This Program RUINED Many Genesis Games

The Sega Genesis had a program called GEMS, which helped create music for games. Quite a large number of games used GEMS, even some you wouldn’t expect. Could this program actually make good music, or was it just fart sounds like everyone says? And most importantly, why was GEMS created in the first place?
Merch:
shop.pojr.net/
Our Discord Server:
/ discord
More Information on Gems:
segaretro.org/GEMS
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
0:55 Difficulties with FM-based Sound
2:10 Creation of GEMS
2:45 Fantasia
3:40 Jurassic Park
5:18 Desert Demolition
6:33 Taz: Escape from Mars
7:50 Batman Returns
8:42 Stimpy’s Invention
9:46 Garfield: Caught in the Act
10:38 Aladdin
11:31 Other Games
13:27 Companies That Didn’t Use GEMS
14:18 Conclusion
14:56 Outtro
Special thanks to the following users from pexels.com for the stock footage:
84LENS, 霍天赐, A frame in motion, Ahmet Akpolat, Andrew Hanson, Anna Hinckel, Anvar Tushakov, Artem Podrez, Caleb Oquendo, Cottonbro, Cristian Dina, Curtis Adams, DAV Grup 1, David McBee, Distill, Drones Scot, Edward Jenner, EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA, Ekrulila, Evgenia Kirpichnikova, Free Videos, George Morina, Glen McBride, Hirsh Philippe, Hugh Mitton, Jack Sparrow, Jose Carlos, Joseph Redfield, Kampus Production, Kamrul Chowdhury, Karolina Grabowska, Kelly, Kindel Media, Ksenia Chernaya, MART PRODUCTION, Mikhail Nilov, Miguel Á. Padriñán, Mike B, Monstera, Nazim Zafri, Nicole Michalou, Pavel Danilyuk, Pete Wales, pickarick, Pixabay, Polina Tankilevitch, Pressmaster, RDNE Stock project, Ricky Esquivel, RODNAE Productions, Ron Lach, Ruvim Miksanskiy, Sam Lastres, Sora Shimazaki, Steve B, Thirdman,Tiger Lily, Tima Miroshnichenko, Timo Volz, Tom Fisk, Tony Schnagl, Vlada Karpovich, Yan Krukov, Yaroslav Shuraev
Special thanks to streambeats.com for the music used in this video.
#sega #retrogaming #segagenesis

[@battra92]

Aladdin is like how a world class violinist can make a cheap violin sound great but your average fiddler couldn't make a Stradivarius sound like anything special.

[@beej_tunes]

Thanks to Donald Griffin who actually wrote the good music in Aladdin.

[@pferreira1983]

My boi Tommy! 😂

[@AKablalik]

Camel Jazz go way too hard man.

[@st1ka]

It's weird that American devs had so much difficulty with FM audio considering most Ms-Dos games and arcade gsmes of the time used FM audio

[@yomama9390]

No, most of them sucked ass unless they were coming out of the demoscene. I can do better than they can with the same tools and zero experience. The ones that didn't suck were using paid libraries from professionals that already came with all the tones they needed.

[@Arehexes]

​@@StevenCusicEven the proper Yamaha synths were a pain to program sounds for. So many bands just used the built in presets, or bought preset carts.

[@enemyplayer]

​@@StevenCusicMML is just a language: an abstraction. there were plenty of ways to create sound code without using MML. that being said MML rules: I learned a few flavors for multiple systems around 2005.

[@AURORAFIELDS]

@@StevenCusic you have no clue what you're talking about because everything you said pretty much is false. OPL chips and OPN chips (aka ym2612 which was OPN2b) are fairly similar. OPL chips are simpler and less capable (at least in the early days anyway) and had a difference in how sound was created - but not THAT different. if you know how to use OPL or OPLL chip, it's not hard to learn how to use OPN. the way you program those chips to generate sound, such as MIDI or MML are just different abstractions, they can be platform dependent but they have nothing to do with the chips and everything to do with the tools that were available or popular. Yalaha chips take in commands that are far far simpler than anything like MML or MIDI, and even between chip families are far more similar too.

[@AURORAFIELDS]

further. Some developers on the Genesis used MML-based tools yes, but it was far more common that the actual sound programming on the console was done in a special format designed for each sound driver. we have proof of this with SMPS/Easy Sound which was the default sound driver SEGA supplied for Japanese developers. We have leaked devkits with the tools they used to create the sounds in the games. they DO NOT use MML. Whether MML was used while initially composing the pieces can't be known for certain, but in some cases such as with Sonic the Hedgehog soundtracks, we know this is not the case

[@KNfLrPn]

Was definitely expecting more about the program based on the title, rather than a series of game reviews.

[@sdfasdfgdfghfgh]

yeah the direction with this video was a bit awkward, im interested but still know almost nothing about the program

[@n3onkn1ght]

Yeah, this video showed up in my suggestions. Starts off with the guy telling us to follow him, then just lists a bunch of games he liked while glossing over the thing he claimed the video was about. Not a great first impression.

[@tomothywalker]

Came in here to say the same. And I wouldn’t usually bother, but your general quality of production is really quite good, so keep at it, just focus on your messaging and litmus test the content against this message regularly to validate relevance and whether it supports your assertion or not.

[@joshthefunkdoc]

Having gone through a few of his vids, this seems to be the general pattern =/

[@AltimaNEO]

​@@n3onkn1ghtImma be real, I'm not a fan of pojr. But I watch them to pass the time. Hes definitely for room to grow, though. Like having some background music while he speaks. Or better and longer choices of music clips (one in particular was just a repetitive sound effect).

[@soggytoast111]

Kind of a weird video. I thought this was going to be specifically about GEMS and how it shaped the music/sound for those games. But instead it was just an overview of a bunch of games with little focus on the music.

[@austinreed7343]

GEMS’s farting sound was actually common in other FM-sound-based games from American companies, such as arcade or DOS games.

[@ZILtoid1991]

Pretty good exception for the MS-DOS are Tyrian, Dune, Dune 2, etc.

[@jc_dogen]

​@@ZILtoid1991yeah, cause the composers of those games didn't phone it in...

[@RaposaCadela]

I actually really dig it, I think it's charming. I can think of 720º on Arcade by Atari, as an example!

[@tim_is_random]

“American companies” “American companies” “American developers” “Now let’s have a look at a few random games” (Immediately shows “Fantasia”, a game by Infogrames, a French developer…)

[@Megster_3000]

Even after this game, Infogrames still uses gems😂

[@AltimaNEO]

Which is weird, because European developers were very familiar with FM sound chips thanks to their common use in 8 bit micros.

[@Megster_3000]

@@AltimaNEO well, you can thank sega for ruining the sound of an entire company (Infogrames)

[@Megster_3000]

@@AltimaNEO there's also domark (now Eidos) who used gems on some games like... Mark's magic football

[@opa-rappa]

Bro said GEMS ruined many Genesis games despite having only one example for it

[@PilaCiu]

Oh, the good (bad) old GEMS driver! It sounds like crap because composers were lazy, listen to something from Howard Drossin. He was one of the best GEMS composers.

[@pojr]

True. There were some games that had good music despite using GEMS.

[@Adamtendo_player_1]

Howard Drossin also did the soundtrack for a relatively unknown game called The Ooze.

[@AURORAFIELDS]

@@pojr honestly annoying you say "despite". GEMS was a great program for music on the system, better than what the Japanese got from SEGA. it's technically well made and has fsr greater capabilities. all the while being easier to use. I'd say despite how great GEMS was, a lot of developers failed to use it's potential for great music

[@megamix5403]

Dude, you are sleeping on the Vectorman soundtrack. That is a very good example of a game that not only uses GEMS but also utilizes it to its full potential. Tidal Surge is an excellent example of this. See or rather hear for yourself.

[@CKT1138]

I was about to post this. Vectorman has one of the ALL TIME BEST soundtracks on the console and was a Blue Sky developed GEMS game

[@MSOGameShow]

Surprised he didn't mention Vectorman given how he mentioned Blue Sky.

[@CKT1138]

@@MSOGameShow I scratched my head when he was like "Jurassic Park is one of Blue Sky's best games". Ehh, I mean, if you ignore the two best games they made, maybe.

[@AURORAFIELDS]

Vectorman definitely didn't utilize it to it's full power, but it's one of the best examples of utilizing the sound chips and GEMS well. Really hate when people say GEMS is bad because arguably it's actually much better than what the Japanese had to work with. well made tool with very much potential, only issue is that a lot of the talented musicians came from Japan who had frankly terrible tools to work with. We needed more hits like Cool Spot, Aladdin and Vectorman to make GEMS shine

[@AltimaNEO]

And it was by Blue Sky! It has some killer music.

[@davecool42]

Would be great if you did a deep dive into GEMS itself rather than the games which used it.

[@bruceleeharrison9284]

I agree. For a video about audio, there is a surprising lack of actual music.

[@DudeWatIsThis]

@@bruceleeharrison9284 Guess why there's a lack of music. Fucking youtube. I want old youtube back.

[@pferreira1983]

@@bruceleeharrison9284 It would have been nice to get some reference.

[@S0meb0dy728]

@@DudeWatIsThisold good new bad 🦍

[@justburner]

@davecool42 Yeah, it's a shame... while it was an entertaining video i really wanted to see why GEMS "ruined" them by showcasing the program itself, instead we got a misleading title... well, it's not unsurprising really since YT nowadays is all about click-baits :/

[@FeralInferno]

One of the worst offenders was X-Men on the Genesis. The fart noises was strong with that one! Haha. Cool idea for a video, Pojr!

[@pojr]

Namco could release Super Pac-Man if they wanted, but maybe they didn't because of how unpopular it is.

[@waverazor]

from time to time i still hum to myself some xmen music.. like stage 2

[@StormsparkPegasus]

And the polar opposite of that (some of the best music I've ever heard on the system) is the Sunsoft Batman game. It didn't use GEMS though.

[@cfothough]

@@StormsparkPegasus Time Trax soundtrack may be one of the few OSTs that match Batman in terms of quality

[@31leoceara]

I actually like some of the music in X-men. There are other games with MUCH worse Gems fart music.

[@dava00007]

I recall the early days of the Genesis being amazed by the sound (especially music)... then sometime in 1991 so many games started to sound "farty", it was unbearable and made it sound very annoying... especially with the brand new SNES's sound capabilities. This program killed music on the Genesis, they should have put a decent set of default instruments instead the the farts collection.

[@pojr]

You nailed it.

[@matthewjohnson1891]

Like sonic spinball

[@IntegerOfDoom]

Reminds me of AdLib for DOS games. Really lazy translations made most things harsh and farty. FM didn't have to be done like that.

[@pferreira1983]

SNES sound was pretty bad though.

[@ssg-eggunner]

​@@pferreira1983the SNES had everything to go well except that Sony cut corners with the Sample RAM Which is why SNES sounds like utter garbage no matter what

[@wichordzmty]

The problem was not the GEMS, some lazy developers were.

[@SylveonTrapito]

It´s all in the talent of the composer. Varios of the best soundtracks on the Genesis uses Gems

[@pojr]

100% true. GEMS was a good program if you knew how to use it. Not everyone did.

[@sam_bibly]

you made this whole video to make me listen to you saying "farts" over and over first thing in the morning. admit it.

[@pojr]

LOL

[@LeReubzRic]

Admit it now. ​@@pojr

[@BenHughes81]

I had no idea the bad quality audio was simply due to not knowing how to utilize it properly. I thought much of the audio was just supposed to sound the way it did. That might also explain why audio on some of those Genesis mini consoles, official or bootleg, don't have proper sound. I had to shut off one I had as soon I tried to play Sonic 1. The music was so much worse than the cart.

[@litjellyfish]

It’s both. The Genesis sound chip was not bad at all. But it had a bit harsh tone

[@Aeduo]

For similar reasons, the chip itself is just difficult to emulate as well. It's difficult to predict how something may sound coming from it because the way it works is unintuitive.

[@waterheart95]

@@AeduoActually the genesis audio system is standard for the time. FM Sound Synthesis was used in Arcade and Pc games at the time also. The genesis was considered flexible and rather good for the time. Emulation of the chip isn’t easy but it’s not too hard now since the documentation and resources exist for accurate sound emulation.

[@Aeduo]

@@waterheart95 PC games which supported FM were just using some crusty translation from some common format so it tended to sound like crap. Arcade used it a fair bit true.

[@dekoldrick]

I'm surprised you didn't mention SunSoft. They were the king of chip tunes for both the NES and Genesis.

[@Melf00]

I have two comments about the origins of the GEMS driver that should be mentioned. It wasn't a "desperation" move by SOA, as the idea actually originated with former Epyx composer Chris Grigg. He argued that a dedicated sound program would be more efficient than typing everything in hex code and converting it. He proposed creating software that would allow the Genesis and a PC to work together as a MIDI synthesizer. American programmers didn't use GEMS because they didn't know how to use the Genesis sound chip. They were quite capable, actually. The reason for GEMS was the lack of English-language documentation for the Genesis at the time, most of which wasn't even official. For instance, Jonathan Miller said that the only documentation he received for the FM synthesizer chip was a hand-written memo note in Japanese. Many composers simply didn't have access to the advanced features of the soundchip because of the language barrier and cooperation from Sega Japan, so they made a driver themselves.

[@iwanttocomplain]

People have to stop blaming Japan for everything. You're only really going on heresay. The YM OP range of chips had been around for a while and they all work the same way. Any composer working with the Yamaha FM chips should be well versed by at least 1991. Which include a range of computers, arcades and pro audio equipment, as well as Adlib and Soundblaster from 1987. Although PC-DOS music is all general midi standard, so drivers tended to be designed for simple reading of midi files, which were composed in a way to be as compatible with 3rd party midi instruments and not any specific YM chip. Unless you were Delphine and insist on epic FM music, you tended yo just operate within the presets. No fancy lfo or envelope nonsense. But yet the UK devs seems so much better and it wasn't all Krisalis. Or was it? Maybe it was a bit.

[@Melf00]

@@iwanttocomplain I'm going on what the people who actually developed GEMS told me themselves, so I think it has more weight than just being heresay (although the lack of English-language documentation for Genesis was a common problem overall early on). I don't think it's just "blaming Japan." Yes, SOA did a lot wrong, but SOJ wasn't perfect and made plenty of mistakes of its own. Griggs and Miller weren't SOA employees or executives.

[@iwanttocomplain]

@@Melf00 Look. Just don't make this a race thing ok.

[@Melf00]

I'm not sure what you're referring to.

[@iwanttocomplain]

@@Melf00 SoJ this Nakayama is a dick head that. Kalinski is a greek god that. It's super clear to me that Kalinski might well be one of the worst managers of all time.

[@DrMechano]

This was an interesting video and I really enjoyed learning about GEMS, your narration was very good as well. If I have one criticism, you really didn't let the music samples play for long enough for me to get a very good idea of how each game's music sounded. I understand if this was to avoid copyright detection, but yeah. Other than that, still a solid analysis, really enjoyed it.

[@chadbertrand1460]

An enjoyable watch, though the video title doesn't really reflect your conclusions concerning the use of GEMS.

[@thedrunkmonkshow]

If people knew how complicated FM synthesis and algorithms were especially with the Yamaha chips back in the day then they would have a lot more appreciation and gratitude for what those composers went through in building decent songs and sound effects on the Genesis. But yes, many of the Japanese game developers had cut their teeth on the Japanese computers in the mid to late 80's like the PC88 and PC98 that contained Yamaha chips similar to the one used in the Genesis. Many of them also had relationships with Japanese Arcade machine programmers who gave insight, documentation and offered tools to make crafting the sound easier. The only Western company I can think of that had Yamaha experience was Atari Games and that's why their Genesis Tengen ports sounded so good. Anyway, GEMS was a massive time saver and if you're an upstart company on a budget back then, you don't have time for the composer to reinvent the wheel or waste time fiddling with FM settings...you are trying to get your game finished by deadline, out the door to manufacturing, and on the shelves in a few months to hopefully recoup the investment.

[@TylerInTraining]

As a synth player, can confirm.

[@Roxor128]

I implemented a basic 2-operator FM synthesiser in PureData comparable to a single channel of an OPL2 chip. It ended up with over a dozen controls to play with. So, yes, I can confirm the complexity adds up pretty quickly. I think I spent more time positioning sliders and other interface objects on the screen than making the actual synthesis logic.

[@thedrunkmonkshow]

@@Roxor128 Yes indeed! I've never used PureData before but I have experimented with a VST called OPNPlug which is identical to the YM2612 in the Genesis and a tracker called Furnace that supports the Genesis chip. The YM2612 is like a cousin to the OPL2 where it's limited to only sine waves and has 6 channels instead of 9, but the tradeoff is each channel is 4-operator and 8 different algorithms which leads to a bigger variety of sounds. But, with more operators and algorithms comes more tweaking and time investment. Another tradeoff with the YM2612 is the 6th channel doubles as the DAC that plays audio samples like voices or drums. As it plays a sample though it cannot play FM so you temporarily go from 6 melodic channels to 5. So some composers would flip-flop and actually pack in a few notes in-between the drum samples hitting on the down beat which is insane lol. 😃

[@luisedgarf]

I also want to add that Japanese xenophobia and racism against western developers was also a fact for Sega (and other Japanese developers of the time, like Nintendo) to withhold vital development information for their consoles to non-Japanese creators, hence why Sega had to develop a low-rent solution for western developers to create music.

[@eucalipto9724]

i think thats gatekeeping information to maintain and defend their position in the gaming industry (a common corporate practice in all industries), more than "xenophobia and racism" tbh... but you can interpret it as you want

[@luisedgarf]

@@eucalipto9724 Maybe you are right, but keep in mind, at least in the 80s and 90s, it was considered "normal" (at least in that era) for Japanese VG companies to withhold the complete information of their consoles to western developers, while the Japanese ones had complete access of that info without any problems, partly because of the aforementioned problems, and partly because they thought western developers were inferior to them, a feeling shared with many people, including western players, in that time. This kind of mentality was the reason why many people mocked (and with a good reason, at least in this case) the Atari Jaguar, an American console, and the MAIN reason why the Xbox brand had an uphill battle at first in order to show that an American console can produce good games.

[@chillbizz74]

That is so petty of Japan, I thought they were ok but not this low.

[@jamesprumos7775]

Then of course you have Sega of Japan jealous that the console was successful in North America and not Japan, so they made the Saturn specifically to appeal to Japan at the expense of other markets...

[@n3onkn1ght]

I find it hard to believe a company founded by Americans to serve US military bases in Japan would be racist against Americans.

[@iwanttocomplain]

GEMS is most noticeable by the way it makes music. It is based on the general midi standard, which is 128 instrument 'patches' that are a standard used by all products which use midi, which will have pre-made patches to fit whatever number instrument is being asked for by the midi composition file. So a grand piano can be approximated across any digital instrument, using the midi interface and protocol and file type. So when a musician composes music using GEMS, they are able to attach a standard midi keyboard and write music, which can be played back using the GEMS sequencing playback capabilities, another piece of software that doesn't need writing, along with the drivers to generate the FM sound itself. The Adlib sound card came out in 1987 but before that even, was a Yamaha MSX style computer with a similar chip to the YM2612, maybe 6 channel, 4 op and with sequencing and sound design software and a UK game musician, I think Matt Furniss, used to sell them before he became a composer. The main reason that GEMS music sounds different is also the reason EA music is also a bit different and it's that they are using a stock piece of software which is designed for quick compositions. The GEMS driver did in fact have a feature rich environment for sound design, as well as cues for altering music in various ways for an interactive soundtrack, which nobody used. The point is, GEMS made it easy to write music quickly (despite it's instability). You choose your instruments, write some melodies and drums and it's ready. How this style of music differs to writing music using say your own custom software or a complicated tracker or just writing in machine code in a wall of asci text in software you helped write. When you use midi, you disconnect yourself from the hardware and it's potential. In terms of sonic range and palette, to pushing the technical capacity. Something very achievable on this old, raw to the bone programming a Genesis needs. The YM2612 can be run by the Z80 or the 68K and can have up to 14 channels if you include the psg. People write techno music in trackers. In fact trackers made all the 8bit music and all the 16bit dance music. Trackers became a fairly popular product in the past few years for the reason that it lends itself to long form compositions with an ease of adding effects and pitch bends and such with a very quick workflow and overview and speed of 'chaining' sections or patterns to form the final composition. When you use a text based interface rather than a traditional stave, you have access to more additional effects and techniques that are awkward when you're using a mouse to move notes on a screen. This is how you get the awesome technical compositions of Technosoft and Konami. They understand the potential of the format of an fm synth, which is how they understand how to write suitable music that plays to it's strengths. A favourite sound driver of mine is the Krisalis driver from uk studio of the same name who were a contractor who would cover all your Mega Drive sound needs. Vic Tokai wrote a fabulous driver and Socket is a joy to listen to. Because the FM synth is a strange and arguably complicated thing. But if you have a driver in place and have been tutored on how it works, most composers should not have to spend too long understanding the software. But GEMS is perfectly fine software. It just limits the finite control of the chip and encourages a particular type of compositional style that is synonymous with midi, and that trait is simple musical expression, with limited flourish or nuance, stemming from the working environment of staves and a fully linear sequence of notes, without complex pattern sequences or a broken out visual layout with fast access to advanced, note per note editable characteristics such as instrument, note on/note off, fades. echo. effects (such as additional lfo to apply to attribute/s of the fm patch). The potential of the FM chip here is not something that can really ever be realised, as a 4 operator FM channel offers unlimited sound design potential with 4 algorithms to alter the way the operators interact and 8KB of aram on the Z80 or more if you use the 68K cpu as a controller instead of the standard Z80 sound controller. There are any number of ways to go about programming an FM sound chip and none of them are easy. But people are still writing drivers for the YM2612. I think chiptune artist Remute wrote a driver for it. You can just use Deflmask free tracker software which give some good sound design and sequencing tools which should be enough for most people. A new driver has been released only recently which is the most famous, 'XGM2'...? I think this is why people still like composing for the YM2612, which has two products available based on it for a consumer and professional market, respectively as physical modules, instruments called Mega FM and a much newer one too reviewed by Lord Carnage who made a terrible tune on it. But I like how people are making music for this chip like crazy right now. It's very interesting to explore the palette or re-write classics like Blue Monday or arcade hits, using various different software and methods to get different results. Enjoy this rendition of XEXEX using a modern driver, splitting the pcm channel into 4, 14Khz channels for one shot notes (which cannot be pitch shifted as per a rompler so must use a new sample for each different note) and other tricks such as splitting channel 3 into 2, 2 op channels (instead of 1, 4op channel) and other refinements to enhance the capabilities of the chip. kzbin.info/www/bejne/oWGzp52tptl7p6s kzbin.info/www/bejne/Zp6kpYyQnMSfobM Have you listened to the music for Psycho Pinball? It's a very distinctive tracker sound and Epic Games were also lovers of the tracker, which they used in the Unreal Tournament soundtrack, as opposed to the standard cd redbook audio. You probably heard the Time Trax unused Genesis ost which uses a driver which was only used on that ost which wasn't even released. So oh well, but it shows that a British developer can make a new Genesis sound driver in pretty short order. The EA driver was written by Rob Hubbard who was famous for C64 music and also is British. But he moved to America to work for EA. I think Rob is obsessed with distorted guitars. Ecco the Dolphin was made by Novotrade, from Hungary and Sega of America in support and consulting and the soundtrack is GEMS, with major contributions by Spencer Nilson of STI. The founder of Novotrade actually came up with the idea for Ecco the Dolphin himself. I can't get enough of Mega Drive music and the YM2612. It is a very well design music chip. With clear channel and frequency separation and frequency response, it's almost impossible to f*ck it up. I really enjoy many GEMS soundtracks, for instance, Ahhh! Real Monsters is really enjoyable to listen to. The reality is that GEMS and the FM chip have been unfairly maligned and it might be something to do with a rival fanbase and their most vocal and inflexible opinions on certain matters involving who's is bigger. "Of _course_ everyone _knows_ the SNES blah blah blah". But GEMS isn't ruining games any more than the guitar ruined bad songs. I'm starting to warm to GEMS and it's inexplicably and irrationally heavy use of the Marimba preset.

[@vinisasso]

I agree to your point. Only innacurate information here is the number of channels the chip is capable of reproducing. The Genesis/Mega Drive had a total of 10 sound channels available. 6 FM channels, being the last channel capable of sample playback by turning on its PCM mode (optional. You can use it as a sixth FM channel if you wish). And the remaining 4 channels are PSG. This if you don't split the PCM into more channels by using a proper driver, as you pointed out.

[@iwanttocomplain]

@@vinisasso the psg chip can be set to play a sample but that fully occupies the Z80 though. I was being accurate with my number of potential channels on a stock Genesis. But, technically, channel 3 can split it's operators into 4 simple sines that aren't mathematically related. So if you count channel 3 and 6 as four channels each, including the psg is 16 channels potentially.

[@vinisasso]

@@iwanttocomplain oh, I see...that feature of the third channel...I heard about it before, not sure if I ever saw that happening in a commercial game, this is why I didn't count them. Regarding the PSG, that's true. After Burner II plays its drum samples with this feature, and it's not too terrible IMO. You know many games where regular PCM samples (played back from the FM channel 6 DAC) sound too scratchy and quite compressed already, but anyway, this also tells us a bit about the phenomenous potential of the sound chip.

[@iwanttocomplain]

​@@vinisasso I don't think the de-syncing feature of channel 3 was well documented. Modern drivers push to potential of the system like XGM sound driver. I'm unclear if the psg can be split into multiple channels. But channel 6 can by reducing the frequency and multiplexing the playback. PCM playback wasn't that easy. Early drivers might struggle. Other's might give you pin perfect reproductions on their first attempt. Generally space was saved by reducing the frequency from an 8bit sample. This wouldn't be possible with a 4bit sample as adpcm is really needed to reduce the noise. GEMS has actually great sample playback. You don't generally compress Mega Drive samples because there is no hardware decode feature for adpcm but that could be run in software.

[@makeshiftsavant]

With a title so focused on a specific subject, I was expecting to learn more about GEMS. I feel like I hardly even got to listen to the sounds produced by GEMS in this video to be able to gain an ear or compare the songs. It would be very cool to delve into what the experience was like using GEMS or maybe even see it in action, compare it to newer tools, show how it was lacking in sound design features on such a robust sound chip, etc.

[@Aeduo]

FM synthesis is also just remarkably difficult to work with, so even if the application wasn't the problem and allowed good programmability of parameters, it's still going to be difficult to get the sounds you want out of the chip because it's so different than the way we normally work with instruments and think of sound. It's more of a compromize which made digital synthesis of complex timbres possible within a relatively low-cost chip (though it was quite expensive when it was introduced), but it forced musicians to work on the terms of the technology, rather than the technology meeting musicians' needs directly. But yeah in professional settings with musicians in the US, we probably had primarily moved on to samplers and wavetable synthesis by the late 80s, with a lot of western productions maybe using some presets on a DX7 as the extent of late late 80s/early 90s FM-synthesis-using electronic music. and yeah writing up a tool for setting up patches and compositions is just probably not worth it in most cases when something already exists.

[@hammersampson]

I’d like to see a video about how modern sound drivers from SGDK compares with GEMS.

[@IntegerOfDoom]

FM synth is an art. It can sound bloody good but was usually not utilized properly.

[@Roxor128]

Easy to implement, hard to control.

[@stuartcastle2814]

I always wondered why, despite the Megadrive/Genesis having excellent sound facilites (just listen to pretty much any first party Sega game for evidence of that, particularly Streets of Rage, or any of the Sonic Games), so much of the music sounded fairly generic, often using the same, low quality, sounds. I figured it was because the 3rd party developers didn't wish to allocate time and resources to enable their sound and music programmers to learn how to use the.console sound. Now I know that's the case. I also know that they had a click and play tool for making sounds/music.

[@litjellyfish]

Issue was that you needed not just to learn the sound hardware but to test it through dev kit was a bit hard.

[@ChaunceyGardener]

People forget that the video games were seen as toys in the West so it shared the same corporate mindset especially in America. Japan early on saw video games as a form of artistic expression but the West was stuck on seeing video games as a cash grab and a fad.

[@ssg-eggunner]

Any of the Sonic Games? I only recall sonic 3 & chaotix having decent instrumentation

[@firerat1653]

​@@ssg-eggunnersonic 3 & chaotix doesnt exist 😂

[@ssg-eggunner]

@@firerat1653 no I said Sonic 3 & Knuckles (The game released in 1994) AND Knuckles Chaotix

[@dyscotopia]

The problem may be with the music editor giving non-musicians a simple enough tool that they could do their own music without contracting a specialist. Most synthesizers of the time came with lots of terrible presets. And the tracker programs used for programming many video game soundtracks were limp unless you knew all the effects. To get the best of them, really took digging into customizing sounds to your own compositions (and having a some musicality and sound design talents)

[@stevendobbins2826]

Pretty sure it's the exact opposite. The goal was to give people who were trained musicians and composers but with limited computer knowledge the ability to produce tracks with the same MIDI tech common in the mainstream music industry. That would also explain why so many games seemed to keep all the instruments on default. It's also why European developers who usually had a demoscene background and Japanese companies with dedicated sound departments didn't suffer the same fate.

[@Silanda]

@@stevendobbins2826 This is like a theory I've had for a long time: video game composers breaking into the industry in the early '90s, in the US especially, were increasingly coming from traditional music backgrounds rather than programming ones. They may have been talented composers, but they weren't well versed in sound design and getting the most out of limited hardware. Software like GEMS helped them compose easily, but they lacked the skills to really take advantage of the hardware. Also, I don't think it's a coincidence that some people have criticized keyboard players from that period for not being able to program synths. Popular '80s synths like the Yamaha DX7 and the Roland D-50 were a headache to program, so most players just used presets rather than creating their own sounds.

[@Larry]

Did the Genesis use the same sound chip as the Commodore Amiga? It would explain why very few UK/European developers used the GEMS system for their music. BTW, you really should consider avoiding using "Very" and "Really" in scripts, a lot of professionals never use the words whatsoever.

[@ArneChristianRosenfeldt]

No, I think genesis uses Japan Tech, while Amiga uses US tech. Though pcEngine is quite close to Amiga and SNES could emulate Amiga perfectly thanks to Sony .

[@jamiewilliamson9829]

The Mega Drive used the Yamaha YM2612

[@joshfacio9379]

is that true? can you tell me why that is? come to think of it i dont recall hearing it in alot of vids. you learn something new every day! and also, hey you!

[@IpfxTwin]

Hello youuuu! 😁

[@anss321]

Genesis uses OPN2, which is quite similar to the OPL2 chip on the Adlib and Soundblaster cards for Dos PCs. The Amiga doesn't support FM music at all, but Amiga devs also made PC games, so they may have gained experience with the chip that way.

[@zabustifu]

I'll be honest, none of the music you played here sounded good to me. Would have been nice to compare it with the music of Genesis games that did not use GEMS.

[@Theepicgaymer69]

Not even Alanden

[@joshfacio9379]

6:06 im convinced that "music" was made when the composers cat walked across his keyboard! lol

[@conr__]

I wish you expanded on the audio. I was curious about the bad examples and what made GEMS so different from the standard music making process. Most of the video is essentially game reviews of games which use GEMS, which is fine, but there should be more information about the audio. What works? What doesn't? How does a "good" use of GEMS sound compared to the infamously "bad" uses of it? I'm also curious about the mechanics of GEMS, and how it got made. There's a lot that could be discussed!

[@Ruddduck]

this video is confusing. The title says that gems ruined the games. except for the first one you've been nothing but positive "good for soundtrack made with GEMS" .you could've showed more examples of bad ones. If you're gonna say that gems ruined Genesis/mega drive then be more negative. my brain hurts watching this.

[@jamiewilliamson9829]

You know watching this reminds me of three SEGA of America games that didn't use GEMS, despite it being used for mainly them and western/American developers. Anyway, those three games are Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. We know Sonic originated in terms of development in Japan, but Sonic 2, Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles was developed by STI (SEGA Technical Institute) which was part of SEGA of America and Sonic Team USA which is also part of SEGA of America. They all use SEGA's SMPS sound drive which was developed internally over at SEGA in Japan.

[@Ramis234]

You didn't really allow enought time for the details of the game music to be appreciated. Still, a nice video.

[@DmitryPuffin]

FM synthesis in general is hard to nail. And Yamaha's original chips had tons of parameters to play with, so no wonders that composers struggled with it. As a music producer myself, I finally understood how to apply FM synthesis after 5-6 years of programming synthesizers.

[@OpticTeadrop]

The biggest reason for the weird sound is the fact that FM Synthesis was a bitch to program, even on full-blown synthesizers like the DX7 (in fact, most artists just stuck to the presets). The primitive interface of GEMS certainly didn't help

[@danmakuman]

I think SEGA designed the Mega Drive mostly with Japanese sensibilities in mind. Both the 68000 and Z80 processors and the FM soundchip along the PSG one. After all they wanted to make easy for arcade and PC developers to port and develop games to their console already knowing those off the shelf parts. FM synth sound chips were the main source of sound for basically almost all PCs and arcades at the time in Japan so of course most Japanese made games sound really good, just like the arcades or PCs because they really knew how to work with FM. But the Mega Drive became more popular in the west than in Japan so the focus was on the library of games developed in the US and europe and as mentioned in the video, the west wasn't too accustomed to FM sound chips like Japan and it shows. Sure it all depends of the programmer/musician to bring the best of any sound chip and tools but if they didn't had the experience and the time (not counting the will) to work and learn of course companies will get the cheapest and easiest solution.

[@Raditude]

“GEMS sounds bad” *proceeds to show us GEMS-based games with great sound* 🤷🏼‍♀️

[@aaronmilic5916]

Seriously? No one has commented on the brilliant ABBA reference POJR made? "Thank You For The Music" made me smile, nice one! I know very little about programming video games but I imagine file size came into play when making music. I used to make electronic music in the mid 90's on "trackers" which had all sorts of limitations especially due to file sizes. There are some composers who can do unreal things with the tiniest sound samples and take up the smallest of file sizes. Then there were those like me who relied heavily on the larger samples and then were restricted by limitations. I think this came down more to the imagination of the composers and also likely the direction from the programmers. You could still hire Beethoven yet tell him to make "circus farty clown music for the kids" and they'd have to do that. Great episode, thanks POJR!

[@alanfike]

I wish we had an NES equivalent to GEMS for music producers. I heard that there is one program but it's hardly MIDI piano roll. It gets the instruments right, but it's difficult as hell to write for.

[@iwanttocomplain]

Deflemask is a free tracker that covers various 16bit chips iir and might do 8bit chips too.

[@anon_y_mousse]

I still need to find a copy of that Garfield game and Taz 2, but I played the heck out of Jurassic Park when I was a kid, as well as the slightly better Rampage Edition, and I love Taz 1. Gave me a bit of a chuckle when you said that you liked the river section of Dr. Grant's levels on JP, because that was the level that almost killed me. It took me months to finally get past that river and I had already beat the game as the raptor twice.

[@MateriaGirl]

So is this a video about the software or a video about short descriptions of games that used it with one or two sentences each about the quality of their music? It's framed like the former but the video is the latter. I don't understand what the point of even bringing in the audio is. This video is not about audio.

[@Real_The_Goof]

Why are your "S" so extended.. like static?

[@ryanjay6241]

Couldn't finish watching. Really needs to get a fucking de-esser

[@PawwzieKitty]

The difference between the bad GEMS music and the good GEMS music is that the bad ones used the default built in instrument sounds that came with the program and just used it like a sequencer without changing anything whereas the good ones edited or designed their own instrument patch sounds using the ADSR and operator editor

[@caiolopezcomz]

I normally really like your videos, but this one felt like it was written by chatgpt near the end. Was it?

[@superstefanmaker2483]

You forgot the absolute worst Genesis song that was possibly done on Gems The Fun House level from the Spiderman the animated series game on the console You gotta listen to it to believe it Like what happened

[@Slime_Bull]

What's the name of the background music at 10:41 and 12:59 Or maybe a link :)

[@markaccino1786]

Was expecting to know more about GEMS and not the games that used it

[@jc_dogen]

nightmare circus and comix zone are my favorite and imo the best gems soundtracks. it was a slightly janky driver, but it exposed almost all of the features of the hardware. the limitation, as it is often, was the user. and for whatever reason few american game composers were interested in mastering fm synthesis despite japanese games consistently showing them up in terms of audio.

[@DavidFilskov]

Having composed for C64, Game Boy, GBA and Amiga I'm sorry I never got to compose for a system with FM. Do you have a few examples of games that used GEMS with "bad" results - apart from Fantasia?

[@h.h.808]

Wait, this video is about in game music, but where's the comparison of music or music at all? Just short reviews about many not so good games. :(

[@shaylanmackay3930]

hey Pojr did you ever play movie batman 1 game on the genesis? just Curious

[@bon7029]

There is a video by one of the programmers of Toy Story that shows how they pulled off with an impressive game, both video and music.

[@SkyPalaceHub]

I personally wanna highlight one particularly underrated game company in terms of game music on the Genesis that didn't use GEMS: Krisalis Software. Pretty often you'll see games made by different companies, but had their sounds outsourced to Krisalis, with music done by Matt Furniss, using a custom sound driver programmed by one of the founders of the company, Shaun Hollingsworth. If you listen to the catalog of Genesis music from Matt Furniss, a lot of them sound pretty different from each other, and all seem to fit the mood and aesthetic of the game; highlighting both the versatility of the sound driver and how talented Matt Furniss is as a composer. They also did music for Master System and Game Gear games, where the versatility of the sound driver is also shown there as a few of them made use of square waves as drums and the noise channel as bass; resulting in some pretty unique sounding music for those two systems

[@iwanttocomplain]

How interesting. Completely coincidentally, I just asked a youtuber from an osciloscope video of an sms track how they made noise into bass and they explained and I nodded politely. I just like fancy words even if I don't understand them. kzbin.info/www/bejne/g2G2i4tvqNqgmpI

[@EmmaMtH]

Jon Miller, one of the creators of GEMS, passed away yesterday.

[@JimHawkwind03411]

To those who still say that GEMS sucked overall: A tool is only as good as its user. Don’t blame GEMS; blame the composer. Tommy Tallarico (Global Gladiators, Cool Spot, Aladdin, Earthworm Jim) is one of the few composers who used GEMS to its highest potential; in fact, he outright said that GEMS is his favorite development tool for composing his Genesis music.

[@pferreira1983]

Yep, he did wonders with the program to the point that music translated to Master System for Cool Spot still sounded great.

[@codes5_real]

@@pferreira1983I bet his mother is very disappointed…

[@pferreira1983]

@@codes5_real I don't know considering his credits and the fact some of the best music on the MD is by him and his studio. 😉

[@Jono1874]

Did tommy write this?

[@pferreira1983]

@@Jono1874 It's not an alt account and makes perfect sense to me. 👍

[@MoltoRubato88]

2:45-2:48 Actually, Fantasia used an audio driver that was pre-GEMS. It still sounded horrible, for sure. I should know because I was one of the kids growing up in the 90s who had the great misfortune of playing that mess of a game and having to listen to the awful synthesized musical arrangements.

[@JB-mm5ff]

Cool vid concept. Would like to see similar concepts -- family basic, dev tools, etc for nes/snes/etc

[@cinestubborn]

that sound effect of "Here we go" when Grant sits on Rapture is quite funny!

[@pojr]

Indeed lol. Jurassic Park had some funny sounds and weird voice synthesis.

[@crummylion]

Nvm the fact Tommy Tallarico is a hack, but his work (or whoever was working for him...) on Earthworm Jim was excellent. Rare instance where the Genesis version was better than the Snes version.

[@The_Future_isnt_so_Bright]

Dr Robotnik's theme from Sonic Spinball is the theme to all my nightmares. Its one of the darkest boss themes ever, and I love it.

[@TheLastLineLive]

Good ol fart sounds 😂 Yeah, you had a composer that didn’t know what they were doing if they got that.

[@pojr]

100% true. It was up to the user.

[@MaxAbramson3]

There's a simple standard for figuring out whether or not a tool is well designed or not. If the average creative cannot get good work with that tool, then it's bad.

[@shaunalan7542]

Your explanations of the games remind me of the narrator from Rick and Morty explaining how plumbuses get made.

[@fintux]

Nice video, though I would have liked to hear also some examples of the music from games not using GEMS for comparison.

[@DJSpaceRetrotunes]

Oh, the GEMS sounds.. Great video man! As for these Jurassic Park games back in the day, I never understood the concept where you can play as Alan Grant or a velociraptor. What's the point? Could you imagine other games did that? Terminator 1 game: Play as Kyle Reese or the Terminator. Alien: Play as Ripley or the Alien 🤣 ...yeaah it would be fun!

[@MaxOakland]

To me it sounds like the bad GEMS music was made by non-musicians. The way the songs are written are very odd but not in a good way and they don’t even sound like the instruments are playing together My guess is GEMS isn’t exactly the problem

[@brichan1851]

A nice video, but this seems more like a bunch of reviews of various games with the GEMS stuff kind of tacked on. The video’s title is a bit misleading because there is much more content on the games, rather than the game’s music and the GEMS program itself. Just trying to offer constructive criticism.

[@crimsonlion100]

You're gonna crush 20k bro. I can see, your channel is about to EXPLODE.

[@AltimaNEO]

You can tell it's GEMS when the music is trying to sound like sampled instruments, like the SNES. Games that don't use it take advantage of the fm synthesizer.

[@PDRich]

Wasn't there also a problem with Sonic Spinball's music and Sega having to abandon the original Sonic 1&2-esque score due to royalties?

[@electropartycat]

Now we need a Sega GEMS fart noise supercut compilation.

[@cuttinchops]

Damn, was hoping to see GEMS in action!

[@stickboybob]

I remember playing a lot of these on my friends genesis and some when I was older but that garfield game gave me like full on childhood flashbacks. I'd almost forgotten about that game but I spent a lot of hours playing the windows ver on my mom's computer

[@thehumbleone1983]

Many of my favourite Sega Genesis / Mega Drive games love Aladdin , Ren and Stimpy , Garfield , Earthworm Jim , so many good games here PoJr you gave us another great video 👍

[@pojr]

Thank you so much!

[@Sly88Frye]

12:11 Okay that one sounds way better on the Super Nintendo. Anyways thank you for this video I now know why some music just sounded so weird on the Genesis. I mean I already knew that the Super Nintendo had better sound quality than the Sega Genesis that is for sure but it sucks that on Sega they had to deal with such limitations. At the very least a lot of companies seem to have been able to make the most out of the software though 12:31 Oh yeah but earthworm Jim that game surprisingly I find the music to sound a lot better on the Genesis than on the Super Nintendo but then the sequel earthworm Jim 2 sounds a lot better on the Super Nintendo than the Genesis.

[@Vanessinha91Pucca]

I still dont get why Sega just made documentation about the native FM sound driver instead of GEMS

[@Silanda]

Because they wanted non-programmers to be able to write music (i.e. most composers).

[@Vanessinha91Pucca]

@@Silanda But it's a synthetic music chip, sadly ppl need programing skills to do music back then.

[@Swenglish]

Even to this day, sculpting decent sounds with FM plugin synths on a modern computer can be unwieldy. It makes sense that a lot of musicians back in the day would default to using the available presets (and it makes sense that the programmers who made the software didn't make phenomenal presets). Different skills. I wouldn't blame the software, nor the musicians. It takes time to get good at a whole new system, and FM is not intuitive unless you force an intuitive UI onto it, which is difficult in itself.

[@MegaManNeo]

Sonic Spinball is one of the weaker GEMS games probably but I find it to find the style and atmosphere well. Spinball in general is one of the games I like despite everyone seems to hate it.

[@thedinobros1218]

Honestly, I feel like GEMS was a pretty good program, it only makes fart noises or sounds bad when it isn’t used properly.

[@phorchybug3286]

Or maybe it's just bad composers.

[@apollolux]

You think the GEMS setup was a nuisance, try being part of the Genesis emulation community before our guy Nemesis (maker of the emulator Exodus) finally found and posted in 2008 quality info for the YM2612/YM3438 audio chip itself! No emulator had it 100% accurate before then, and the closest anyone came until that point was the closed-source emulator Kega, and Kega dev Steve Snake stopped sharing any info he found after he started being contracted by Sega themselves in the late '90s/early 2000s.

[@FluteGamerSouzaLima]

Really liked this video coming from my KZbin recommendations. The Batman soundtrack is really nostalgic for me, I played that game a lot back in the day, never finished.

[@videogameobsession]

Please consider using a pop filter to dampen sibilant frequencies. Words ending with S can be very jarring for those who listen to your videos with headphones. Just some small audio filters can go a long way to helping your channel become much more popular. Good luck with your future subscriptions. I'm sure you will hit your goals if you continue to improve your skills.

[@marcmoore7724]

Arguably Bubsy is actually known for good music on the SNES, but the point does stand because the Genesis version did not sound all that great

[@nightbirdds]

GEMS fell victim to the tyrrany of the default. When they made the software, they created a palette of sample effects and tones as examples. They were meant just to show that things could be customized. A lot of people who worked with it, though, never took things further than that. The ones that did, though, as you heard, got great results out of it. GEMS is a tool, like a Hammer. Having a better Hammer doesn't make someone inherantly better at driving nails. The same is true with audio software.

[@Kimarnic]

If you're reading comments Each time text shows up, there's a little horizontal line at the right side of the screen. Please fix, it's driving me crazy.

[@Nyaalexi]

I've made some very nice renditions of music myself using tbe Genesis. It works well if you know how to use it.

[@sf-human]

The most infamous example for GEMS is probably Super Mario World 64.

[@bizarroeddie1]

some games were identical to the Snes counterparts, but the music was so awful, they were considered inferior just because of that. That Death of Superman game had good music on Super Nes but on Genesis it sounds like someone just experimenting with a keyboard while drunk, it's so bad.

[@TheDigitalslayer]

I recognized this when Comix Zone shared similar sound effects with Sonic 3 and Spinball.

[@SquareWaveHeaven]

I'm sure the program gave access to all or nearly all of the FM sound chip's parameters. A good team will create their own presets and instrument templates to tweak into various non-fart-based sounds. FM synthesis is versatile but some experience is definitely important.

[@AmberShort]

I got my hands on a copy of GEMS. I must say that it is very different and unique than most music programs. I had spent some time learning it and came up with something decent. FM is tricky to work with so it has a learning curve. I think most developers just couldn't take the time to learn FM thus we have a set of presets that are ready to use from GEMS. At least that's what I believe.

[@Lachlant1984]

What are sound and music composition tools existed for the Mega Drive? What did the Japanese developers use?

[@MatiasMishel96]

The only GEMS OSTs I like are Sonic Spinball (Option music included) and the Sega Channel menu music.

[@mahbodkaramoozian6409]

GEMS is more technically powerful than you think. More powerful than SMPS which was used to make the sonic soundtrack. It had crispier samples with no interrupt, Ext. Ch3, SSG-EG, and an actual sequencer. These things were and still are taken for granted because of composing skill issue. Just take a look at Toy Story or X-Men II.

[@pferreira1983]

It really depended on the game. The gritty, rough sound of GEMS could sound great in games like Comix Zone but terrible in games like Batman Returns. Desert Demolition is an awesome example of a licenced game. It's extremely faithful to its source material.

[@gamma_dc8289]

Sonic spinball has a great soundtrack considering it used GEMS Listen to the studio versions of songs like toxic caves and lava powerhouse. It sounds exactly the same lol

[@brianwalker7771]

The explosions in X-men 2 Clone wars sound HORRID! I didn't look up a list of games but due to the fart like sound of the explosions it would not surprise me if it is on the list.