment was just perfectly concise, so it got the center feature. :P

[@MrXabungle]

Mark Miller (one of GEMS co-creators) arranged Tommy Tallarico's EWJ1 tracks for the Genesis.

[@sinistar99]

VuurniacSquarewave music was an afterthought in time and budget behind graphics and gameplay.

[@austinreed7343]

VuurniacSquarewave Games by STI, BlueSky, and the EWJ series tackled it very well. Along with the X-Men games. Most developers didn't, which is why it feels to me like it makes a fairly specific sort of grimy and grungy sound.

[@AveMcree]

The same can be said about today's music.

[@bluetheelf4655]

So, it short, GEMS is actually a very neat and useful tool... only people were really freakin' lazy when using it? Good to know!

[@Assimandeli]

Most likely they had limited time to learn and use it.

[@Swenglish]

FM synthesis is complicated, is the thing (and sample playback capability was limited compared to the SNES, so using the FM synth was practically a must). Synth presets, if available, are inevitably going to get used a lot. It's not necessarily lazy so much as convenient. If you're not already familiar with it, trying to make music with FM synthesis *without* presets (and without some easier to use tools that exist today) is a bit like being a painter and realizing you first have to figure out how to make the paint without instructions. It can certainly be done if you take the time, but it's a lot of experimentation before you end up with anything usable. So if you have presets, or readymade paint, that's gonna get you to the part where you're doing the thing you're good at much quicker. That stuff is made to be used, after all, while a lot of your first attempts at making your own FM patches are gonna sound like absolute garbage.

[@ILikeCornYouKnow]

@@Swenglish If the composers got more time to learn and use FM synthesis, they probably could make some pretty good patches. But they were in quite a rush to release games.

[@Elayzee]

Wow. I would never have survived being able to make music for video games during that era! I have even more respect for video game composers now!

[@drummer4hire12]

Give Demolition Man a listen.....blows me away every time. The stereo imaging is killer....

[@JimHawkwind03411]

There’s an old saying, “A tool is only as good as its user”. This quote applies to GEMS: GEMS is only as good as the composer using it, and a bad composer would blame GEMS instead of themselves.

[@AmberShort]

Tommy sent me here. I just wanna say that this is by far one of the best Sega Genesis informal video. It's nice to see how things were done composing. Today we are so lucky that we have so many tools at our disposal and so much props go to those who endured the agonies of composing until this tool arrived. Thanks again for this information.

[@Aidan_Lawrence]

This is so awesome. A well-leveraged YM2612 sounds so ridiculously good. It's really cool to get some technical insight on one of the old-school sound drivers. Thanks for making this video!

[@DeconTheed92]

I always did think the typical "western" MD sound got a bad rap; sure, it's not quite on the level of custom drivers like, say, Matt Furniss and Shaun Hollingworth's, but there's a real genuine charm to that sound that really resonates with me. Particularly that crunchy snare sound. And, honestly, with a good composer at the reigns, even the unedited GEMS presets can sound quite nifty. Chakan stands out as a good example, as does the original Earthworm Jim. Or, really, anything Mark Miller worked on; even MD Action 52 has a few boppers in it! Speaking of, I didn't know he had a hand in creating GEMS, so that's pretty cool to find out! In fact, there's a LOT of stuff here I honestly didn't know, and I found it all highly informative and super entertaining. But then, that's exactly what I expect from the channel, and I've yet to be disappointed in that regard ;) I really hope it continues to pick up more steam; more people definitely be in-the-know on the ins and outs of VGM (both the tech side and the trivia side), and you definitely deserve the patronage for your hard work!

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

Honestly, "even the unedited GEMS presets can sound quite nifty" is putting too much negativity on the patches. There's nothing wrong with the patches UNLESS you stretch them beyond their intended use, so to speak. In practice this means that the patches become defined by the awesome songs that use them beautifully. (sonic spinball pluck, toejam bass, etc)

[@DeconTheed92]

Oh, no, I agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly; there's nothing wrong with the patches at all, objectively speaking, and I do feel that the "they sound bad" assessment is very much a matter of personal taste rather then an objective reflection of the innate quality of the preset patches, or GEMS as a whole. Perhaps I should've worded that a little better.

[@labdjcxn3xy]

you're incredibly well worded, i really like that haha

[@pikkon899]

It's not the tool. It's how you use it. Whether it's GEMS or something else, Vectorman and Sonic 2 are prime examples of how well the Genesis music can sound. Sonic 2's music is by far the cleanest sounding of the original 4 games. Vectorman is a great example of how to get the most by being extremely creative with the limitations with the Sega hardware.

[@pimastr317]

What I want to know is what secrets Tim Follin was using when he composed Time Trax with his friend's software.

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

Secrets: being Tim Follin. (presumably)

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

Talent and wits I assume :P The same way he mastered the Secrets of the SID.

[@MrXabungle]

Something similar to GEMS but with a mix of samples.

[@ChalkTeacher]

That secret is called "creativity" and "talent"

[@big_b_radical3985]

What about the soundtrack for Silver Surfer? It doesn't even sound like an NES. Follin's instruments made the most of the 50/60 Hz update cycle, regardless of the system. Custom envelopes abound - amplitude, pitch, duty cycle, waveform, etc... Also, cross-pollination of techniques from other systems, like the rapid-arpeggios that were popular on C64. Of course, this technical knowledge was coupled with a genius level compositional ability.

[@thatoneguyyouforgotthenameof]

This is very useful for me as someone who is stuck in 1994

[@StaleWawaHoagie]

Sega Genesis, 2Pac, Are You Afraid of The Dark, Michael Jordan, SNES… We are both stuck.. I don’t want to leave lol

[@KairuHakubi]

VERY interesting stuff Sega's history is so interesting to me because it's not like Nintendo where kinda Japan did everything and maybe someone else contributed here or there.. Sega decentralized everything and tons of their classics were totally western.

[@lobsteros]

True, though back then Nintendo had RARE who also contributed quite a bit to their output. More in the 64 era than the SNES era, though.

[@KairuHakubi]

@@lobsteros well yes of course, and Sega had tons of entirely western developers too, including british ones like Rare. but I meant firstparty.

[@supersexysega]

@bat Thank god that wasn't the case or we would have missed out on most of the major 1995 and 1996 Genesis releases. When SOJ tried killing the system early.

[@ryzmaker11]

that cultural richness is one of many reasons why the mega drive is my favorite 16-bit system. the great support that it got from developers all around the world led to the most substential game library of its time both in terms of variety and quality sega didn't decentralize everything though as most first-party mega drive games have been developed by japanese teams, including late titles such as ristar or pro striker final stage, but yeah, sega did decide early on to establish some american teams and those delivered some western classics such as kid chameleon or comix zone

[@ryzmaker11]

@bat oh no worries, american and european developers know their shit too, they always did. there are good reasons why many of the best games ever are american or european, including defender, joust, robotron 2084, gauntlet, marble madness, dungeon master, kick off, starflight, populous, lemmings, turrican, john madden football, NHL hockey, road rash, vroom (a.k.a. "F1" on mega drive), kid chameleon, NBA jam, comix zone, doom, tomb raider, quake, halo, forza and the list goes on... heck, even tetris and columns weren't japanese games in the first place!

[@TC64X]

This is pretty crazy. I always assumed GEMS was just some kind of bare-bones MIDI converter, but all that stuff about dynamic music/Mailboxes, makes it really cool. I never knew about that.

[@Littleandr0idman]

Shout out to Matt Furniss and his incredible work on Mortal Kombat 1 & 2 on the genesis. Where the snes made a half assed attempt to recreate the arcade, Furniss rearranged the music in a way that sounds amazing on the genesis at the cost of accuracy. It’s a shame he didn’t get to work on MK3/UMK3

[@MJZD_Gaming_Channel_2004]

Is because Probe software were decided to do with other games. So... Sculptured Software worked on UMK3 on 2 consoles instead. Besides, Furniss worked on Street Racer (Genesis) as a LAST chance on music in 1995.

[@TonyTheTiger94]

Bro this is a wicked video, I swear SEGA knows how to really make great music for their games. People might hate on them but personally I think their great.

[@Alianger]

lol, thanks for the shoutout I guess. I stand by what I said though; it was up mainly up to the composer to learn how to make good instruments themselves, which is complicated and the main thing to master with the FM chips, and it seems to have some other characteristics that would lead someone new to the system to not use it fully. Would be interesting to see what the drivers Furniss and Sakimoto used were like. Ch. 3 mode is also good for adding echo and/or detuning to certain instruments, and with some algorithms to combine bass and basic chords in one channel. You can even have bass, a techno kick drum and basic chords like in savaged regime's Sa'eed cover.

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

no shade intended! Your comment was actually a very fair and well written criticism, which is why I cut it off slightly in the video. ;) as for channel 3 mode: GEMS limited you to an unchangable set of frequencies for each instrument patch you created. once you set those numbers at 6:36 nothing outside of the patch editor can change them, which is why the manual recommended using ch3 mode for percussion. contrast this with (for example) defelmask, which allows you to play each operator as if they were their own channel. looking back, I really should have mentioned that in the video. whoops.

[@Alianger]

Cool, I just felt the need to explain myself when I saw that :) This is another great vid, and thanks for the extra info.

[@MichaelPuterbaugh]

At 5:35, the references to being "MIDI compliant" and the "MIDI standard" should refer to the General MIDI (1991) standard, specifically. Before that standard found widespread use in the early '90s, there were no formal guidelines regarding what instrument patches should be provided by MIDI tone generators, nor their organization in the program map. (see e.g. the Roland MT-32 patch layout)

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

Oh, I did not know that! I wonder now if the patches in FMLIB line up with the patch bank of synth from the time...

[@elektrikhd]

I wonder if any Yamaha keyboards would come close to matching up, although I kindof doubt it unless Yamaha was involved in developing the default patches for GEMS. But MIDI definitely changed along the way. I have a Korg M-1 from the late 80s with patches that have nothing to do with the standard 128, although I think most of the controller numbers are the same. First soundblaster I had around 1993 also had fewer bits...I forget if it was 8 or 16, but it was half of what the later standard "minimum" became, so it didn't have the standard 128 default sounds. It got some really interesting results when playing midi files made with the better standards and technology that was around at least by the time of the pentiums (we couldn't afford a new computer for many years). Some of the drum channels turned into pitched instruments, making an arrangement of "The Veldt" from FFVI into something out of a nightmare.

[@ischmidt]

FWIW, Nintendo licensed the entire Roland SC-55 Sound Canvas instrument set (the first General MIDI implementation) and a fair number of early games on the SNES used it (most successfully Super Castlevania IV). They also made an upgraded Roland GM instrument set available to N64 developers but nobody there used it as far as I'm aware.

[@bootmii98]

@@ischmidt So did Microsoft lol but theirs was presumably worse because Windows MIDI soundfont is dogshit

[@GarArtStudios]

Isn't there an alternate program that Japan used which most people considered better than GEMS, regardless of if it was or not? That driver was, for example, used for the mainline Sonic games, right? I'd love to see a video on that. Great work here; very informative and a lot I did not know about. Very glad I found this and I found your channel. This is the kind of stuff I've been trying to figure out for ages. You're my hero haha!

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

That would be SMPS! Not much is known about SMPS from the composer's viewpoint (even the name is a point of contention), but the driver itself has been thoroughly reverse-engineered, to the extent that several modern tools are available for it.

[@tonmaster189]

Many of japanese games uses 6FM channel's which offer 10-bit sound compared to the use of 5FM channel's plus DAC which offer 8-bit per channel

[@k-leb4671]

@@tonmaster189 Did the Sonic games use 6FM channels?

[@omarsoub_._]

@@k-leb4671 they used 5+dac last time i checked (except cd, because cd and pcm audio)

[@RWL2012]

@@omarsoub_._ 5 FM & 1 DAC on the YM2612, and 2 tone and 1 noise on the SN76489

[@thecaptain5962]

Thank you for making this video. It has shed a lot of light on the 2 things I enjoy - music & video games. In 1994 I just got in to college ... Audio Engineering college... so this is very nostalgic & educational. Really appreciate these brilliant VGM composers from back in the day!

[@savvamorozoff9576]

The music in the interview... At the beginning and in some other parts... It's Stardust Speedway Good Future US. Holy crap, I love it!!!

[@megadrivejams4535]

I have it good. The Genny plugin, combined with the flexibility of modern DAWs, allows me to create hyper-detailed covers. I enjoy watching videos like this, because they give me an appreciation for just how much work went into programming music onto cartridges back in the day. Thanks for sharing.

[@airborne501]

This was one of the most interesting videos. A part of game development history. I wish someone would do a documentary on the whole game industry, from 1978 to 1998, and go into the details of how the games were built. I am a software engineer, but I work in aerospace. I know next to nothing about game design and development, yet I have been playing video games since my Atari 2600 games. Thanks for this great info packed video.

[@drummer4hire12]

Demolition Man had an awesome soundtrack

[@Oysterblade84]

No wonder, in that game they ported the bass guitar from SMPS in order to make it sound good. In other words, it wasn't a stock pre-set instrument built with GEMS. Sega of Japan should have just ported all their instruments and FM patches to GEMS so it would have sounded the same.

[@MelsoM_Music]

This video is a real GEM ! 😌 But why this sound was especially heard in US/European games, when in Japan games it was very different and more appealing ? What did Japanese use as tools ?

[@jaggass]

Ive kind of like the poor sounding quality drums. I love the muffled snare sound on The Revenge Of Shinobi.

[@JimHawkwind03411]

DYK: The team behind GEMS also developed the 1991 hit "Spider-Man" for the Genesis, and in some of the earlier software versions for GEMS, Recreational Brainware (the developer behind Taz-Mania) was credited, and consisted of the Spider-Man development team. Technopop, one of the co-developers of Spider-Man (as well as 1994's Zero Tolerance), would spin off into the following companies: Recreational Brainware, Extended Play (Chakan), Foley Hi-Tech (B.O.B., Urban Strike), Head Games (Pink Panther Goes to Hollywood, X-Men 2: Clone Wars), and Monkey Business (Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin [Sega CD version]).

[@SpongeMagic]

Wasn't there a program that was used in Japan for creating FM patches that is considered much better than gems?

[@austinreed7343]

Sponge Magic SMPS. Many developers also came up with their own drivers.

[@whyhellothere3601]

this is such a well put together video! and I LOVE that you put the songs used in the description so we don’t have to go searching for them, thanks!!

[@whact]

sorry to disappoint the people who clicked here, but you can only make sega genesis music in 1994

[@somnibus8475]

Skitchin’ had one of the best Sega soundtracks, and some of the songs were quite intricate. Biohazard Battle was another good one, along with Sonic & Knuckles.

[@neocortexlab]

for example Decap Attack has its own music procedure. One can see it in debugger -- it uses mc68000 routines and not z80 for audio control

[@javiceres]

One thing most people don’t understand is each FM Genesis channel can deliver up to 4 notes (triggered at once) depending on the complexity of the sound. It requires extra programming of course. BTW I don’t recall any game taking advantage of this feature.

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

that's only sort of true! only FM channel 3 can play 4 arbitrary pitches. the other channels have to use multiples of a single pitch, which generally just means you have the option of a few chords. Matt Furniss used this in his Wiz 'n Liz soundtrack. Check out the chords in "Lunar Land" for example.

[@Reivoli]

Thank you very much ! I have been wondering about that very subject for a while now. As for the samey instrumentation, it's really no different than the ubiquitous DX-7 presets in the 80s synth-pop. I once heard a saying, that programming FM is like trying to paint your hallway through the mailbox... Anyway, thanks again !

[@ischmidt]

That saying was specifically from trying to program on the DX-7 itself, which had a tiny LCD screen and a pretty unfriendly UI. Using a GUI DX-7 editor on the Mac (Windows wasn't a thing until the DX-7 was out of fashion) was a lot easier. Also, DX-7 presets showed up more in straight 80s pop (Madonna, Chicago, Heart). Genuine synth pop groups like Depeche Mode and Information Society did their own sound programming in many cases.

[@Reivoli]

Sure, it was probably easier. But, dabbling into electronica, I confess that programming FM synths (even software ones) is often a hassle to me. It's a whole different process than substractive or PCM synths. So, it doesn't really surprise me that it would overwhelm some people who already had to put out the notes and the musical ideas.

[@ischmidt]

Oh yeah, it's absolutely a much different mindset from programming anything else. Some people did it really well (whoever programmed the DX-7 factory patches is an absolute genius) and some didn't.

[@Valientlink]

Thanks for the quality entertainment. These are the kinds of videos I live for nowadays and it's sad that they aren't always so easy to find. So glad this popped up in recommended.

[@null1023]

Man, that instrument editor looks perfectly serviceable, and the driver seems pretty featureful. In fact, it's pretty clear from this video that it's not the driver's fault that so many Genesis games with it were known for that awful metallic clanging, buzzy sort of sound (yes, even on hardware).

[@gru_day]

There is modern groovebox that mimic most of those - Sonicware Liven Megasynthesis. Watching this helps me understand more of the device architecture.

[@KarjamP]

Concerning CC, for starters, the term actually stands for "Control Change" within MIDI, not "Continuous Control". Also, it may be recommended practice, but the standard does not specifically require MIDI devices to follow the standard CC effects, although the standard does say the manufacturer of the MIDI device needs to be able to tell the user the device uses non-standard assignments (something GEMS does quite well).

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

I've never actually used the term CC as anything but an abbreviation. Upon looking it up, I thought "Continuous Control" sounded weird, but something something Plato's allegory of the cave. :P I'll add a note in the description!

[@nafun123]

Wow. I've literally always wondered how all this worked. I produce music and was raised on sonic and knuckles. This made my day. Thanks for all your hard work and research. Great video.

[@decapattack]

Not as good as Tecnosoft, Yuzo Koshiro or Hitoshi Sakimoto's library. In fact the Yamaha was a synthesis-based digital synthesizer. So, if you knew DX7 and how to program as you please, it could give you the best sound of it. Most american games sound like crap because ( i imagine ) of too short schedules.

[@Epsilonsama]

GEMS made it easy for composers without programming knowledge to compose music. It saved programmers a ton of time so there was no need for a sound programmer to take a demo tape and convert it to FM. It was a revolutionary way of doing music it's just that the instruments in the default library left more to be desired and sadly many composers just used the default library instead of using the tools has they were intended, as a starting point.

[@MastaGambit]

There is so much ignorance in this statement it hurts to read If you think american developers have too short of schedules, wait until you learn about Japanese crunch time o_O

[@decapattack]

@@MastaGambit So, it was plain incompetence?

[@k-leb4671]

Most American games sounded crap back then likely because companies didn't recognize and appreciate the effort composers should be taking to make the music. For a lot of games, the soundtrack was probably an afterthought.

[@NotaPizzaGRL]

@@MastaGambit Look up Sega Midwest. No Japanese developer was working under the conditions of that team not even the ones with little money and resources. Then look at how World Heroes turned out on the Genesis...

[@Old_Man_Jay]

Not sure how I missed this video 4 years ago, but it was most excellent! I already knew quite a bit about about fm synthesis and how the ym2612 worked but I didn't really know much about GEMS. This video was a fun watch and very educational for me!

[@murai831]

Огромное спасибо за ваш труд, это как раз то, что я искал. Наверное, вы единственный, кто решил уделить время такой интересной мне теме. От себя хоче сказать, что меня в своё время впечатлил OST в Pirates of Dark Water. А ещё больше в Street of Rage. Недавно перепроходил их на эмуляторе. Это, наверное, самая уникальная музыка на сеге. Послушайте на досуге.

[@WeWillAlwaysHaveVALIS]

Subbed on the basis of this video alone, keep up this kind of quality and interesting content and can see this channel blowing up. Thanks for the excellent and informative video mate!

[@Teabone3]

ECCO the dolphin's music was scary AF...

[@lorikquiin6700]

It was! Me and my dad did tile work on the musician's house. Cool guy.

[@MJZD_Gaming_Channel_2004]

I don't know, but... I personally love the GEMS sound engine. I think you should make the GEMS cover of many games if ya want.

[@BigBangBlitz]

Well edited and more importantly, fascinating.

[@soldi1135]

I still listen to The Adventures of Batman & Robin OST by Jesper Kyd, it's a masterpiece! But there are so many great Genesis OSTs!

[@JimHawkwind03411]

Before GEMS, a company called Artech developed the Sega Music Development System, which could possibly be used in the early US-developed Genesis games, like Spider-Man, Toejam and Earl, and M1 Abrams Tank, among others.

[@BakaCertified]

Thank you so much for making this! I feel that a lot of the tech and development of the games of my childhood are locked away in obscurity & the memories of the people that used it. It's so cool to see it unveiled to fans like me who are now developers themselves.

[@MegaDriveProfile]

Excellent Job! Quality stuff like always GST!

[@johnnybiggs6706]

Though a lot of the technical know how went over my head, as a now adult who grew up with a Genesis in Northern Canada and loving the music so much I used to record it on my Talkboy (yeah, the same toy from Home Alone 2) to listen to on the bus ride to school... this had to be one of the most fascinating videos I've seen on KZbin yet. It also DOES answer why I found some of the sounds so similar as a child. Great work, thank you! And thanks to the composers for the memories.

[@shortcat]

1:43 reminds me of Unity engine situation

[@remotegod255]

I LOVED this video, it incorporated lessons on - video game history - video game music - electronic music history - electronic music production - synthesizers - 90's advertisements - Sega Genesis - old computers - my childhood - all these things I love!!! what a great video, enjoyed it greatly and learned a ton, I'm so glad I found your channel! subbed :)

[@JasonRasmussen]

How was the awesome music of Streets of Rage composed?

[@autumnbrushtail]

Jason Rasmussen I believe Yuzo Koshiro used an NEC PC-8801 to make the music for all of his Mega Drive music

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

Each entry in the Streets of Rage series used a different sound driver, all of them were custom Japanese drivers. I can't say I know much more about them, though!

[@jc_dogen]

With a custom MML based language made by Yuzo Koshiro iirc.

[@Karls_Clips]

It was coded.

[@oldstuff3456]

Before this video, I never knew much about how music was made for the Genesis. But you described it in great detail. Thanks for this amazing video! It would be pretty cool if you released the soundtrack to Spot for Genesis but with all the intended sound w/ two systems.

[@kyuri1109]

He actually did post that video.

[@thorndust5329]

To use it nowadays, would you need DOSBOX, and a SEGA Genesis emulator?

[@thorndust5329]

And does a higher priority play on a lower internally numbered channel?

[@MrFrostCA]

that explains why the sound and effects from revenge of shinobi was a memoriable piece of art of my childhood.

[@SianaGearz]

The Western developers somehow never unlocked the capabilities of FM synthesis, or used all the channels available to them in a combination of FM+PSG. On the ubiquitous OPL2 and OPL3 in PC, somehow everything sounds like shit, probably because everything is written for a Roland sampler and is played back using one set of FM patches. Except Tyrian, maybe Titus (Marrakesh) and a few obscure games like Cobra Mission and Ys2. Any thoughts?

[@xyz39808]

"never" is misguided as there are plenty of examples of Genesis games with exceptional FM design and writing.

[@SianaGearz]

Of course not quite "never", but on the whole, a lot blander.

[@manuelink64]

this is exactly on my mind, Tyrian's OST (by Alexander Brandon) is a true gem/masterpiece on FM synthesis (OPL2), Cobra Mission and Ys2 are made by Japanese musicians, they are wizards on Yamaha (YMxxxx) chips

[@ViddyOJames]

you have a really fucking low bar for what constitutes "shit"

[@ryzmaker11]

+Siana Gearz I have no idea how you can come up with such statement given the numerous US and european Mega Drive games with good to awesome use of the system's audio capabilities (incl. some FM + PSG combinations). Among the most notable you have: -Kid Chameleon -Comix Zone -The Ooze -the Road Rash serie (the 2nd and 3rd ones in particular) -Skitchin' -The Punisher -Gods -Puggsy -the Ecco games (even Ecco Jr. whose soundtrack is fantastic) -Mega Turrican -Wiz 'n Liz -Sub-Terrania -Red Zone -Mickey Mania And many others... And this is another huge advantage on the Mega Drive side: in addition to great support from many japanese developers (Tecno Soft; NCS; Wolf Team; Game Arts; Konami; Treasure...) it also received huge support from many US and europeans developers leading to the most versatile and interesting library of its time. And things get even better if you add the Mega-CD...

[@duff06]

God damn, I have always been in LOVE with that Cool Spot rave song. But only the Genesis version.

[@EpicTyphlosionTV]

I think we need an obligatory "How SNES music was made (in 1994)" video now

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

good news: I'm working on that! so far I just have 8 pages of notes and one spreadsheet. I'm hoping to turn that into a full video *some time* this year. wish me luck!

[@Pr0jectFM]

@@GSTChannelVEVO Is that why you used screenshots from 2019 in your video?

[@adamharris7775]

At 15:54, the Yamaha DX7 ROM-2A patch “Cowbell” was heard.

[@loganjorgensen]

I'd compare GEMS music to MIDI on DOS, could sound awesome but would often get generic or really poor if you didn't know what you were doing. Yeah Genesis, probably the prime example of poor representation through emulation and clone flaws especially the sound. Thanks for the feature, GEMS is often mentioned but you really digged into it. :)

[@Gxpblog]

What an amazing and interesting video. Thank you so much for making this. I Love the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis. Haven't seen anything like this before. Great work! :-)

[@AvSias]

Never thought that making music for the Genesis was this complicated ^_^

[@statiz23]

Mal Cors it's not complicated, it's about taking time

[@TorutheRedFox]

it kinda is complicated but tools make it way easier

[@Grobda]

Excellent, informative video. Nice to finally get a good look at GEMS and what people were (ignorantly!) placing the blame on for lackluster MD soundtracks. Keep it up!

[@BraveFencerLinkMakenshi]

I am going to produce solely in G.E.M.S for now on 😜

[@KarcusKorpse]

Screw that! What's over there? DefleMask?! - This is something a lot of those composers probably said when they first saw G.E.M.S.

[@putzfetzenORG]

Thanks a lot for this video, which gives a very good overview on the music/sound production workflow for the Sega Genesis! Full with contemporary interviews and advertisements, enough footage of the software and hardware setup, and very good infographics. One can get an excellent first impression of how it was and how it worked!

[@putzfetzenORG]

But what about a typical music production workflow for the original Gameboy? I wish there would be a similarly great video on this subject matter. A while ago I had researched online over many weeks just on this. It was hard to find anything useful at first, only after finding some crucial first good sources, my research took off… My hypothesis had been, that either the platform owner Nintendo or the free market must have provided a general solution software or studio setup for Gameboy music/sound production. But to my astonishment I found out, there was no such consolidated solution! The different companies all used their own individual workflows! Directly composing in the native instruction set, music trackers, composing in audio/MIDI studio environment and then letting the engineers translate it into code, composing in sheet music and letting it translate, inhouse software solutions, etc! My most fruitful resource turned out to be Shmuplations•com which features translations of the Japanese Video Game Scene from print magazines of the 1980ies, 1990ies. Searching there for "MIDI, notation, sheet music, workflow, composition" yielded very good interviews. My abstracts one them here: • Interview with Hiroyuki Iwatsuki --- From 2005 featured in Game Kommander (JP) translated at Shmuplations•com -- The equipment was all much simpler back then. For the Famicom, we used the NEC PC-98 series, and you’d create the memory image of your performance directly as you composed. There was no music notation; everything was entered directly in hexadecimal. Then we’d check the sound out either on a real Famicom or on a Roland D-20 keyboard or something similar. Nowadays, by the way, I use a midi sequencer to compose, but I still don’t do traditional music notation. With the Super Famicom we used PC-98s, and a MIDI sequencer called UNYA. The sounds were from the Roland Sound Canvas series, and I think we used a Roland W-30 keyboard. This was sample-based music, so at this time we started gathering commercial sample banks. • Interview with R-Type Sound Developer Masato Ishizaki --- From 2014-03-25 featured in STG Gameside #9 - Translated at Shmuplations•com -- At the beginning we didn’t have sound creation tools, so you wrote out the notation for both the sound fx and music, then manually programmed that data in. For sound fx, we’d take the fastest tempo possible and then program the beat for 32nd or 64th notes, creating an octave effect. Later when we could use sampled sounds, we wrote down the pitch and length of the notes but passed on the actual data input to the programmers. Then, by the time I had finally learned PSG, arcade hardware switched to FM sound chips… it was like starting from square one all over. But I like researching this kind of stuff so it wasn’t a burden • Sunsoft Famicom Music - Naoki Kodaka Interview --- On 2011-06-29 featured with the “ROM Cassette Disc in SUNSOFT” translated at Shumlations•com -- As a composer at Sunsoft, I always worked together with a team. I’d write my songs on sheet music at home and hand them over to the sound team at work, and depending on the circumstances I might attach a demo tape too. Once the technology got to a point where we could do a little more with the music, I’d also listen to the sounds they had selected, and give feedback -- The Famicom wasn’t the kind of “anyone-can-do-it” programming common with MIDI instruments; the level of craftsmanship in a song was easy to hear. -- Nobuyuki Hara was the main sound producer for Batman, Battle Formula, and others. He later left Sunsoft, but he was an exceptional sound programmer. His early death in his mid-20s from a sudden illness was truly a tragedy. He would say to me, “Kodaka, wait till you hear the great sounds I’ve just created! Please write a good song for them!” Then he’d wait patiently at my home office until the dawn as I composed, and when I handed the sheet to him he’d take it and say “leave the rest to me!” as he raced back to the office. I have many wonderful memories just like that. When he showed the finished song to me and I gave my seal of approval, a huge expression of happiness welled up on his face. • Yukio Kaneoka --- 1985 Developer Interview - Originally featured in August 1985 edition of BEEP! translated at Shumplations•com -- When writing the music, the typical workflow is: first, compose on the keyboard, then write out the sheet music, then code that notated music into the program.

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

I've found that "consolidated solutions" for early consoles are usually kept to a single company or musician. GEMS was kind of an exception like that! I can tell you that I find this interesting and would like to make a video about it eventually, but right now I'm focused on Genesis stuff.

[@putzfetzenORG]

Thanks for the info that "consolidated solutions" in that age remained within a single company/musician and did not reach the free market. I would very much appreciate a documentary video of Gameboy music composing in the original day and age, whenever that may be! :-)

[@dreamhollow]

Hey, Sonic Spinball had an amazing soundtrack.

[@tinchovm85]

Believe it or not, I don't play Sonic Spinball since nearly 15 year ago, and sometimes I find myself humming some of their level songs while doing daily chores.

[@EngineMusic]

only the options theme was a vile sack of trash, the rest where good

[@jayperez2660]

You should listen to the sonic CD album version It has a really good version of toxic caves

[@Chillius]

keep in mind that most people experience spinball through emulators which heavily get the sound wrong and also makes the options theme loud, it's not better but on actual console its tolerable

[@Mr.Atari2600]

Sonic Spinball represents the WORST of the GEMS driver? DOOM 32x: *aM i A jOkE tO yOu?*

[@dmitryred3711]

That soundtrack from 7up game struck me with nostalgia so hard

[@madmax2069]

Very few games that used GEMS sounded good, the rest just sounded horrible which is what gave GEMS its bad name, like the fart sounds used for the majority of sound effects. A good composer could make the Genesis/Mega Drive sing and sound awesome even when using GEMS.

[@coolelectronics1759]

great work on the funky late 80s-early 90s New Jack Swing synth jam!

[@uTubeNoITube]

I understood none of this, but it was very cool to watch!

[@fromthegamethrone]

When the song at the end was playing in my head I could hear "two surgeons required in operating theatre"

[@akaiuwu]

This channels so comfy, gives off a early green ham gaming vibe, I love it. Don't stop man!

[@Nokitron]

I just found one of the best channel this website have. I am so in retro music right now, and I have been trying to learn to produce music too with these advantages nowadays give. I wouldn't have had stand the chance if I were in 90s but here's to all video game composers at that time.

[@humanofmicomage6244]

Great overview. I'd love to see something like this for Masahiro Kajihara's Professional Music Driver. It's MML-based, but from what I've read of the documentation, it has some really cool features.

[@lowmax4431]

Amazing. I've been wondering about this for years. Awesome video!

[@L1011Widebody]

-The Sega Genesis always had a more bouncy, cool sort of hip-hop (before it sucked) bassy jazzy feel to their music. The Super Nintendo always felt like they were like.... hey guys we're a tribute band and we sound almost the same as like real dudes but our fee is way less.

[@baloloons]

L-1011 Widebody oh shit hey man, I dig your stuff. I habitually pronounce the word 'secondary' with an exaggerated staccato because of you

[@VolfMark]

Wow, after seeing this, I can't imagine how much hard work went into producing some of the iconic game music, like Streets of Rage, for example. Imagine what some of those game OSTs with lots of channels and samples would have sounded like if Genesis/Megadrive had had more onboard memory installed back then. Great video! 🥂

[@ryzmaker11]

That's awesome! Very informative with welcome inputs from all these Mega Drive music legends. So yeah, I have always been perplexed with the GEMS bashing given all the great-sounding Mega Drive games that use it. In addition to the examples that you already mentioned, I can add: - Kid Chameleon - The Ooze - NBA Jam/NBA Jam Tournament Edition (good music (SNES versions don't even have in-game music btw) and a lot of excellent voices/SFX) - Robocop vs The Terminator (crazy banging audio) - The Punisher (fantastic music and excellent SFX, too bad the visuals aren't as well-made as the audio but maybe the graphics/animation artists run out of cart space) - Battletech (good audio with some sexy voices) And now thanks to you I also know that it was trully a handy sound driver with some nice features. 4:43 yeah, and sadly some youtube channels use (or at least used) these crappy emulators which really tarnished the Mega Drive sound capabilities in the ears of any newcomers that would have based their opinion solely on such videos... 12:44 that tune is awesome but before I watch this video I didn't realize that some parts were missing at some points, I thought it was intended this way and listening to the version using two Mega Drives I actually think it's nicer with the "halted" parts. Also it's the best rendition of this tune IMO, the Amiga one lacks punch and the SNES one is muffled (as usual) and has some bad instrumentations. Anyway thanx for the video. I gonna check your channel but I already feel (well, your introduction logo says it all) that I'm going to enjoy your others stuff :)

[@Alianger]

My favs are probably Ecco Jr., Warriors of the Eternal Sun, X-Men 2, Demolition Man and Pirates of Dark Water. S3 and Ending in Punisher sound pretty great!

[@ryzmaker11]

I absolutely love the Ecco Jr. soundtrack! Fantastic and quite edgy (even more for a kids game, now that's some music education!). Demolition Man sounds great yeah, more dynamic and with better voices than SNES version. Didn't play/listen the others you mentioned so I can't tell for these ones but the X-Men games are classics that I'll definitely play at some point and I heard good things about Warriors of the Eternal Sun. About Punisher, stage 3 and ending theme are indeed excellent and stage 2 introduction + Stage 2 also stand out.

[@darktetsuya]

wow that was a very enlightening video! I always wondered how people composed songs for the SEGA Genesis back in the day.

[@chopperbrosadvance9760]

Great video but you shouldnt have credited tommy tallerico that much

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

lol, hindsight is funny. I'm actually fairly confident that Tommy was responsible for the push to use so many samples on the Genesis in the games he was involved in. I'm also pretty confident that he composed "Dance Ravetune" (as there were 2 songs from that game that were specifically credited to other composers), but even if he didn't, he would have been the one handling the music integration with GEMS in this case. Beyond that, credit becomes precarious...

[@KuraIthys]

It's pretty interesting to see things about old hardware. The Mega Drive sound chip is a relative of those used by adlib and sound blaster cards on PC, so it makes sense that under certain conditions they would sound somewhat similar. And of course, once you start using midi... Even though midi itself doesn't dictate the actual sounds or quality as such (witness the difference between the windows Roland GM/GS midi driver and the Yamaha software synthesizers of the same era... It's like night and day.) I don't know if there is a generic 'sound driver' for the SNES comparable to GEMS, but of course, Nintendo DID give everyone a sample set to use. If you hear similar sounds in SNES games the likely reason is because they used the same sample set. Of course, one of the things about a sample based synthesizer vs an FM synth is that the sample based one can derive it's samples from pretty much anything that makes noise... ... Including, in theory, an FM synthesis chip... And I'm fairly confident that a few SNES games used samples derived from Yamaha keyboards, though perhaps not FM synth based ones... Not that this is relevant of course. Still, the tools used to make things to some extent do influence the end result. This is why for instance, unless people make a deliberate effort to replicate old styles, a game made for one of the 16 bit systems in 2017 may have graphics that would be implausible for 1995... Or, sometimes the tools just become cheaper. Donkey Kong Country used Pre-Rendered 3d graphics. Which at the time depended on absurdly expensive Silicon Graphics workstations. Yet in 2017 pretty much anyone with a functioning computer has the power needed to replicate those kind of graphics easily. Tools. They do make a difference. XD

[@bootmii98]

OPM is much closer. The registers might not line up but the capabilities are close to identical.

[@Storm_.]

Does anyone know how the music for Sonic 3 was made? it was so awesome, was Gems used?

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

Sonic 3 used SMPS, the Japanese sound driver that we don't know much about. The only Sonic game that used GEMS was Sonic Spinball.

[@8SomaCruzes]

But was it really all that more complicated than GEMS? I mean -Mad Scientist- Howard Drossin even worked on Sonic 3, who you mention in this very video.

[@FilipinoWaylon26]

Not really. I work a lot with the driver and it's music. The format is pretty simple, it's as follows. Bear in mind, this post is long, be warned if you're not interested in the inner workings of SMPS. 1. Listing of the instrument samples used 2. Two numbers that indicate how many FM, and PSG channels are to be used. 3. The Master tempo of the track. 4. The listing of the 6 channels. If it has drum track using DPCM drums, it will be listed first, followed by the 5 FM channels. If not, it will just list all 6 FM channels. Following each FM channel, values of the pitch and volume are listed. 5. The listing of the three PSG channels. Each channel is then followed by values listing the pitch, volume, modulation, and PSG tone. After that, the actual music is noted under. How it is written out depending on the driver, as the SMPS driver can vary between each game, however , it usually goes like so. The driver has lots of stuff, not going into detail. However, the actual instructions are made into a list. Usually starting at value E0, each value is the equivalent to an instruction in the driver. For example, in the Sonic 2 Driver, the value to change the instrument used for a channel is EF. So, in your music track, you'll see something written like this. dc.b $EF, $01 This means that at this point in the song, the channel will change to whatever instrument is listed in the order queue. Here's a quick write out of the SMPS track, so we can visualize it. Note, this will use the DPCM for a drum track. RandomSong: dc.w $89F0 //Location of the instrument samples in the track. The location is relative to the start of the track, not to the location of the overall game. dc.b $06, $03 //Number one represents the number of FM tracks used, number 2 represents the amount of PSG tracks used. dc.b $01, $05 //First number is the Tempo divider, second is the modulation of it. More on that later. dc.w $0000 //Space. Don't touch it. dc.w $0600 // DPCM channel location, relative to the start of the track. dc.w $0102 // FM 1 location, relative to the start of the track. dc.b $F4, $0C // FM 1's pitch and volume. dc.w $0202 // FM 2 location dc.b $F4, $0C // FM 2's pitch and volume. dc.w $0302 // FM 3 location dc.b $F4, $0C // FM 3's pitch and volume. dc.w $0402 // FM 4 location dc.b $F4, $0C // FM 4's pitch and volume. dc.w $0502 // FM 5 location dc.b $F4, $0C // FM 5's pitch and volume. dc.w $0542 // PSG 1 location, relative to the start of the track. dc.b $F4, $0C, $00, $01 // PSG 1's pitch and volume, modulation, PSG noise. dc.w $0582 // PSG 2 location dc.b $F4, $0C, $00, $02 // PSG 2's pitch and volume, modulation, PSG noise. dc.w $05F2 // PSG 3 location dc.b $F4, $0C, $00, $03 // PSG 3's pitch and volume, modulation, PSG noise. FM_Track1: dc.b $EF, $01 //set Instrument used in the channel to 1 dc.b $80, $04, $81, $04 //The bigger numbers represent the notes, the smaller notes represent the note length. The tempo modulation from the header ($05) also determines how long exactly is the note length. For example, a faster song will have the modulation set to $60, so the $04, which is a quarter note in this example, will last far shorter than if the modulation is $05. Hope this helped illustrate the format.

[@AdelAlqadi1]

Not Kevin dang. Back when I was interested in rom hacking there was very little accessable smps documentation. Is there a forum post or thread you can link that includes and goes more in depth with what you explained? I'm all of a sudden intrigued again

[@lorikquiin6700]

Michael Jackson wrote Sonic 3's music.

[@JaxCoolKartunes]

Mark Miller actually composed Earthworm Jim and Some other guy composed Earthworm Jim 2.

[@GSTChannelVEVO]

Mark Miller only did the instrumentation ("orchestration" in his words) for the SNES version of EWJ1. Tommy Tallarico's studio handled the composition for both games, with the "studio" obfuscating the actual composers for each song. I *believe* (but don't have any hard evidence to support this hypothesis) that the the songs that use tonal DAC samples on the Genesis were composed by Tommy himself. This video was made before I knew of Tommy's plagiarism but I think everything still hold up. I'm open to hearing otherwise though!

[@Oysterblade84]

SMPS and Sunsoft Custom still sound the best on the Mega Drive. I find with GEMS the only guys that really made an effort were Tommy Tallarico and Chris Braymen, the rest was ear-rape.

[@RedTsarOldChannel-INACTIVE]

Howard Drossin did some cool stuff too(Sonic Spinball,Ristar.)

[@fromsinking]

Awesome, well-researched and interesting video. If I could make one suggestion, your voice could be a little bit higher in the mix.

[@legendsflashback]

A tool is only as good as the person using it.

[@tensevo]

Great insights into the music of the mega-drive genesis - such iconic sounds - thank you

[@BottomOfTheDumpsterFire]

k dude seriously you need like 100K views on this

[@MasterLinkuei]

Very informative Video! Looks like that GEMS is very intuitve like VGM Music Maker (Sega Genesis Music Maker) Keep it Up!

[@alkex1]

You are The fucking man! What an incredible video!!!

[@philmason9653]

Thanks for this! This was fascinating, I love stuff like this. I have no idea why the algorithm took this long to throw it to me. Subscribed.

[@antoniosvideogames1498]

I know games that I have use G.E.M.S. sound driver RBI baseball '94 Shaq Fu Toejam & Earl II Disney's Aladdin Disney's Toy Story Disney's Goofy Vectorman Mortal Kombat 3 & Ultimate MK3 Ren and Stimpy Spot Goes to Hollywood FlashBack Desert Demolition (Coyote and Roadrunner) NBA Jam & Tournament Edition (and Also NBA Hang Time) WWF Royal Rumble & WWF RAW And Evander Holyfield's Real Deal Boxing.

[@sayumi1635]

ワオ it's no wonder why my Sega Mega Drive games sound so different.😐

[@antoniosvideogames1498]

吉木さゆみザ日本のプリンセス Sayumi 🙂yep, It's True😉

[@cinimodder4632]

Don't be silly, Antonio. Shaq Fu doesn't exist.

[@laineywright8212]

Cinimodder yeah, shut the fuck up, stupid ass jerk👎

[@number1fanmyfavoritechanne444]

🖕Cinimodder🖕 FUCK YOU!👎 You sound like a stupid ass anyway.

[@tsinogatorpi]

Tommy Tallarico и Jesper Kyd легенды! Я очень благодарен этим чувакам за те, детские впечатления, и музыку, которая и сейчас находится в моем плейлисте