NES Music

[Necron 99]

Does anyone know what gear was used to write old school NES music? When you listen it's very basic from a technical standpoint. Any single oscillator synth could be used to recreate these sounds, but was an actual synth used or was it all programmed?

[criminallysmooth]

Originally Posted by Necron 99

Does anyone know what gear was used to write old school NES music? When you listen it's very basic from a technical standpoint. Any single oscillator synth could be used to recreate these sounds, but was an actual synth used or was it all programmed?

Just a guess but probably tracker software hooked up to NES devkits for the sound hardware. There are a ton of 8-bit emulators out there to play around with, and it's even possible to get a modded NES with a synth cart. You might even look into a Gameboy with an LSDJ cart for similar sounds, or even one of the C64 kits if you are hardcore about video game music.

[ShanghaiFire]

i cant remember what it was called, but there was a specific chip used to synthesize sounds for certain systems (hence chiptune). I know crystal castles uses a relatively modern synth with a similar chip or emulation. but there are quite a few software and harware options designed to emulate original 8-bit music production

[djshire]

Plogue Chipsounds being one of them

[atma]

the nes has an audio chip in it that contains a very basic synth, which developers would've programmed via software.

Originally Posted by Necron 99

Does anyone know what gear was used to write old school NES music? When you listen it's very basic from a technical standpoint. Any single oscillator synth could be used to recreate these sounds, but was an actual synth used or was it all programmed?

[LiveFromKyoto]

They would've had to have used an NES/Famicom devkit. There was some interesting custom code done though, all that classic echoey Megaman stuff was done by rapidly alternating between two tones within a single voice to create the effect.

It was mostly very simple stuff, so any relatively simple synth can pull off a close approximation. ES-1 does a good job.

[gazt]

Today there´s also quite a few dedicated hardwearsynths that use a sid chip, or similar chip. It started with the sidstation (no longer in production) and now their is a few more, I only tried the hardSId and the MidiboxSID beside the Sidstation, (you can proberly find a sidstation on ebay, but nowaday they are quite expensive).

My suggestion would be the Elektron Monomachine(MnM), in fact quite a few producers sold their Sidstation because the MnM sounded so similar to the SID, and was easier to program then the Sidstation.

BUT that goes for the sid sound, it´s a little different from the NES sound, the same goes for the gameboy sound that you can get with LSDJ or Nanoloop.

If you´re looking for software instruments I would recommend the QuadraSID or Plouge Chipsound (actually Chipsound is the only one I now about except Chipmaestro or similair NES-music cartridges , that emulate the NES chip sound).

(more info about the Chipmaestro Chip Maestro - An NES MIDI Synthesizer Cartridge by Jarek Lupinski — Kickstarter, also you can find other nes musiccartridges for sale on ebay).

If you go for a gameboy with the LSDJ, check out the LSDJ homepage (Little Sound Dj). Their you get information how you can buy the software and use a emulator on your computer or transfer the program into a blank cartridge.

If you choose to use a real gameboy I recommend that you buy some midi equipment for example Komakuya (KOMAKUYA CHIPSOUND DEVICES) so you can control LSDJ with your DAW or midikeyboard.

Good luck!

[gazt]

Originally Posted by ShanghaiFire

i cant remember what it was called, but there was a specific chip used to synthesize sounds for certain systems (hence chiptune). I know crystal castles uses a relatively modern synth with a similar chip or emulation. but there are quite a few software and harware options designed to emulate original 8-bit music production

I think they started out with sampling Sid/NES/Gameboysounds, but I think that they have a Sidstation or a monomachine nowadays.

I belive that they sampled quite a lot from the bitpopartist Covox among a few others



Who´s a great artist BTW.

[Tylerius]

i got a MIDINES cart. it rocks. 5 channel goodness (2 pulse, one triangle, one noise, one samples). it's hard to find though, so if you see it on ebay buy it up! i got mine for $150.

[t.o.t.s.]

I also have a MIDINES and it's fantastic. You only need an NES to use it.
They aren't rare at all though. You can buy them straight from the developer here:
.:wayfar:.

They are 109.95 new.

Highly recommended.

[duggabax]

careful with wayfar

Analog Industries Gets a MidiNES Nintendo Music Cart

[t.o.t.s.]

I have had nothing but positive experiences with them. Why be wary?

[Akh]

The Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES, generated sound using a sound chip called the 2A03. If you're in to hardware hacking you can find a pinout for the 2A03 here. Nintendo's developer kit made available to third-party developers for the NES was nothing more than a debugger and a compiler, and did not feature any music tools. Each developer created their own, in-house program for music or hard-coded music in to games. This is why some companies, such as Capcom and Konami, have distinct styles featured in a variety of their games, as some of these in-house music programs eased the implementation of certain musical styles that others did not. I have not heard of any in-house music editors from official NES developers being made available to the public, and would expect most developers either archived their NES music tools or simply destroyed them.

The Japanese NES, known as the Famicom, allowed developers to expand the sound capabilities of the console with custom sound expansion chips located in the cartridges, but unfortunately this feature was excluded from the North American and European NES. There were a variety of interesting sound expansion chips for the Famicom, but my personal favourite was the VRC7 chip from Konami, which supported 2-operator FM synthesis. The VRC6 chip from Konami is also interesting, not only because it added two additional pulse wave channels and one additional saw wave channel, but because it was used on the Famicom release of Castlevania III, which as a result featured radically different music than its North American and European releases.

Thankfully the NES homebrew community has created a number of options for musicians to create music for the NES or in the NES-style.

01. Famitracker is a program that allows users to make NES music with a tracker interface. It supports saving songs in wav, NSF (a homebrew format for "ripped" NES music), and a raw data format for insertion in to NES programs/games. It also supports some of the Famicom sound expansion chips.

02. PPMCK is a program for generating NES music from MML script, and there's a lot of different WYSIWYG programs available for it that can ease the use of the scripting language. You can find a relatively well-written introduction to PPMCK here. You'll definitely want to check out a related tool called MCK as well.

03. Nerdtracker 2 is a NES music tracker. I believe it was the first homebrew NES music program released to the public, but it's still a solid program with some unique features.

04. PornoTracker is another NES music tracker. I have yet to use it and so can't really comment on it.

05. The guy behind the homebrew NES game D-Pad released his development tools to the public, including his tool to convert XM files to a raw data format for NES programs/games.

06. Tweakbench has a VST called Toad, a rompler of NES percussion.

07. Tweakbench also has a VST called Peach, a rompler of NES instruments.

08. In addition to that Tweakbench also has a VST called Triforce, which features synthesis modeled after the NES.

09. Syntendo is another VST that features synthesis modeled after the NES.

10. Yet another VST that features synthesis modeled after the NES is available from Matt Montag's website.

11. NTRQ is a NES percussion program, available in the NES ROM image format for use with an actual NES or NES emulator. You can find a basic manual for NTRQ here.

12. PR8 is another NES percussion program, available in the NES ROM image format and from the same homebrew developer as NTRQ. PR8 is significantly more advanced than NTRQ, although the latter does offer some interesting features. You can find an online manual for PR8 here.

13. Pulsar, a music tracker, is another NES ROM image from the homebrew developer behind NTRQ and PR8. You can find an online manual for Pulsar here.

14. Retrozone provides a homebrew NES cartridges, which can be used to run NES music or homebrew NES ROM images on an actual NES.

15. Wayfar provides a NES cartridge to utilize your NES as an instrument called the MIDINes. I've heard they aren't really in production anymore however, but are still willing to take your money, so beware.

16. The NESK-1 is similar to the cartridge manufactured by Wayfar, and it is still in production.

17. The Chip Maestro is yet another similar product to the MIDINes and NESK-1, and will be in production soon.

I've focused on the NES in this thread because of your specific request, but it's worth mentioning there are quite a few similar options to those I've presented here related to the Nintendo GameBoy, NEC TurboGrafX 16 and Sega Genesis, as well as other console gaming systems and pre-1990's computers with a similar lo-fi sound to the NES.

[t.o.t.s.]

I've looked for genesis synths before with no luck... Mind pointing a couple out? I've saved my old one for just such an occasion!

[LiveFromKyoto]

Originally Posted by Akh

Nintendo's developer kit made available to third-party developers for the NES was nothing more than a debugger and a compiler, and did not feature any music tools. Each developer created their own, in-house program for music or hard-coded music in to games. This is why some companies, such as Capcom and Konami, have distinct styles featured in a variety of their games, as some of these in-house music programs eased the implementation of certain musical styles that others did not.

No kidding? Huh, that simultaneously explains a lot and kind of astounds me. That must have meant a whole heck of a lot of talent, because back then teams were small and a lot of guys would have had to know how to code, compose and play, and a lot of them were straight out of school. What's more, Japanese companies would have multiple dev teams and they often weren't collaborative - meaning that the teams working on different games didn't share tools or code, because management wanted them to compete against one another to foster a competitive spirit within the company (this still commonly happens, too). The Capcom guys were clearly sharing tricks, but a lot of them wouldn't have been. Kind of puts everything in perspective while mere mortals are sitting around here all day trying to figure out Deadmau5 kicks.

I've focused on the NES in this thread because of your specific request, but it's worth mentioning there are quite a few similar options to those I've presented here related to the Nintendo GameBoy, NEC TurboGrafX 16 and Sega Genesis, as well as other console gaming systems and pre-1990's computers with a similar lo-fi sound to the NES.

I've always been really interested in the PC-Engine's sound, are there any AUs that emulate that?

[Yoozer]

Originally Posted by t.o.t.s.

I've looked for genesis synths before with no luck... Mind pointing a couple out? I've saved my old one for just such an occasion!

A Genesis has a 6-voice 4 op FM synth combined with a PSG chip for pulse wave sounds and probably some kind oif noise channel for samples.

A TX81z would get you close - there is a MIDI cartridge in development but I don't know the status. There is also a VST called VOPM.

A SID chip is completely differen from the NES soundchip and generally the tracks made with either differ a lot, too. The SID has several signature sounds that aren't found in NES tunes and vice-versa.

Oh yeah, to add to the list of great suggestions made - http://www.ymck.net/magical8bitplug/index.html

[Akh]

Originally Posted by t.o.t.s.

I've looked for genesis synths before with no luck... Mind pointing a couple out? I've saved my old one for just such an occasion!

At this time I'm only aware of a handful of music trackers for the Sega Genesis, and I do not know of any VST or AU plugins that emulate the sound of the Sega Genesis specifically, although the VOPM VST can likely achieve close results.

01. VGM Music Maker is a music tracker for making music on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, Master System and Game Gear.

02. On the same page you can find a music tracker called TFM Music Maker. I don't actually know what the difference is between TFM and VGM Music Maker, as they're both developed by a programmer named Shiru. While it would be reasonable to suggest they save in different formats (.TFM and .VGM), I am not certain of this, and I suspect one program is newer and more supported than the other.

03. MVSTracker MD is based on a similar tracker for the Neo Geo arcade machine, which supported, among other things, FM synthesis similar to the Sega Genesis. I believe this was the first tracker for creating music for the Sega Genesis.

04. Deflemask supports FM synthesis tracking on a variety of platforms, including the Sega Genesis.

05. CWP is a Sega Genesis ROM image for playing custom waveforms in real time using the control pad.

If you're using an actual Sega Genesis for playback of your music it's worth mentioning with a little hardware hacking you can drastically improve the audio quality. There's information about the modification here and here.

In order to run your own music or homebrew software on an actual Sega Genesis you'll need a compatible flashcart, which you can order from here or here. I haven't got very much information available on developing homebrew software for the Sega Genesis, or the process involved with running your own Sega Genesis songs on an actual console, but I would suspect the homebrew developer Super Fighter Team could help, or point you in the right direction, as they've developed nine Sega Genesis games in the last few years and offer programming services as well.

Originally Posted by LiveFromKyoto

No kidding? Huh, that simultaneously explains a lot and kind of astounds me. That must have meant a whole heck of a lot of talent, because back then teams were small and a lot of guys would have had to know how to code, compose and play, and a lot of them were straight out of school. What's more, Japanese companies would have multiple dev teams and they often weren't collaborative - meaning that the teams working on different games didn't share tools or code, because management wanted them to compete against one another to foster a competitive spirit within the company (this still commonly happens, too). The Capcom guys were clearly sharing tricks, but a lot of them wouldn't have been. Kind of puts everything in perspective while mere mortals are sitting around here all day trying to figure out Deadmau5 kicks.

Previously Nintendo had developed a handful of arcade games, but for the most part their experience was in manufacturing card games. As such Nintendo was very new to console development and the concept of working with third-parties, although their subsequent gaming consoles have provided third-parties with above-average development kits.

As a side-remark the clock rate of the NES CPU isn't divisible by PC or Macintosh CPU clock rates. Development for the NES would be difficult enough for a variety of reasons, and I've heard from a few people involved in the emulation scene that writing a NES emulator from scratch is significantly more difficult than writing a PS3 emulator from scratch due to the unusual CPU clock rates and unstandard hardware components. In some respects I consider early third-party NES developers and NES emulator authors working from scratch as hackers, in the true sense of the word.

Originally Posted by LiveFromKyoto

I've always been really interested in the PC-Engine's sound, are there any AUs that emulate that?

Unfortunatley options are severly limited for the PC Engine/TurboGrafX 16, and I do not know of any VST or AU plugins that specifically emulate the console's sound chip. I have a few suggestions that you may want to explore however.

01. I've read here there is a PC Engine tracker called DamageX, but have yet to locate the actual website or download for the program due to the common usage of that name. The author of that page also mentions a program used to convert MOD/XM files to the PC Engine music format, but as far as I can tell they have not yet provided it to the public. It's worth keeping an eye on.

02. MML, the script I had previously mentioned regarding the NES, can also be used to generate music for the PC Engine using a tool called XPMCK. Although it may seem tedious, I've heard some fantastic results on both the NES and PC Engine using this scripting language and its related tools. I would suggest for the time being this is your best option for obtaining the sound of the PC Engine.

03. There's an interesting forum thread and collection of tools on the creation of music for the PC Engine here.

There was apparently a flashcart available for the PC Engine/Turbo GrafX 16, but I believe it is no longer manufactured. If you require such a flashcart in order to play your music on an actual PC Engine/Turbo GrafX 16 console you may have to resort to e(vil)Bay.

[acreil]

Originally Posted by LiveFromKyoto

No kidding? Huh, that simultaneously explains a lot and kind of astounds me.

I think a number of people in that era would just write machine code directly in hexadecimal.

I've always been really interested in the PC-Engine's sound, are there any AUs that emulate that?

I think it's just single cycle (32 sample?) waveforms. I don't see why that would be specifically worth emulating in detail.

[Akh]

Originally Posted by acreil

I think a number of people in that era would just write machine code directly in hexadecimal.

Hexadecimal isn't a programming language. Hexadecimal is a positional numeral system, and the NES didn't have native support for it. All hard-coding on the NES was done in ASM, although a number of homebrew NES programs use hexadecimal for defining certain parameters (most notably pertaining to the representation of graphics).

Originally Posted by acreil

I think it's just single cycle (32 sample?) waveforms. I don't see why that would be specifically worth emulating in detail.

The PC Engine/Turbo GrafX 16 soundchip, known as the HuC6280, had six audio channels, each capable of playing back 5-bit samples up to 32 bytes in size, frequency modulation, white noise generation and a sort of direct streaming for the playback of samples over 32 bytes in size. The latter sample playback method severely limited the CPU, resulting in less processing capability for other duties, such as graphic rendering. Frequency modulation on the PC Engine is fairly unique, especially for its time, as its FM synthesis utilized samples, and in my opinion great sounds can be coaxed out of it.

[acreil]

Originally Posted by Akh

Hexadecimal isn't a programming language.

I meant skipping the assembler part and writing the machine code directly in a hex editor.

Frequency modulation on the PC Engine is fairly unique, especially for its time, as its FM synthesis utilized samples, and in my opinion great sounds can be coaxed out of it.

Any examples of this? I listened to chiptunes extensively back in the day and don't recall hearing anything in PC Engine soundtracks that I'd attribute to FM. Most of it sounded totally straight forward and boring.

[Akh]

For posterity I feel I should clarify a few details.

The NES, Sega Genesis and PC Engine/Turbo GrafX 16 do not have native sound formats per se. In order for developers to create music on these consoles they had to essentially run code that triggered parameters on their soundchips. The emulation community created what are basically container formats for the music code from each of these consoles, to ease the playback of music ripped from ROM images. There's NSF for the NES, HES for the PC Engine, and GYM for the Sega Genesis, although other (uncommon) container formats exist for some of these consoles as well. Music loading programs exist for some flashcarts, allowing homebrew programmers and musicians to load these container formats to the soundchips of their respective consoles. In some cases homebrew programmers and musicians have had to write their own code, and create ROM image files, in order to properly playback their music on the actual consoles. It's for this reason many of the trackers I've listed thus far are capable of saving music in a container format or as raw code. Thankfully many console emulators are able to load music in their container format, and there are many software players capable of emulating playback of these container formats as well.

Originally Posted by acreil

Any examples of this? I listened to chiptunes extensively back in the day and don't recall hearing anything in PC Engine soundtracks that I'd attribute to FM. Most of it sounded totally straight forward and boring.

A lot of arcade machines from the 1980's used FM synthesis, and many of the ports of these games to the PC Engine utilized FM synthesis as well. It wasn't always a feature used to best of its ability, but I seem to recall a few games used the feature well, and a few homebrew/demoscene musicians have really pushed it to its limits. I'm currently at work so I'd be pressed to provide you with specific examples, but I suspect it wouldn't be too difficult to research on YouTube or the like. It could very well be that you have heard good examples of the PC Engine's FM synthesis however and it's simply doesn't suit your tastes, although personally I prefer its smoother FM technique compared to the Sega Genesis.

[jbuonacc]

Originally Posted by t.o.t.s.

I have had nothing but positive experiences with them. Why be wary?

read the comments in that link he posted (as well as complaints from Wayfar customers all over the net). he's ripped off a lot of people.

when did you buy from him?

either way, it might be good to erase that recommendation/link so that nobody here goes and pays him for a product that they'll probably never see.

[djshire]

I've heard of people making Genesis music using NI FM8. Anyone have any idea how to do that?

[cdog]

Originally Posted by Akh

I've focused on the NES in this thread

Tour de force of posts. Bravo! (insert handsclapping.gif)