How Oldschool Sound/Music worked 

Yes, practically every NES game used the same sounds, but that's when the creativity of musicians came into play. For instance, the soundtracks of the Zelda, Ninja Gaiden and Casltevania games are amazing and very different from each other.

Tim Follin pushed the NES's soundchip beyond its limits by doing tricks like using the triangle wave bass channel to emulate a kick drum sound, and having the main square wave riff play quieter and a split second delayed in the second square wave channel to emulate reverb. If you look at an oscilloscope of any of the games he composed for (Silver Surfer, Pictionary, etc.) you can see it in action. It's super cool

Alright so all the music in this video. 0:20 - Avoid the Noid, IBM PC and Apple 2 0:43 - also Avoid the Noid 1:00 - Swinth Demo 1 (stationary ark) 1:09 - Space Quest III - Pirates of Pestulon. Cannot identify OS. 1:13 - Super Mario Bros 2, NES 2:18 - Super Mario Bros 2, NES 2:57 - Super Mario Bros 3, NES 3:36 - MULE, Comodore 64. 4:04 - Commando, Comodore 64. 5:21 - Ultima 6, IBM PC version. 6:06 - 8 bit guy, Casio sk-1 6:29 - Blood Money, Comodore Amiga. 6:42 - Guitar Slinger (Modtracker Song by jogeir liljedahl), Comodore Amiga

When I wrote for the SNES I used a sample playback system that used samples I generated. NO FM audio at all.

So that explains why one voice stops when a sound effect play on the nes, because there’s not enough voices for it so it cuts one off and replaces it with the other.

yo that commando music fuckin bangs

0:56 - It must have taken the programmers quite some time to design this epic laugh!

I love old console music. It’s very nostalgic for me but it also has a very mystical and Haunting feel to it 🤷🏽‍♂️

6:31 "HIT IT!" "yeah!" smh...

Excellent video!

Dave “Too Tall for the Screen” Guest.

3:41 SID chip victorious! That tune is so catchy

Was watching this on my phone when at 2:30 "The first 2 can only produce square waves, that sound like this:" (Gets phone call) Me(for a split second) - oh that doesn't sound that bad, oh wait...

Seriously one of the coolest videos I've ever seen and really fascinating info! Well done 8-Bit Guy!

Your videos are always top tier. I’ll never stop loving retro tech!

4:22 Incredible, no one ever has explained it so clear and simple. Great !

2:47 I know some people who can only produce noise

Some behind the scenes info: We had to make some major adjustments to the set and David's camera setup to get everything in frame. I'm a freakishly tall dude!

I was floored when you recreated the Ultima song on the keyboard. Great stuff!

7:01 dang, that mod sounds good!

6:07 Ow, I could feel that dead inside smile.

I'm glad you included a song by Rob Hubbard (Commando). He was a master at programming the C=64's SID chip. Also props for showing us the awesome Casio SK-1 and Yamaha PSS-470.

3:07 That isn't quite a fair statement. Some developers like Sunsoft, Konami and Capcom tried to get more creative with it. Like using different samples on channel 5 and playing melody on channels 4 and 3. But it was pretty tricky.

Very educational and a trip down memory lane! I learned how to program with the Commodore 64. Commando was one of my favorite game themes!

Great info

I would love to see a dedicated video like this for the Sega Master System...

Nice to see the genesis of the 8 bit guy here! 2021, and 2015 feels like a million light years away.

5:39 *Man, I could listen to you playing that over and over all day, so deep*

6:42 I don't know....I...just suddenly felt something nostalgic inside of my heart. It feels like it's trying to tell me stories from long time ago I have forgot

Love the C64 title cards!

I was visiting my "share ware" store once, which oddly enough was in the local mall. I found a program for IBM pc that split the stock beep into three voices. It played "Fur Elise" and many other tunes using the three voices. It's was still the the basic "beep beep" sound, but three voice of it... it really was super cool.. mainly because I could not afford a sound card at the time, all my money had gone to my EGA card I had a flight sim once that somehow made white noise out of a PC speaker that was used a the jet engine sound effect. Very cool You know your intro gets stuck in my head 8-bit guy!

4:29 can i get a video of just that bass line there please

4:29 this clip sounds like It could be its own music!!

6:08 This is my new ringtone

It would be nice if someday you talk about the Mega Drive/Genesis sound and its somehow frankestein approach to sound between old and new and how a good composer could do marvelous scores while other just did absolute disasters.

This is even in 2021 still one of my favorite videos of all time!

3:40 to 3:50 beast tune I ever heard XD

I don't know what everyone is talking about, but 4:08 has a rocking tune to it.

4:07 R.I.P SID chip

3:39 my fave part omg

That C64 Commando track is SICK!!! Holy... I didn't know much about the C64 soundchip and now I'M pretty impressed This video also reaffirmed my preference for game console music : FM synth > Samples. By a wide margin

Here lies The IBook Guy 2012-2015 Name will be missed

Love the Blood Money clip. Amiga forever! And Octalyzer that supported 8 voices.

北米版NESと違い、日本のファミコンは拡張性からディスクシステムで音源を増やし、ROMカートリッジにFM音源を無理やり搭載したりしてたんですが、一度聞いてみて欲しいものです。

I actually love using a tracker to make music. It's quite fun, honestly.

Hey, I learned something! I had a Sound Blaster in my 386DX/25 way back in 1991ish (might have been after that, don't recall anymore). I knew it played games that only supported Adlib, now I know why! The voice thing was cool, very nice video...

Oh cool, I just witnessed the birth of The 8-Bit Guy as a channel! And of course I enjoy Rob's videos also!

Thank you so much. This has been, for me, one of those questions that has been taking up space in the back of my mind for years. But the material was always too daunting or too simplistic. You do a great job of explaining exactly what i wanted to know.

As a music producer, I love watching these videos. Sometimes I wish they were longer, great job!

I really liked the new name! Makes a lot more sense now!

So glad I found your channel. Everything is explained so well and I've already learned pleanty. Looking forward to going through the rest of these videos soon.

I must have watched that part at 5:38 like 20 times, god that sounds SO good.

I like that sampling song that comes in at 7:00 I would love to hear an extended version

You're videos are just amazing. Also I liked the name iBook guy better

I don't know why, but that Ultima VI theme makes me feel something I can only identify as nostalgia - nostalgia for something that I have literally never experienced. It's so simple and yet there's a hauntingly indescribable beauty to it. My most sincere praise to whomever composed that piece.

6:31 such a catchy tune it’s so 80s I wonder what game that is

AM I the only one who is in love of this :D 5:36

I want all that LOFI equipment! Great + Accurate video! :D

So one thing that’s always interested me is how they made things sound so different on certain games on the NES. Like, to me, Zelda II and Punch-Out have the same “flavor” of sound which was quite different from Mario for example. How did they get such different sound from just the square and triangle waves?

I just want to stop and say that I usually skim these kinds of videos because the hosts presenting them tend to ramble off-topic or tries so hard to make it entertaining that it derives from the video - but this has had me glued to the screen. I came with the intention of watching 1 video and watched upwards of 8 in a row. Fantastic presentation, fun information and extremely digestible; definitely earned a sub from me.

I could listen to that 3-voice music all day - how did you get such clean samples/separate the tracks?

There's one aspect that you guys seemed to have missed, regarding the FM synthesizer (I'm wondering if you've confused it with PSG controllers...). For example, many Yamaha chips didn't have just a single pattern wave for a single channel. Each channel would have had multiple "operators" that played different wave patterns, and those patterns would feed into each other within a single channel, and that channel would output a complex waveform that doesn't fit the criteria of a simple square, trianle, sawtooth, etc... The Mega Drive/Genesis' YM2612 for example had four operators per channel, where each operator outputs a sinewave, the sinewaves are fed into each other, and the channel itself outputs an extremely complex waveform, if controlled correctly, known existing instruments such as a piano could be made. Cool video though, I did learn a small deal about the more primitive PSG sounds, your presentation is fantastic too! It gets the message across very well.

This video just made me appreciate game music much more than I already have.

Super Stoked on this video. I am teaching my Tech Production class about music, and I feel like this video is a neat way to present information with a quick modern history lesson. I also love the fact that many of the video games I grew up on are featured in this...😀

These videogame tunes gave me a nostalgia-gasm. The SK-1 was my first synth keyboard, too. Double nostalgia-gasm.

Love the new name. The_8_Bit_Guy++;

One of the most recognizable uses of the 5th voice PCM for the NES is Bloody Tears from Simon’s Quest. That bass line is 🔥

I geeked out when I saw the Casio sampling keyboard. It was one of my favorite Christmas gifts ever!!

I remember when when I played Ikari Warriors 2 on the NES for the first time and I heard "C'mon let's fight". Blew my mind then :P.

This by far is my favourite video from the 8 bit guy. Well done. Great content. Very informative.

Man, I really enjoy no frills, professional feeling videos like this. Educational and interesting.

Keep coming back to this, always enjoyable.

6:54: “…designed around the Amiga sound shitter.” I swear I keep hearing this.

How about MIDI files aren't these old?

I am always learning something cool from your videos. Thanks.

@7:15...Amazingly enough, a new game coming out called Ion Fury (previously Ion Maiden) has an amazing Mod Tracker soundtrack. The game is built on a new version of the old Build Engine game engine (used for Duke3D, Shadow Warrior, etc...). It really fits well with the game's style.

Your videos are so in-depth and informative! Awesome job!

5:26 I want that picture on my wall.

Brilliant video! So professionally produced! You don't have to be nerd to find this interesting!

This is great! Super interesting, knew some of the basics but could have listened to these details all day

I had one of those Casios... Man the hours of monophony I put into that one. Thanks for the memories!!

Amazing video, very informative and entertaining. And the part where you reproduced the Ultima 6 intro theme on your keyboard gave me shivers! ^^

That was really informative. Amazing to learn how game music changes over the years.

Great job recreating the Ultima 6 intro theme on a keyboard! My best friend from high school recreated the Final Fantasy 6 (Final Fantasy III in USA) Overworld Theme using just an Electronic Keyboard in his music class. It took a whole night but he did it and played the MP3 record file and got an A+ in his music class! It is just AMAZING how music has evolved in game consoles over the years and how Certain music can be recreated using other music chips in other devices! Great video! Keep it up!

You've made the video that's been in my head since 1987. And you're in Texas. I owe you lunch.

Did anyone else NOT want the M.U.L.E. music to stop around 3:45 ? I could listen to that beat for an hour or more.

I've never played mule before, shoot, ive never even heard of it, but I rocked out hard with that music sample

You learn something new everyday! Thanks David.

I also recognize the music you had playing in the background a few times, from the C64 demo Swinth! Loved that!

I had a sampling keyboard as a kid that had a loop function. I would record me clicking the plastic over the mic with my fingernail and loop it, making a square wave type sound, the frequency depending on how hard the click was

6:08 such a iconic smug look.

Absolutely amazing video.

This is amazing; could you make a follow-up video explaining the similar differences between the SNES and Genesis?

That coy smile he gave after saying "8-Bit Guy" to the keyboard makes very happy Keep up the great work!

Thank you very much for these videos, I just happened to watched "Meet The Little-Known Soundblaster keyboards" n' I liked the fact that watching this video I already heard about Yamaha chip (YM3812 chip) in the Soundblaster video, so the education in this channel is progressive. Even today, Heretic is still my favorite Ad Lib soundtrack, which it was composed by Kevin Schilder. I'm glad to see the mod tracker here 'cause I've always seen videos in youtube about chip tunes in the mod tracker n' never understand them except that they put musical notes in there but with this video, I'm more than familiar with it. You're like the Angry Video Game Nerd but being his department more focused in the quality of videogames with toilet humor and yours in VGM with a more serious tone. You got yourself a subscriber!!!

Yamaha's synthesis was so beautiful. I'm a huge fan of the DX7 synthesizer, which can reproduce any sound from those games (most famously the early Sonic games). The actual keyboard is very expensive but there's a free open-source VST version called Dexed that is fantastic.

4:15 wasfor some reason my best yt-moment since the plattform started.

Wow, guys, it gives excellent insight. Many thanks for this video! Keep it up!!!

Awesome video. Even starts with consoles that were dear to my heart.

NOW THIS is an amazing gaming channel