Let's listen to some great Megadrive music

[hudson]

Let's use this thread to celebrate the sound chip of the Megadrive (YM2612) and the great composers that delivered some excellent music.

Theme of M.U.S.H.A Aleste by Toshiaki Sakoda

[vanpeebles]

Huge boss jump arl ower and bray yer one.

[vanpeebles]

BOM BOM BOM BOM

[Yakumo]

The Mega Drive sound chip in the hands of the Japanese was epic. In the hands of US developers it was god awful. Europe was a mixed bag at best.

[hudson]

The Mega Drive sound chip in the hands of the Japanese was epic. In the hands of US developers it was god awful. Europe was a mixed bag at best.

I'm guessing that's true. Any examples?

[hudson]

[vanpeebles]

Good shout on that class ESWAT tune, I’m trying to think of different stuff, rather than the usual suspects.

[Caprica]

Loving the Alien 3 and the Terminator OST’s, apart from the usual stuff that is....

[Nu-Eclipse]

[MENTION=4957]hudson[/MENTION] I do believe that this holds up as a fine example of [MENTION=1524]Yakumo[/MENTION]'s correct statement regarding relative US/JPN/EUR work on the MD/Genesis sound chip.

It is a banger.



Would also include Tsukachan's work on MD Shadow Dancer.

[Team Andromeda]

@<u><a href="http://bordersdown.net/member.php?u=4957" target="_blank">hudson</a></u> I do believe that this holds up as a fine example of [M]

There's plenty of good examples of fine Mega Drive music from Western developers, but its always more cool to be Japanese for music on the MD, I guess. Thats to overlook the MD soundchip was pretty poor compared to the Amiga, nevermind Snes for music

[Nu-Eclipse]

There's plenty of good examples of fine Mega Drive music from Western developers, but its always more cool to be Japanese for music on the MD, I guess.

Did some western composers produce great MD music? Sure. Did some Japanese composers produce poor MD music? Yes. But all things considered, I do believe that the Japanese output was superior P4P. That is all.

[hudson]

I could do better than that Alien3 tune. Pretty poor bass sound. Gotta say, so far the Japanese are winning Not coz they're cool guys

[Team Andromeda]

Did some western composers produce great MD music? Sure. Did some Japanese composers produce poor MD music? Yes. But all things considered, I do believe that the Japanese output was superior P4P. That is all.

That's debatable , but then music is very subjective. I wasn't that impressed with a lot of the music on the MD be it for Japan or the West tbh. I loved the music off my Amiga and when I got the SNES it was just a differnt class for music; no matter where the Music was produce.

I will say that in the 16 bit days Yuzo music was the best though

[samanosuke]

Here’s one you might not have heard as it doesn’t feature in a game, but nonetheless makes the absolute most of the MegaDrive’s sound capabilities, including good use of the PSG as well as YM:



Oh, and Hudson, you posted the wrong Revenge tune; it should’ve been China Town!

[samanosuke]

Did some western composers produce great MD music? Sure. Did some Japanese composers produce poor MD music? Yes. But all things considered, I do believe that the Japanese output was superior P4P. That is all.

I do agree with a lot of what you say, and purely speculation but maybe most of the documentation / dev tools were in Japanese? Otherwise it seems strange when developers who clearly had a lot of musical talent on other platforms struggled so much on the MegaDrive. Compare Lotus 2 soundtrack on Amiga to Lotus Challenge on MegaDrive. Cannon Fodder, Desert Strike and Flashback are but more examples where there is a clear gulf between the two platforms in terms of music quality. Sometimes Western developers got it right - Wiz ‘n’ Liz, Alien3, Lion King and Mortal Kombat all have great soundtracks that stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their ported peers - but these were the exception rather than the rule.