Robotron making Defender sounds in game

[kegger]

I just came back from the Jersey Shore (Seaside Heights) and found a Arcade on the pier with Robotron making Defender sounds, I was curious if this is possible in Mame or is it just a swapped out chip making that happen?

[JODY]

I had read that Robotron shares some sounds with Defender.  It is noted here:  http://maws.mameworld.info/maws/romset/robotron .

I have a non-Mame Robotron and recognize some Defender sounds during play.  They were programmed by the same guys and use the same hardware including the sound boards.

[TOK]

The Williams "free guy" sound and a few others are shared.

Were you at Flashback? I have tentative plans to go to Seaside, but was pretty sure I was going to skip it based on that BS show filming its third season there.

[kegger]

Yes it was at the flashback section of the arcade with the shooting range in it.
Don't worry about the show being filmed there as it wasn't a big deal for most people.

I realize that they shared some of the same sounds but this game seemed to play them more frequently or something.  Thanks for the info...

[RandyT]

If you think that's odd, my High-Speed pinball machine makes Defender sounds...

I think Williams just re-used a lot of them in their different products around that time.

RandyT

[pinballwizard79]

Tomcat F-14 the pinball machine shares sounds with NARC the video game (both WMS productions) when counting up your bonus

I noticed Firepower had the same sound effects as Time Fantasy too.

Pretty sure I heard Sega pinball does a lot of sound recycling too.

[jasonbar]

You'll hear the same Williams sounds *all over* lots of their video games & pinballs from similar eras.  Jungle Lord is full of Defender/Robotron sounds...even though it's a jungle theme...?


Sega's Lost in Space Pinball uses the "kill the bad guy" sound from LA Machine Guns/Gunblade NY.

-Jason

[RayB]

It's basically due to using the same sound hardware / synth chips. Keep in mind back then it was generated sounds, not "samples". So there's only so many varieties of good sound effects you can make come out of the chip.

[RandyT]

It's basically due to using the same sound hardware / synth chips. Keep in mind back then it was generated sounds, not "samples". So there's only so many varieties of good sound effects you can make come out of the chip.

Yes and no.  It's true that synth chips can be limited, but it probably had more to do with the effort that went into creating those unique sequences of sounds.  Technically, you can do much more with a decent synth chip, even in that era, than Williams did with those effects.  But players liked them, and they even became a sort of trademark of the company, so they re-used them on other machines.  IOW, it saved them money and time.

RandyT

[specfire]

Well, if you want to read about generating sounds in Williams games, then you should read it from the horses mouth.  Eugene Jarvis programmed almost all of what are now considered "classic Williams" sounds using his "G-wave" software on Randy Pfeiffer's hardware.

PDF with Eugene Jarvis interview is attached to this message.

[RandyT]

I always thought some of those sounds seemed liked ordered chaos, and now I know why.  He had a pretty decent digital synth to work with, but the lack of memory was the main limiting factor.  I guess relying on mathematical algorithms, in one or two pre-defined frequencies, to create the effects, instead of being able to actually sequence many different frequencies to create more complex sounds, made it pretty difficult to come up with other effects that sounded decent, yet would only occupy a few bytes of memory.    Thus the "standard" sound set attached to that particular hardware.  It also explains why my High-Speed pin has remnants of that sound set, along with the FM music synthesis capabilities.  Of course, by that time, memory had become cheaper and they were pumping digital sound samples through, I'm assuming, the same hardware.

Thanks for posting that, it was an interesting read.