SNES and Playstation Cubic Adpcm Interpolation

jsgroth.dev

39 points·zdw··8 comments

I'm not even a huge fan of the Donkey Kong Country games, I'd rather play Super Mario World or Mega Man X.

But man, I can never get over what they were able to accomplish with that soundtrack. It's impressive on its own, not even factoring in that it was pulled off on the SNES.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKAc3nYEatw

I don't even think I got to the water levels when I was a kid, but this song feels like it can invoke nostalgia in anyone, even if you never played the game.

Related (Donkey Konga): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42127569

Let me recommend a fantastic SNES track to put that interpolation to good work, the Waterworld OST: https://youtu.be/Y4hqy02sxDI?si=k1Q0krB1a7Yy88uy

Wow - never heard that before, it's brilliant! Definitely one to run through this!

Just thank you for this link, didn't know this OST it's just incredible...

The article fails to mention this somehow, so I'd like to mention that Sony designed the SNES sound chip, the SPC700. It is unsurprising then that the Playstation's sound hardware is similar.

The first link in TFA leads to an earlier article on the origins of the PSX SPU, and it says this:

> The SNES APU was designed by Ken Kutaragi, who was also working on a CD-ROM add-on for the SNES before Nintendo canceled the project (likely due to seeing the Sega CD’s poor sales). After Nintendo shafted Sony on the SNES CD, Sony decided to make their own gaming console called the PlayStation, with Kutaragi as the lead hardware designer. Given this history, it’s no surprise that the SNES APU and PS1 SPU are extremely similar chips - they were designed by the same person!

Fabulous - many great SNES soundtracks, I'd recommend this one - in fact, the beach intro too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peuTnilEv9g

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