New week, New Poll : Best Retro Sound Chip

[boyo]

Edit by charlesr: spam link removed.

Let's make the Speccy the winner chaps

[Skull Commander]

No way! C64 all the way!

[Yakumo]

I've got a soft spot for the Mega Drive sound chip when used right. Yuzo Koshiro and Funky Surrondin' are two names that spring to mind for great MD audio. however most of the US made games sound like ****e. Rob Hubbard my arse However Chris Hulsbeck (sp?) did some nice stuff on it with Mega Turrican.

If we are all honest though, the ultimate Retro sound chip was the SPC in the Super Famicom. Fantastic audio processor.

Yakumo

[moonwhistle]

My favourate is definately the Megadrive sound chip. Really limited apparently but that made the developers really work to produce catchy, tinny techno goodness. Games such as Alisia Dragoon, Hellfire, Zerowing, Thunderforce 3, Gleylancer etc all have superb memorable soundtracks which put modern game audio to shame.

[babs]

Nothing tops what Konami were able to do with the SNES for my money.

[MonkeyJuggleDX]

Nothing tops what Konami were able to do with the SNES for my money.

Square and their Seiken Densetsu soundtracks?

[Radioactive Apostle]

Anyone who thought the Speccy ouput better tunes than the C64 is clearly quite mad or Sir Clive Sinclair.

[Leon Retro]

Without doubt the Super Famicom chip. When a good musician used it, the results were always stunning.

Contra Spirits , Castlevania IV, Plok, Actraiser, F-Zero, Final Fantasy 3, Sparkster, the list goes on and on!


After that, I like the Amiga chip. Listen to Psygnosis games like Shadow Of The Beast. Simply breathtaking, even today.


The MegaDrive has a raw-edge to its sound. Even the best examples are quite rough, but with talent, the chip produced some stunning music.

It all comes-down to talent, but a good chip helps.

[wheelaa]

MD - Yuzo Koshiro.

Doesn't matter how good a chip is, its how its used that counts.

[JazzFunk]

Between the SNES and Megadrive, I'd also opt for the MD (even though the SNES chip is far superior in many ways) - it had a 'punchy' quality to it, and the way programmers got around its limitations made for some very interesting, memorable tunes (Jewel Master, Ghostbusters, Dangerous Seed etc.).

But the burble-tastic C-64 SID chip has got to be the greatest. How many classic tunes come from that machine? The way that peeps like Rob Hubbard and Tim Follin could cram so much into so little amount of k is frankly mindblowing.

I kind of like the internal fuzzy/clicky buzz of Spectrum sound, too. Speccy games like Cobra had awesome music for such a primitive machine.

[samanosuke]

The Amiga by far. I can't recall any other machine during the 80s that was able to play 'real' music. Some of the later games such as Stardust, Hired Guns and most Team 17 games had amazing soundtracks.

To top things off, in an Amiga with a decent cpu ('060 or better), that old 8-bit Paula sound chip plays MP3s as good as any other player.

[samanosuke]

Actually, I quite liked the sound chip of the Neo Geo too. Games such as Metal Slug 3 and Garou: Mark of the Wolves sounded fantastic.

[pentarou]

Gotta be the Super Famicom, the music in Contra Spirits should convince anyone of that!

[jnm23]

I'd go with SID (for it's time), but SNES overall

Super ghouls 'n ghosts on SNES had some astonishing orchestral tracks, particularly levels 2 and 3

[turrican_dx]

Megadrive's Yamaha YM2612 and its TI SN76489 PSG pip most other chips of the time (for the aforementioned reasons). Yuzo Koshiro and the Sega Sound Team really did score fascinating stuff.