The death of "synthetic/artifical" sounding video game music

You accidentally cut the Doom one's URL wrong.

^x3 I'll second that notion.

edited 14th Oct '10 7:31:08 PM by rmctagg09

Strictly speaking, an orchestral remix of something that was composed under the aforementioned technological limitations is still going to have those musical influences that made it good in the first place.

Yeah. My contention with the Sonic 3D Blast one was that the entire soundtrack was gutted and replaced from the ground up with what was essentially elevator music. Remixes are still great, and orchestral that's actually more than generic atmosphere/beat will always be great.

edited 14th Oct '10 7:45:08 PM by Pykrete

I just have to put this here:

Also, does this count as Synthetic?

Also, could this count as well?

As much as I may miss the old chiptunes, the introduction of high quality audio is a step forward towards awesome themes like this:

edited 14th Oct '10 8:01:37 PM by ariesku

I'll second this IJBM.

I don't think it's dead, but it's definitely not produced or appreciated as much as it used to be.

Electivirus: If not an orchestra, I usually prefer my VGM to have some kind of live performance in them.

Despite the fact that we both love videogame soundtracks, I differ from you on this point. Especially since I often think of the music as representing some mood or other concept, I more often than not appreciate the originals more than the remixes.

And since we're posting awesome chiptuney tracks, let's bring out one from one of the VGM masters himself, Nobuo Uematsu:

This is the boss theme from Final Fantasy III, the original NES version.

I think it's better than the DS version, to be honest. It's got more of a driving beat.

edited 14th Oct '10 8:04:04 PM by GlennMagusHarvey

Can mix both styles. Like this:

You know, I find it really intriguing how people can find horrible sound quality and limited audio range to be something to celebrate.

Oh, by the way:

The square wave, triangle wave, sine wave, and saw wave are as much instruments as the violin, trumpet, clarinet, and piano.

ariesku: That would be an example of doing it right. And when it is, it's glorious.

I think it's good that video games gave the world the chiptune genre, but I can't say I'm sorry that they're now able to create more varied music in any conceivable style.

^^^ or however many ^s it takes: As mentioned above, limited sound quality means that there had to be focus on the tunes. For me, I'm always impressed by well-done minimalism, so making something memorable with so little is awesome.

edited 14th Oct '10 8:08:08 PM by Funnyguts

I heard that the old 8-bit songs could only have three notes (plus a track for percussion) playing at once and composers needed to be sneaky when trying to make chords, like stringinging lots of triplet notes together.

Oh, here's another great mix, from noted music remixer Jorge D. Fuentes (a.k.a. "TGMagus"), that uses the square wave squarely in the centerpiece during the second (half-)loop of this remix:

In the right hands, chiptunes are capable of rocking quite hard.

edited 14th Oct '10 8:09:34 PM by EnglishIvy

^^^ or however many ^s it takes: As mentioned above, limited sound quality means that there had to be focus on the tunes. For me, I'm always impressed by well-done minimalism, so making something memorable with so little is awesome.

I totally agree.

The very limited instrumentation meant that composers had to focus on giving us great rhythm, melody, and harmony.

Perhaps it's because I grew up with chiptunes (NES, GB, and later SNES) that explains why I focus so much on rhythm and harmony.

@Funnyguts: I... guess that makes sense?

@GMH: Actually, GMH, those are sounds, not instruments. The instrument in question would be a sound chip/generator.

@ Wicked: Okay, fine. I meant "instruments" as in "instrument choices for a composer to compose for".

@EI: Just for reference, the arcade version:

Yech. The NES version is so much better.

But, ultimately, chiptune soundtracks (for me) suffer the same problem as all other soundtracks: they're not composed as standalone songs, they're meant to match what's happening on screen. So when I listen to them seperate, it feels like there's something missing from it and I end up just getting bored halfway through.

Speaking of Touhou...