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My buddy swore old 8-bit music had better bass than modern stuff. I laughed at him.
He dug up a copy of the Mega Man 2 soundtrack on a floppy disk and played it through some cheap speakers. I told him he was crazy, 8-bit sound chips can't produce real bass. Then he showed me how those old composers used fast arpeggios to trick your ear into hearing low frequencies. It worked way better than I thought, and now I actually check out old chiptune playlists on YouTube. Has anyone else found an old game soundtrack that holds up way better than you'd expect?
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aaronsullivan1d agoTop Commenter
64 Hz is actually the lowest the NES triangle wave can hit, which is close to a real bass note but not quite the same as what you'd get from a subwoofer. @james_bell had a point about the frequency trick though, the arpeggio thing is more about creating a phantom low end through speed and repetition than actual deep sound. I still think the old gear had more grit and character than most modern synth stuff.
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the_hayden1d ago
Wait, isn't the actual trick using low pulse wave frequencies and noise channel stuff instead of just fast arpeggios? I remember reading that composers on the NES would use the triangle wave's lowest possible note (about 65 Hz) and layer it with other sounds to fake a sub-bass feel. The arpeggio thing works but it's more about creating a rhythm that feels like bass rather than the actual frequency trick.
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