Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
chips were coded by programmers who knew next to nothing about sound or music. Unfortunately, even
though the tools for creating sounds and triggering music have been largely simplii ed, such that today's
composers and designers can provide these assets for games, the practice of using programmers with no
audio or music experience continues today, especially in smaller game companies with limited budgets.
CONSOLE AND ARCADE WORKFLOW IMPROVEMENTS AND CHALLENGES
As game platforms continued to develop in sophistication, console hardware was i nally able to play
more than one note at a time—3 or 4 notes with the NES, and increasingly more notes with subsequent
models and makers. The tools for creation of this music got more streamlined, such that it didn't require a
computer science degree to understand how to enter in the music or create the ef ects.
Creative sound design abounded, as clever folks used their skills to produce intricate results. The technology
of sound remained quite basic, even primitive. Even so, from games that talked to games that produced top-
10 radio hits, sound in games came to life for the i rst time, making its way into the collective unconscious.
The result of this was that i nally game composers like Nobuo Uematsu,
Koji Kondo, etc., could i nally compose really timeless and unforgettable
themes, albeit with signii cant restrictions. See sidebar for Nobuo's take on
the situation.
The sounds of this early eighties game sound were still being generated
by using simple synthesizer waveforms like triangles, pulse waves and
noise generators. Filters and EQs didn't exist at the time, which meant
that game music had an in-your-face music quality that didn't allow for
a lot of subtlety. Fading the audio or music up and down smoothly was
largely impossible, due to the small number of assignable volume levels
available. Looping was common in music for audio data space and code
considerations (the 'audio budget') as well as the aforementioned need
to loop because of the indeterminacy in the game itself.
Nobuo Uematsu
“The NES only had three tracks, and
each of their sounds were very unique.
I had to focus on the melody itself and
think about how each chord will move
the audience. I struggled to produce
originality in the same three tones, just
like any composer from that period. It's
amazing to listen to how each of us—
Konami composers, Koichi Sugiyama,
and Namco composers—had totally
dif erent creations by using the same
three instruments. There was an
originality in 'Game Music' back then.”
If you were making sound ef ects for these games, you mostly had to
use the waveforms and get very creative with how you used them. Many
ef ects such as the familiar Super Mario Bros power-up sound ef ect to
make Mario bigger are just incredibly sped-up versions of common
arpeggiations on chords using pitched waveforms. Other ef ects mix
both noise and pitched sounds to get a more convincing result. In
fact the sound design part was really the place where artists could get
more creative, since music was limited in many respects, in that it was
expected to create normal melodies and rhythms.
The arcade world had similar situations that enabled composers and
sound designers to be less technical wizards, especially after Atari's
development of the POKEY chip and the SAP format, but while the sound
 
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