Much is made of the harmonic tones of 8-bit game consoles. The instantly recognizable sounds of the NES or Game Boy resonate through the collective nostalgic consciousness of any gamer over the age of twenty. Less is said, however, of the middle child of the game music world. Synthesized game music went through many transitional phases on its way to the familiar prerecorded standard we enjoy now. One of the bridge formats from PSG square waves to Redbook Audio was FM Synthesis.
To the unfamiliar, FM (Frequency Modulation) synthesis was insanely popular throughout the pop music world of the 1980s. The most famous FM synthesizer was the Yamaha DX-7. You can hear it in countless pop records of the era, including the more famous ones (Michael Jackson’s Bad). It’s known for its hard and sharp metallic sound and almost sci-fi-like synth chords. Listen to You Spin Me Round by Dead or Alive if you want an example of an entire song produced almost exclusively using FM synth. After FM synth rose to fame, everybody wanted to use it in their consumer electronics. The problem was that the high end studio synthesizers were still too large to scale down and too expensive to mass produce. Over the next few years, Yamaha scaled down the tech and produced a lot of smaller scale alternatives for products such a home computers and game consoles. The chips used in these consumer products featured a smaller range and less capabilities than their studio counterparts, but in capable hands, you could work musical miracles.
The most famous video game console to use FM sound was the Sega Genesis. Sega had been using FM synth in their arcade machines since the mid-80s, so it only made sense for them to use a similar sound in their 16-bit console. It’s ironic that while the Genesis was one of the most common devices to utilize FM synthesis, it also happened to use one of the cheapest FM sound sets available: the Yamaha YM2612 chip. It had a serviceable range for its modest price, but only four channels of FM sound wasn’t enough to build a full range console sound library. Sega padded it out by adding on the Texas Instruments SN76489 chip (which added on several extra Game Boy-esque PSG channels) and a DPCM channel to play back scratchy digital recorded sounds (used mostly for synth drums and voice clips). Interestingly, Sega modified the circuitry of later Genesis console revisions to drop components for the sake of lowering production costs, so the earlier Genesis I units (with the volume slider and headphone jack) tend to have a higher quality sound reproduction than the later ones.
Both Konami and Capcom used a variety of custom FM sound combinations in their arcade hardware throughout the late 80s/early 90s. Capcom used the Yamaha YM2151 FM chip, which was the older brother of the Sega Genesis’s YM2612. It featured a similar sound, but with more FM channels and an extra DPCM channel so digital drum samples and digital voice clips could both play simultaneously without cutting each other off. All versions of Street Fighter II (and many other classics like Final Fight and Magic Sword) used this familiar sound board up until Capcom switched to the CPS2 arcade hardware with Super Street Fighter II, which used the Q-Sound system that featured up to 16 MIDI like instruments, but lacked the YM2151′s heavy bass sound that suited Street Fighter II so well.
Konami, on the other hand, went with a higher end solution to their arcade needs. The Japanese candy cabinets that Konami traditionally ran their arcade games in usually featured a headphone jack so that players could hear the rich and multilayer in-game sounds over the bustle of a busy big city Japanese arcade. Knowing their players would likely get to enjoy the full range of Konami’s musical magic, the company saw fit to use higher quality sound hardware. One only has to look at the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games, X-Men, or Gradius III to get an example of what Konami’s sound board was capable of versus Capcom’s.
While FM was cutting edge for the Genesis in 1989, it was quickly out-shined a couple of years later by the Super Nintendo. Nintendo’s 16-bit console was late to the party for many reasons, but one of those reasons was to make sure that the SNES used the best technology available on the market. Nintendo’s SPC700 audio processor (from Sony) was marvelous for the time. It provided real sample playback. Composers would manipulate those samples in many different ways. One problem however was the lack of available sound memory. As a result, the sounds were often either incredibly short, which led to a warbly sound when sustained during playback (the strings in Star Fox, Yoshi’s Island, and Final Fantasy VI suffer from this) or sampled at a high pitch then slowed down in software to save space and include more samples. This led to the trademark SNES “muffled sound.”
The Genesis couldn’t produce the kind of real sound playback that the SNES could (outside of its notably rough sounding and limited DPCM channel), but its FM tones were generally much more clear and melodic. The Genesis’s ability to manipulate the sounds it had was almost organic and natural in the right hands. The bass, percussion, guitar, and synth chords in particular blew the Super Nintendo away. In the wrong hands however, the Genesis could sound like a mess of electronic farts. Compare the two soundtracks to The Lion King for SNES and Genesis to see the Genesis at its worst. However, if you want to hear the machine at its absolute best, listen to the music from such classics as Devilish, Thunder Force III, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Streets of Rage, Columns 3, The Hybrid Front, Rocket Knight Adventures, Castlevania Bloodlines, or Gunstar Heroes.
After the 16-bit years, consoles followed in the Super Nintendo’s footsteps in terms of audio synthesis. The PlayStation actually used a direct descendant of the SNES audio processor, but it didn’t get a ton of use since developers were so obsessed with streaming CDA tracks. FM synth fell out of favor in both gaming, and pop music in general thanks to grunge. You’ll still hear FM synth used in music culture now, but its use is far less pronounced.
Old school console FM sound has made an underground resurgence of sorts thanks to the YouTube community. Now you can find videos of home made conversions of rival console tracks played back on the opposite hardware, 16-bit console arrangements of Lady Gaga, or even original compositions done in the classic gaming style. It’s even making an underground comeback in console games. The Konami “Rebirth” series of games on WiiWare utilize Konami’s classic arcade sound to bring classic Castlevania and Gradius tunes back to the public in a new/old sound.
FM synth may never reach the same level of nostalgic love that 8-bit chiptune receives, but at least it’s good to know that there are people out there that appreciate that unmistakable warm sound of 1980s frequency modulation that defined an entire era of game consoles.
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