Last week’s post focused on early video game music. This week, there will be a main focus on early digital synthesis.  Around 1980, arcade games went in a direction involving using digitized, or sampled, sounds. Also at this time, frequency modulation synthesis (or FM synthesis) was introduced. It allowed tones to be manipulated to have different sound characteristics. Before, the tone that the chip produced was limited to how the chip itself was designed.

Outside of the arcade games, there were improvements in terms of personal computer game music, starting with the introduction of digital FM synth boards by Yamaha. Now, computer game music was able to have greater complexity than the earlier and much more simplistic beeps.  Consoles started adopting FM synthesis, which led to one of the most iconic eras in video game history: the 16-bit era. In 1984, arcade systems started pushing video game music forward with the introduction of FM (frequency modulation) synthesis, which created more realistic sounds than before.

In the move to the 16-bit era, the combined approach (sampling and tone) to music composing continued to be in use.  In 1988, the Sega Genesis offered much more advanced graphics than the NES that was in use, and it had improved sound synthesis features.  However, the Genesis did not support 16-bit sampled sounds that were previously used, so composers had to become creative.  More imaginative uses of the FM synthesizer needed to be done in order to create a more enjoyable listening experience.

The early 1990s brought forth the usage of voice as well as sampled sound effects and various musical instruments, as seen in such games such as Street Fighter II. In 1990/1991, the Super Famicom (known to the US as the SNES) was introduced, which revolutionized video game music. It allowed for various acoustics to be integrated into games.  Some examples of acoustics that were utilized were musical acoustics, directional and spatial acoustics, and environmental and architectural acoustics.

During the mid-1990s, the PlayStation was able to support 16-bit samples equal to CD audio in quality, which was a big deal back then.  The Nintendo 64, which was still using a solid state cartridge (a very costly memory storage), usually had samples of lesser quality than the PlayStation or the other big-name console, the Sega Saturn. This led to the construction of much simpler music on the N64. Even today, there is still the use of both sampled and sequenced music in game consoles, much like there was back in the late 1980s and 90s. Video game music still continued to evolve, and it still had a long journey to go before it got to where it is today.

Thank you and have a great day.

-Elisabeth