# Composing 8bit music



## Romantic Geek

So, I've been interested in doing this - mostly rewriting classical masterpieces in this art form. I found a few VSTs that work great. Apparently this would be easy to do in Garageband which I don't have since I don't have a Mac. I tried using the VST in Finale, but Finale doesn't allow for the VST editor to come up. Does anyone know a notation program (no matter how crappy) that I could use a VST with for a PC. 

Nothing too expensive...

I'm really open to suggestions.


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## Jobe

I personally despise the idea. As with everything I despise, I love to be persuaded otherwise.

http://famitracker.shoodot.net/ - This is one such way that you may go about composing 8bit music, or "Chiptunes". I might try using this myself... One day... It's free, but rather unconventional. Nonetheless, it gets the job done.

Good luck and can't wait to hear these masterpieces remastered/ruined (If you're willing to share)!


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## Romantic Geek

It has to be tastefully done. I normally would agree with you - and then I heard an 8bit version of Mozart's Lacrimosa which blew my socks off last night. It was really interesting.


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## Weston

FL Studio is not a notation program, more of a DAW, but it's not horribly expensive. You can load midi's made in other programs, step sequence the piece, or just play a keyboard into it and record that way. The demo is free. It doesn't normally sound 8-bit but any VST will work with it.

Sounds like this example (which is not 8-bit though):






I think it runs just under $180.00 or so for the full package.


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## LordBlackudder

you might want to ask people like Vaan43579, coatlesscarl, and thepsynergist from youtube. they seem to have experience with the softwares.

or you could buy a chipophone.


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## Romantic Geek

Is it bad that I thought he was going to break out into the Grieg Piano Concerto just before 1 minute?


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## Ukko

Read the post title rather carelessly this morning. A hyphen between the '8' and the 'bit' would have avoided misreading a reference to excrement. (I was completely unaware of this 'chiptunes' thing.)

:tiphat:


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## tripnikk

*chiptune-like sound design*

ideally, you would actually write this music FOR a console. Part of the challenge with 8-bit music and chiptunes is trying to push the simple synthesis capabilities of the chips to really express something. If you wanted to get into that, there are cartridges available for the gameboy. Nanoloop and LSDJ are the most popular. There are programs like piggytracker or "little GP tracker" which you can download and install on open source platform gaming devices like the gp2x. I believe you can get pc versions of these as well, or run them on emulators.

YMCK, a chiptune and vocal jazz group, made this plugin which can be downloaded for free. http://www.ymck.net/magical8bitplug/index.html

When Chiptunes were first getting going, a lot of people used a program called nerdtracker ii. It's an old DOS program, but I've been able to get it working on my mac in parallels. http://nesdev.parodius.com/nt2/

If you're dead set on emulating the sound using your current DAW of choice, you actually don't have to buy anything. Chips are only capable of creating very simple wave forms, so the idea of finding expensive or complicated software is sort of funny. Just use straight saw and square waves for your synths, and white noise for percussion and effects. If you need to create sounds like drums, use a combination of these sounds. For example, putting a loud attack on a white noise sample, then sharply decaying the amplitude with a longer overall sustain sounds like a crash cymbal. sometimes using a burst of white noise with a low pitch in the square wave (which decays appropriately) sounds like a bass drum. If you wanted to go the free route, you could build these sounds in audacity, then load them into whatever drum machine or sampler your using in your DAW. Using a little compression and bit reduction, you can pretty closely approximate the sound.

Some of the fatter synth sounds are accomplished by arpeggiating the square and saw waves. What sounds like a fat, harrowing tone is actually just a saw wave oscillating very quickly between two different tones (sometimes a tritone or an octave).

Most classic consoles only have 4 channels, so only that many sounds are able to be created simultaneously. A lot of the chiptune sound isn't in the actual synthesis, but in how pieces are composed. Game composers in those days had to do a lot of fancy footwork to write epic pieces for the gameboy/nintendo that sounded like they were much more than just 4 sounds. If you listen to some classic console pieces, you'll hear a lot of tricks they employed to make it seem like a lot was going on, when really, at any single moment, only 4 sounds were actually audible.

I hope some of this helps.


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## Iforgotmypassword

I'm curious to know what the attraction to 8-bit music is... I personally think it just sounds like really crappy quality electronic sound effects trying to copy music that has real instruments, tone and depth to it. 

Please tell me what the point is, I'm genuinely curious.


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## Tomposer

You can do the saw/square/whitenoise thing... but remember chiptunes are digital. So if you feed it an analogue sound (or something similar), don't forget to digitise it, ie, run it through a bit crusher, set to 8 bit (max), and drop your sample rate until it reminds you of your favourite sounds.

A bit crusher is probably what you're after because it will _downsample _whatever audio you have, which in this case basically means you're sending it **back to the future** . The 386 future that is  .

*strolls away humming _The Power of Love_*


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## Tomposer

> I'm curious to know what the attraction to 8-bit music is... I personally think it just sounds like really crappy quality electronic sound effects trying to copy music that has real instruments, tone and depth to it.
> 
> Please tell me what the point is, I'm genuinely curious.


People often think that a designation of "bad quality" means that someone won't enjoy it for what it is. Very frequently, that isn't true. People like computer game music simply for what it is, rather than whatever it is trying to emulate (if indeed it is trying to emulate anything). Your question is like asking why someone would like an African thumb piano when they can just go and listen to a Steinway. It's actually it's own unique thing.

Low bit-rate/sample rate music has a particular tonal colour. My theory (which I've come up with only just now  ) is that because low quality digital tends to create more square shapes in the wave form, this gives rise to interesting harmonics and other overtones. Combined with the blistering accuracy of rhythm, pitch and dynamics, this provides a rather unnatural and consequently novel and interesting listening experience.

That's not to mention it's nostalgia value, which probably counts for a lot. chip music was introduced to a lot of kids at a highly formative stage of development; coupled with the fun of playing the game, they're very much stuck with pleasurable associations.


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## regressivetransphobe

Iforgotmypassword said:


> I'm curious to know what the attraction to 8-bit music is... I personally think it just sounds like really crappy quality electronic sound effects trying to copy music that has real instruments, tone and depth to it.
> 
> Please tell me what the point is, I'm genuinely curious.


One factor, as described, is simply nostalgia. A lot of people who grew up in the 80s/early 90s can just see a certain charm in those crappy, lo-fi bloops. I can't explain it to anyone who doesn't.

Also, one thing I notice about early video game music is that since the quality was limited and there were only a few sound channels available, the music was often very tightly knit and compositionally meaty despite its simplicity. The composers didn't have lush tone colors to lean upon, and had to make the best of their prehistoric tools. It's possible that hearing this method applied to much more complex music can reveal a lot about the textures and the way it's arranged you might not have given much thought to before.

Not classical, but: 



Having only been familiar with the original for most of my life, this sort of made me hear it in a new light.

Anyway, I'm not saying "chiptune" has much worth as a genre, since it describes a novel production style rather than any kind of songwriting. If there is any good chiptune music, it's good for reasons other than it being 8-bit.


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