Reproduce instrument tibre with PSG

There's a reason why FM-synthesis is usually sine-based. More complex or harsher waves usually make things worse, especially if you don't have a filter to cut most of the crap away.

My 2 cents on this topic: the PSG uses simple AM modulation instead of FM, but there' nothing impeding you to try to combine existing sound engineering techniques with it. With some care and dedication it's possible to craft very convincing drum sounds from the PSG, i.e.

Whether it will sound or not is a matter of personal taste, like the amount/type of distortion applied on an electric guitar. The NES, i.e. doesn't have any filters on its sound output and most people love its harsh sound.

And you don't even need to go all the way to use sampling or very high update frequencies. The PSG has some nifty features that only recently have been explored, like using the envelope generator as its own sound channel, as a secondary operator to AM modulate the waveform of a sound channel.

I'll list some examples below, and the oscilloscope view allows to easily visualize some of the techniques being used. I hope it helps you, @aoineko:

cuz i can

Tobikomi - Eighty Days With Z

Snake Oil Empire

Ducktales - The Moon Theme

Hardy

The BITCRUSHER

Mellow

Doorbellsplosion

Poppy

Chip Champion - Ultimate_Sceneballz_FinalRelease

Yes, more advanced replayers do reproduce the pitch effect regardless of the soundchip. Even an OPL soundchip can sound a lot better when the called macro instruments are used. (sometimes called dynamic instruments)

Macro instruments are that: they change the characteristics of the instrument over time and sound much better than instruments with static parameters ("patches" in the Yamaha terminology).

Furnace Tracker has support for this.

And can you please elborate in a dedicated thread

Thanks. Some songs have very intersting sound.
For example Doorbellsplosion, has sounds that sound pretty much like a trumpet.

In the Arkos Tracker documentation I read that putting an arpegio on the attack frames of an instrument could give a "chord" effect. This is the kind of trick I'm interested in and I'm surprised not to find more info on the web (especially since the AY-3-8910 is shared by many machines).

I don't remember well but, It should be something like register 0 is refreshed during the scanline to know which sprites overlap. This allows you to know where it is happening and therefore to clock something. The sprites are not visible if they are placed in an area of the same color.

Aoineko, I like the sound of your ROM sample. It's much better than the mix of coos and sizzles from the videos above.