Did NES musicians use Stereo when making music for the NES/Famicon even though it would be played in Mono on the system? by Franpa at 10:55 PM EST on February 5, 2012
Question: Do NES music musicians use Stereo when making music for the NES/Famicon games even though it would be played in Mono on the system? I ask because so many NES games have music that sounds great when the 2 Square channels are separated, Square one -45 degree's to the left and Square 2 45 degrees to the right.
For example the NES was only capable of mono sound yet numerous games feature audio tracks that simulate cross fade (Something not really possible in mono environments) incredibly well amongst other effects that can only really be demonstrated/heard in a stereo environment. They also tend to straight up sound significantly better under such a stereo configuration as well.
Edit: I mean: Do NES musicians design songs for the NES with the intention of them one day being heard in stereo? Or is the improvements stereo sound brings to there musical pieces just a coincidence?
Edit 2: On second thought it seems more like coincidence then intentional. I mean from a code point it's probably easier to dedicate one channel to echo/sustain notes then it is to have one channel play a note then enable the sustain/echo effect, disable the effect, play another note, enable the sustain/echo effect, disable the effect, play another note etc.
well you seem to have answered your own question but I was going to ask if you had any examples where you thought it was done intentionally. i'd be surprised if it ever was, but granted it does sound pretty cool sometimes, especially with konami titles that are clever about channel usage.
i have to admit it's something i've done when writing NES tunes, for the benefit of people who use stereo players (i did it on this song quite a bit) but I suspect that largely musicians wouldn't have bothered doing this at the time. would have been a hard enough job without having to think about stereo effects that no-one would even hear :)
Yeah most (all?) Konami games sound great in stereo as do a couple Rare, Tecmo, Sunsoft, Irem/Compile, Taito, Capcom and many other companies games.
Is it okay to link to NSF files here? As it's kinda hard to describe what song you mean since most games have numerous NSF versions with songs in different orders etc.
Edit: A lot of Wizards & Warriors III songs have notes that fade/transition from one Square channel to the other, sometimes fading back and forth between the channels. (Wiseman, Wizard, Damsel in Distress, end credits, Knight, Knight Test and many other songs)
If you listen, you can hear how I've split the channels. My options for each were hard-left, center, or hard-right, with the following exception:
For some reason, pairing the 2A03 Triangle with a Square Wave produced a buzz in the Triangle. I fixed this by placing the Triangle in the center.
Don't know why or how, but it fixed the buzzing.
Ideally we would have someone who knows what they are doing implement configurable channel panning in an accurate plugin. Apparently those people aren't interested.
That's the one I tried. It's okay, but it's not a plugin (inconvenient). I notice a click when starting a song. The panning sliders aren't very wide, so it's difficult to fine-tune. The N106 is a little smoother, but I can't say whether it's more or less accurate because I don't know how the N106 is supposed to sound.