"Eight Beats": about sounds in old games
Modern games can not be imagined without believable sound, dialogue and music, but this was not always the case. In the very first games there were no sounds at all.
Then, when they began to appear, they performed a rather utilitarian function - they helped the player to orient himself in the game space and to understand that his actions were “noticed” by the game.
Even the first set-top box for home TVs, Magnavox Odyssey, made no sound.
Later games gave the familiar to the whole generations "bipanya" - sounds made by 8-bit audio cards. Today we remember the history of sounds in the early games - how they came about, how they changed and how their legacy lives now.
Photo of Michael Beck CC
In 1962, Steve Russell developed Spacewar! - one of the first digital games in the world for the PDP-1 computer . This game has become a symbol of the nascent game industry.
In 1971, Bill Pitts and Hugh Tuck based on Spacewar! They collected one of the world's first arcade games - the Galaxy Game - but it never got into mass production.
The first commercial project in this area was the Computer Space arcade released two months later, created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney.
At the same time, Neil and Ted developed their own hardware, “sharpened” under Computer Space, since they considered that it was not profitable to run it on a mini-computer.
Such a soundtrack may seem unpleasant, but this is history.
In Spacewar! there were no sounds. In her followers - arcade games - the sounds of shots, explosions and rocket engines began to appear for the first time.
The Atari company, which was opened by Bushnell with Ted Dabney, released the Pong slot machine, which became legendary. The idea of the game Bushnell "podppnul" Magnavox Odyssey - in a set of 12 games for the console included Ping-Pong, created in 1967.
The development of the Pong arcade was a kind of “test” for a young engineer Al Alcorn, who recently appeared in the company. Bushnell thought the game was too simple and boring, but he hoped that while developing it, Elcorn would quickly learn the basics of game creation technology.
But Al seriously approached the task by adding new game mechanics. For example, the ball in the game began to accelerate depending on the length of the match, and the game rackets "did not reach" to the edges of the screen (in theory this feature was a consequence of an error in the electronic circuit, but Elcorn decided that this adds complexity to the game).
He also implemented the simplest soundtrack. To do this, he used sounds of different frequencies, which were “given out” by the sync pulse generator.
So in 1972, the legendary sound of a ball hitting a racket in Pong was born.
Since then, the sound has become an integral element of the emerging gaming industry, but qualitatively, it has remained almost unchanged for a long time. The sound remained as primitive.
If we talk about slot machines, here the task of sound was rather to attract the attention of visitors to bars and coffee shops, where such machines were quite popular.
In the wake of the popularity of the machine, Pong Atari started creating their own console. The prefix began to be developed in 1974, but due to falling demand for the Magnavox Odyssey Atari it was difficult to find partners who would agree to distribute the device. Finally, in 1975, the company managed to conclude an agreement with Sears retail network for 150 thousand consoles for sale under the Sears Tele-Games Pong brand.
The device was a success - buyers stood in queues for several hours. Therefore, a year later, Atari released a prefix on its own behalf. And many companies were quick to repeat its triumph - other consoles and games designed for them, similar to Pong, began to appear in the houses.
In 1977, the second generation Atari console - the Atari 2600 - was released. The console had an audio chip ( Television Interface Adapter ) with two channels. Each channel had a 5-bit frequency divider, a 4-bit sound control register and a 4-bit volume control register.
In many ways, the console has become popular thanks to the license for the Japanese game Space Invaders
In 1980, the Intellivison console went on sale. The main "chip" of this console was an additional keyboard that turned the device into a kind of "home computer".
Two years after the release (simultaneously with the release of Intellivision II), an Intellivoice device was released to the set-top box - this module gave voice guidance to some games.
A year later, the public was introduced to Intellivision III, which was renamed Entertainment Computer System. The third generation of the console had a built-in voice module and 6-channel sound. Two years later, Atari released the Atari 5200 - a POKEY console sound chip provided 4-channel audio.
Montezuma's Revenge gameplay on the Atari 5200 with the simplest synthesized melodies
In 1981, Commodore 64 appeared - a personal computer for the mass market. Commodore 64 is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the best-selling computer model in history - a total of more than 17 million copies were sold . A special Sound Interface Device (SID) processor was developed for it, which performs the function of a programmable sound generator.
Later, a “bug” appeared in the chip - when the channel volume was changed, a small click could be heard. This error began to be used as an opportunity to create a more complex sound. Thanks to the SID and several special programs, the Commodore 64 could serve as a replacement for synthesizers.
Video about the capabilities of the program Lead Synthesizer, with the help of which the C64 was turned into an almost complete synthesizer
At this point, video composers first appeared in video games - people who not only added discrete sounds of explosions or shots, but wrote independent, real music. Music accompanied the gameplay, changed depending on the atmosphere of the scene and brightened up the waiting time for the download. The work of the author of "melodies for download" was quite responsible - the player could not be bored.
Therefore, many composers of the time who wrote for the C64 became quite popular.
Wizball theme, composer - Martin Galway (Martin Galway)
International Karate Theme, composer - Rob Hubbard
The eight-bit voice of the first video games spawned an independent (and in many ways nostalgic) musical genre - 8-bit .
The music of this style uses sounds characteristic of audio chips of early game consoles such as NES and Sega or PC with 8-bit processors.
The music, which is synthesized by the sound chip of a computer or console, is called chiptune. For its creation, audio chips from old gaming systems are used - Nintendo's GameBoy, NES, Atari ST, Amiga or Commodore 64.
Moreover, such music is not an audio recording, but a program that runs on the target hardware platform. In order to simplify the process of creating 8-bit music, special programs were developed in the 1980s that made it easier to work with music data - trackers. They are used (usually) by modern composers of chiptun.
An example of using chiptyun in music - the group Welle: Erdball
Trailer for a Chip Music Boom Documentary in Europe
Today, tracker music continues to be popular and is even used in large game titles: Unreal, Deus Ex, and some indie projects. At the same time, previously complex tools for creating such music become more accessible and more understandable for users.
More about the sound in games and movies from our blog "Hi-Fi World":
Then, when they began to appear, they performed a rather utilitarian function - they helped the player to orient himself in the game space and to understand that his actions were “noticed” by the game.
Even the first set-top box for home TVs, Magnavox Odyssey, made no sound.
Later games gave the familiar to the whole generations "bipanya" - sounds made by 8-bit audio cards. Today we remember the history of sounds in the early games - how they came about, how they changed and how their legacy lives now.
Photo of Michael Beck CC
Pong!
In 1962, Steve Russell developed Spacewar! - one of the first digital games in the world for the PDP-1 computer . This game has become a symbol of the nascent game industry.
In 1971, Bill Pitts and Hugh Tuck based on Spacewar! They collected one of the world's first arcade games - the Galaxy Game - but it never got into mass production.
The first commercial project in this area was the Computer Space arcade released two months later, created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney.
At the same time, Neil and Ted developed their own hardware, “sharpened” under Computer Space, since they considered that it was not profitable to run it on a mini-computer.
Such a soundtrack may seem unpleasant, but this is history.
In Spacewar! there were no sounds. In her followers - arcade games - the sounds of shots, explosions and rocket engines began to appear for the first time.
The Atari company, which was opened by Bushnell with Ted Dabney, released the Pong slot machine, which became legendary. The idea of the game Bushnell "podppnul" Magnavox Odyssey - in a set of 12 games for the console included Ping-Pong, created in 1967.
The development of the Pong arcade was a kind of “test” for a young engineer Al Alcorn, who recently appeared in the company. Bushnell thought the game was too simple and boring, but he hoped that while developing it, Elcorn would quickly learn the basics of game creation technology.
But Al seriously approached the task by adding new game mechanics. For example, the ball in the game began to accelerate depending on the length of the match, and the game rackets "did not reach" to the edges of the screen (in theory this feature was a consequence of an error in the electronic circuit, but Elcorn decided that this adds complexity to the game).
He also implemented the simplest soundtrack. To do this, he used sounds of different frequencies, which were “given out” by the sync pulse generator.
So in 1972, the legendary sound of a ball hitting a racket in Pong was born.
Since then, the sound has become an integral element of the emerging gaming industry, but qualitatively, it has remained almost unchanged for a long time. The sound remained as primitive.
If we talk about slot machines, here the task of sound was rather to attract the attention of visitors to bars and coffee shops, where such machines were quite popular.
Console popularity
In the wake of the popularity of the machine, Pong Atari started creating their own console. The prefix began to be developed in 1974, but due to falling demand for the Magnavox Odyssey Atari it was difficult to find partners who would agree to distribute the device. Finally, in 1975, the company managed to conclude an agreement with Sears retail network for 150 thousand consoles for sale under the Sears Tele-Games Pong brand.
The device was a success - buyers stood in queues for several hours. Therefore, a year later, Atari released a prefix on its own behalf. And many companies were quick to repeat its triumph - other consoles and games designed for them, similar to Pong, began to appear in the houses.
In 1977, the second generation Atari console - the Atari 2600 - was released. The console had an audio chip ( Television Interface Adapter ) with two channels. Each channel had a 5-bit frequency divider, a 4-bit sound control register and a 4-bit volume control register.
In many ways, the console has become popular thanks to the license for the Japanese game Space Invaders
In 1980, the Intellivison console went on sale. The main "chip" of this console was an additional keyboard that turned the device into a kind of "home computer".
Two years after the release (simultaneously with the release of Intellivision II), an Intellivoice device was released to the set-top box - this module gave voice guidance to some games.
A year later, the public was introduced to Intellivision III, which was renamed Entertainment Computer System. The third generation of the console had a built-in voice module and 6-channel sound. Two years later, Atari released the Atari 5200 - a POKEY console sound chip provided 4-channel audio.
Montezuma's Revenge gameplay on the Atari 5200 with the simplest synthesized melodies
The era of personal computers
In 1981, Commodore 64 appeared - a personal computer for the mass market. Commodore 64 is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the best-selling computer model in history - a total of more than 17 million copies were sold . A special Sound Interface Device (SID) processor was developed for it, which performs the function of a programmable sound generator.
Later, a “bug” appeared in the chip - when the channel volume was changed, a small click could be heard. This error began to be used as an opportunity to create a more complex sound. Thanks to the SID and several special programs, the Commodore 64 could serve as a replacement for synthesizers.
Video about the capabilities of the program Lead Synthesizer, with the help of which the C64 was turned into an almost complete synthesizer
At this point, video composers first appeared in video games - people who not only added discrete sounds of explosions or shots, but wrote independent, real music. Music accompanied the gameplay, changed depending on the atmosphere of the scene and brightened up the waiting time for the download. The work of the author of "melodies for download" was quite responsible - the player could not be bored.
Therefore, many composers of the time who wrote for the C64 became quite popular.
Wizball theme, composer - Martin Galway (Martin Galway)
International Karate Theme, composer - Rob Hubbard
8-bit music and chiptune
The eight-bit voice of the first video games spawned an independent (and in many ways nostalgic) musical genre - 8-bit .
The music of this style uses sounds characteristic of audio chips of early game consoles such as NES and Sega or PC with 8-bit processors.
The music, which is synthesized by the sound chip of a computer or console, is called chiptune. For its creation, audio chips from old gaming systems are used - Nintendo's GameBoy, NES, Atari ST, Amiga or Commodore 64.
Moreover, such music is not an audio recording, but a program that runs on the target hardware platform. In order to simplify the process of creating 8-bit music, special programs were developed in the 1980s that made it easier to work with music data - trackers. They are used (usually) by modern composers of chiptun.
An example of using chiptyun in music - the group Welle: Erdball
Trailer for a Chip Music Boom Documentary in Europe
Today, tracker music continues to be popular and is even used in large game titles: Unreal, Deus Ex, and some indie projects. At the same time, previously complex tools for creating such music become more accessible and more understandable for users.
More about the sound in games and movies from our blog "Hi-Fi World":
- "I do not see, but I hear": about the role of sound in horror movies
- “Go to the sound” - about games that you want to play only for the sake of audio
- Rain, clank armor and liquid metal: how sound is created for the movie
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/410219/