3 The Introduction of Storage Media (CD-ROM, Cartridges) for the Playback of Recorded Sound Material and Digital Sound Effects

The 16-bit sound chips that were integrated for instance in Nintendo’s Super Famicom (1990) and the SNES consoles (1991) enabled a sound generation in CD quality for the first time and thus another surge toward higher resolution and complexity of soundscapes.

With the spread of storage media such as the CD-ROM, from the 1990s on pre-recorded sound material could also be integrated to a far greater degree. This resulted in a stronger reliance on the use of instrumental and sometimes even orchestral music that increasingly took its cue from movie scores.

In addition, the quality of sounds was also improved, since effects like echo, modulation, and even velocity changes could now be generated with the help of digital signal processing (DSP).

With the introduction of the multi-channel Dolby Surround 5.1, which had been developed for DVDs, in the game consoles Sony Playstation 2 and Microsoft X-Box in 2000, it also became possible to spatially position sounds very precisely.