TAY: Open Forum – Higher Fidelity

Salutations to you all! It always comes back to Mario somehow, doesn’t it?

The Nintendo Gigaleak continues to provide fascinating insights into the behind-the-scenes details of how some of their games come together. One of the most recent ways that’s happened is that the Gigaleak apparently includes many of the exact names of the synthesizers from which the sounds of Super Mario World‘s songs came.

Armed with that information, dutiful fans with the means and knowhow have, from what I understand, been getting their hands on those synthesizers and using them to essentially re-record the songs. By getting the sounds directly from the synths, without all of the heavy audio compression that had to be done in order to fit the music onto the Super Nintendo cartridges, we get to hear what a “high fidelity” version of the Super Mario World might have sounded like. It’s been making the rounds on the internet lately as a “restored” version of the soundtrack.

It is some ultra-geeky, surreal, awesome stuff! A peek behind a curtain that you maybe never would have realized was even there in the first place!

…but it’s also not necessarily a superior version of the soundtrack, in my opinion, as some/many might suggest. Absolutely interesting, yes, and also different. But they’re never going to replace the Super Nintendo originals in my heart. These couple of pieces cover some reasons as to why that’s the case better than I could ever articulate. All I can really add to that is that these so-called “restorations,” though cool, do whatever the sonic equivalent of breaking my suspension of disbelief is. The lack of compression highlights just how keyboard-y (for lack of a better term) the original sounds are–as if you’re playing one of those preset songs on a Yamaha keyboard–and that’s not exactly the kind of thing I want to associate a Super Mario World song with.

Plus, in the grander scheme of classic videogame songs in a higher fidelity than we’re used to, these songs don’t strike me as quite as impressive as other similar efforts. This kind of treatment might do far more justice to the 64-bit generation than the 16-bit generation, if a redone song from Super Mario 64 is any indication, for example.

Today’s questions:

• What style or kind of videogame soundtrack appeals to you?
• How do you feel about the “restored” Super Mario World soundtrack?
• What’s your opinion on these efforts to bring retro game soundtracks to a more modern standard of audio quality?

And, as always, Talk Amongst Yourselves!

Today’s Morning Jam: