Adding Sound Effects by Any Means Necessary

"Shooting!"

"Sonic!"

Schwarzenegger's shouts came through the speakers, already somewhat distorted by the inadequate recording conditions.

Lin Lixin frowned in thought.

He had been so focused on recording those iconic voice effects that gave the characters their souls that he had nearly forgotten the most important problem.

They couldn't play them!

At this stage, the vast majority of arcade machines used audio chips manufactured by Texas Instruments or Yamaha.

Their core sound-generation logic involved layering various synthesized waves to simulate different sound effects.

That was also why arcade machines usually produced only those electronic "beep-boop" sounds.

Human voices, however, were highly complex nonlinear waveforms. These two chips couldn't simulate them.

Sam scribbled and sketched on a sheet of paper, finally arriving at a rough estimate.

"If we want to add audio playback capabilities, the component costs will increase by nearly fifty dollars."

That was already the price of a CPU.

"The biggest problem is storage."

Sam's gaze swept over the estimated component list.

"Every audio clip requires a huge amount of storage space. It'll make the game's size unacceptably large."

Simply put, those extra storage components were where the real money would go.

Sam scratched his head and picked up the prototype board from the table.

It had only a single Yamaha YM2151 on it. The two of them had just tested it, and the simulated results had been far from ideal.

"So is it really necessary to spend this much extra money for a shout? If you ask me, we should just make a punchier 'bang.' Same effect, and it'd only cost five dollars!"

"No, Sam." Lin Lixin rejected his idea outright. "This is the character's soul. It's absolutely indispensable."

Sam sighed helplessly.

Having known him this long, he was well aware of Lin Lixin's creative stubbornness. Convincing him was simply impossible.

But letting this drag on and hold up development wasn't a solution either.

"Then do you have a way to solve it?"

Lin Lixin silently closed the panel before him and glanced out the window.

It was still early. There should be enough time.

"Not yet, but I should have one this afternoon."

The electrical engineering library at the University of Southern California.

Ever since his business had begun flourishing, Lin Lixin had rarely returned to campus.

But the library remained a "scripture repository" worth visiting.

Of all the attributes on his panel, [Music Composition] had always been the lowest.

That couldn't be helped. After all, current audio technology gave him few opportunities to put his abilities to use.

Now, however, there was a place for them to shine.

[You gained insight from reading "Computer Sound Technology." Experience +1]

[You gained insight from reading "Computer Sound Technology." Experience +1]

[You gained insight from reading "FM Frequency Modulation." Experience +1]

[Ding!]

[Your understanding of digital audio has crossed the threshold into proficiency]

[Skill acquired]:

[Digital Audio Domain Master]: [Music Composition (Synthesis) +10, Music Composition learning efficiency ++]

Snap!

Lin Lixin snapped the book shut, having found a perfect solution.

When he returned to the GAMENOVA store, Gerald and Sam were gathered around the board, exchanging ideas.

"Right, right, so that's how it works. You're impressive, Mr. Gerald."

"Oh, it's nothing. Just experience I've accumulated over the years."

Hearing movement at the entrance, Sam looked up and spotted Lin Lixin, delight spreading across his face.

"Lin, Mr. Gerald came up with a great approach. Take a look."

"Yes, Sam has already explained the specific requirements to me. We can follow the example of graphics processing and split the audio processing requirements between two chips."

Gerald tapped what he had drawn on the sketch.

"One YM2151 to synthesize standard sound effects and background music, and for the other, we can use an MSM5205 to decode prerecorded audio..."

Lin Lixin raised an eyebrow and leaned in to study it carefully.

Sam and Gerald's approach was interesting, expanding the existing architecture from the hardware side.

Although it seemed to add another chip, it saved a great deal of storage space.

"Not bad, but I've found a solution too."

Lin Lixin smiled. Unlike the other two, he had approached the problem through algorithms.

"I call this technology the 'Vorbis Codec.' It's an audio compression algorithm."

"Huh?" Both men froze, especially Sam, who knew Lin Lixin had only been out for an afternoon.

"Give me a moment. I'll need to write a dedicated program for this."

Half an hour later.

"Shooting!"

Schwarzenegger's rich voice came through the speakers, not much different from before.

Sam's eyes widened as he replayed the recording over and over in disbelief.

"There's barely any loss in voice quality. This... how can it be this ridiculous?"

"However, this algorithm does use a tiny bit of processing power. I believe that's a much better bargain than storage."

Lin Lixin compared the compressed audio's storage usage. The difference was like heaven and earth.

He hadn't conjured this technology out of thin air. It was the technology used by the OGG format in later years.

If they wanted even more compression, they could simply lower the audio's sampling rate a few more notches.

In fact, even if they halved the sampling rate again, these voice effects would still absolutely stomp almost every arcade machine currently on the market.

"Besides, we don't need to use samples for all the audio."

Lin Lixin looked at Gerald's proposed dual-chip setup.

"We'll use Gerald's plan as well. We'll only use samples for each character's most important special moves and victory lines."

That way, storage usage could be compressed to a very low level, small enough to fit even when they eventually ported it to home console cartridges.

Speaking of special moves, Lin Lixin turned to Gerald and asked:

"Mr. Gerald, since you're here, I take it there's been progress on what I asked for?"

"Of course."

Sam watched their cryptic exchange in confusion, wondering what riddle they were speaking in now.

Until Gerald took the object out of the case he had brought.

"I built this prototype based on the requirements you described. See if it's the same thing as the 'joystick' you mentioned."

"Joystick?"

Sam curiously examined the obviously hand-built piece of Ork technology before him, somewhat puzzled.

"Why don't we just use the kind of four-way joystick or eight-way mechanical joystick Atari uses?"

With all the games he had played, there was naturally no way he wouldn't recognize a joystick.

These things had already been used in some flight simulators back in the seventies.

As for using them in games, that had long since ceased to be anything new in the industry.

Lin Lixin tried replacing the original control panel with the new joystick, grabbed its ball top, and quickly swept it through two circles before nodding in satisfaction.

"Because you can do circle inputs with this thing, of course!"

An eight-way joystick moved along a square path.

This was what was designed for inputting special moves.