The SNES SPC700: Mimicry Through Sound - NintendoComplete

[@maxoman8888]

the fact the snes was capable of recreating sounds from consoles that came YEARS AND YEARS after its life is insane. What an absolute UNIT of a console. I've always preached this for a reason, the SNES'es music ages like fine wine. truly a timeless masterpiece of sound hardware

[@squirrelpower1666]

The SNES had a powerful sound engine unrivaled, up until consoles began reading the data directly of a CD. Even today I'd take the SNES audio over any PlayStation ported games.

[@MrBlitzardo21]

It's the power of the spc700 sampling (snes soundchip) that was able to beat YM2612 (mega drive soundchip). YM2612 only surpassed him in toy story title screen

[@Cade_Squirrel]

The SNES and Mega Drive both had sound chips that were able to produce extremely high quality samples audio, what are you on about?

[@kleinergaming2008]

@@MrBlitzardo21 and even then the actual FM synth wasn't used

[@ssg-eggunner]

​@@Cade_Squirrel yeah but ym2612's sample system isnt reliable as s-smp's its just a single channel unless you sacrifice CPU cycles with softmixing The best driver that does it is MarkeyTheJester's Fractal Driver, however it's only 2 channels

[@JamesR624]

Did..... did you just manage to get an SNES sound chip to replicate the sound that can make even phone speakers from today sound hifi? Holy moly!

[@Peter_Morris]

These little bits you do with an SNES sound chip never fail to impress.

[@NintendoComplete]

Just for kicks, I thought I'd try recreating all sorts of things for SNES hardware playback. What do you guys think? How close do they come? There's also a link to the .spc files in the description, if you're interested! :)

[@vgaoct91]

-I know the source material of this quote isn't for everyone, but it's a guilty pleasure for me- "I think you've done a lovely job."-Princess Daisy, SMB Live Action Movie

[@NintendoComplete]

@@vgaoct91 Lmao, why thank you very much :)

[@LPetal86]

I was very impressed! I love tech demos so, so much. This was marvelous. If only there was an octave lower for the PS1 start up. :)

[@d_valroth]

The SPC700 is one of my favorite pieces of hardware. It's literally capable of more than the SNES could ever get out of it, since it was, of course, meant to link up with the PlayStation. Yuzo Koshiro took a step away from the Megadrive just to play with it. It blew anything short of enthusiast-level PC hardware out of the water (at least until the Gravus Ultra Sound), never mind what any of the stock competing consoles had. Sega and Hudson had to connect CD drives to compete with its sound quality, and when you use the MSU-1 to give the SNES the expanded storage it never had... hoo boy! Oh, if only Nintendo and Sony had worked that out equitably... Also great choice on OriginFX.

[@vuurniacsquarewave5091]

Makes sense, since the PS1 sound system is an expanded version of the SNES audio, and the PS2 is an extended version of the PS1 audio.

[@incogninto1-1]

Welp, if it ain't broken don't fix it!

[@MadameSomnambule]

Hearing the PS1 startup sound recreated on an snes... feels like it's come full circle.

[@ancientone5903]

If we ever saw a few number of SNES games that where actually THX Certified, just imagine what that would be like and the actual cost of the game itself?

[@NintendoComplete]

I'd be afraid of the cost of the THX certified home sound system circa 1990.

[@ancientone5903]

@@NintendoComplete Some Commercial Announcer: Now introducing Final Fantasy III for the SNES, THX Certified, in stores now!

[@HsienKoMeiLingFormerYANG]

THX logo and Master System were amazing bang rendition.

[@GreyWolfLeaderTW]

Not really a surprise that the Super Nintendo's sound system is able to handle Sony's consoles' start up effects so effectively, they were literally iterating on the technological advancements they had started with Nintendo and the sound chip they designed for it.

[@johneygd]

That thx and the ps1 tune was awesome, well done.

[@astrodome1994]

Ironic that the PS1 startup is in here since it actually began life as an CD add-on for the SNES, but became it's own thing when Nintendo realized the Sega CD used by their competitor was already giving way to good taste.

[@ssg-eggunner]

The Sony SPU1 is pretty much S-SMP2

[@mmr395]

Nice !, what I always say, even with little ram memory on the spc700, you can do a lot of amazing things with it just depends on your creativity and sample optimization.

[@ssg-eggunner]

Im aware of your great and impressive efforts to get actual decent audio in the spc700 but the RAM is still too low, even for its time The Commodore Amiga Paula that existed 4 years earlier had 2MB Guess what is the consequence of the 64kb ARAM? People try to replicate YM2612 tunes, end up sounding slightly muffled and sounds looped, people use it to demonstrate that ym2612 is objectively better than spc700

[@netsurferx1]

The players are listening.

[@squirrelpower1666]

PS1; reads directly off a CD, like a kid being read to. SNES; reconstructs the data off a chip, like a narrator being paid to read.

[@inceptional]

The original PlayStation intro sounded great on it.

[@ClementGenniaux]

Amazing job ! very cool !

[@karimsyed7630]

I don't know why, but this really makes me want to hear a sample of Dragonforce and/or Attack on Titan theme through the SPC700!

[@luciebureau6815]

For the OriginFX intro and the victory fanfare on Paper Mario : The Origami King, i can’t tell. But i can say about the other sounds. I never own a Master System, but i heard its boot up sound. You did a great job. I couldn’t spot the difference ! The THX deep note sounds more powerful here. These are sounds i heard from my childhood. But it’s the PS1 in which i had the greatest memories. And each time i see and hear its startup screen and music, i’m happy. So i can say that you reproduced the sound well. The PS2 boot up sound too. I even thought it was the original !

[@NintendoComplete]

Tyvm! :D

[@LITTLE1994]

For 1990, the Super Nintendo's sound is VERY capable. There's a reason why it is considered the greatest console. Ironically, the SPC700 wasn't made by Nintendo, it's SONY!!

[@ssg-eggunner]

I thought people rated MD higher

[@dylan-fnaf1679]

The PS2 recreation sounded almost identical to the actual startup sound

[@AlidarJarok1]

Loved the PS1 intro.

[@ShwappaJ]

The THX tune and the PS1 startup were the best, although the PS1 was a nearly one to one copy; if you would've used the SPC700's built-in echo function it would've sounded exactly the same.

[@swetoslawa1]

The THX Is Back!

[@vgaoct91]

AWESOME!!

[@KCandFriendsUSA]

How did the THX Logo get here?!

[@CaptainBardiel]

Turn it up! TURN IT UP!!!

[@astrodome1994]

I don't know, maybe he played Metal Morph on his SNES. That game actually rips off the Deep Note upon startup. Oh, and it was published by Origin. Coincidence? I doubt it.

[@NintendoComplete]

@@astrodome1994 Nah, I just looked up the mathematical formula used to create Deep Note, recreated it, and then simplified it for the SNES

[@dillontam9752]

Ooo, ambitious stuff! The only one that stands out to me as quite different to the original is the Master System startup's lack of those loud Noise drums. The SPC700 was capable of generating noise without the need of samples, perhaps that's something you'd like to explore if the software you're using to make these supports it?

[@NintendoComplete]

I actually had them there, but for whatever reason they were muted. Oops. Sorry! Yeah, the software supports that functionality, but it's not completely sampleless. It needs a (32 byte, iirc?) sample and it can go from there. I've not used it much, tbh. I find it most useful in creating noise envelopes for faux sound modulation.

[@IvanDSM]

Before reading the description, I thought that the OriginFX intro was actually running on the SNES. I was completely dumbfounded as to how they got parallax scaling with the maestro and the orchestra until I realized what a dummy I was being :P

[@MaxwelThuThu]

Well, it's totally possible by using Mode 7 for the scalling image and sprites for what is behind/above it.

[@IvanDSM]

@@MaxwelThuThu The problem is that there are 3 layers of scaling at different "speeds". You can only scale one layer with Mode 7.

[@MaxwelThuThu]

@@IvanDSM Only the maestro+orquestra (they are part of the same layer) and the OriginFX logo uses scalling, the globe doesn't. Those scalling images never overlap each other. So, Mode 7 being 1 single layer isn't a problem. It would work like this: -maestro+orquestra in layer 1, above the globe made of sprites. -the layer 1 zooms in until not being visible anymore, then switching to the OriginFX logo behind the globe. -the globe goes down and that layer zooms in again. Super Metroid does that at some point, scalling a planet and then switching to Samus ship.

[@IvanDSM]

@@MaxwelThuThu I know how you could do the maestro + orchestra and the Origin logo separately, the issue is with the maestro + orchestra itself. You can see that there's parallax between the maestro and two layers orchestra, so you have three layers total.

[@MaxwelThuThu]

@@IvanDSM Oh, that's right... The only solution would be animating each segment during the zooming to look like separated layers. Some pretty hard code needed.

[@Shad0wX]

I wanna flash the thx bit onto a cart with the animation as well, put a sticker on it n leave the cart at my buddys house

[@elshrapnel]

Loool :D

[@gorilli09]

If the SNES was THX-certified.

[@enderjed2523]

I wonder what the Amiga’s PAULA could pull off.

[@ssg-eggunner]

A lot more, specially 2x PAULA

[@enderjed2523]

@@ssg-eggunner 2x paula would certainly have some strength.

[@QueenSectoniaReturns]

Also it has 8 pcm 32 khz, it can reproduce all sounds, the only limit is the storage

[@EnigPartyhaus]

You should try at recreating the original RCA Videodisc opening that used a short sample of an Isao Tomita performance

[@frankog6510]

Promenade, right?

[@stachman9531]

cept reading this as scp700

[@MasterRBertLink]

Hey! Have you heard that an Instagram user has posted pictures of his own fan-made Super Famicom CD-Rom add-on?

[@FLYNN_TAGGART]

Can you provide the SPC files?

[@NintendoComplete]

Sure thing, there's a link now in the description!

[@FLYNN_TAGGART]

@@NintendoComplete Thank you!

[@PanterAmetal100]

But how did you make these files?! Is there some specific software to work with?

[@NintendoComplete]

I used a program called snesmod

[@game-km1cm]

The PS1 plus the PS2 have released.