Ever since I got into the Super Nintendo, I have loved the way PCM synthesis sounded. Very warm and... SNES-ey. :P

Anyway, it seems that PCM synths are about the most unpopular type of synthesis there is, and I'm having a somewhat hard time finding a good one. Can anyone recommend one?

PCM synthesis?  Pulse Code Modulation?  It is a form of digital encoding, not a synthesis method.  Prehaps you like the samples.

@

Technically I suppose Cakewalk's own Dimension Pro is a PCM or Wavetable synth in that it can apply its own synthesis to an existing PCM sample.

Is there a particular historic PCM/Wavetable synth you were fond of?  Maybe you'll get closer by finding an emulation or soundset of a particular keyboard that used the technology.

I know there is a Proteus add-on pack that you can use with Dimension Pro that would be worth checking out for sure.

Arturia do some good vintage synth emulations too also you could try the Korg page they used to do an emulation of their own M1

Maybe try:

Plogue Chipsounds

or

retro-gs

someone did mention Plogue on a c64 forum that I go on..

hhmm there are loads

try unknown 64
quad sid (not free)
synth1
YM vst ...http://www.preromanbritain.com/ymvst/

there are loads... even using mod tracker / modplug vst.. you can get the basic sounds. which is what the snes was using..

http://forums.tigsource.c...printpage;topic=5811.0

is a thread you might like.

SID chip forever   except when fat neck producer sampling fools who steal the bulk of anothers tune and pretends it's their work

Yeah, I know that I was wrong in saying PCM "synth," but I'm in a bad habit of calling anything with keys a synth, even if it's a sampler.

At Plogue, Retro-GS, YM VST, and trackers: those are synths aimed towards chiptunes and chip sounds. That's not really what I'm looking for. Chips like this stopped in the 8-bit era. SNES used PCM for sounds (and I believe Genesis used a form of FM synthesis).

Here is an overview of the SNES audio system:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w...rtainment_System#Audio

Jonbouy, I've heard of Korg's M1. Are there any others like this that you can recommend?

Basically, my goal is to be able to emulate an SNES tone decently. Not for chiptune music, but as a lead or harmony in a modern song, I'd like the tools to play around with this sound.

Have you tried something like Triforce and toad?

Again, those are 8-bit chip synths. What I'm looking for are PCM samplers.

Hi KiddCabbage,

I think this is going to be tough, unless someone who really liked that sound system decided that it was worth extending into a synth --- and that just seems unlikely given that to be true to the original, one would implement all the envelopes, filters, etc.

However, one group of folks does exactly that kind of thing, namely emulation.  See, for example:

http://www.emulator-zone.com/doc.php/snes/

This might be the best hope for getting something really close to that sound.  But these are typically full emulations, not partial to audio, etc.  How to adapt an emulator to what you want is completely up in the air (but having source code available would be a great start for a programmer!).

Good luck!

Regards,
Dave Clark
 

That would be a good place to start, and I'll have a coder monkey friend of mine take a look at it and tell me if he can make heads or tails out of it (and he'll need some place to look at VST plugin making, as well).

The only problem with that, though, is that the emulators are emulating the SNES system. There is an emulation of the SNES sound chip in there, yes, but the sample data comes from the game cartridges, so just the emulator's code would be like getting a sampler with no samples to play. Maybe if I could figure out where the sound files in SNES roms are located, then I could figure out how to encode to something that works with a softsampler made with the emulator's code... I don't know.

Other than that, I'd still like to see if there are any commercial synths that are doing another type of PCM sampling. So far, I've got the Korg M1 to look at. Any others?