What NES games had the best instruments, using only the APU's native sound?
Wagland Land 3's square wave instruments sound really nice, especially with the assistance of the triangle and DPCM channels - but even without them, they sound pretty good.
Some of Rare's games like to mix both squares and the triangle for a single instrument, including Ironsword: Wizards and Warriors II and Jordan vs. Bird. While it doesn't sound very well executed in the latter, Ironsword's instruments are much better executed and sound very nice.
Metal Slader Glory's instruments also sound good too, even for the songs that don't use the MMC5's squares. In fact, I think only two songs in the game use the MMC5's squares. It also uses the two-square+triangle technique at times for a guitar during the alien-robot-fighting song and a cheerful, happy instrument during the password song.
Sweet Home also has good instruments IMO, and also uses the two-square+triangle method for an interesting, haunting instrument during the intro and ending song.
What are other NES games that have good instruments, using only the APU's sound?
I think that Rockman 2 and 4 musics are very nice.
Snake's Revenge and Castlevania II have Konami's signature instruments where a pulse wave's duty is momentarily changed at the start of the note, and of course their drum tracks were intense. Fester's Quest has good DMC bassline samples for the overworld theme. Lolo 3 has a nice wood drum sounding percussion track. Solstice makes unique use of the noise channel for a metallic triangle sample, which is interesting to listen to. Blaster Master just gets many things right, really classy instruments. The drum samples momentarily play a higher triangle wave note at the beginning of the noise burst, and the two meld together so you can hardly tell it's the triangle channel.
Are there any games notable for using arpeggios for instrument effects besides broken chords? I can't tell if this is the case with Solstice's music, but it could be well-done broken chords with little correlation with each other.
strangenesfreak wrote:
Are there any games notable for using arpeggios for instrument effects besides broken chords?
You mean like when you select a missile in Top Gun?
Klax does some really weird effects with some of its instruments.
I'm very sursprised Final Fantasy 3 hasn't been mentionned yet, it uses awesome instruments.
Aside of this, I guess Double Dragon 2 has a cool effect on the start of the music of the first stage, combining Square+Triangle at different octaves to get a cool effect. The Stage 2's music in Castlevania does something similar.
Just Breed also does impressive instrument combinations at times, but it doesn't always sounds good.
Yet, there is still many possibilities to try ! I like how so little wave generators can produce so very different sound effects, it's something really awesome.
Batman has one of the most amazing 2A03-only soundtracks I've ever heard. It was composed before Sunsoft started using DMC basslines, and instead uses some really great, heavy drum samples. Track 1 (level 1, US version) is a perfect example.
Most of the time when I think of games that sounded really good, I also look at what images they are put to. Like the way the music goes really well in the Ninja Gaiden cinema screens.
Speaking of the Double Dragon games, Double Dragon III really sticks in my head in this regard. The music really captures each setting that you're playing in. I especially like in the last level when it's an Egyptian setting, and they were able to come up with songs that still kept the oriental feel of the game, along with capturing a middle-east, mysterious kind of feel in the music. All APU too : )
BMF54123 wrote:
Batman has one of the most amazing 2A03-only soundtracks I've ever heard. It was composed before Sunsoft started using DMC basslines, and instead uses some really great, heavy drum samples. Track 1 (level 1, US version) is a perfect example.
Oh, yes... Batman Return of the Joker and Hebereke are good examples.
True, Batman makes good use of the chrous effect (square 1 and 2 playing the same thing but slightly delayed and/or detuned), which sounds good, but the DPCM samples really doesn't sound good to me.
Conquest of the Crystal Palace have some good instruments that really sounds like Chineese instruments.
The FDS version of Castlevania II also have awesome instruments that sounds like celtic instruments, but this is greatly due to a clever combination of FDS sound and regular NES sound.
Blue Shadow, Batman, Journey to Silius, Ninja Gaiden 2.
And for the european style (which I know some people here dislike, but I don't); Solstice, Silver Surfer, Darkman, Asterix, Smurfs.
Rygar had a really neat Hammond organ effect on both squares which I was amazed at when I played it on my NES.
How are arpeggios best executed? All of mic_'s examples actually execute arpeggios very well - except for Smurfs's death music, which its high arpeggios don't sound very good IMO. So maybe arpeggios are more effective on low correlation, low pitch notes?
Treasure Master is pretty nifty.
I'm just posting to say I was amazed to hear how the squares in Adventure of Bayou Billy souds exactly like a guiter.
Bregalad wrote:
I'm just posting to say I was amazed to hear how the squares in Adventure of Bayou Billy souds exactly like a guiter.
When I looked at the Square 2 waveform, it appears to do clever volume effects on the notes and banjoish-string effects (I don't know what they're called XD). The banjoish-string effects also seems to do constant duty-cycle arpeggios. Really nice instruments from Konami.
The first section in Final Fantasy 3 also does some nice sounding arpeggios - but these are more closer to arpeggios done with real-life instruments rather than super-fast chiptune arpeggios. It sounds really awesome.
I think the NES seems to be best at making piano instruments...considering I know more than a few games that have pretty good piano instruments.
It doesn't really sound like a guitar.
NotTheCommonDose wrote:
It doesn't really sound like a guitar.
You don't think so? I shudder to know what guitar players you've jammed with.
If anything, the rhythm is guitar-like in itself. Personally, I think that track sounds like a guitar, but if it doesn't to someone else, the strumming in itself is right on par.
NotTheCommonDose wrote:
whatever.
haha! Okay.
Anyway, I'm checking out the .nsf right now, and never noticed before that they use both square channels to achieve that sound. It has a nice bouncing movement to it with the way they lay it out. I've always loved that main song, but never paid attention to the way they did it. I appreciate it even more right now : )
I've always loved the US SMB2's music. The nice, dreamy, piano-like instrument used in a few of the tracks (notably the title theme, and most of the main overworld theme) was a marked improvement over the very boring square waves of Doki Doki Panic. It was just one of many nice touches that transformed what could have been another ordinary FDS port into something special. Definitely one of Nintendo's finest accomplishments in my book.
Asterix has great music in it. I just love those drum sounds, not something you hear too often in NES games. And it doesn't use DPCM. Asterix was one big inspiration (I even disassembled it...) when making the drum sounds for the High Hopes demo soundtrack.
Tim Follin tunes are also great soundwise, eg. Solstice and Silver Surfer.
You're all wrong! ;P Hero Quest.
I see "The Adventures Of Bayou Billy" has been mentioned here. Really cool guitar pluck effect. I guess Kyouhei Sada came up with that idea, since this method was also used in "S.C.A.T.", where Kyouhei Sada used both channels to generate a saxophone-like sound. So great.
I think Sword Master is pretty interesting. Not in terms of instruments (altough Koichi used the vibrato effect very well) but in terms of volume mixing. The soundtracks sound very smooth.
Jeroen Tel is a cool one. He mostly used vibrato/duty-changing leads, creating totally "synthy" melodies with it. Alien 3 and Overlord are incredible.
KID's sound engine (Nobuyuki Shioda's work?) is pretty cool. Triangle channel was often used for lead chords, while pulse channels replaced it for the bass. Their compositions were also damn good like the soundtracks for G.I. Joe, Recca, Kickmaster, Doki Doki Yuuenchi, etc.
Not to mention Konami's/Sunsoft's/Natsume's sound designers creating incredible tunes.
The snare and bass drums in Silver Surfer are the best non-sample drums I've heard on the NES.
I haven't really listened that much to NES music though, so it would make me very happy if someone could point out even better drums.