Apple IIGS Sound Capabilities

[Castelian]

The video briefly describes Soundsmith, a music program that leverages the IIGS's amazing ensonic sound chip and then I play some of my favorite songs.

Enjoy

[ Show youtube player ]

[Madcrow]

Ah the poor IIgs. A brilliant design hobbled by internal politics which left it with a deliberately-underpowered CPU (the bottom-of-the-line 2.8 MHz 65816 rather than the more useful 4 MHz or quite snappy 8 MHz version) and zero marketing budget.

Nice music demonstration though. This really shows off the fact that the GS essentially shipped with a built-in Esoniq Mirage!

[Castelian]

It really was sad, crippling the system with such a ridiculously slow CPU. Apple pretty much didn't acknowledge the system's existence after 1987. It's one saving grace was definitely its unprecedented sound capabilities.

[Madcrow]

Indeed. It was to sound what the Amiga was for graphics.

[Castelian]

Indeed. It was to sound what the Amiga was for graphics.

Well said.

[laffer]

Very interesting video, I have to admit that I know next to nothing about the machine... been watching your videos of the system with great interest for some time now.

Anyway, very impressive sound indeed!

[Chuckles]

The sound capabilities of the IIGS were actually quite good, though I never could figure out why the machine had only mono sound output right out of the box. You could add stereo output with a third party card, but stereo should have been there by default. I added stereo cards to both of mine within the past year, and the sound really great.

[AmigaFriend]

Originally Posted by Chuckles

The sound capabilities of the IIGS were actually quite good, though I never could figure out why the machine had only mono sound output right out of the box. You could add stereo output with a third party card, but stereo should have been there by default. I added stereo cards to both of mine within the past year, and the sound really great.

Apple = pay to have those features. Always crippled products to make you buy 'the next best thing' next year round.

Iphone case scenario:
Iphone1 - GPRS/EDGE when all other phones at that price range had 3G for years. No MMS. Other phones had that since 2003. No video recording - since 2003 and so on and on...

[switchblade]

I would've loved the IIGS if it wasn't for the fact that company politics literally ruined the machine's chance at success.

It doesn't help matters much when the IIGS was paired with a CPU that was even slower than the Super Nintendo's, and the fact that the IIGS GPU lacked any hardware sprites. I mean, even the Commodore 64 had the ability to do hardware sprites and that was back in 1982! What excuse did the IIGS have for not having hardware sprites in the first place?

At least the system had brilliant sound. Can't really argue with that.

[laffer]

It's really too bad the IIGS port of Last Ninja didn't take advantage of the great sound at all... I recorded a longplay of that game quite some time ago, and I remember it not having music at all

[Madcrow]

Originally Posted by switchblade

I would've loved the IIGS if it wasn't for the fact that company politics literally ruined the machine's chance at success.

It doesn't help matters much when the IIGS was paired with a CPU that was even slower than the Super Nintendo's, and the fact that the IIGS GPU lacked any hardware sprites. I mean, even the Commodore 64 had the ability to do hardware sprites and that was back in 1982! What excuse did the IIGS have for not having hardware sprites in the first place?

At least the system had brilliant sound. Can't really argue with that.

Of the various 16/32-bit systems, only the Amiga had hardware sprites!Most other companies figured that the CPU could handle pushing pixels into planar framebuffer without too much help.

[Jgames]

I think the x68000 had hardware sprites too, and maybe also the Fm towns.

[Nishicorn]

This Apple IIGS Ensoniq sound chip has lately started interesting me more and more. Sorry for replying so late (hey, what's 10 years in Cosmic scale..?), but would it be possible to get more synth sound videos/audio from real Apple IIGS or another system that utilizes it?

I have found a few youtube videos, but you can't always know if they utilize emulation or a real machine.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by Madcrow

Indeed. It was to sound what the Amiga was for graphics.

I still think Paula is better.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Foebane

I still think Paula is better.

Both chips where designed by the same guy …

[Rotareneg]

Originally Posted by Gorf

Both chips where designed by the same guy …

Robert Yannes designed the Ensoniq 5503 and the SID, Paula was designed by Glenn Keller.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Castelian

It really was sad, crippling the system with such a ridiculously slow CPU. Apple pretty much didn't acknowledge the system's existence after 1987. It's one saving grace was definitely its unprecedented sound capabilities.

Considering releases like this as late as 1990, I don’t quite agree that Apple didn’t give the IIgs any attention. https://www.whatisthe2gs.apple2.org....rd-gs-1-1.html

All in all, I wonder if Apple didn’t spend as much on the IIgs as Commodore did on the Amiga, the main difference being that Commodore’s budget was what Apple spent on coffee machines in the same time.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by Rotareneg

Robert Yannes designed the Ensoniq 5503 and the SID, Paula was designed by Glenn Keller.

IMHO Samples win out over synths ANYDAY.

[touko]

Originally Posted by switchblade

I would've loved the IIGS if it wasn't for the fact that company politics literally ruined the machine's chance at success.

It doesn't help matters much when the IIGS was paired with a CPU that was even slower than the Super Nintendo's, and the fact that the IIGS GPU lacked any hardware sprites. I mean, even the Commodore 64 had the ability to do hardware sprites and that was back in 1982! What excuse did the IIGS have for not having hardware sprites in the first place?

At least the system had brilliant sound. Can't really argue with that.

The snes's CPU is also at 2.58, it can go up to 3.58 but only with fast rom, which was not so common in fact .
Using a 8mhz CPU would have needed a way more faster and expensive memory,don't forget that 65xxx needs 1/2 cycle for accessing memory .
The 2 GS was mainly crippled by his apple 2 compatibility,without the apple 2 botlenecks ,it would have been faster.

[Nishicorn]

Originally Posted by Foebane

IMHO Samples win out over synths ANYDAY.

This sentence proves nothing more than ignorance, sorry to say.

Where do you think samples come from, out of the thin air?

You need synths to even CREATE those samples you so much adore. The thing is, synth sound is LIVE. You can basically modify it throughout the whole duration of the song and never have to repeat or sound the same. You can't do this with a sample, that has a limited length - but even if you could, it's 'set in stone' after that.

What if you want to modify it later, add to it or change your mind? You have to create a new sample. You can't do much of 'modulation' with set samples that would sound any good.

I don't also consider samples being the opposite of synth or vice versa; you can USE samples to sample something beautiful from a synth and use it in a song, that has been composed with a synth, for example.

Samples are good for drums and effects, but leadsounds? Try to make a good-sounding leadsound on a normal Protracker on Amiga 500 without any expansions. You're going to have a heckuva lot of trouble and hard work, where I can just take a live Pulse-width-modulation - that I can ALSO change on-the-fly any microsecond I so choose - and then use self-controlled live filter sweeps together with it. Of course I can then later sample it and edit it, or I can just add it to the song as-is, or just build such a lead easily.

How are you going to do that with samples that have no flexibility? You'd have to try to do something with effects (which is cheating) or 'modulating the sample' in some way (which still sounds a bit like cheating, but I'll allow it). You might as well modulate a more 'live sound' of a synth, you're almost doing sound synthesis anyway if you're going to modulate a sample on-the-fly (somehow).

In the end, it's not really a fight between synth and samples, but more like co-operation.

Both have their OWN good points, synth has the nice 'live' quality, and of course real synth chips have personalities, souls, atmosphere and 'feel' that you can't really recreate with cold and dead samples.

Samples are always going to be DEAD in that sense, it's what it is and it will ALWAYS sound 100% identical (from the same note anyway).

You can play the same note, and basically 'the same sound' on a synth, but as it's 'living sound', it will always sound at least slightly different, and thus your ears won't get bored with it so easily.

If you watch the movie 'The Terminator', you can hear Sarah scream -identically- twice in a row when the truck she's driving turns over. This is basically what samples are in a song, it's identical sound and your brain detects it as cold, dead and boring.

A live synth, like the SID, is always a bit different-sounding, so you don't get bored with it so easily.

I once captured the 'walking sounds' from Maniac Mansion from my C64. It sounded almost identical to me, but when I started really listening, I could hear slight variation in pitch and other qualities. If you just sample one or even two 'footsteps' and keep repeating them, it sounds incredibly boring compared to how 'lively' it sounds when you just walk around in the game, playing on a real C64.

To replicate that simple 'play this sound 10 times and it will sound like 10 differnt sounds'-thing, you have to capture 10 different samples and make sure you play all of them before you start repeating. A live synth never has to 'repeat', as it can keep producing those sounds.

In any case, in the modern time, it's not feasible to use a live synth in a game or demo directly, but you can still make music with them (and it feels better to make music with something 'living' than something 'dead', so samples would always lose for me, when making music, but if you don't have the experience, I guess you wouldn't know what you're missing, and thus not care) and at least sample stuff from them, so you at least get some of that quirky sound and feel of the old synths.

Samples are very useful and great, but I wouldn't ever want to be limited to only using samples 100% and never be able to use synth to at least create very specific samples, customizing and tailoring them to the song or whatever audio project or production I am making. I always enjoy the living spark of a live synth, and would probably stop making music and sounds altogether iif all I had was samples.

To you, because of your lack of understanding, experience, wisdom, knowledge, or thought or research into the matter, 'samples may be better' (though you didn't explain WHAT you base this false premise on), but to me, live synth wins everything, but sampled live synth is still very useful, and of course I have to use samples a LOT in my productions.

This is a bit like those old C64 vs. Spectrum/Atari things, or Amiga vs. Atari ST-things; in the end, it doesn't matter 'which is better', when you can just enjoy both and use them together in conjunction to create something better than you could ever have with just one of them.

I'd say they're both excellent for their own purposes, live synth wins in some areas, like 'living leadsounds with sweeps that last for the duration of the song and can be customized, edited and even 'played' or 'adjusted' on-the-fly, samples win for usability in your programs and projects, and as instruments, samples are really good for drums, effects (that you create on your synths..) and other things.

So in the end, they both blend TOGETHER, because I couldn't do anything with pure samples without synths (I LOVE creating instruments, sound effects and music on live synths! I suggest trying it, you might change your mind), but I also couldn't use the synth stuff I love so much in my own projects or make my songs heard by anyone if there aren't any samples, because I still need to sample those songs if I am to send them anywhere or use them in my own projects.

So how about appreciate both, and let both live, eh? LIVE, get it? .. ok, that was bad humor.