Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Recently, MIDI achieved industry recognition by winning a technical
Grammy. Dave Smith, the polyphonic synthesizer pioneer, and Ikutaro
Kakehashi, a Yamaha engineer, were both honored for the creation of this
amazing language spoken by synthesizers, samplers, drum machines,
computers, sequencers and much much more, that enabled digital music
to advance to never-before-seen levels of sophistication.
In the last level, we concentrated on the technology of sound for games
as it developed over a 40-year span. Now let's take a look at some of the
creative uses of these formats as they pertain to the craft of game audio
design.
EARLY CONSOLE AND ARCADE GAME DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES
Many fundamental sound-design concepts and iconic sound ef ects were developed in this time period.
The ef ort of making these sounds trigger within the game was no easy task. Early video-game designers
used raw programming of computer chips to create music, sound ef ects, and even voice-overs. These
chips generated complex waveforms that sent tones to speakers in real time.
Programming the sounds and music for these was really just like that—programming. There were literally
no tools in the mid-to-late 1970s that could enable anyone without signii cant computer coding expertise
to create music for these games. There was no way to record musical performances into a computer—even
MIDI did not exist yet! Everything had to be painstakingly entered into the cartridge's or arcade board's chip
one sound at a time, and then 'burned' into the EEPROM, a primitive programmable ROM chip. Many of these
 
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