Reply 40 of 59, by Jepael
wrote:wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but unlike sound font, FM has no "present bank", doesn't it? You're free to create your own waveform, enabling impressive music aka that of Dune of Laser Squad, am I correct?
Yes, you're free to create your own FM sound, but in the range of physical possibilities and specifications of your favourite chip.
Yes, but it's not only the sound chip but also the code that drives it, so playing a MIDI file in a game and another player won't sound the same unless the playing code is exactly the same.
Many games that only load FM parameters to chip and then turn notes on and off tend to sound quite dull, but if the game modifies the FM parameters on the fly as well (like Dune), it can sound awesome (but also takes more CPU horsepower to do this).
Basically, an analogy would be to play Amiga MOD songs with full effects (tremolo, vibrato, slides of volume/pitch, arpeggios) that are done in software, or just use only the features what hardware provides (play a sample at some constant volume and constant pitch).