Neonempyr - Chiptunes, synthesizers and other 8-bit goodies.
Table of Contents
Music
If you enjoy my music, please consider a donation of any amount. I will never charge for music downloads or software. Your kindness is appreciated!
Track Listing
00:00 Citizen Infra
00:37 My Precious Communists
05:59 Vulcanologist's Beadwork
10:11 Trapped By Dogma
12:52 What Is Japan?
19:10 You Are Ugly On The Inside
Description
For core parts I used my NESVST Pack. I bounced
sounds from various NSF files for sound effects, drums, and small melodic
parts.
Singles
Software
NESVST Pack
These are a handful of VST instruments that attempt to emulate the NES'
2A03 sound chip channels: Pulse wave, Triangle wave, and Noise. I took care
to emulate the sounds properly, including the infamous noise channel. A
hardware noise emulator with ADSR is in the works. I'm also considering
writing a VST plugin that can take advantage of higher clock frequencies if
it's possible. Please don't complain about the panel layout. I know it's
ugly. Making SynthEdit skins is not fun. It was a quick fix merely to keep
things relatively organized.
If you use and enjoy NESVST Pack, please consider a donation of any amount. I will never charge for music downloads or software. Your kindness is appreciated!
Download the NES VST Pack
for Windows zip file.
Check out the Screenshots of the
NESVST Plugin Panels.
Known Issues
- NES Noise tends to stop working unexpectedly at certain combinations of
pitch and noise modes. To reset, just disable and reenable the plugin in
your host. Adjusting the pitch slightly or changing noise modes
will prevent it from happening.
- NES Noise has limits on its available pitches because the limit on the
shift register's clock frequency is based on sample rate. It's being emulated correctly, but you're not going to
get the higher "dinging" sounds of the true 2A03 sound chip. To get more
out of the plugin, you can run higher sample rates and bounce a clip down
to your working sample rate. You won't get close though -- you'd need a
sample rate over 1 megahertz. This will be fixed in the next release. :)
- NES Noise can also use a lot of CPU power. Higher pitches need more
processing power that Synthedit just can't give based on its optimization
and emulation of analog circuits. This will be fixed in NESVST Pack 2.
- NES Noise can loop unexpectedly at certain pitches. In early versions I filtered those choices out but some
might find those sounds useful.
Links
Software and Tools
Recommended Digital Audio Software
- Ableton Live is a computer music
application geared at people who want an easy, intuitive way to make
music. Works great with MIDI devices for live music control, DJ setups
and experimentation. Everything about this program is set up to let you
make live music as naturally as you would pick up a musical instrument.
Assign MIDI controls to tweak effects and placements to have a unique
live show every time. It also works fairly well for more traditional
recording needs. For that however, I have to recommend...
- Logic Express or Logic Pro from Apple. The only
thing I've ever seen compare to this great piece of work is Cubase. I
find Cubase to be a bit convoluted. Logic is clean and fast. It can do
pretty much anything. I use Logic Express. It's not crippled in any way.
For the price, it's the absolute best. You can see the feature
comparison between Logic Express and Logic Pro. The differences are
few. Both now universal binaries.
- Audacity is free, open
source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac
OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.
Chiptune tools for NES and other 8-bit consoles download mt4 exness
- PPMCK for
Windows is the most complete for turning your music markup into
playable NES music roms. A third expansion of the original MCK, it's the
only MML2NSF converter I can recommend. It supports NES sound expansion
chips like VRC 6 and 7, Famicom Disk Sound Chip, and Namco Expansion
Chip. You can compose tunes that use all of these simultaneously if you
want! It's a command-line program, so it's best when used with a program
that acts as a nice automatic front end for you, like MUMML or
MCKWatch.
- PPMCK for Mac OS X
(Universal Binary) is also available for you fellow Macintosh users.
It comes with some shell scripts to make things a little easier for you.
Using Apple Automator with these scripts can make things even easier.
- Chipplay for Mac OS X
(Universal Binary) is the best NSF player for Mac OS. It includes
channel level management and supports all of the expansion chips.
- MUMML
for Windows is my favorite front-end for converting MML into music
for a wide array of chips. It's compatible with PPMCK, Husic, and MDX,
just to name a few. It's recommended over MCKWatch for its better English
support and easy-to-use GUI. MUMML will need the various converters to do
its job. Simply download and extract the proper files you need, like
PPMCK. English documentation is included.
- NSFPlay
and NSFPlug for Windows. NSFPlug works with Winamp. NSFPlay is a
standalone player. Both support all expansion chips and NES Sample
Playback quite well. Very customizable and tunable on a per-chip basis,
they include mixing and sample rate conversion, so I recommend these over
other Windows players at this point.
Chiptune tools for Gameboy and Other Handhelds
- Nanoloop
is a popular real-time song editor for use on a Game Boy.
- Little
Sound DJ is a popular song tracker for use on a Game Boy.
Hardware and Synths
- MIDINES is a
cartridge-controlled MIDI interface for the NES. Just put it in and
you've got an NES synth.
- MIDIBox Operating System from
Thorsten Klose is an incredible modular system for inexpensive Microchip
PICs. It allows you to create custom MIDI controllers to control your DJ
setup, sequencer or digital audio workstation. Other modules that work
with the Midibox project include analog I/O, digtal I/O, LCDs, and
synthesizer modules featuring the SID and Yamaha's OPL FM synth chip to
name a few. A solid community is built on this project. You can build a
custom controller for about 40 bucks with knobs, sliders, buttons and
more. Amazing.
News and Communities
- VORC
is a news site for video game music and chiptunes. Always up date on new
musicians, tools and events.
- 2A03.org
is both an archive of various artists' NES chiptunes and a mature, solid
forum for composers.
- NESDev
is the hub for tools, documents and research for NES homebrew
development, including sound-related hardware documentation.
- EM411
is a gathering place for electronic musicians of all kinds. Free
registration gets you a profile where you can describe yourself and
provide links to your music. Uncluttered and unobtrusive.
You can find plenty more links at the sites listed.
Drop me a line!
ne at neonempyr dot org
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