SMS and Game Gear Music

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Compared to its contemporaries (C64, NES, etc.), the SMS (and GG) does not have a good reputation with regards to its sound. It’s audio chip, the SN76489, was an off-the-shelf component sold by TI (also used in the Colecovision). It could produce three square waves and white noise. This sounds comparable to the NES on paper, but it had some issues. For one, it’s 3 square waves had a fixed 50% duty cycle, limiting them to a single timbre. Additionally, the lowest frequency available to the squares was 109 Hz, which basically meant that you got no bass. (There was a trick where the 3rd square wave and noise channel could be cannibalized in order to produce lower frequencies, but it wasn’t used very often (more on that later).) For these reasons, many SMS/GG games ended up sounding less than impressive.

Regardless of its reputation or its limitations, the system still had a number of good and interesting soundtracks. Let’s celebrate them.

If you want to explore the system’s music library for yourself, .vgm rips can be found at SMS Power.

(Sega eventually released an add on FM sound card for the SMS, but I’m not the biggest fan of how it sounds, so I’ll be ignoring it for the remainder of this post.)

My favorite soundtrack for the SMS/GG is from Compile’s GG Aleste II (aka Power Strike II (not to be confused with the SMS game of the same name, which has a much poorer soundtrack)). These are the two tracks that originally convinced me that this system could produce truly sublime sound:

Here’s Distant Thunder from The GG Shinobi, courtesy of Yuzo Koshiro. Most of his work on the platform is pretty good.

Jeroen Tel’s The Flash:

Matt Furniss is the only commercial-era composer that I can recall who used that weird trick I mentioned earlier. Basically, it produces a 1/16 duty cycle square wave that can go to much lower frequencies than normal. For some reason it sounds like a sawtooth wave, and it’s just great. He put it to good use in most of his work, especially here in Alien 3:

Modern chiptuners often take full advantage of it, like with this remix of Wicked Child:

And finally, he’s the title theme for Safari Hunt. It only uses the noise channel, and it is way better than it has any right to be:

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obligatory

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The Master System version of Dragon Crystal has much better music than the GG in my opinion, it has a good old timey fantasy feel and always gave me that spooky mystical feeling somehow

Secret Commando had a good “tough manly men on a mission” soundtrack:

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Is it fair game to post NGPC music since that used a variant of the SN76489, the 76496?

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To me the YM2413 FM sound extension that you could get on the Mark III and Japanese SMS had a “farty” quality that reminded me of the SNES, but I did like Space Harrier 3D’s Bright Rays


I also liked the versions of the Sega 3D Classics Collection menu music when you switch to the SMS games that remixed it like it was coming out of an YM2413.

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It looks like the hardware is almost functionally identical, so go ahead!

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FYI: If you’re looking for Secret Commando on the SMS Power archive, it’s listed under its Japanese title: Ashura

Star Wars is another game that used the bass trick. Most of the songs are pretty similar to the NES version except for R2’s theme. The composer was definitely having a lot of fun here.

Jeroen Tel did the soundtrack to an unreleased tie-in to Lethal Weapon 3. No prototypes exist, but the composer still had all the music code after ~20 years, so somebody was able to compile it (similar to Neil Baldwin’s Erik the Viking).

Unfortunately, the only upload of it on YouTube is this reverb-heavy stereo mix. (Get it from SMSPower instead.)

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You can’t go wrong with R-Type’s soundtrack in any form.

I didn’t have a SMS as a child, but my neighbors down the street did. Music from those games still runs through my head. One of two brothers in that family held a tape recorder up to the television to record songs and listen to them later. If I remember correctly, his favorite song of all was R-Type stage 6 (11:57).

My very favorite is probably Space Harrier. That main theme never gets old.

Edit: It’s been a while since I last listened to this version. I’d forgotten just how much I like its stripped-down simplicity.

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Unfortunately, nobody seems to have uploaded the Last Bible Special soundtrack.

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whoops everything I wanted to share was from MotM and there’s only one good upload of the OST

(whoops I remembered about Sonic Pocket Adventure, a weird port of Sonic 2 with Sonic 3 music and also the first time Dimps did a Sonic game)

A mix of the Sonic World music from Sonic Jam? Why not.


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I was almost gonna share Sonic Pocket Adventure music but I didn’t bc I figured it wouldn’t count. I was the fool!
Fun game tho

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GG Aleste 3 has some good music:

(Unfortunately I’ve yet to see a full rip of the soundtrack yet, despite the sound test being right there.)

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I am reminded again that music does not get any better than this.

I have solid meetings for almost the entire day today (nothing new) and I hope I don’t have to participate much in the one that’s starting right now so I can listen to Space Harrier quietly in the background the whole time.

Edit: I keep getting asked questions and having to pause it.

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I like how the GG Micro music sounds like period-accurate compositions, rather than modern chiptunish stuff:

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Also, since I’ve bumped this thread, I want to repent of the unkind words I said towards the SMS Power Strike 2:

It may not have the razor sharp sound design of its GG counterpart, but this decidely owns.

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GG stuff is underappreciated. This is probably one of the deeper cuts; pretty sure it was technically my first shmup, too.

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someone finally uploaded the whole soundtrack to GG Aleste 3 (like, within the past week)

It’s good!

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