6th August 2005, 7:34 PM
Oops. There's a VERY important feature I forgot to mention that files like NSF and SPC have over MP3. And funny enough, it brings us full circle back to video game remixes!
You have the ability to turn the instrument channels on and off! MP3's typically have only two channels: left speaker and right speaker. Whoopty fricken doo. An NSF, however, has 5 channels to play with! 2 are the square wave, 1 triangle wave, the noise channel (typically used for percussion) and the DPCM (which are heavily distorted wav samples. think of the "kowabunga!" voice in the TMNT games). Remixers use this feature so they can isolate the melody or bass or mute the noise channel or what have you. It's also just interesting to listen to old Nintendo music with only the melody or vice versa. This is just something that an MP3 cannot do because it is so fundamentally different. It's like trying to connect to the internet using an old timey radio. They're just two completely different technologies even though both essentially can deliver music and news.
You have the ability to turn the instrument channels on and off! MP3's typically have only two channels: left speaker and right speaker. Whoopty fricken doo. An NSF, however, has 5 channels to play with! 2 are the square wave, 1 triangle wave, the noise channel (typically used for percussion) and the DPCM (which are heavily distorted wav samples. think of the "kowabunga!" voice in the TMNT games). Remixers use this feature so they can isolate the melody or bass or mute the noise channel or what have you. It's also just interesting to listen to old Nintendo music with only the melody or vice versa. This is just something that an MP3 cannot do because it is so fundamentally different. It's like trying to connect to the internet using an old timey radio. They're just two completely different technologies even though both essentially can deliver music and news.