This week in RetroNots will be played back at a low sample rate, you know, for that warm fuzzy sensation.

Now that RetroNots micro has returned, I'd like to follow up on one of my previous

microtopics, specifically that survey of FM synthesis and games. Go check that out if you haven't

listened already. Perhaps not surprisingly, that episode sparked a bit of the time-honored and

perhaps inevitable Super NES versus Genesis debate, since those consoles sound capabilities helped

in large part to define them. Gamed consoles tend to work alike on a lot of fundamental levels,

which is especially true these days. The Genesis and Super NES, however, existed in contrast to one

another in a great many ways, and few ways more so than their respective audio technologies.

The Genesis without question represents gaming's purest pipeline of FM synth audio directly to

the player's brains. The Genesis' distinct soundscape, while sometimes harsh or poorly

implemented by audio programmers, played an especially significant role in helping the console

to feel like an emissary from the future when it debuted here in 1989. The metallic sharpness of

its sound also created a meaningful perceptual contrast to the Super NES's audio. As I mentioned,

Genesis audio tended to have a crisp, percussive sensation that perfectly complemented the more

intense action-oriented experiences at which the console excelled, sports games, shooters,

racers, and so forth. The Super NES worked better when it dealt with softer warmer sounds like

orchestration, which in turn fit both the slower-paced games that the console specialized in,

as well as the softer, more muted color palettes that tend to show up in its games visuals.

Where the Genesis implemented FM synthesis, generating audio based on predefined algorithms and

wave lengths, the Super NES took a different approach. Rather than simply generating tones the

way other consoles did, it instead relied on sampling technology as its key underpinning.

So let's talk about sampling and how it relates to video games.

...