This Program RUINED Many Genesis Games

Aladdin is like how a world class violinist can make a cheap violin sound great but your average fiddler couldn't make a Stradivarius sound like anything special.

Was definitely expecting more about the program based on the title, rather than a series of game reviews.

Bro said GEMS ruined many Genesis games despite having only one example for it

It's weird that American devs had so much difficulty with FM audio considering most Ms-Dos games and arcade gsmes of the time used FM audio

Kind of a weird video. I thought this was going to be specifically about GEMS and how it shaped the music/sound for those games. But instead it was just an overview of a bunch of games with little focus on the music.

GEMS’s farting sound was actually common in other FM-sound-based games from American companies, such as arcade or DOS games.

With a title so focused on a specific subject, I was expecting to learn more about GEMS. I feel like I hardly even got to listen to the sounds produced by GEMS in this video to be able to gain an ear or compare the songs. It would be very cool to delve into what the experience was like using GEMS or maybe even see it in action, compare it to newer tools, show how it was lacking in sound design features on such a robust sound chip, etc.

“American companies” “American companies” “American developers” “Now let’s have a look at a few random games” (Immediately shows “Fantasia”, a game by Infogrames, a French developer…)

Would be great if you did a deep dive into GEMS itself rather than the games which used it.

Dude, you are sleeping on the Vectorman soundtrack. That is a very good example of a game that not only uses GEMS but also utilizes it to its full potential. Tidal Surge is an excellent example of this. See or rather hear for yourself.

The problem was not the GEMS, some lazy developers were.

Oh, the good (bad) old GEMS driver! It sounds like crap because composers were lazy, listen to something from Howard Drossin. He was one of the best GEMS composers.

I recall the early days of the Genesis being amazed by the sound (especially music)... then sometime in 1991 so many games started to sound "farty", it was unbearable and made it sound very annoying... especially with the brand new SNES's sound capabilities. This program killed music on the Genesis, they should have put a decent set of default instruments instead the the farts collection.

It´s all in the talent of the composer. Varios of the best soundtracks on the Genesis uses Gems

One of the worst offenders was X-Men on the Genesis. The fart noises was strong with that one! Haha. Cool idea for a video, Pojr!

I have two comments about the origins of the GEMS driver that should be mentioned. It wasn't a "desperation" move by SOA, as the idea actually originated with former Epyx composer Chris Grigg. He argued that a dedicated sound program would be more efficient than typing everything in hex code and converting it. He proposed creating software that would allow the Genesis and a PC to work together as a MIDI synthesizer. American programmers didn't use GEMS because they didn't know how to use the Genesis sound chip. They were quite capable, actually. The reason for GEMS was the lack of English-language documentation for the Genesis at the time, most of which wasn't even official. For instance, Jonathan Miller said that the only documentation he received for the FM synthesizer chip was a hand-written memo note in Japanese. Many composers simply didn't have access to the advanced features of the soundchip because of the language barrier and cooperation from Sega Japan, so they made a driver themselves.

I'm surprised you didn't mention SunSoft. They were the king of chip tunes for both the NES and Genesis.

I had no idea the bad quality audio was simply due to not knowing how to utilize it properly. I thought much of the audio was just supposed to sound the way it did. That might also explain why audio on some of those Genesis mini consoles, official or bootleg, don't have proper sound. I had to shut off one I had as soon I tried to play Sonic 1. The music was so much worse than the cart.

this video is confusing. The title says that gems ruined the games. except for the first one you've been nothing but positive "good for soundtrack made with GEMS" .you could've showed more examples of bad ones. If you're gonna say that gems ruined Genesis/mega drive then be more negative. my brain hurts watching this.

GEMS is most noticeable by the way it makes music. It is based on the general midi standard, which is 128 instrument 'patches' that are a standard used by all products which use midi, which will have pre-made patches to fit whatever number instrument is being asked for by the midi composition file. So a grand piano can be approximated across any digital instrument, using the midi interface and protocol and file type. So when a musician composes music using GEMS, they are able to attach a standard midi keyboard and write music, which can be played back using the GEMS sequencing playback capabilities, another piece of software that doesn't need writing, along with the drivers to generate the FM sound itself. The Adlib sound card came out in 1987 but before that even, was a Yamaha MSX style computer with a similar chip to the YM2612, maybe 6 channel, 4 op and with sequencing and sound design software and a UK game musician, I think Matt Furniss, used to sell them before he became a composer. The main reason that GEMS music sounds different is also the reason EA music is also a bit different and it's that they are using a stock piece of software which is designed for quick compositions. The GEMS driver did in fact have a feature rich environment for sound design, as well as cues for altering music in various ways for an interactive soundtrack, which nobody used. The point is, GEMS made it easy to write music quickly (despite it's instability). You choose your instruments, write some melodies and drums and it's ready. How this style of music differs to writing music using say your own custom software or a complicated tracker or just writing in machine code in a wall of asci text in software you helped write. When you use midi, you disconnect yourself from the hardware and it's potential. In terms of sonic range and palette, to pushing the technical capacity. Something very achievable on this old, raw to the bone programming a Genesis needs. The YM2612 can be run by the Z80 or the 68K and can have up to 14 channels if you include the psg. People write techno music in trackers. In fact trackers made all the 8bit music and all the 16bit dance music. Trackers became a fairly popular product in the past few years for the reason that it lends itself to long form compositions with an ease of adding effects and pitch bends and such with a very quick workflow and overview and speed of 'chaining' sections or patterns to form the final composition. When you use a text based interface rather than a traditional stave, you have access to more additional effects and techniques that are awkward when you're using a mouse to move notes on a screen. This is how you get the awesome technical compositions of Technosoft and Konami. They understand the potential of the format of an fm synth, which is how they understand how to write suitable music that plays to it's strengths. A favourite sound driver of mine is the Krisalis driver from uk studio of the same name who were a contractor who would cover all your Mega Drive sound needs. Vic Tokai wrote a fabulous driver and Socket is a joy to listen to. Because the FM synth is a strange and arguably complicated thing. But if you have a driver in place and have been tutored on how it works, most composers should not have to spend too long understanding the software. But GEMS is perfectly fine software. It just limits the finite control of the chip and encourages a particular type of compositional style that is synonymous with midi, and that trait is simple musical expression, with limited flourish or nuance, stemming from the working environment of staves and a fully linear sequence of notes, without complex pattern sequences or a broken out visual layout with fast access to advanced, note per note editable characteristics such as instrument, note on/note off, fades. echo. effects (such as additional lfo to apply to attribute/s of the fm patch). The potential of the FM chip here is not something that can really ever be realised, as a 4 operator FM channel offers unlimited sound design potential with 4 algorithms to alter the way the operators interact and 8KB of aram on the Z80 or more if you use the 68K cpu as a controller instead of the standard Z80 sound controller. There are any number of ways to go about programming an FM sound chip and none of them are easy. But people are still writing drivers for the YM2612. I think chiptune artist Remute wrote a driver for it. You can just use Deflmask free tracker software which give some good sound design and sequencing tools which should be enough for most people. A new driver has been released only recently which is the most famous, 'XGM2'...? I think this is why people still like composing for the YM2612, which has two products available based on it for a consumer and professional market, respectively as physical modules, instruments called Mega FM and a much newer one too reviewed by Lord Carnage who made a terrible tune on it. But I like how people are making music for this chip like crazy right now. It's very interesting to explore the palette or re-write classics like Blue Monday or arcade hits, using various different software and methods to get different results. Enjoy this rendition of XEXEX using a modern driver, splitting the pcm channel into 4, 14Khz channels for one shot notes (which cannot be pitch shifted as per a rompler so must use a new sample for each different note) and other tricks such as splitting channel 3 into 2, 2 op channels (instead of 1, 4op channel) and other refinements to enhance the capabilities of the chip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0PvjwqtHqI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mAtYZg_lkQ Have you listened to the music for Psycho Pinball? It's a very distinctive tracker sound and Epic Games were also lovers of the tracker, which they used in the Unreal Tournament soundtrack, as opposed to the standard cd redbook audio. You probably heard the Time Trax unused Genesis ost which uses a driver which was only used on that ost which wasn't even released. So oh well, but it shows that a British developer can make a new Genesis sound driver in pretty short order. The EA driver was written by Rob Hubbard who was famous for C64 music and also is British. But he moved to America to work for EA. I think Rob is obsessed with distorted guitars. Ecco the Dolphin was made by Novotrade, from Hungary and Sega of America in support and consulting and the soundtrack is GEMS, with major contributions by Spencer Nilson of STI. The founder of Novotrade actually came up with the idea for Ecco the Dolphin himself. I can't get enough of Mega Drive music and the YM2612. It is a very well design music chip. With clear channel and frequency separation and frequency response, it's almost impossible to f*ck it up. I really enjoy many GEMS soundtracks, for instance, Ahhh! Real Monsters is really enjoyable to listen to. The reality is that GEMS and the FM chip have been unfairly maligned and it might be something to do with a rival fanbase and their most vocal and inflexible opinions on certain matters involving who's is bigger. "Of course everyone knows the SNES blah blah blah". But GEMS isn't ruining games any more than the guitar ruined bad songs. I'm starting to warm to GEMS and it's inexplicably and irrationally heavy use of the Marimba preset.