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sega mega drive / genesis sound comparison
this page was last updated 15 september 2009
email: seb.tomczak@gmail.com
blog: little-scale.blogspot.com
There are many hardware and software options available to those that are writing music for the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis video game console. Each option has its own unique flavour of sound upon playback, in terms of tone colour, spectrum, clipping / overdriven waveforms, signal to noise ratio and the amplitude of the signal.
The aim of this page is to provide composers and musicians with an opportunity to listen to a number of the different models of Sega Mega Drive / Genesis. Below there are a series of recordings, made using the same music data and recorded using the same recording setup and gain structure. The resulting audio has not been normalised or affected in any way.
The music data in question is actually the brilliant track Lullaby by the Adelaide chipmusic composer Freezedream - used with permission. The track was written in TFM and was made into a .bin file by using the VGM Player v2.
In setup (4) below, CCAM refers to Crystal Clear Audio Modification by TmEE.
Also of interest may be the Cheesesteak Modification by Animalstyle.
Model |
Output |
Connection |
Comments |
WAV |
MP3 |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sega Mega Drive 1 | Headphone | 3.5mm Stereo | Loud output; not as loud as (7); clear signal | download | download |
| 2 | Sega Mega Drive 1 | AV Socket | RCA x 1 Mono | More quiet than (1), not as distorted as (5) | download | download |
| 3 | Sega Mega Drive 1 | Direct YM2612 | RCA x 2 Stereo | Extremely low signal level | download | download |
| 4 | Sega Mega Drive 2 | CCAM | RCA x 2 Stereo | Very clear signal; not as loud as (1) or (7) | download | download |
| 5 | Sega Mega Drive 2 | AV Socket | RCA x 1 Mono | More distorted than (2); louder than (2) | download | download |
| 6 | Sega Genesis 2 | AV Socket | RCA x 1 Mono | A little brighter than (5); louder than (2) | download | download |
| 7 | Sega Nomad | Headphone | 3.5mm Stereo | Loud output; louder than (1); much cleaner than (8) | download | download |
| 8 | Sega Nomad | AV Socket | RCA x 1 Mono | Not as loud as (7); cleaner than (5) or (6) | download | download |
| 9 | Twin Pad Player | AV Socket | RCA x 1 Mono | Pitch is lower; speed is faster; antialising is present | download | download |
Notes: