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Donkey Kong on MAME - sound quality not accurate

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apocalypto:


--- Quote from: Paul Olson on March 29, 2011, 05:47:42 pm ---I think there have been recent changes to the driver (since maybe .130 or so) that have made it sound worse. I saw a bug report about DKJr sounding muffled on Mametesters from .130.

these games all used the Sanyo EZ monitor which has an audio board on it. This could explain the difference if MAME is now emulating the DK PCB, but not the monitor board. I have a DK; I will try to record it this weekend.

--- End quote ---

You may be on to something there. Someone else mentioned about the new MAME not accounting for amplifiers on some boards/monitors. If only there was a way to artificially pre-amp specific games in MAME....

That would be great if you could record your DK!

I dont think DK Jr is muffled like DK is, it sounds pretty crisp. However, the jump and land sounds are really wacked out.... but thats another topic!  :dizzy:

boardjunkie:

Reverb/efx on game sounds? Um....I don't think so. In a busy arcade there was such a din that any reflections would be drown out. And any spkr modeling software is going to be intended for guitar cabs....so useless here. The only thing we need is a way to get rid of the excess low and high end (on a per game basis) that was never there to begin with.

You *could* go as far as to emulate certain cabs that had a disctinct sound/resonance. Pacman cabs have a certain resonance thats pretty recognizable. I'm sure there's others. But....this would be a pretty huge hassle if actually attempted.

Donkey Kong, and most of the early Nintendo stuff was intentionally band limited in the high/high mid area. My guess is they wanted to avoid the screechy Galaxian type audio. They may have taken it to a bit of an extreme, but it made for a unique sound quality.

boardjunkie:


--- Quote from: Paul Olson on March 29, 2011, 05:47:42 pm ---I think there have been recent changes to the driver (since maybe .130 or so) that have made it sound worse. I saw a bug report about DKJr sounding muffled on Mametesters from .130.

these games all used the Sanyo EZ monitor which has an audio board on it. This could explain the difference if MAME is now emulating the DK PCB, but not the monitor board. I have a DK; I will try to record it this weekend.

--- End quote ---

Its just an audio amp....no filtering. No need to be concerned with it. Any filtering is done in software, possibly a bit of passive filtering after the D/A converter.

BadMouth:


--- Quote from: Paul Olson on March 29, 2011, 05:47:42 pm ---I have a DK; I will try to record it this weekend.

--- End quote ---

Looking at the manual, there is a board with a pot on it for "sound balance", but the game only has one speaker.
Any idea if "sound balance" is more like a bass/treble adjustment and not a left/right adjustment?
That could account for people having very different experiences.

The wording in these old manuals is funny sometimes.
A lot of them refer to any pot as "volume control", even if it's in a steering wheel or mounted gun.
"Theory of Operation" kinda cracks me up too, as if the game hasn't yet been proven to operate correctly.  ;D

boardjunkie:

Only thing I've ever seen is just a vol control thats grouped with the hold controls and such on the little board to the left of the main chassis.

The monitor's sound amp is interesting in that it uses an output transformer. This may eat up just a touch of high end, but I wouldn't count on alot.

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