Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board: Yalecsa - Viewing Profile - Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board

Hello, I'm currently in the process of re-arranging existing music into sounding as if it were played on a Mega Drive, while trying to obey all the rules of the actual Mega Drive (5 FM synth, 1 DAC, 3 PSG, 1 noise). I'm only making use of soundfonts and VOPM at the moment, as I'm a bit of an amateur, and getting to grips with the actual VGM format and the programs associated with it is slightly terrifying. So I'll save questions about mid2smps and the like for another time. For now, I was wondering if anyone could help me with the following.

Firstly, I've been experimenting with creating drum sounds using the FM synth channels. I know a few Mega Drive games use the FM channels for percussion, either to keep the DAC channel free for sound effects, or to play multiple drum sounds at a time. I was wondering if anyone had some good examples of this? Specifically, bass drums, kick drums, that kind of thing. The Mega Drive is great for bassy sounds in general, so my head tells me it must be able to produce a good kick drum sound via FM synth, surely?

Secondly, once an instrument has been set on one of the FM synth channels, and the music is playing, can the instrument be changed, mid-song? This would obviously be a very useful thing to do, but I've not seen any examples of it in any of the Mega Drive games I've looked at. Is it even possible to do on a technical level without interrupting the song?

Thirdly, I've seen the odd Master System game play (low quality) voice clips, using all its sound channels at once. Theoretically, as the Mega Drive's PSG and noise channels are the same as the Master System's, could it be used for samples during music? It would obviously be very low quality, and at the expense of four audio channels, so may not be worth it most of the time. But it would be a neat trick to pull out for the odd song.

And finally, can samples played by the DAC change in pitch mid-song? I'm aware of the "Sunsoft bass" technique used on the NES, whereby bass guitar sounds were played through the sample channel of the NES at different pitches to simulate a good bass sound, as in Journey to Silius. Can something similar be done via the Mega Drive's DAC channel? ... And I suppose I should also ask if it can be done on the Master System's sound chip when playing samples, though that's only really necessary if the answer to question three is affirmed.

If anyone has any answers to any of the above, it'd be greatly appreciated! />