How Oldschool Sound/Music worked

The 8-Bit Guy2015-10-06

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3M views|8 years ago

💫 Short Summary

David from the 8-bit guy and Rob from the Obsolete Geek discuss the early days of home computer music, the evolution of sound chips, and the development of music capabilities in systems such as the Nintendo Entertainment System, Commodore 64, and IBM PC. They showcase old musical keyboards to explain the concept of voices and channels, and demonstrate the music production of different systems from the 1980s.

✨ Highlights

📊 Transcript

✦

David and Rob discuss the early days of home computer music and the limitations of simple beeper speakers.

00:08

Most early home computers had a simple beeper speaker controlled directly by the CPU.

Complex music production with this speaker would consume all of the CPU's runtime.

✦

Different home computer systems in the 1980s had varying capabilities with their music voices and channels.

01:18

Systems had different numbers of voices or channels for creating music.

The Nintendo Entertainment System had five voices, while the Commodore 64 had three voices.

Having multiple voices is necessary for playing multiple notes at the same time.

The flexibility of the voices is also important for creating different sound effects.

✦

The Commodore 64 had more versatile music capabilities than the NES due to its voice flexibility.

02:55

The NES voices were limited, resulting in most music sounding the same.

The Commodore 64 could produce different types of waveforms and some voices could be dynamically reassigned, allowing for more varied and complex music.

✦

The Yamaha YM3812 sound chip was a significant upgrade for computer music in the early 1980s.

04:36

Most computers and game consoles by the early 1980s had dedicated sound chips.

The Yamaha YM3812 sound chip had nine voices and was independently programmable.

The chip was the foundation of computer music in the IBM PC world for the next 10 years.

It was also used in several Yamaha keyboards.

✦

The Commodore Amiga was the first affordable home computer with a four voice stereo sampling sound system, leading to the creation of mod tracker music files.

06:22

The mod tracker format is still in use for composing music.

Modern machines often use mp3 files for music synthesis.

✦

Channel name change from the iBook Guy to the 8-bit Guy to better reflect the content. Rob from the Obsolete Geek introduces his channel, which focuses on obscure video game hardware.

07:45

David thanks Rob for being on the show.

Rob's channel focuses on obscure video game hardware.

Link to Rob's channel in the description.

Encouragement to visit David on Facebook.

00:08 hello this is david from the 8-bit guy

00:11 and today i've got a special guest star

00:13 with me Rob from the obsolete geek today

00:16 we're going to talk about how old-school

00:18 music works in the early days of home

00:24 computers most of them just had a simple

00:26 beeper speaker

00:27 examples would be the IBM PC and the

00:30 Apple to these speakers were controlled

00:32 directly by the computer CPU the speaker

00:35 could make clicking noises and the CPU

00:37 would have to time the clicking noises

00:38 exactly right in order to produce

00:40 certain tones if a programmer wanted to

00:43 spend the time some very advanced sound

00:45 of music could be produced this way but

00:47 the trouble was it would require all of

00:50 the CPUs runtime to accomplish that

00:52 leaving nothing left over for the

00:54 computer to do anything else

01:01 so by the early 1980s most computers and

01:04 game consoles had dedicated sound chips

01:06 to take this load away from the CPU each

01:09 system in that time had a very

01:11 characteristic sound along with its

01:13 unique style of graphics which helped to

01:15 get each system its own personality okay

01:18 so the first thing you need to

01:19 understand is that different systems had

01:21 different numbers of voices or channels

01:24 to better explain how that works let me

01:26 show you this old musical keyboard it

01:29 only has a single voice and as you can

01:31 see it cannot play more than one note at

01:34 a time in order to do that you would

01:36 need to have at least two voices now

01:38 this keyboard here is considerably more

01:40 advanced than the other one and it has a

01:42 total of four voices that means you can

01:44 play up to four notes at the same time

01:48 so having multiple voices is great but

01:52 those voices also need to be flexible as

01:54 enable to create different types of

01:56 waveforms for example this keyboard can

02:00 change the waveform of its voice to

02:01 produce different types of sounds okay

02:05 so let's take a look at two of the more

02:06 popular systems from the 1980s in order

02:09 to see two different approaches to

02:10 creating music the Nintendo

02:12 Entertainment System had five voices and

02:14 the Commodore 64 had three voices now

02:18 you might immediately assume the

02:20 Nintendo was better but actually it

02:22 wasn't here's why the voice is used in

02:25 the NES or for the most part stuck

02:27 making one type of sound the first two

02:30 voices can only produce square waves

02:31 that sound like this

02:37 the third voice can only produce a

02:39 triangle and is typically used for the

02:41 low bass notes the fourth voice can only

02:48 produce noise and the fifth voice is for

02:54 PCM sampled sounds which was rarely used

02:57 but a good example would be Super Mario

02:59 Brothers 3 you can clearly hear the

03:01 steel drum sound being used because the

03:07 way Nintendo music worked all gay music

03:09 sounded pretty much exactly the same the

03:12 tune might be different but it was like

03:14 they use the same

03:15 instruments so to speak the Commodore 64

03:17 had three voices it could produce four

03:20 different types of waveforms

03:21 square triangle sawtooth and noise or

03:27 any combination of those in the early

03:30 days most programmers were just assign a

03:32 certain sound to particular voice and

03:34 just leave it that way throughout the

03:35 entire song that was the simplest thing

03:37 to do here's an example from the game

03:39 mule

03:55 but not long after some clever

03:57 programmers realize that it was possible

03:59 to dynamically reassign the voices to

04:01 other waveforms on the fly this gave the

04:03 illusion of having more than three

04:05 voices take this example from commando

04:17 in order to better understand what's

04:19 going on here try listening to one voice

04:21 at a time

04:31 a few years later the IBM PC finally got

04:35 a decent sound upgrade in the form of

04:36 the ad lib card which used the yamaha

04:39 ym3812 sound chip shortly after the

04:42 market share was lost in favor of the

04:44 sound blaster card which also used the

04:46 same ym3812 sound chip so this chip was

04:49 basically the foundation of computer

04:52 music in the IBM PC world for the next

04:54 10 years the ym3812 had nine voices and

04:59 much like the commodore 64 the voices

05:01 were independently programmable

05:03 incidentally this chip was also used in

05:05 several Yamaha keyboards such as this

05:07 one take a look inside and you'll see

05:10 the ym3812 sound chip it's almost as if

05:12 you could take a sound blaster card and

05:14 attach keys and speakers to it and you

05:16 could play it like an instrument so take

05:18 a listen to this little sample of music

05:20 from the game Ultima 6

05:29 and now listen as I recreate that same

05:32 sound on this keyboard

05:50 all right so let's talk about sampling

05:52 for a moment now one of the neat things

05:54 about this keyboard that I haven't shown

05:56 you yet this this came out around 1985

05:59 and has four voices but one of the

06:00 things that makes it interesting is it's

06:01 a sampling keyboard and let me show you

06:03 exactly what that means

06:05 8-bit guy so this was not the only

06:14 device to come out in 1985 that featured

06:17 a four voice sampling system the other

06:20 was the Commodore Amiga the Commodore

06:22 Amiga was the first affordable home

06:24 computer that featured a four voice

06:26 stereo sampling sound system

06:40 and with it came a new type of computer

06:44 music known as the mod tracker these

06:46 were music files that contains samples

06:48 of different sounds and then the

06:49 Associated music information the

06:52 original mod tracker used a four track

06:53 system designed around the Amiga sound

06:55 chip but later versions eventually edit

06:57 many more tracks for more sophisticated

06:59 sound cards

07:10 this type of format is still in use

07:12 today as a method for composing new

07:14 music the mod tracker format is not used

07:18 quite so often anymore with the

07:19 abundance of storage and memory on

07:22 modern machines they pretty much just

07:24 forego all of that type of music

07:26 synthesis in favor of just using one

07:28 gigantic sample usually in the form of

07:29 like an mp3 file or something like that

07:31 alright well that about wraps that up I

07:33 hope you found that interesting maybe

07:35 learn something you maybe didn't already

07:37 know it also may have come to your

07:39 attention that I have changed the name

07:40 of my channel the reason is it's been

07:43 pointed out to me on several occasions

07:45 that I haven't made really videos about

07:48 Apple iBooks in quite some time so I

07:50 change the name from the iBook guy to

07:51 the 8-bit guy because it's a little bit

07:53 more representative of what I actually

07:55 do here also I want to take a moment to

07:58 thank Rob for being on my show and why

08:00 don't you tell us a little bit about

08:01 your channel for a moment well thank you

08:03 for having me on your show I'm a big fan

08:04 of your channel and one of the things I

08:06 like to talk about on my channel are a

08:08 little bit more obscure a little more

08:10 unusual Hardware as it relates to video

08:12 games like this sharp x68000 computer

08:16 from Japan one of my all-time favorite

08:18 systems and if you want to see a little

08:20 bit more about this piece of obscure

08:22 equipment there's a link down in the

08:24 description field you can click to take

08:25 you over to his channel and he's got a

08:27 lot of other really obscure stuff in his

08:29 collection that you can have a look at

08:31 alright we'll also don't forget to visit

08:33 me on Facebook and I'll see you next

08:35 time

💫 FAQs about This YouTube Video

1. What are the key features of old-school music in the early days of home computers?

Old-school music in the early days of home computers relied on simple beeper speakers controlled directly by the CPU. Most systems had dedicated sound chips by the early 1980s, each with a characteristic sound, and different systems had different numbers of voices or channels for creating music.

2. How did old-school music in the early days of home computers evolve?

Old-school music in the early days of home computers evolved from basic beeper speaker control by the CPU to more advanced sound chips that offloaded the work from the CPU. This allowed for more complex and diverse music, with systems having their own characteristic sound and style of graphics.

3. What were the limitations of creating music in the early days of home computers?

The main limitation in the early days of home computers was the use of simple beeper speakers controlled directly by the CPU, which could only produce clicking noises. Creating more advanced music would require significant CPU resources, leaving little to no room for other computer operations.

4. How did dedicated sound chips improve the music capabilities of home computers?

Dedicated sound chips in home computers improved the music capabilities by offloading the work from the CPU. This allowed for more advanced and diverse music to be produced, as seen in the characteristic sound and style of graphics of each system in the early 1980s.

5. What are some examples of early home computers with dedicated sound chips?

Some examples of early home computers with dedicated sound chips include the IBM PC and the Apple II. These systems had dedicated sound chips to control the speakers, which enhanced their music capabilities and contributed to their unique personality.

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