Part of that is proooobably because the PCM samples at this bitrate would have taken up the entire cartridge on their own. Even so, SR is an absolute genius with this chip.
Deflemask (the program that Savage uses), has a very "creamy" sound to the FM patches. It also renders the DAC quite nicely. If the samples are short, they will not take up the entire cartridge (again, there are different sizes of cartridges). I have tried it before, and you can play samples up to 3-4 minutes long before Deflemask crashes (I converted the lyrical part of Bohemian Rhapsody). The reason most Genesis games do not sound this clean, is because the CPU has to render the game and do the sound processing. With Deflemask, the CPU can entirely focus on rendering the PCM. This makes it sound much better.
I fucking love this comment, so true, I HATE HATE HATE that a lot of youtubers are getting the attention when they are not even using real hardware. As a musician myself using real limitation that is infuriating, specially knowing how HARD is to fight against those limitations to reach this quality levels. Worst part is...those other youtubers are NOT EVEN WRITING THE MUSIC THEMSELVES, they use others people MIDI files and change the instruments using VST or sound fonts. I can literally do that in 5 minutes while creating this masterpiece can takes weeks of writing and modifying instruments to sound right. This people make 5 minutes changes to MIDI files and call it a "Sega genesis remix" when their song can't even be played on real hardware or an emulator.
@@MartinAlejandroLiguori A good YM2612 VST can sound just as good as real hardware if the limitations and the rules are followed. maybe not accurate or real but it can still sound good once mastered.
@@IDHLEB HELL YEAH BROTHER i especially hate the ones who do "sega genesis" covers of songs with vocals, and they put a basic compression on the vocals and act like the genesis could process that lmao
@@rjmario2234 no and no. If you write your music with midi and use vst, you are by no means following the limitations. Period. Until you really work with the hardware you will never know the difference. You cannot just mimic the limitations... You really need to work with them to understand.
Awesome. Insane how you can get Klepacki's specific sound so right on this old chip. As someone who spent way too much time playing RA2 and still listens to its soundtrack, I have to say you've got it spot on. Perfect cover.
This is absolutely amazing. You constantly blow my mind. It's a bit obscure but I can't imagine how amazing future wave by capsule would be in your hands. The song was basically made for the YM2612!
Dude, if this sounds already that good, i'm wondering how hell march would sound. (there's even small voice samples!? 🤯) If you could make hell march, i would definitely consider supporting you on Patreon. (honestly your work on the XenoCrisis soundtrack is so good, i think you actually surpassed Tim Follin and Yuzo Koshiro. those guys are good on their own right, but you made the md/gen sound like something else.)
I don't think there's anything more satisfying than watching the FM 5 waves mildly change in tone then flash to the next notes like a lightning strike.
I don't know if it's intentional, but that first riff isn't arranged exactly like the original. Otherwise it's fantastic as always. I screamed when the PCM voice samples came up haha! Now I wish there were some samples in the Act On Instinct cover!
I know very little about how sound chips work and it's amazing what guys like you create with the Genesis/Mega Drive, I have a doubt, I believe you're using all possible channels from the console, if that's the case, if soundtracks like this one and others are included in a game, some channels would have to be cut out in order for the game to have sound effects?
It happened all the time. For example in Street fighter 2 SCE when a voice is played, music's percussion part is cut. It's restored when the voice ends.
Games generally doesn't have exclusive channels for playing sound effects, they just overlap one of the channels the music are using, and when the sound is finished that channel continues to play the music again.
Hi, I make music with real hardware too. Yes, the Sega genesis has two chips, one is the YM2612 that has 6 channels in normal mode, from those 6 channels you have to use 1 for samples, so that leaves you with 5 channels. On that single channel you can put your samples...some games user the Motorola or Z80 CPUs to play more than 1 sample at the time...but here Savage is not doing that, he is only using what the YM2612 can do alone. So he has 5 FM channels with 1 PCM channel, he is also using the 4 PSG channels from the other chip, 3 wave channels and 1 noise channel...BUT he is only using 2 wave channels and 1 noise channel since that chip is also limited when you use the noise channel...(that is why the 3rd psg channel is always silent, if he uses it while the noise channel is active, the noise sound is broken) So in total, he is using 5 FM channels, 1 PCM channel, 2 PSG channels and 1 Noise channel.
Savage is very smart. At the time where the voice sample plays, he uses FM Drums (FM 4) so that there is still percussion in those parts. The patches for FM drums is hard to accomplish or find back then, so many developers back then only knew how to use sample drums. This causes voice samples to get cut off because samples could only be played from one channel (FM 6/PCM).
I think both Martin and Michael missed the point of the question, it was not about voice/drum samples but about reserving channels for the game sound effects since the music is using all of them
Yep. The MD would run this like a charm. The MD had a dedicated Zilog Z80 co-porcessor specifically for running the YM2612. The main MC68000 CPU could write to the sound co-processor through interleaved memory cycles with the Z80's RAM to stream real time sample data or commands to the YM2612 (if needed). You can think of the Z80 as a sort of command buffer which means the main CPU does not need to do all the heavy lifting, similar to how the blitter engine worked back on the Amiga AGA chipset arcitecture.
@@kathleendelcourt8136 you can play pretty high quality samples thru the chip, I believe why a lot of samples was heavily downsampled by game makers was because file sizes had to be kept at a minimum due to the cartridges relative small storage capacity
Yes, I have converted the lyrical part of Bohemian Rhapsody before. Played it on my Model 1 Sega Genesis. Deflemask (the program that Savage uses) is quite flexible.
@@SplashAnimationCo check my killer instinct cover, that is a good example. Also some games sound bad because of drivers used for that particular game or processing done with the Motorola or z80 CPU to play more than one sample at the same time.
This is great, but I'm still waiting for the day you make a cover of Hell March, and I swear to god, if you do not make one soon, then I will make it myself.
In-freaking-credible. Your covers are exceptional. However. I would kill to hear some more original tracks. Xenocrisis ost blew my mind. I need more original songs. Please! 🙃🙂
Why does no one use the distortion guitars from Tunder Force 4? Example thunder force iv neo weapon. This is witchcraft for a FM chip. Imagine this back in the days of the mega drive. Only that one song from toy story is better. 0:53
With the right setup, absolutely. Most of us played through RF converters on a shitty mono speaker in a TV though. Still, the Sonic games were great to listen to. Still have my Genesis.
This is on another level for Genesis/MD music. I can think of anything on the Genesis/MD that sounds this good everything sounds so clean.
Part of that is proooobably because the PCM samples at this bitrate would have taken up the entire cartridge on their own. Even so, SR is an absolute genius with this chip.
Deflemask (the program that Savage uses), has a very "creamy" sound to the FM patches. It also renders the DAC quite nicely. If the samples are short, they will not take up the entire cartridge (again, there are different sizes of cartridges). I have tried it before, and you can play samples up to 3-4 minutes long before Deflemask crashes (I converted the lyrical part of Bohemian Rhapsody).
The reason most Genesis games do not sound this clean, is because the CPU has to render the game and do the sound processing. With Deflemask, the CPU can entirely focus on rendering the PCM. This makes it sound much better.
@@AROAH there's also another driver called xgm which allows up to 4 samples to be used at once. Like this here ua-cam.com/video/nsJ0kT7EvXQ/v-deo.html
These C&C songs are so badass
A month and a half without a new SR video felt like eternity.
Love that you included the voice samples, excellent cover.
*T-T-T-T-TIME IS RUNNING OUT!*
A nuklea device!
Omg this is amazing! Sounds like the exact sounds they would have went with for a song the grungy, brilliant work as always.
I can always count on SR to introduce me to a kickass tune I've never heard of! This sounds awesome
another upload from the legend who actually works within the limitations of the hardware instead of using a soundfont plugin on a MIDI
I fucking love this comment, so true, I HATE HATE HATE that a lot of youtubers are getting the attention when they are not even using real hardware. As a musician myself using real limitation that is infuriating, specially knowing how HARD is to fight against those limitations to reach this quality levels. Worst part is...those other youtubers are NOT EVEN WRITING THE MUSIC THEMSELVES, they use others people MIDI files and change the instruments using VST or sound fonts. I can literally do that in 5 minutes while creating this masterpiece can takes weeks of writing and modifying instruments to sound right.
This people make 5 minutes changes to MIDI files and call it a "Sega genesis remix" when their song can't even be played on real hardware or an emulator.
@@MartinAlejandroLiguori A good YM2612 VST can sound just as good as real hardware if the limitations and the rules are followed. maybe not accurate or real but it can still sound good once mastered.
Most of midi + soundfonts covers is garbage.
@@IDHLEB HELL YEAH BROTHER
i especially hate the ones who do "sega genesis" covers of songs with vocals, and they put a basic compression on the vocals and act like the genesis could process that
lmao
@@rjmario2234 no and no. If you write your music with midi and use vst, you are by no means following the limitations. Period. Until you really work with the hardware you will never know the difference. You cannot just mimic the limitations... You really need to work with them to understand.
Awesome. Insane how you can get Klepacki's specific sound so right on this old chip.
As someone who spent way too much time playing RA2 and still listens to its soundtrack, I have to say you've got it spot on. Perfect cover.
Another absolute banger! SR never misses
Whoa, nice use of 2 channel FM toms. (Around 1:48)
I just realized how much I need a vgm rom with all your music compiled!
Its cool that you still do these after all these years.
Amazing what the Mega Drive Sound Chip is capable of! Your a YM2612 Wizard!
This is absolutely amazing. You constantly blow my mind. It's a bit obscure but I can't imagine how amazing future wave by capsule would be in your hands. The song was basically made for the YM2612!
That "nuclear device" really took me back to Hunter Hunted
Could you be possibly talking about a specific anime?
@@intj_gaming Hunter Hunted was a pc game made by Sierra in 1996. Sort of a 2D shooter. The soundtrack was pretty great
Magnificent and a lot of xenocrisis vibes too
Always amazing work. Would love to learn to do this
Ok, this is an absolute banger. Good work as always, Savage!
Dude, if this sounds already that good, i'm wondering how hell march would sound. (there's even small voice samples!? 🤯)
If you could make hell march, i would definitely consider supporting you on Patreon. (honestly your work on the XenoCrisis soundtrack is so good, i think you actually surpassed Tim Follin and Yuzo Koshiro. those guys are good on their own right, but you made the md/gen sound like something else.)
Now this is how you blow it up on older hardware! :P
I would love to hear you do Bully Kit from Yuri's Revenge.
This is so awesome.
Please make more C&C's YM2612 covers! Especially from Red Alert 2)
"Gentlemen, it's a nuclear device." As you @Savaged Regime !
Can't wait your work on Astebros.
Please don't stop making music, your stuff is beautiful
I don't think there's anything more satisfying than watching the FM 5 waves mildly change in tone then flash to the next notes like a lightning strike.
this mad lad right here never ceases to impress me :D keep up the awsome work man.
The genesis sound is something beautiful
I don't know if it's intentional, but that first riff isn't arranged exactly like the original. Otherwise it's fantastic as always. I screamed when the PCM voice samples came up haha! Now I wish there were some samples in the Act On Instinct cover!
I know very little about how sound chips work and it's amazing what guys like you create with the Genesis/Mega Drive, I have a doubt, I believe you're using all possible channels from the console, if that's the case, if soundtracks like this one and others are included in a game, some channels would have to be cut out in order for the game to have sound effects?
It happened all the time. For example in Street fighter 2 SCE when a voice is played, music's percussion part is cut. It's restored when the voice ends.
Games generally doesn't have exclusive channels for playing sound effects, they just overlap one of the channels the music are using, and when the sound is finished that channel continues to play the music again.
Hi, I make music with real hardware too. Yes, the Sega genesis has two chips, one is the YM2612 that has 6 channels in normal mode, from those 6 channels you have to use 1 for samples, so that leaves you with 5 channels. On that single channel you can put your samples...some games user the Motorola or Z80 CPUs to play more than 1 sample at the time...but here Savage is not doing that, he is only using what the YM2612 can do alone.
So he has 5 FM channels with 1 PCM channel, he is also using the 4 PSG channels from the other chip, 3 wave channels and 1 noise channel...BUT he is only using 2 wave channels and 1 noise channel since that chip is also limited when you use the noise channel...(that is why the 3rd psg channel is always silent, if he uses it while the noise channel is active, the noise sound is broken)
So in total, he is using 5 FM channels, 1 PCM channel, 2 PSG channels and 1 Noise channel.
Savage is very smart. At the time where the voice sample plays, he uses FM Drums (FM 4) so that there is still percussion in those parts. The patches for FM drums is hard to accomplish or find back then, so many developers back then only knew how to use sample drums. This causes voice samples to get cut off because samples could only be played from one channel (FM 6/PCM).
I think both Martin and Michael missed the point of the question, it was not about voice/drum samples but about reserving channels for the game sound effects since the music is using all of them
Holy SHITTTT i was not ready for this
Some segments I would swear to be PCM samples, but checking at the oscilloscope view it's just clever usage of FM channels. Nicely done!
So very glad to see something new from you. And from the best RTS too!
Impressive !
Amazing work!
sounds like it's from 8-bit armies lol
same composer, Frank Klepacki!
nice job!
Awesome... This sounds amazing as always... Well done!!!
God damn this cover slaps
You should definitely make a cover for Demolition Man Stage 1 !!! 😁😁
No one compares 2U
Favorited.
Forgot to check your channel for some time....bad move. This is great! also Dac voices are very clear.
AH SHIT, HERE WE GO AGAIN! Got DAMN
Ballin'. Where is the track replacement mod for Red Alert 2 PC
Frank would like this
Nice one
This works very well. Are the voice samples seriously something that the SEGA thingie can do in a music track?
Yep. The MD would run this like a charm. The MD had a dedicated Zilog Z80 co-porcessor specifically for running the YM2612. The main MC68000 CPU could write to the sound co-processor through interleaved memory cycles with the Z80's RAM to stream real time sample data or commands to the YM2612 (if needed). You can think of the Z80 as a sort of command buffer which means the main CPU does not need to do all the heavy lifting, similar to how the blitter engine worked back on the Amiga AGA chipset arcitecture.
@@P2PC brill
Do Grinder! I would love to hear how that sounds on the Sega Genesis
why does it feel so much like Dune??? i like it so much because of that
This is so cool!
Awesome!
It is top notch 🤩
What sound engine do you use?
YOU ARE A *GOD*
Loving it!
"Gettlemen - Is a nuclear device - TIME IS RUNNING OUT! - TI-TI-TI-TIME IS RUNNING OUT!"
Now make Brain Freeze (Yuri's revenge) cover... OBEY ME
honest, it sounds like red alert 1 ost
The whole idea reminded me of advance wars
holy shit
No Post-Processing? Damn!
really prefer this version tbh, its much clearer
gentlemen, it's a nuclear device
Super Amazing. Wish someone will port in genesis
so fkin sick
Are the voice samples also played by the Mega Drive?
Yup, FM6 can be set to play samples
@@FickleFilms What I meant was that they sounds exceptionnally clean.
@@kathleendelcourt8136 you can play pretty high quality samples thru the chip, I believe why a lot of samples was heavily downsampled by game makers was because file sizes had to be kept at a minimum due to the cartridges relative small storage capacity
Yes, I have converted the lyrical part of Bohemian Rhapsody before. Played it on my Model 1 Sega Genesis. Deflemask (the program that Savage uses) is quite flexible.
@@SplashAnimationCo check my killer instinct cover, that is a good example. Also some games sound bad because of drivers used for that particular game or processing done with the Motorola or z80 CPU to play more than one sample at the same time.
This is really nice! Do you upload the files somewhere where one could grab them?
This is great, but I'm still waiting for the day you make a cover of Hell March, and I swear to god, if you do not make one soon, then I will make it myself.
Wow!..Please do hellmarch 2 or grinder.
Shit boss, you should do Can't Stop. Another Infected Mushroom song
So gud
In-freaking-credible.
Your covers are exceptional.
However. I would kill to hear some more original tracks. Xenocrisis ost blew my mind.
I need more original songs. Please! 🙃🙂
Is that supposed to be periodic noise in the PSG channel?
Sounds like it could be in maximum carnage
this shit fuckinn rullles
Why does no one use the distortion guitars from Tunder Force 4? Example thunder force iv neo weapon. This is witchcraft for a FM chip. Imagine this back in the days of the mega drive. Only that one song from toy story is better. 0:53
Hell march when?
0 people disliked this masterpiece :D oh yeah
We will bury them!
Nice, yeah! (·=
is it on patreon
Yes one comment
do hell march
1:18 - 1:39 Super Double Dragon SNES Stage 1
imagine if you were around during the sega genesis's actual run... imagine how good a lot of games would sound,,
With the right setup, absolutely. Most of us played through RF converters on a shitty mono speaker in a TV though. Still, the Sonic games were great to listen to. Still have my Genesis.
First