System 11 Soundcard

[Zombie Aladdin]

All right. I read that link and I saw that they used a single track to continuously loop some music, so I was wondering if they could have used that to do an orchestral recording, considering that's what video games nowadays use. Even in 1996, there were already orchestral recordings, most famously "One Winged Angel" from Final Fantasy VII, which made huge waves all over the video game communities because it was something that had never been heard in a video game before.

Say, are we on the same page here? You're talking about sound banks and synthesization. I'm talking about live recordings of an orchestra. Something like this:

This is not a special performance, by the way. They are recording the actual in-game music. As in when you play Super Mario Galaxy and reach Gusty Garden, you are hearing this recording as the background music.

I'd imagine the biggest obstacle is price. Stern is a cash-strapped company, and the last time pinball was big enough to afford such a thing was before this type of game music was even heard of, let alone commonplace. On theother hand, Nintendo's found much success, to where even Mario Kart games now have these performances for their in-game music.

(Needless to say, live orchestral recordings are my favorite of video game music.)

 

[sellenoff]

DCS enabled live music to be recorded. Go to YouTube and search for "Judge Dredd Pinball Promo Video" to see the guitar riffs being captured.

Didn't notice it, but was skimming the video, maybe I missed it? Got a link and a time when it starts? Would love to see it. Thanks.

 

[netizen]

The problem, IMO, with your idea of Orchestral Music is the comparative difference in game times between Pinball and the standard home console gaming experience; especially games like Super Mario World or FFVII

With Pinball you're usually looking at not much more than 5 minutes per ball, unless it is a game that has been designed for HUO or you are an exceptionally skilled player. Whereas the average console game is designed, and marketed, for hours of play; usually per sitting.

Pinball is about, especially now with mode based games, using the audio cues, and music based modes, to guide the player into the game and to help them "see" the shot with minimal need to stop their flow. Maybe some of the more adventure type video/digital pinball games could benefit from an orchestral soundtrack as a way to add ambience.

 

[Shaneus]

All right. I read that link and I saw that they used a single track to continuously loop some music, so I was wondering if they could have used that to do an orchestral recording, considering that's what video games nowadays use. Even in 1996, there were already orchestral recordings, most famously "One Winged Angel" from Final Fantasy VII, which made huge waves all over the video game communities because it was something that had never been heard in a video game before.

Say, are we on the same page here? You're talking about sound banks and synthesization. I'm talking about live recordings of an orchestra. Something like this:

This is not a special performance, by the way. They are recording the actual in-game music. As in when you play Super Mario Galaxy and reach Gusty Garden, you are hearing this recording as the background music.

I'd imagine the biggest obstacle is price. Stern is a cash-strapped company, and the last time pinball was big enough to afford such a thing was before this type of game music was even heard of, let alone commonplace. On theother hand, Nintendo's found much success, to where even Mario Kart games now have these performances for their in-game music.

(Needless to say, live orchestral recordings are my favorite of video game music.)

Oh, I think we're on the same page (at least, in the same book ) but there is literally not the room to have any audio running more than around a minute or so total (a wild guess) at DCS quality (that's without speech or any SFX) on the 6 or so ROM chips that were used in WMS games. The games themselves are 5MB and have to include all the sound and rules and light/insert programming. There's literally no room for anything resembling an orchestra that's such low quality, you'd barely be able to tell it was one. I'm sure if they were clever about it, they could find themselves a clever loop 3 or 4 second loop or two and make something majestic, but like netizen went on to say:

The problem, IMO, with your idea of Orchestral Music is the comparative difference in game times between Pinball and the standard home console gaming experience; especially games like Super Mario World or FFVII

With Pinball you're usually looking at not much more than 5 minutes per ball, unless it is a game that has been designed for HUO or you are an exceptionally skilled player. Whereas the average console game is designed, and marketed, for hours of play; usually per sitting.

Pinball is about, especially now with mode based games, using the audio cues, and music based modes, to guide the player into the game and to help them "see" the shot with minimal need to stop their flow. Maybe some of the more adventure type video/digital pinball games could benefit from an orchestral soundtrack as a way to add ambience.

And keep in mind, both Mario Galaxy and FFVII were both CD-based games. Comparing 700MB-1GB games to ones where the entire game is the same size as a low-quality MP3 is a bit nuts.

I suppose the closest you'll get to what you're talking about (back then, at least) is something like Theatre of Magic (which I just happen to have open on my 360) and has quite a bit of grandeur on display.

DCS enabled live music to be recorded. Go to YouTube and search for "Judge Dredd Pinball Promo Video" to see the guitar riffs being captured.

Damn, I love pinball promo videos. They're so corny and hilarious as hell. PS. I think what Zombie Aladdin was talking about (in hindsight) was fully streamed audio, not samples used for sequencing. Which is really only a thing we're seeing now with larger Stern games. I think the latest Metallica code was considered "massive" at around 60MB.

 

[Espy]

You need to be careful with orchestrated music and pinball. It often doesn't fit. Just look at Star Wars Pinball (the video game). Honestly the music would be much better if it was the main themes remixed to different genres rather than just lifting the tracks straight from the movie.

And why they never used Duel of the Fates for the Masters of the Force table... that would be have been one example of getting it very, very right. One of the missions is the very battle the music plays over in the film! But they missed that chance.

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

The problem, IMO, with your idea of Orchestral Music is the comparative difference in game times between Pinball and the standard home console gaming experience; especially games like Super Mario World or FFVII

With Pinball you're usually looking at not much more than 5 minutes per ball, unless it is a game that has been designed for HUO or you are an exceptionally skilled player. Whereas the average console game is designed, and marketed, for hours of play; usually per sitting.

Pinball is about, especially now with mode based games, using the audio cues, and music based modes, to guide the player into the game and to help them "see" the shot with minimal need to stop their flow. Maybe some of the more adventure type video/digital pinball games could benefit from an orchestral soundtrack as a way to add ambience.

Hmm, that makes sense. The shorter the orchestral performances, the less cost-effective it'd be.

Certainly, I can say that Stern's Indiana Jones uses the orchestrated Indiana Jones theme as its main theme. I have no idea how long it goes for until it loops though, as unless I get that Raiders of the Lost Ark multiball going, my games don't really last for more than about 30 seconds per ball. It's brutal.

Oh, I think we're on the same page (at least, in the same book ) but there is literally not the room to have any audio running more than around a minute or so total (a wild guess) at DCS quality (that's without speech or any SFX) on the 6 or so ROM chips that were used in WMS games. The games themselves are 5MB and have to include all the sound and rules and light/insert programming. There's literally no room for anything resembling an orchestra that's such low quality, you'd barely be able to tell it was one. I'm sure if they were clever about it, they could find themselves a clever loop 3 or 4 second loop or two and make something majestic.

PS. I think what Zombie Aladdin was talking about (in hindsight) was fully streamed audio, not samples used for sequencing. Which is really only a thing we're seeing now with larger Stern games. I think the latest Metallica code was considered "massive" at around 60MB.

Wow, they are really that small? 5 megabytes for a game from the mid-90s? 60 megabytes for a modern game? You could buy a 5-gigabyte flash memory stick for under $5. What's holding them back? Even in the mid-90s, Nintendo developed an audio compression system that allowed for pre-recorded soundtracks on the Nintendo 64, most notably with Star Wars: Episode I Racer, which had I think four orchestral recordings.

By the way, one of the links I had put up above, "Moon Princess," is from Rhythm Thief & the Emperor's Treasure. This was from a 3DS game--in other words, a non-disc medium. The game is full of high-quality recordings, some of which were done by Paris Philharmonic. I suppose when we're getting this recent though, Stern and Jersey Jack are the only companies who could utilize such memory quantities in pinball, and every pinblal machine released after the 3DS has had pre-recorded music.

(I know those examples all came from Nintendo systems, but that's because Nintendo is the only company to use cartridges and cards for video games after pre-recorded audio became popular.)

You need to be careful with orchestrated music and pinball. It often doesn't fit. Just look at Star Wars Pinball (the video game). Honestly the music would be much better if it was the main themes remixed to different genres rather than just lifting the tracks straight from the movie.

Of course. As I've heard so much video game music, I know when something orchestral is appropriate or inappropriate. Something like Medieval Madness (which, apparently, was too old to afford the space for such a thing) or Pirates of the Caribbean would benefit greatly from something with live musicians because of the themes and grandeur they're associated with. I just found it kind of strange that such instances had already occurred in the history of pinball, but it never happened until very recently with licensed tables where they could draw music from the source material anyway.

 

[Shaneus]

Comparing Nintendo of the mid-90s with Williams of the mid-90s is kind of absurd. Williams didn't have to evolve their hardware at that time because there wasn't a need to. TAF had just come off selling the most number of pinball machines ever, and people were more than happy working within the constraints of the hardware available. They're also creating a small number of machines at thousands of dollars a piece, so it's in their interests to keep the costs down as much as possible. Nintendo was on the tail-end of the SNES, with goodness knows how much development staff and dollars at their disposal. Compare the manpower used to create MM with that of SWEP1R. There's also a lot more to be gained by including a grandiose score in a video game. Do that, you'll sell thousands more. If you added a more improved sound system on MM, how many more distributors would've bought it? Safe to say, none.

Let's compare the sales of Bally-Williams games pre-DCS:

and post-DCS:

As you can see, even with an improvement in sound like DCS there was literally no impact on sales whatsoever.

BTW I did a quick search on Rhythm Thief for 3DS, and the size of that ROM is just shy of 1.5GB. Hardly comparable to an 80MB pinball ROM

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

I see your point. Of those five you've listed though, I never really noticed that big a jump in sound quality. But maybe that's because I have been spoiled by said orchestral recordings.

I guess the other big difference is that video games are sold directly to players whereas pinball machines, at least in the '90s, were sold mainly to operators, and what operators want is very different than what players want. Still, it's weird to have people talk about the build quality of a Bally-Williams machine and then read about keeping costs low with audio. But I suppose that this also relates to priorities for operators.

I'm guessing that this low concern for the music in pinball machines is the same reason why we have never seen a pinball music soundtrack the way we have had video game music soundtracks, huh?

 

[Buzz1126]

I don't want to hijack this thread, but since you guys have been talking about sound and pinball, I have a question. What stops someone from buying a KISS pinball machine, removing the chime-y tones of "Rock and Roll All Nite" and replacing it with the ACTUAL music? I would think, since you're doing it for personal use, there would be no copyright infringement, right? It has to be possible, and without having to have a doctorate in soldering iron.

 

[Shaneus]

I see your point. Of those five you've listed though, I never really noticed that big a jump in sound quality. But maybe that's because I have been spoiled by said orchestral recordings.

Big difference in the types of music, though. Look at TZ: It's that very Mega Drive/Genesis-esque synthesized music style, which sounds like basic MIDI from back in the days of old PCs. Whereas everything with DCS onwards uses actual recorded music that's cleverly looped. For an easy comparison, play TZ and STTNG back-to-back. As long as you're not playing on a handheld or PS4 (where the recorded music is significantly lower in quality) you'll hear the difference... one uses recordings of real instruments, the other doesn't.

I guess the other big difference is that video games are sold directly to players whereas pinball machines, at least in the '90s, were sold mainly to operators, and what operators want is very different than what players want. Still, it's weird to have people talk about the build quality of a Bally-Williams machine and then read about keeping costs low with audio. But I suppose that this also relates to priorities for operators.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. But it's not so much about them keeping costs low per se, just that there was no need for them to change anything. The big change for them was going from synthesized to digitised music which we saw with DCS (see above).

I'm guessing that this low concern for the music in pinball machines is the same reason why we have never seen a pinball music soundtrack the way we have had video game music soundtracks, huh?

But if you think about how a game of pinball compares to a video game, modes often change very, VERY quickly. Modes usually only last for 30 seconds or so, in-between modes rarely more than that as well. Whereas video games range from at least 1 to many minutes at a time depending on the game.

The most realistic solution I could have seen working with pinball machines back then is if they went to some kind of a tracker format like those used in Amiga games, such as the .mod format. Small footprint, all sounds/samples included in the song (so not restricted to a fixed set of sounds) and frequently in games you see graphical events triggered when a sound is played (such as this). Hell, Pinball Dreams/Fantasies etc. used that exact format and it worked ridiculously well. Don't think it took a lot of processing power, either.

That would get you the more realistic sound you're looking for, even to the point of being a score (something not unlike this, as an extreme example).

But obviously, this was 20 years ago and hindsight is a harsh mistress, innit?

I don't want to hijack this thread, but since you guys have been talking about sound and pinball, I have a question. What stops someone from buying a KISS pinball machine, removing the chime-y tones of "Rock and Roll All Nite" and replacing it with the ACTUAL music? I would think, since you're doing it for personal use, there would be no copyright infringement, right? It has to be possible, and without having to have a doctorate in soldering iron.

Absolutely nothing stopping anyone. I even believe you can buy hobbyist-level circuit boards which will play MP3 files from an SD card when a switch is closed. Hooking that up to a KISS machine would be a cinch

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

I definitely heard the looping in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and it sounds jarring. I play this on an Android tablet though, so perhaps I can't hear the difference quite as much. Definitely though, it doesn't sound like it comes from a Genesis, whereas something like Twilight Zone or Terminator 2 do.

I find it odd that The Addams Family also has that Genesis type sound to it, as does Black Rose, yet Fish Tales, released in the same year, does not. Why is that? The music in Fish Tales is of a much higher quality than anything else released around it.

By the way, I should mention that when I mean "soundtrack," I mean a compilation of the songs in a particular production or a group of productions into some audio format and sold as a bundle for the sole purpose of listening to. In other words, an album. Until recently, said soundtracks took the form of music CDs, with major releases like Zelda games getting multi-disc CDs (I don't know of a vinyl record example though), though nowadays you're more likely to find them as iTunes albums.

 

[jaredmorgs]

I definitely heard the looping in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and it sounds jarring. I play this on an Android tablet though, so perhaps I can't hear the difference quite as much. Definitely though, it doesn't sound like it comes from a Genesis, whereas something like Twilight Zone or Terminator 2 do.

I find it odd that The Addams Family also has that Genesis type sound to it, as does Black Rose, yet Fish Tales, released in the same year, does not. Why is that? The music in Fish Tales is of a much higher quality than anything else released around it.

By the way, I should mention that when I mean "soundtrack," I mean a compilation of the songs in a particular production or a group of productions into some audio format and sold as a bundle for the sole purpose of listening to. In other words, an album. Until recently, said soundtracks took the form of music CDs, with major releases like Zelda games getting multi-disc CDs (I don't know of a vinyl record example though), though nowadays you're more likely to find them as iTunes albums.

If you are listening to STTNG soundtracks looping through TPA Android, then it isn't a reflection of how seamless and flawless DCS audio can be. Gapless playback when run on the original hardware.

Not on TPA because audio is ripped into .wav files, compressed far too much, then queued when required.

Fish Tales uses the same sound tech as BR and TAF. Are you listening to these from the machines themselves, or from YouTube or pinMAME. The sound you hear may be corrupted when emulated.

 

[Shaneus]

Yeah, sadly you can't really compare the quality between machines solely in TPA. My reasoning for comparing TNG and TZ was the sorts of instruments used/how it was composed vs. the actual quality. DCS sounds amazing in person by comparison.

This video probably shows off TNG best

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

I am thinking of the actual machines for Black Rose and The Addams Family, but I am using Pinball Arcade itself as a reference for the music in Fish Tales as I have not yet played on an on-location Fish Tales. Perhaps I should try playing on one in a location quiet enough to hear the music.

I have definitely played Star Trek: The Next Generation for real, though I couldn't last long enough to hear the music loop. Is the music in that machine done with sampling of the instruments themselves, a high-quality MIDI, or an actual recording of the music used for the show?