KVR Audio

The Chase · Post by **The Chase** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 4:15 am

I keep trying to get a nintendo sound with bit-reduction but can't lock onto that nintendo sound. What makes the nintendo synths so unique? Any special additive synth settings?

mbell · Post by **mbell** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 4:28 am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_E ... ifications

NES Audio: Five sound channels

* 2 Pulse-wave channels, variable duty cycle (25%, 50%, 75%, 87.5%), 16-level volume control, hardware pitch-bend support, supporting frequencies from 54Hz to 28kHz.
* 1 Triangle-wave channel, fixed volume, supporting frequencies from 27Hz to 56kHz
* 1 White-noise channel, 16-level volume control, supporting two modes (by adjusting inputs on a Linear feedback shift register) at 16 preprogrammed frequencies
* 1 Delta pulse-code modulation (DPCM) channel with 7 bits of range, using 1-bit Delta encoding at 16 preprogrammed frequencies, also capable of playing standard PCM sound by writing individual 7-bit values at timed intervals.

Also a google search found this which was interesting: http://www.student.oulu.fi/~vtatila/nes_sound.html

Another option would be to use an emulator and just sample the sounds you wanted.

soulkraka · Post by **soulkraka** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 4:50 am

do you have Reaktor? If so, you may wanna have a play with Oki Computer.

check out the quantum64 vsti also.

dusted william · Post by **dusted william** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 4:51 am

it also comes down to the actual compositions.

you couldn't do wrong by checking out quadrasid from refx

dw

Reverse Engineer · Post by **Reverse Engineer** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 4:55 am

http://www.tweakbench.com/instruments.php?id=9 , http://www.tweakbench.com/instruments.php?id=16 and http://www.tweakbench.com/instruments.php?id=10 dunno how good they are....but it says nintendo sounds on the tin.

The Chase · Post by **The Chase** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 4:58 am

reaktor? I wish!

Reverse Engineer wrote:http://www.tweakbench.com/instruments.php?id=16 and http://www.tweakbench.com/instruments.php?id=10 dunno how good they are....but it says nintendo sounds on the tin.

Eh. They're not that good.

mbell · Post by **mbell** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 5:03 am

Just program simple oscillators (triangle, pcm, filtered noise, etc) on any decent synth, then route it through a bit reducer to make it sound like a 4 or 8 bit DAC.

dw was right about the compositions too. If you do a bit of searching, you can find midi files of the score of many old nes tunes as examples.

TheoKrueger · Post by **TheoKrueger** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 5:11 am

dusted william wrote:it also comes down to the actual compositions.

I agree with you totally! I was recently multisampling some NES sounds to make a vst out of them; The basic sounds from the Zeldas, Mario and Metroid were so inspiring and cool, but when i got down to sampling sounds from other, less known games (which most i had never played), i got bored and it felt as if they were just cheap crappy sounds with no meaning.

I think it's the whole lifestyle attached to the NES which makes its sounds so wonderful today. Beeing young, careless, happy and playing all day with no stress... no bit reduction plug-ins can ever replace that!

As for the tweakbench stuff, i think they rock

Mr. Tunes · Post by **Mr. Tunes** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 5:19 am

The Chase wrote:Eh. They're not that good.

huh? i'm wondering if you say they're not that good as in "they don't sound like nintendo", or what? there's some classic sounds in the Tweakbench stuff.

The Chase · Post by **The Chase** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 5:25 am

I disagree about the melody part. If it were only the melody, then holding down a single note on the quadra SID wouldnt be much different than the same wave on synth 1 reduced to 7-bit.

Nintendo was before my time. When I was old enough to play games it was nintendo 64, though i remember my siblings playing super nintendo. The nintendo sound by itself doesnt ring any nostalgia with me or anything.

I know there has to be something else than just bit reduction. Mathematically, A bit-reducer doesnt do much to the square-wave. When holding a single note on a square wave under a bit crusher it just sounds like modified pulse width (granted when you play different notes it sounds more obviously like a bit-crusher). There just has to be something else that is special about the synthesis.

Arpegiators help too, but i think that's cheating.

The Chase · Post by **The Chase** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 5:26 am

Mr. Tunes wrote:
The Chase wrote:Eh. They're not that good.
huh? i'm wondering if you say they're not that good as in "they don't sound like nintendo", or what? there's some classic sounds in the Tweakbench stuff.

no no no! tweakbench stuff is great, but the sid-sounding stuff is not genuine sounding in my oppinion.

JackDark · Post by **JackDark** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 5:35 am

Protip: The NES often used used phase modulation to create its distinct tones (pulse modulating pulse). But for the bitreduction stuff, also remember to cut your frequencies down to at least 22.05khz at 8-Bit.

JackDark · Post by **JackDark** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 5:37 am

I used a bit of what I'm talking about in this thing:

But someday not too far away I'm gonna poop out Syntendo. (TM)

ouroboros · Post by **ouroboros** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 5:50 am

as far as bit reducers, try LoFI PLus by subtek: it has a couple of extra parameters that help to crunch towards Nintendo. Seriouslu, it's my favorite bitreducer/crusher.

zircon · Post by **zircon** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 5:54 am

Here's a very talented composer who does a lot of "chiptune" work - he has some info about how he does it on this page.

http://virt.vgmix.com/index.php?page=chip

What Makes Nintendo Sound So Nintendo?