Mario 3D Land by Splashman at 10:39 AM EST on November 18, 2011
I think Mario 3D Land should clear any leftover doubt that the 3DS is capable of playing fully streamed music in decent quality. Some of the tracks are even taken directly from the Galaxy games.
Now if only the developments in the 3DS dumping scene could move a bit faster. Or have I missed something? All I know is that there's a file viewer so far: http://3dbrew.org/wiki/3DSExplorer
But... not ALL of Super Mario Galaxy's music is streamed. Infact, I'm pretty sure that tracks like "Blue Sky Athletics", which is one of the tracks in Super Mario 3D Land is not streamed.
Also, how long was it until the first 2SF rips were possible? As in how long, after the DS itself was released?
Whoops, my bad. I just compared the 3DL tracks to those from Galaxy. They sounded so similar because they have the same compositions, but they use very different instruments after all. Except Blue Sky Athletic, which was indeed sequenced to begin with in Galaxy. So now I'm not sure anymore about my streaming theory... but still, I'd imagine they recorded a live saxophone for the 3DL Main Theme.
I still don't understand why Nintendo doesn't just improve their sequenced formats... Recording real instruments, etc..
Streams are annoyingly large and lack the dynamics that can be put in in sequenced.(Although Mario Galaxy and Mario Kart uses streams quite well dynamically.)
"Streams are annoyingly large and lack the dynamics that can be put in in sequenced.(Although Mario Galaxy and Mario Kart uses streams quite well dynamically.)"
The music in Skyward Sword is crazy dynamic. The bazaar alone has 6 versions that cross-fade.
Is Skyward Sword's bazaar music streamed? I mean, it even changes tempos and that seems like it would be pretty difficult to stream, not to mention those are totally not live instruments.
For Skyward Sword, the bazaar's music is sequenced, as are a lot of other tracks, to make them more dynamic. I would know as I've been busy ripping the game since 11/11/11. :P
it's not Nintendo's sound drivers that are at fault, it's simply the kinds of instrumental patches they decide to use in their games. usually simplistic dated-sounding rompler patches. some of them are great IMO, but for sure, they're not usually AAA+ hollywood samples.
besides if real instruments need to be recorded it doesn't make much sense to stick with a sequenced format -- better off just bouncing songs to audio and implementing them as streams instead.
also consider that the more you ask a sequenced audio driver to do (in terms of velocity layers, round robbins, basically massive numbers of samples, then audio DSP etc. which are used in full audio production) the more console CPU, RAM and cartridge storage is required - way more than is currently feasible to use on audio. there could come a time in future where sequences can do everything streams can because the sequenced formats are sophisticated enough to do all the things audio production software offers (think an FLstudio driver running in the background of a game), but the only real benefit of that would be to take advantage of the flexibility of music while it's stored as notation as you mentioned... tempo changes, fading of specific sound channels, dynamic stuff etc. other than that it's just not worthwhile or practical, and streams are more convenient and reach the same ends for the most part.
so i suppose what you're really asking for from Nintendo is for them to produce more soundtracks with exclusively streamed music and thus higher fidelity audio. i don't disagree - their streamed soundtracks are great - but i don't think they'll ever really abandon their trademark kitchyness and retro sounds for hollywood stringz. that sound is what they've been trading off of for decades. and i think that's also why they've been able to get away with using sequenced formats for so long - they can achieve the sort of music they want without having to use a lot of disc space.
@lunar, your idea makes sense, but ''an FLstudio driver running in the background'' is going to take awhile before thats possible O.o fl studio will eat away half of the CPU/RAM, than its just the matter of wath kind of music it is, mario songs dont use must effects etc, but if you're talking about f zero gx music, thats just not going to happen [would be great tho]
Fruity Loops is hardly the industry standard in the first place. You wouldn't want something so RAM-heavy running in a game when you could write a better effects engine (or create custom-tailored samples) to do just what you need. Anyway there's no reason they need to keep using terrible samples, although better ones have more pieces and more math to do to figure out how to make it sound realistic. Koji Kondo (and the people on his team) deserves a medal for the dynamic music in the Mario and Zelda games though. I wish more games would take the cue to make the music an interactive part of the game. It adds an often-overlooked element that really adds one more immersion layer in games.
Don't forget Rareware's games on SNES and N64, the music in those games is insanely good and they managed to pull off excellent visuals at the same time!
On the N64 Rareware also made extensive use of dynamic music transitions depending on where your standing in an area (Like the Bazaar in Skyward Sword) which I still consider to be a very nifty effect that hardly any game developers use anymore :/