Anyone know how to make 8-bit music, like the early Nintendo's?

APS-A_Stars wrote on 7/16/2010, 6:00 AM

Hello to everyone out there,

I was wondering if there was an option on MAGIX Music Maker to simply create an 8 bit song like they had on the old gameboys. If not then please tell me. (Make a song or transform the orginal song completely to 8-bit)

Thanks very much...

Comments

john-auvil wrote on 7/16/2010, 9:04 AM

I believe that you just need to try using MIDI create the song, then find a sound font that you like most to use that as the output instrument.

This is from what I believe I understand. MIDI is the computer language for musical instruments on computers, it is not actually sound but instructions for a sound device to create a frequency, velocity, duration... probably more as well, I am sure some of the more musically talented users of this forum can give better insight to that.

I do know that you can create the composition using any instrument, and then later change that. I think General MIDI has 128 sound fonts, or 0 - 127 and they range from grand piano to helicopter.

I am not sure you can get that sophisticated with MIDI in Music Maker but it might be possible with Vita and Revolta synths to create that early video game sound... what I would call the Casio sound.

Procyon wrote on 7/16/2010, 11:53 AM

If you are looking to duplicate the music from the old 8-bit video games, you should know this has already been done. Much of this music is available in MIDI format on several websites.

However, to get these MIDI files to sound like the vintage 8-bit sound, you'll likely need and old 8-bit or 16-bit soundcard. You can probably pick these up dirt cheap at any computer repair shop. They just sound too slick on the newer 24-bit cards, and I couldn't find a way to adjust the bit rate on mine.

MM-15 (and probably other versions) has a "bit crusher" audio effect called BitMachine. This will not give you the sound you're looking for. It will only "dirty up" the sound, and it is only available for audio objects, not for MIDI objects.

I could find no 8-bit emulations in MM-15 for Vita or BeatBox 2.

Your best bet is to download and install an 8-bit emulation synth and drum machine. They are readily available on the web. You can do a search on the KVR website database....

http://www.kvraudio.com/get.php

I did a quick search and tried one called Basic 64, which is intended to emulate the 8-bit sound of the Commodore 64. I played with it for a minute or two and got what I thought was a very good Nintendo-like sound.

http://www.delamancha.co.uk/basic.htm

Of course, some knowledge of subtractive synthesis is very helpful.

Procyon wrote on 7/17/2010, 3:57 PM

Here are three VST synths that are tailor made for that purpose...

http://tweakbench.com/peach

http://tweakbench.com/toad

http://tweakbench.com/triforce

Some of the others look like fun as well. - Enjoy!