8-bit music on 16-bit looking games -- something that bugs me

Sparkyidr

One thing that's bugged me recently, is a few games coming out (not from you guys I might add) that have a cool 16-bit/SNES look, but use more retro 8-bit sounds and music.
It creates a bit of a disconnect for me when the visuals and audio don't really match up.

I know a lot of independent/Single man teams kinda give the audio a thought at the last min. But for me (I'm a musician in my day to day life) it's one of the most important elements to the player experience....but then, I am biased

That spurred me on to make some SNES/16-bit inspired music, You can listen to a mix of all 8 tracks I did here :

I'd be interested in what you guys think. Is music and audio something you think as much about as me? I was reading an interview with Toby Fox, who made Undertale, recently, and I thought it was fascinating that he wrote the audio to an area before doing any of the design and writing for that area.
Also though, that soundtrack is a right old mish mash of 8-bit and 16-bit styles...but he gets away with it because it's got STYLE!

(just to note...I'm hopefully going to sell that pack of tracks for other people to use. Nothing in place yet though...just fancied getting a music discussion going)

Sparky.

Socks

@Sparkyidr said:
That spurred me on to make some SNES/16-bit inspired music, You can listen to a mix of all 8 tracks I did here :

Sound great, I love the track that starts around 0:30, very 1980s, reminds me of Duett, especially their first album 'Horizons' (search Duett Horizons on Spotify), you've really nailed that kind of sound ! P.S is that real bass or samples/keyboard ? Whatever it is it works really well.

@Sparkyidr said:
I'd be interested in what you guys think. Is music and audio something you think as much about as me?

Absolutely !

Sparkyidr

is that real bass or samples/keyboard

It's a combination of vst instruments, and some sounds from soundfonts (mainly for those snappy SNES snares)
I spent a fair bit of time getting that typical SNES reverb sounding right (to my ears), and making string sounds by bouncing out a string sound, and looping it, fairly badly, in Kontakt (sampler).

Not heard Duett before...but listing now, and it's kinda awesome. Right up my street.
I'm just about to release an album of newwave/synthpop/italo hi-nrg
you can stream it here at the mo :
https://www.musicglue.com/fierce-angel/products/mirifico---the-last-unicorn/

Socks

@Sparkyidr said:

is that real bass or samples/keyboard

It's a combination of vst instruments, and some sounds from soundfonts (mainly for those snappy SNES snares)

The bass works really well, sounds live to me, you wouldn't know it's a VST !

@Sparkyidr said:
I spent a fair bit of time getting that typical SNES reverb sounding right (to my ears), and making string sounds by bouncing out a string sound, and looping it, fairly badly, in Kontakt (sampler).

Yeah, I do that too, bouncing out a string or pad with a little bit of noise or reverb at the start or end and looping it so that you just catch (and hear) the join, makes it sound that much more organic.

For that 80s reverb sound I've been using the UAD AMS RMX16, although there are some free impulse responses online that are pretty damn close if you have a convolution reverb to chuck them into.