Re: They're Making A New Doom

On Tue, 11 Jun 2024 17:05:43 +0100, Sandro Santos
<sandro.santos@posteo.net> wrote:

On 6/11/24 12:29, Rin Stowleigh wrote:

On Mon, 10 Jun 2024 20:56:36 -0400, Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com>
wrote:
 

On Mon, 10 Jun 2024 18:34:55 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:
>

Just be sure it has good MIDI. FM MIDI sucks. ;)

>
I may not be a fan of DOOM but I like the soundtrack. I have the
Roland SC-55 midi version in my collection. I agree, FM midi sucks.

 
You guys are cracking me up.
 
Not sure if you realize that at least half of all the best selling
commercial music of the 1980s that utilized synthesizers made
extensive use of FM synthesis in combination with MIDI?
 
(There isn't really such a thing as "FM MIDI"... Frequency Modulation
(FM) is the method of synthesis, and has nothing to do with the note
data (MIDI) that plays the sound).
 
I'm assuming here what you're discussing that sucks is likely the
sonic characteristics of specific sound cards or devices that just
happened to be based on FM?  Yes some of those can sound tinny but
that is not necessarily a characteristic of Frequency Modulation as a
synthesis method.
 
Also, many of the warmest/richest sounding subtractive analog
synthesizers can do FM.  This only refers to modulating one oscillator
with another, effectively establishing the carrier/modulator
relationship that FM synths are based on.
 
By default and if the sound designer doesn't know what they are doing,
or if the signal path is crap, FM sounds can be harsh and metallic
sounding.
 
Listen to the pad that comes in at about 11 seconds in.  A Yamaha DX7
(FM synth) was used for this:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RUIeX6UCT8

>
This guy synths :)
Great post.
I've been using FM synths for some decades (Yamaha TX7, DX21, DX7) and
in the right hands, can sound wonderful.

Agreed, they can sound great.  I don't actually own any strictly FM
synths at the moment, but I have number of synths that "can do" FM.
And I guess if I load up OPX4 on the Akai MPC (which sounds great and
has possibly one of the best interfaces for FM sound design I've
used), that technically becomes "strictly an FM synth" if nothing else
is loaded on it :)

I do have the Plogue Chipsynth OPS7 plugin (which for $50 I highly
recommend if anyone wants authentic DX7 sound in a plugin).

Even OPL can sound great (Monkey Island, Dune 2, Tyrian, etc)
Cheers

I played Dune 2, but honestly do not remember much about the music,
it's been a long time... the others I never played.

But if they had great music, its possible that it was written and
mixed directly on the OPL card, as opposed to composing on different
gear and then tweaking the sounds on the OPL based card to work with
the MIDI data.

At least, I find it to be a much faster workflow to decide on the
specific sounds I'm going to use up front, rather than to write chords
and melody against generic sounds and then work different sounds in
later.

Not saying the latter approach can't work too.  I just find that how
sounds that might sound great by themselves play with each other is
something that's more than the sum of all parts, and it's just easier
to find the magic as early in the process as possible.

So the whole idea of "general MIDI" is to be able to just take some
MIDI data, throw it into a sound generation device and any bass line
should sound like a good bass line, same with piano/drums/brass etc.
But good sounding music isn't quite that simple, each of those sounds
has slightly different envelopes and harmonic characteristics that
don't guarantee they necessarily sound good together.  And then there
can be bugs in the MIDI implementation itself that really comes out
sounding weird.  Sometimes what comes out the other end sounds good,
sometimes not so much.

But given some combination of talent and patience, good sounding music
can be coerced out of even the worst sounding synths.

One of my favorite FM synths from back in the day was a TX81Z.  Used
and in mint condition they still go for about what I paid for mine
back in 1989.