Hey everyone! I wanted to share some information about B64's music design that I find both really cool and odd.

So, thanks to SubDrag's audio tool, I was able to rip the soundfont from the game. After inspecting these instruments using viena64, I discovered something cool. The drums in B64 are divided up based on drum loops- very similar to typical MIDI drum kits, but there is an important factor that makes the B64 drums unique:

What I believe happened was that the drum loops were created, and then the samples were divided DIRECTLY from the drum loops  ! As such, the drum noises (kicks, hi-hats, snares, etc.) sound very janky when played as singular notes. However, when they are played together and in the correct rhythm, you get a sick B64 drum beat!

For example, take B64's infamous drum loop that can be heard in Advertise, Battle Menu, Black City, all of Sirius' themes, etc.. Here is how the samples are defined on keyboard:



Most of these samples sound stupid on their own. But, as I mentioned, when arranged in the proper rhythm and using the correct notes (samples), you can recreate the infamous loop! Below is what the drum loop looks like in actual sheet music:


I haven't 100% confirmed it, but I am 99.9% sure this applies to all the other drum loops in the game. Hudson made some funky decisions, but hey the soundtrack is great so I guess some of it worked out!

You made it to the end? Nerd. Well, hope you learned something cool today!  

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That is an interesting way of doing it for sure. I know next to nothing about audio design or music theory, but maybe that was meant to be a kind of version control? Like instead of copying and altering a main loop, they work with pieces from it. Still doesn't make a lot of sense, but plenty of other games on the console had goofy coding  

Thanks for sharing your discovery!

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If I had to guess, given that this was the first Bomberman game to see the N64, Hudson was probably newer to the N64’s way of dealing with music (iirc the N64 accepted something called type 0 MIDIs). Funny enough, none of the percussion is stored in the percussion bank. However, because I don’t know enough about SubDrag’s audio tool, I can’t really say whether or not it looks exactly like that in the games files.

Akifumi Tada had an unusual vision, but it was great in the end.

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After doing about 5 minutes of research, I found for my info that type 0 MIDIs merge all tracks into 1 but keep channel information intact. So if there were tracks with different sounds on each, they'd get smooshed together if exported into type 0.

You might have already known that.

After going back and listening to each track that uses the loop, I might be imagining things, but the ones in Sirius's themes sound a bit different from each other. Doesn't quite explain why the loop was cut up and put back together, but I know enough about digital audio tracks to know that doing stuff like that does slightly alter the quality of sound you end up with. Maybe that was the intent all along.

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Honestly I don't know too much about type 0 MIDIs so this was cool to know, and makes sense too.

I'll have to go back and listen to the ones in Sirius' themes. I do know that in Sirius II the drum beats do sound different, but I don't think this is because of rhythmic differences.
Sirius II is special in that there are two tracks used here playing the same drum loop. Their pitches are slightly different. Why? This creates what's called the chorus effect! I'm not really sure how to describe the sound but there are many youtube videos about it.

Maybe you noticed this? But I will have to check out and compare Sirius I and III to make sure I'm not misleading anyone.

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My friends, my fellow conscripts,
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I feel so much better.

That's likely what I heard, yeah. And it might have been that that made me think the other 2 were different. I don't have a trained ear, but maybe I'll get my brother to take a listen. He can often tell where a specific note is on the scale and whether it's sharp or flat just from hearing a piece  

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Bomberman for Smash!