I accidentally discovered what Double Dribble was probably intended to sound like.

[EnigmaWave]

When I was implementing my DPCM channel I accidentally shifted the bits out of the register in the wrong direction. This was the result.

double-dribble.mp3

(246.92 KiB) Downloaded 2313 times

[Memblers]

Haha, wow. I had to check the calendar to make sure it's not April 1st. That's so much cleaner sounding.

I wonder if the Blades of Steel samples were encoded the same way. If so, it could be the end of decades-long debates about what the announcer is saying.

[tepples]

So it isn't an off-brand version of Taito's arcade single-screen bubble-blowing game. It's not "Bubble Bibble".

[psycopathicteen]

I remember reading about something similar happening in a Sega Genesis game (It was either Altered Beast, or Street Fighter II) where the samples themselves sounded good, but there was a glitch in the sound driver that distorted the samples. I think it was an issue with the Z80 getting stuck during DMA.

[dink]

I reproduced this effect on my side, very cool find
Though it makes absolutely no difference for blades of steel.

[Dwedit]

Confirming that the Blades of Steel samples are not bit swapped, just low quality.

[rainwarrior]

Wow that's amazing!

[Dwedit]

Edited TCRF: https://tcrf.net/Double_Dribble_(NES)

[tokumaru]

This is hilarious!

[aa-dav]

It's not as epic as Aliens: Colonial Marines bug (https://www.pcgamesn.com/aliens-colonia ... ai-bug-fix), but it's really cool. And I wonder - many games with exclusive DCPM fragments have very dirty sounds. 'Kawabanga' in TMNT (2?) for example. These corrected sounds from Double Dribble feels much cleaner, I think. Hm...

[Fisher]

Could this explains this bug on Gradius 2 when running on a "Dynavision Radical" famiclone?

Gradius 2 - Dynavision Radical.mp3

(244.65 KiB) Downloaded 822 times

[NewRisingSun]

I made an IPS patch for "Double Dribble (U) (PRG1) [!].nes" that corrects the bit order of the DPCM sample bytes.

Could this explains this bug on Gradius 2 when running on a "Dynavision Radical" famiclone?

Indeed, it is the same issue. I reversed the bit order in NintendulatorNRS for testing purposes and got that exact output.

[nocash]

That stuff happens all the time, even in professional music, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n55cl7MOmsg you'd never know if the last 20 seconds were actually intended to sound like that.

[Bananmos]

That stuff happens all the time, even in professional music, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n55cl7MOmsg you'd never know if the last 20 seconds were actually intended to sound like that.

Hehe, I think in this case, the intent of reversing the sample is clear. The fact that they are a band playing occult music means playing a prayer backwards looks more like a nod towards conspiracy theories from the Bible Belt, whereas I doubt the same argument can be made for Double Dribble.

Now what would be hilarious would be a Wisdom Tree cartridge with a reversed sample containing disguised messages...

[rainwarrior]

Confirming that the Blades of Steel samples are not bit swapped, just low quality.

The weird thing about Blades of Steel is some of the samples are still stored in DPCM format but played back with a CPU simulation of the DPCM unit.

So... I guess they would have had to get it right by that point, but I have no explanation for why they bothered to duplicate the hardware in software.