03109: mooncrst and clones: Explosion of own ship sounds wrong.

ID	Category [?]	Severity [?]	Reproducibility	Date Submitted	Last Update
03109	Sound	Minor	Always	Apr 16, 2009, 22:09	Aug 25, 2009, 23:05

Tester	davidhorrocks	View Status	Public	Platform	MAMEUI
Assigned To	couriersud	Resolution	Fixed	OS
Status [?]	Resolved			Driver	galaxian/galaxian.cpp
Version	0.130	Fixed in Version	0.133u3	Build	Normal
		Fixed in Git Commit		Github Pull Request #

Summary	03109: mooncrst and clones: Explosion of own ship sounds wrong.
Description	In the game Moon Cresta the sound effect that is played when your own ship gets destroyed is now wrong. I have upgraded from v0.89 to v0.130 so I do not know exactly what version the issue occurred. I used to play the real thing as well as several Mame versions prior to and including v0.89 and the sound should be a deep low pitched echoing "white noise" blast. In Mame v0.130 and v0.130u2 the sound is a much higher pitched shallow "white noise" hiss sound.
Steps To Reproduce	Start a Moon Cresta game. Insert money and start a one-player game. Let your ship get hit by something and listen to the sound of the resulting explosion.
Additional Information	The explosion sound should be a deep low pitched echoing "white noise" blast and not a high pitched shallow "white noise" hiss sound.
Github Commit

Flags
Regression Version
Affected Sets / Systems	mooncrst and clones

Attached Files	galaxian.zip (36,122 bytes) Apr 22, 2009, 18:18

No.04215 Tafoid Administrator Apr 16, 2009, 23:07 edited on: Apr 16, 2009, 23:08	Looks like we'll need some original PCB/in-game recordings to determine which MAME version is most authentic. A cabinet itself can influence a sound in many ways which would not be show up in an emulation of the original hardware.
No.04218 robiza Developer Apr 19, 2009, 06:38 edited on: Apr 19, 2009, 06:39	1.20
No.04238 Gyrovision Tester Apr 22, 2009, 17:37	0.36b11: Juergen Buchmueller and Tatsuyuki Satoh improved emulation of the Galaxians sound subsystem. Samples are no longer used. Same thing with Galaxian and several other galdrvr.c games. They are using sound simulations which are proving to be inaccurate to the real pcbs. The old external samples were accurate.
No.04239 Haze Senior Tester Apr 22, 2009, 18:15 edited on: Apr 22, 2009, 23:09	The old external samples were recorded from in-use machines, and therefore were affected by cabinet acoustics, and since they're not emulation in any wayI wouldn't call them 'accurate'. Many of the samples were also then hand edited to sound 'better'. It's entirely possible the current sound is what the PCB outputs, it's also entirely possible that it isn't, the existing samples are not a good nor trusted reference point however as they weren't recorded directly from the PCB and they've had post processing performed on them.
No.04262 Sune_S Senior Tester Apr 25, 2009, 16:55	Comparing 0.131 Moon Cresta parent set to the video robiza posted the explosion sound is almost identical. To me it sounds like the PCB explosion sound has a slightly longer "fadeout" than in it has in MAME. That could be due to sound components on the PCB aging of course. Or my ears aging. You can hear the explosion isolated at 1:45.
No.04821 davidhorrocks Tester Aug 16, 2009, 18:28 edited on: Aug 16, 2009, 18:54	Mame v0.133u2 is big improvement to the explosion sound. The sound is lower pitched and there is more of an echo. But the timbre or sound quality is very noticeably poor compared to the samples. Also, the new emulation sounds as though there are two different pitched noises being played during the explosion. Could it be aliasing?
No.04822 davidhorrocks Tester Aug 16, 2009, 18:53	I have watched and listened to the video that robiza has posted of a Moon Cresta machine that is outside of its cabinet. It seems to me that the video sounds very different to the Mame v130 - v132 but does sound very like the posted Galaxian samples. Galaxian is similarly affected though v0.133u2 is a big improvement. Also the ship fire should sound more whistle-like as in the samples.
No.04829 couriersud Developer Aug 17, 2009, 21:38	There are minor changes in 133u3 that affect the fadeout of noise and ship fire. Apart from that: From 00443 (galaxian): Mike Coates was so kind to grant permission to cite him here: ---- citation ---- I've had in excess of 50 galaxian / moon cresta boards, bootlegs and originals - for quite a lot of the sound circuitry (and the video mixing and colours) they used whatever resistors / capacitors / transistors they had handy - sound varies from board to board quite considerably - even if the boards are originals from the same manufacturer. ---- citation ---- This perfectly explains the difficulties in discrete sound emulation. Even if you have high quality recordings at hand there is still uncertainty whether they fit the schematics available.
No.04862 couriersud Developer Aug 25, 2009, 19:08	With the latest changes in 133u3, can somebody please check again so that we eventually can close this report.
No.04863 Tafoid Administrator Aug 25, 2009, 22:56	I'm going to close this out. Any talk about games like this or Galaxian (or similar galaxian driver games) would be better served in a forum post discussing it with some pcb recordings (not second hand) and direct examination of the game itself. Please do not fill out a new bug report about this game or Galaxian. Every effort has been made to cover all the variables surrounding this issue by Couriersud.
No.04864 davidhorrocks Tester Aug 25, 2009, 23:05	Versions v0.133u2 and v0.133u3 do indeed produce the "deep low pitched echoing white noise blast". (missing in v0.132). I guess reasonable to close the issue.