How to make 8 bit music?

Started by
10 comments, last by lain_lain@live.com 12 years, 10 months ago
Hey everyone, I am trying to make a game completely by myself and everything is coming along nicely. But I need some music, and I've never composed anything in my life. The game is 8bit styled so I'll need some 8 bit music. How do I make this? Is there a program or something?
Advertisement
I know of two free DAWs. One I'm familiar with because it's similar to FL Studio (what I use; http://flstudio.image-line.com/).

The one I'm familiar with is LMMS (Linux MultiMedia Studio). It has a wikipedia manual to help you. It also has an 8-bit like instrument built in.
http://lmms.sourceforge.net/

The one I've never used before a day in my life but is also free is Darkwave Studio. I'm not sure but it should have a manual somewhere to help you.
http://www.experimen...arkwave-studio/


I know of three vsts that are free that are good for making 8-bit nintendo-like sounds.

Peach - emulates original sounds from nintendo
http://www.tweakbench.com/peach

Triforce - square, triangle and noise/best for 8-bit
http://www.tweakbench.com/triforce

Toad - drum kit based on nintendo
http://www.tweakbench.com/toad

There are other good vsts on that site too, but those are the ones associated with 8-bit I think.

There is another one but it costs $95.

Chipsounds
http://www.plogue.com/?page_id=43

A good site to look for other free or commercial vsts is http://www.kvraudio.com

Game Music Life


Because Game Music Is Life

Exactly what I wanted.. Thank you so much!
I edited my post so you might wanna read it again lol.

Game Music Life


Because Game Music Is Life


Hey everyone, I am trying to make a game completely by myself and everything is coming along nicely. But I need some music, and I've never composed anything in my life. The game is 8bit styled so I'll need some 8 bit music. How do I make this? Is there a program or something?



I did some 8-bit music before too. I used Cubase LE to make the MIDI tracks and then use VSTs like Peach and Triforce to output it. Love the classic 8-bit sound!!


Check out Robo Arena:
[color="#114488"]http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bravadowaffle/roboarena-asynchronous-multiplayer-tactical-ios-ga


You might check out the Milkytracker.
it's a really enjoyable freeware music tracking software that allows you to compose songs just like in the good old days when 8bit systems were still very popular.
Chiptune tracks created this way are really good quality and feel professional.

Last I checked, FruityLoops Studio wasn't free, and in fact was rather expensive.

Most games back in the day either had sound chips with built-in tone and noise generators organized in channels, or on the PC, used Midi, or more likely, MOD format.

There were plenty of free/cheap mod trackers in the day which I imagine you could get to run, but which aren't strictly built for modern OSs. The function similarly to something like a midi sequencer or FLStudio, but output MOD tracks (Its conceptually similar to MIDI, but with digitized sound samples embedded), rather than fully-digitized tracks. Of course, you could always author using MOD, and then render to a fully-digitized version just to make it easier to play on modern systems.

throw table_exception("(? ???)? ? ???");

Plogue I was not happy with, it's primarily samples with a few synth patches.

If I were approaching this from a VST point of view, you could try synths such as ReFX Quadrasid - http://refx.com/products/quadrasid/summary/

I'm oldskool, so I use mod tracking programs such as modplug tracker and use real chip instruments like sine, square, triangle, noise ..and program them in.
Game Audio Professional
www.GroovyAudio.com
Cool, after reading this thread I tried playing with FLStudio's 3xOscillator instrument.
There are a few Shape samples that come in the Packs folder; so a couple of oscillators, one with a Saw shape and the other with an InverseSaw are the only things playing in the attached file.

(if the name doesn't make it clear enough, it's the beginning of the "Witchyworld" tune from Banjo-Tooie.) 
One free alternative that I've grown quite fond of is FamiTracker (http://famitracker.shoodot.net/). Wwhile it might take some time getting used to if you have not worked with trackers before, it's a very nice tool for creating 8-bit music. Sadly I am sitting with my laptop at work right now, so I can't provide any examples of my own, but here's a cover of Dr. Wily Stage 1 from Mega man 9 (not created by me). Search some more on youtube to get an idea of what can be done with the program.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=2DVLZPDmY5I

This topic is closed to new replies.

Advertisement