When we visited Factor 5's offices in San Rafael, the N64 newcomer treated us to some amazing sound demos, pumping booming orchestra tunes out of the N64 the likes you have never heard.

In Part II of our special interview series, Factor 5 talks about the state of N64 game music, the 64DD, and offers insights on how to get the best audio out of the hardware.

If you haven't read it yet, click here to check out Part I one of the interview, and our news story about the new speech compression routines.

IGN64: Graphics aside, one of Factor 5's strengths was always the sound. And if I take a hard look at most of the N64 games at the moment, the music is not up to par with what you could -- and still can hear on the Super NES. For example, Act Raiser, Final Fantasy, Mana, Zelda, Castlevania -- everyone knows those melodies, but with some exceptions, most of the stuff we hear on the N64 nowadays sounds weak-breasted and uninventive. What's going on? Factor 5: Let's face it. The Super NES has a soundchip, the N64 doesn't have a soundchip. That's how it is. The N64 shares its workload with the co-processor -- actually, let me rephrase that: The whole machine does it, because you can also make music with the CPU. It just seems that at the moment most people are preoccupied with pumping out cool graphics -- and that's also what most gamers want. And the more graphics you do on the N64, the less performance you have left over for sound. With the Super NES, you knew that you could do all this and then you still had a sound chip to handle the music. On the N64, sound eats up performance.

IGN64: So the hardware itself contains nothing in the ways of sound? There are no pre-made samples, you have to pack everything onto the ROM yourself? Factor 5: You have your own samples in the ROM and you can play them either from the ROM or the RAM. There's nothing in the N64 itself. You get a sample set from Nintendo, and that's roughly the same that will be built-in with the 64DD. It's really helpful that Nintendo added a complete sample set to the 64DD, with very nice instruments.

IGN64: And that will free up some space on disk? Factor 5: Yes, and loading time, too. Remember that you have to load all data from the 64DD disk. You don't have the cart anymore. That means, you can load the samples in zero time from the ROM. It's a great idea.

IGN64: Before this interview, you let me hear some music demos on the N64 that surpassed even the quality of Rare's music. What's your secret? Factor 5: Completely new, homemade drivers from top to bottom. In that respect, we owe Nintendo a big thank you for their cooperation. It's not like Nintendo isn't aware of some of the sound questions. They know that sound can count for a lot in a game. And I'm sure Nintendo isn't all that pleased with the sound that comes from many of the third-party games, either. We probably did the same thing that Rare did and wrote new sound drivers from the ground up. We're using our own sample format, our own drivers -- from the first to the last line of code we're basically doing everything different from the way SGI had originally planned it. And then you can do a lot with the sound.

IGN64: The use and availability of many voices is often helpful for making really good music. But on the N64, every voice steals performance from the co-processor... Factor 5: Or the CPU. With SGI or Nintendo's original sound system, they did everything with the co-processor. Our approach is that we divide up the work. We check: where is performance left over, on the co-processor or the CPU? If you're using 100% of both processors, then you also get performance problems with our sound system -- but we're more flexible and there is always a little bit left over on the co-processor or the CPU. And that little bit goes a long way.

IGN64: Back to the number of voices. Is the number of voices inevitably tied to better, richer sound? Factor 5: The pure number of voices is not really the decisive factor. Sure, we're using a lot of voices in our music. For example, one big intro piece we made has 32 voices -- but a level-tune probably only 16. That's already in the normal or small area. And our 16 voices sound better than anything you can do with the standard midi set with 16 voices. Our trick is that we have our own programming language, in addition to midi. That means you're doing your own compositions in midi but you create your own samples, and you can influence and change those samples afterwards with that programming language. And if you have a talented and experienced musician, you can do some incredible things that way.

I don't know if someone who is used to making Redbook audio can do equally good music with our tools. He could definitely make better music than without, but Chris' [Huelsbeck] and Rudi's [Stembers] experience helps a lot in this respect. They both started on the Amiga with a mere four voices.

IGN64: Do you think the experience with Amigas, C64s, Ataris and so on gives European musicians and programmers a technical advantage? Rare's music is excellent, and there are a couple of European music programmers that stand out. Factor 5: I think so. It looks like many Europeans have a little more bite on the technical side of things. From our perspective, the N64 is almost as complicated as the [Sega] Saturn. You can do amazing things, as those last Saturn games that are still coming also prove -- but you have to program in a way that you use the resources to a tee. And many people over here don't seem to be able to get to terms with that and the outcome is often disappointing. To say it bluntly, in that respect it seems that European and Japanese companies -- with few exceptions -- are simply better. Rare has gathered the cream of the European programming elite, and it's quite visible that they're technically ahead. And in Japan, look what Major A, Konami, managed to squeeze out of the N64. In that respect, it seems that many Americans just have a to try a little harder (laughs).

IGN64: That's certainly true in regards to sound. If you listen to games like Mace on your TV, it sounds quite good -- but hook it up to your stereo or surround system and suddenly things sound tinny and come only from your center speaker. Factor 5: Yes, because tinny and mono are cheaper in terms of processor time. And seriously, if you have such and such graphics on screen and you want to keep the performance and only the sound is left over, you ask yourself: What does the average gamer play on? And then you hook up your small TV and things sound fine. I personally don't like that. I play my games at home over my surround system and I want to have surround sound in our games. And we've done it in the past, too, ever since the Super NES. It's not a difficult thing to do.

IGN64: Is the dolby surround license expensive? Factor 5: Nope, not at all. Dolby is happy when you do something with it. But as I said, it's easy, it was always easy, but people just didn't do it. It's not like the Super NES was used to its full limits, and the same thing can be said of the PSX. The PlayStation has 24 voices -- but almost nobody uses them. You could do great stuff with the PSX soundchip. The same thing holds true for the N64. Programmers look for a common ground, and unfortunately you can see graphics very well even on the smallest TV. And that's where sound often comes too short.

IGN64: Do you think that will change at all? Factor 5: Rare has shown that it can be done differently, but it doesn't look like anything is changing. They've done it for a year now and most people don't seem to care. Either they don't care or they can't do it. You probably know the answer better than us since you speak with a lot of developers. We work a lot with sound, so we value a game's audio highly -- but what you expect from your game is something that the individual developers come up with by themselves. And if you don't have high expectations -- the N64 makes it tough enough.

IGN64: How about on the creative side of things? What will Thornado sound like? Factor 5: Symphonic orchestra with pop elements, kind of like Super Turrican 2. We're not letting anyone hear the tunes yet since the game is still early on, but we've got a few pieces from Chris that are total knock-outs [ed: To get an idea of his music, listen to the included MP3 file]. Orchestra sound is Chris' specialty and orchestra is the hardest thing to do on the N64. That's a real challenge. I'm always disappointed with techno tracks. If someone can't handle the N64's sound right, what do they go for? Techno. A techno soundtrack only needs three voices and the problem is that most techno tracks are simply boring and disappointing. A great exception to the rule is Tetrisphere. H2O really put a lot of work into the music. In that case it really fit to the game and they made it so complex that I assume they didn't use the original tools either.

IGN64: One of the downsides of techno is certainly that the melodies are rather simplistic. In the case of games like Mario, Zelda, Actraiser, or Castlevania -- you hear the music and automatically think of the game. But it seems that most N64 games do sound a bit generic. Factor 5: Well, if you've played Yoshi for an hour then you'll probably find it hard to get those melodies out of your head, too. It's burned into your skull, forever (laughs). But you're right, many melodies nowadays are not as recognizable as in the good old 16-bit days. I don't think it has anything to do with the number of voices because I notice a similar trend on the PSX. You've got these wonderful Redbook soundtracks and they all sound professional, but switch off the game and you've forgotten them. There are of course exceptions like Soul Edge or Castlevania. Konami did great stuff on the SNES, and they do incredibly good music on the PSX, too.

When it comes to melodies, it's simply a question of creativity and that creativity can easily be impaired by a lack of voices. Nevertheless, some of the more motivated developers are trying to be more creative and stand out from the rest. Again, Rare is a good example. The Indian singing in Diddy Kong Racing was hilarious.

If third parties could have access to easier sound tools and would recognize the importance of music a little more... You won't be able to do CD music on the N64 with the ease you can pull it off on a CD system. But I'm sure that with better tools the current level of music can be pushed way up. We are finishing up our sound tools and we will definitely approach Nintendo and show them. There needs to be some kind of solution for third parties. A company like Nintendo has almost unlimited resources to develop tools, but a small third party team, especially when they don't have any sound know-how, they just don't have the manpower or background to make their own tools just for sound.

Check back tomorrow when Factor 5 talks about Thornado, PSX vs. N64 polygon power, lighting effects, textures, and blur.

Interview by Peer Schneider