#1

So a friend/frequent collaborator, recently purchased a Sega Saturn Satiator to make music with my Sega Saturn and is having it sent to my house for me to figure out before we start making things on it. For those who haven’t been following this, the satiator allows you to read and write data from an SD card or a USB hard drive on the sega saturn. This means that you can write your own programs, and access the extremely overpowered Yamaha FM engine (which can use samples for its 32 operators, and can be connected in a variety of ways). The Saturn can accept MIDI I/O (through a converter cable, or you could just hack one together), essentially making it an extremely powerful, programmable 1990s Yamaha synth/sampler.

Has anyone messed with this? If not I’m going to use this thread to share resources for folks that might interesting, because I think this is a potentially really interesting way of making video game influenced music without doing the obvious chip tune stuff (which is cool in it’s own way).

Here’s a longer video explaining what the satiator is:

17 Likes
#2

I’ve also been interested in this device. I wonder how much software is available to use it as a synth? The chip itself is interesting, but it needs a good engine to run it. For instance as I recall it doesn’t have envelopes or LFOs, you’d run those in software and I think that would have to be written.

1 Like
#3

sounds extremely interesting to me. i would love to experiment with using samples as modulators & carriers with complex algorithm routing if that’s what you mean.it does seem like it would be fun to do non-chip tune style music with something like this. i’ll keep an eye on this thread. cool idea

1 Like
#4

Since the operators can be applied to each other in any manny, and since they can be samples or waveforms, I suspect you could essentially use them as a wavetable LFOs. In the video I linked to, it looks like Professor Abrasive is using some kind of patching/synthesis software. My friend just messaged him on patreon. If/when I hear back, I’ll post the info here.

For those interested, here’s the wiki on the synthesis chip used in the saturn:

1 Like
#5

I remember seeing that video when it was first released. How much as developed in the years since? I did a quick search online, but I’m a bit out of my depth. Would love to see some specific applications of this technology!

1 Like
#6

That is super cool!! I had no idea :open_mouth:
I know a bit about older chip music and such, but had not idea the saturn had a powerful sound engine :smiley:
Come to think of it, thats one of the few systems ive never owned in my life lol

1 Like
#7

I think it was only recently released, but it is a finished product that you can stick in the back of your console to load and games and homebrew software via USB. What would be great would be a software editor for loading synth programs (editing on the system would be cool, but more work, I think.

I looked up the midi hardware and it’s just an optocoupler and what looks like a hexinverter used as a buffer, I think it would be trivial to make your own cable so you can send MIDI into the SS.

What needs to happen now is for someone to release something like the software he’s using at 11 minutes in the video for setting up the synth engine, and something to parse MIDI, which I assume is fairly straightforward and part of the development kit since the system has a midi accessory and midi-based games, but who knows.

I’m really hoping Abrasive writes us back. He’s got a monotron on his desk, he’s definitely interested in synths.

2 Likes
#8

It’s a funny coincidence seeing this thread, it’s the second surprising connection I’ve seen to the retro-gaming community and synthesizers today.

3 Likes