SNK > Studio Gear - Roland modules?

[Neo-Nut]

After reading lots of great interviews with the SNK composers/Sound team I was hoping they share what gear they used for creating those awesome soundtracks?

 

I'm guessing mostly Roland modules - JV1080 / JD990  but was wondering if anyone has more info ? Especially with regards to their Drum sounds (Sample CD's ? Roland Cards?)

[Meteo Xavier]

Here's what Wikipedia had to say:

The onboard Yamaha YM2610 sound chip gives the system 15 channels of sound with seven channels reserved specifically for digital sound effects.

    Sound chip: Yamaha YM2610
    4 concurrent FM channels (voices), four operators per channel
    3 SSG channels
    1 programmable noise channel
    ADPCM-A: 6 ADPCM channels, 18.5 kHz sampling rate, 12-bit audio depth[31]
    ADPCM-B: 1 ADPCM channel, 1.85–55.5 kHz sampling rate, 16-bit audio depth[31]
    2 interval timers
    1 low frequency oscillator (LFO)
    Sound/Work RAM: 2KB
    Sound ROM: 128 KB on-board (only less than 32 KB used), up to 512 KB sound ROM on cartridges

 

Having not a great reference or much thinking into what composers did for the NEO GEO, it sounds like what they used was pretty similar to all the other arcade stuff at that time, which was closer to the Sega Genesis output than anything else for a while. Sega Genesis is YM2612. It looks like they could handle some samples as needed and likely used a lot of the popular modules at the time for it - Roland, Yamaha, Korg, Kurzweil. So if you take a look at what modules were released in the late 80s and early 90s, you can figure that's what they used.

An article for the NEO GEO CD says it could read Redbook audio, and that's where you'll get much more of the module use. It's pretty much impossible for anyone to tell exactly what was used if the audio people themselves didn't detail it fully at the time, but you can bet they used all the big ones and mixed them up together as needed.

[Neo-Nut]

Xavier you rock mate thanks !

 

I read up on the YM2610 it does seem similar spec to the MD YM2612 I think the big difference was the ADPCM samples the NeoGeo used at slightly higher resolution than the MD could manage - I got to admit I love those re triggered Metal guitar samples in Fatal Fury 1/2 they sound so cool in their own right - not realistic of course but had a cool sound of their own due to the limitations at the time.

 

Some one NEEDS to make a genuine SNK sound pack - I'd pay generously for it !