5 replies to this topic

[Level 99]

Hi, everybody. My name is Stevo and I'm an alcoho--wait, no, wrong meeting. Sorry! I'm here to help get people started on listening to music that is in chiptunes format, which includes original artists as well as many game soundtracks. Y'all can thank Kisuke Urahara for kicking this off via Twitter by requesting Ristar music help.

So, you have a video game soundtrack you love. We'll take a simple example of Super Mario Bros for NES. NES music has a format found online in the form of .nsf files. NSF files are basically a dumped NES rom with everything stripped out besides the music and possibly some sound files (Duck Hunt, for example, has some sound files packed in there). You can find NSF files at various sites, but the two that I use more than anything else are Zophar and vgm.HCS64. I particularly recommend vgm.HCS64 because of it's simple navigation and directory structure. Links are as follows:

vgm.HCS64
Music at Zophar.net

Let's assume you'll be like me and go to vgm.HCS64. You'd navigate to where the NSF files are, find the one you want, and download it. You'll need to extract it from the archive using a program like 7zip (which is 100% free).

Okay, now you got the NSF. HORRAY! *queue Final Fantasy Victory Fanfare*...but wait, you can't actually PLAY this. iTunes won't open it...hmm. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: these chiptunes files require various decoding techniques. iTunes has no support for this whatsoever, but there are plenty of programs on multiple platforms that do support many chiptunes formats. An old standard would be to download Winamp and get the Chipamp plugin package, but that's a good bit outdated. There are two main programs I use for playing these kinds of files.

1) Foobar2000
2) Audio Overload

I can not tell you how much I love Foobar2000. I'll try to get a self-made zip of Foobar2000 1.01 with all the plugins you'll want uploaded later, but for now, just some instructions on how to get it and set it up.

1) Go to the website, download, and install it.
2) Now, go to the components page of the website.
3) To be able to play NSF files, you'll need the Game Emu Player component. Download that.
4) Open up the Game Emu Player file, and copy the contents to the components directory of your Foobar2000 installation (usually located at C:\Program Files\foobar2000\components or C:\Program Files (x86)\foobar2000\components if you're running a 64-bit version of Windows).
5) close foobar if it is open, then open it back up again. Open or drag the NSF to foobar and drop it in there.
6) Voila! There you go! Have fun!

There are plenty of other foobar components you'll need for opening various other sound formats, though Game Emu Player is a great one to start with. The ones you'll want for opening the largest variety of chiptunes formats are:

ADPCM decoders
AdPlug decoder
DUMB Module decoder
Game Emu Player (you should have already gotten this, just putting it in here for sake of consistency)
Hively Tracker decoder
MIDI decoder
PSF decoder
QSF decoder
SID decoder

There are a few others not located on the components page that you'll want for further decoding capability:
vio2sf
viogsf
LazyUSF

I'm sure there are more, but that should be more than enough for now.

Different file formats are conveyed in different ways. NSFs have all their tracks in one file, while Genesis tunes can come in different formats such as GYM or VGZ. Depending on the format, all the tracks may be in one file or there may be files per-track. SNES tunes can be the same way, either being SPC or RSN.

Foobar also can do very quick conversion to formats that can play in iTunes or on portable audio devices, but I'll save that guide for another time.

If you can't get foobar, or have a Mac, try Audio Overload. The music player interface may not be as robust, but it has high compatibility.

I may edit this later, as well as post the conversion guide for foobar, when I have the time. Feel free to ask questions and I'll do my best to answer them when I can.

[Dex la Cabra]

*sobs* thank you, i got it working! now i can listen to them credits tunes whenever i want XD

[Nemoide]

I love chiptunes, but I'm inclined to just use the Sound Test option for games with that...

BTW, if anyone wants to MAKE THEIR OWN chiptunes, Nanoloop is awesome: http://nanoloop.com/

[Level 99]

I love chiptunes, but I'm inclined to just use the Sound Test option for games with that...

BTW, if anyone wants to MAKE THEIR OWN chiptunes, Nanoloop is awesome: http://nanoloop.com/

Sound Test for authenticity, chiptunes for convenience, sound about right? I actually bought my last MP3 player based on it's ability and performance running Rockbox, an open source media player firmware. Rockbox can natively play .nsf, .mod, .spc, and quite a few others. Saves a LOT of time instead of having to convert soundtracks to MP3, not to mention saving space.

Never heard of nanoloop, I'll have to look into it.

[leox001]

Oh very nice, thanks for sharing!.

I like chiptune, I used to look for "MIDI" files but they are not accurate to the original sound at all.

Something I'm really interested in is.. could I compose something in MIDI and then convert it to chiptune so it sounds with, say MEGA DRIVE (genesis) sounds, just like if I was composing old-school videogame music?

Thanks in advance.

[Level 99]

Oh very nice, thanks for sharing!.

I like chiptune, I used to look for "MIDI" files but they are not accurate to the original sound at all.

Something I'm really interested in is.. could I compose something in MIDI and then convert it to chiptune so it sounds with, say MEGA DRIVE (genesis) sounds, just like if I was composing old-school videogame music?

Thanks in advance.

Well, I'm not too familiar with chiptunes composing, but I know there are some ways to achieve a similar sound to certain sound chips.

There's a post about this over on OCReMix from a bit ago, and it has some useful information. Long story short: your best bet for accuracy is using trackers, but unless you're already used to working with trackers, it takes a long time to learn how to use one, let alone use it well. There are some softsynth methods that aren't as accurate but easier to implement.

http://ocremix.org/f...ead.php?t=26947

Hope that helps!