How has Game Sound as evolved
The FM synthesizer has been a major tool in video game sounds and composing. As cost of magnetic memory declined in the form of diskettes game music development in general, shifted to sampling in some form. After the 80' s it was used more and many games got into using music composers to create music for the games. The release of a freely-distributed Amiga program named
Sound Tracker by Karsten Obarski in 1987 started the era of MOD-format which made it easy for anyone to produce music based on digitized samples. MOD-files were made with programs called "trackers" after Obarski's
Sound Tracker. This MOD/tracker tradition continued with PC computers in 1990s. Examples of Amiga games using digitized instrument samples include David Whittaker's soundtrack for
Shadow of the Beast, Chris Hülsbeck's soundtrack for
Turrican 2 and Matt Furniss's tunes for
Laser Squad. Richard Joseph also composed some theme songs featuring vocals and lyrics for games by Sensible Software most famous being
Cannon Fodder (1993) with a song "War Has Never Been So Much Fun" and
Sensible World of Soccer (1994) with a song "Goal Scoring Superstar Hero". These songs used long vocal samples.
Popularized in the early 1990s by games like
Street Fighter II (1991) on the CPS-1, which used voice samples extensively along with sampled sound effects and percussion. Neo Geo's MVS system also carried powerful sound development which often included surround sound. In 1994, the CD-ROM equipped PlayStation
supported 24 channels of 16-bit samples of up to 44.1 kHz sample rate,
samples equal to CD audio in quality. It also sported a few hardware DSP
effects like reverb. The Sega Saturn also with a CD drive supported 32 channels of PCM at the same resolution as the PSX. In 1996, the Nintendo 64,
still using a solid state cartridge, actually supported an integrated
and scalable sound system that was potentially capable of 100 channels
of PCM, and an improved sample rate of 48 kHz. Games for the N64,
because of the cost of the solid state memory, typically had samples of
lesser quality than the other two however, and music tended to be
simpler in construct.The more dominant approach for games based on CDs, however, was shifting toward streaming audio.
The increases in storage capacity and playback quality has allowed
sampled sound to be used. The modern systems also frequently utilize positional audio,
often with hardware acceleration, and real-time audio post-processing,
which can also be tied to the 3D graphics development. Based on the
internal state of the game, multiple different calculations can be made.
This will allow for, for example, realistic sound dampening, echoes and
doppler effect. Foley and voice overs have helped create a more real video games experience.
Today popular music in video game music and sounds have appeared in songs by various popular artists,
with arcade game sounds having had a particularly strong influence on the hip hop,
pop music (particularly synthpop)
and electro music.