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Can it sound like a Sega Genesis?


pingosimon
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Hello! I made a few MIDIbox SIDs, but this is my first time in the FM section.

My friend and I are in a video game cover band (Kirby's Dream Band), and he's really into the sounds of the Sega Genesis, which uses a Yamaha FM sound chip. Example:

We asked around, and it seems the best option for emulating that is the Yamaha DX7IID:

The sound samples on the ucapps MIDIbox FM page don't sound very much like either of these examples, but is it possible to create patches like the ones above?

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The chip used in the Genesis, I'm pretty sure, is less capable than the OPL3 chipset. You can generally get a good look at the capabilities of the OPL3 by listening to various tunes made with Adlib Tracker. Most of that can be done using MBFM (though MBFM can do things Adlib Tracker can't and probably visa versa).

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Why not develop one for him and your band?

If you look at the pinout of the SID and the YM2612 you should see they are similar, you'll need to write the software, but thats half the fun, so they tell say!

More noise makers are always welcome with me!

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Why not develop one for him and your band?

If you look at the pinout of the SID and the YM2612 you should see they are similar, you'll need to write the software, but thats half the fun, so they tell say!

More noise makers are always welcome with me!

hahaha that would take me years! I can't stand programming.

Thanks, guys, I'll look into your links.

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In some ways, evidently:

On the other hand, if you're looking for that distorted Genesis sound, according to Wikipedia, the analog mixer section on all but the earliest Genesis models was terrible, hence that famous sound. So even if you made a "MIDIbox SG", SN76489 and all, you'd have to figure out and replicate the bad quality of the analog portions as well.

That said, I would welcome that addition to the MIDIbox family! If someone's interested in building the hardware and someone else in designing a human interface, I'd be willing to write the module driver for LPC17 to control the YM2612 and SN76489 (after I'm done with my current project)--it was pretty easy to get the LPC17 to drive a SID, this shouldn't be much harder. :) What do you say, would four of each type sound chip per MIDIbox be enough, or you want to go for eight? Guess it depends on how many Genesises you want to buy and rip apart. :)

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