I love the sounds of the NES (Nintendo entertainment system) The original. and I’m a stickler for authenticity. Even though it’s just two pulse waves, a triangle wave, noise and sometimes lofi samples it’s got a magic to it that I absolutely love. In the early 2000s I had a MidiNES and it was perfect, I don’t remember when or why I parted with it but I see that it’s pretty not existent these days. I have LSDJ and a DMG gameboy, I have MSSIAH and a Commodore 64 but I am seriously lacking the beautiful sounds of the NES. What do you guys recommend for NES sounds either something that uses the actual NES or software that is close enough to be indisguisable? Open to any and all recommendations. I’d love to do NES in Eurorack but I’m not really seeing any modules that accurately do that specific sound.
Twisted electrons makes the hapiNES L and it sounds pretty good but I don’t know if it’s chip or emulative. I did read that the USB power can cause noise issues though.
I have an emulative device which is pretty basic but sounds good, it’s called the Arcano NES chiptune synth. You can make patches but you can’t store them (on my version at least). It’s mostly a bunch of presets. looks like they’re sold out at the moment but heres a link:
Chiptune Synth LLC - Home of the Arcano NES Chiptune Synthesizer
There’s another midi interface for the actual NES system which is not MidiNES but I’m blanking on the name of it. Probably also rare.
There’s a guy on reverb who upgrades and sells NES units with better outs, and some modded for individual waveform outs. He usually has some in stock but doesn’t sell any kind of MIDI cartridge so you have to find another alternative if you were to go that route.
I’ll see what else I can think of. I was super into this idea too at one point and gave up on it due to lack of viable options which were not software based.
edit: I remembered the name of the other cartridge synth for NES, it’s called FAMIMIMIMIDI
I also found this FAMIstudio for your computer but I don’t know anything about it other than that it looks cool.
This is actually better, it’s apparently a free rom that you can use with those cartridge game loaders which turns your NES into a midi synth. So for free (other than hardware) sounds like a good option.
SynthNes.
There are some NES-based and alike synths out there. As mentioned above Twisted Electrons would be a good first stop for hardware.
In software, check out Plogue Chipsounds, or their individual chip based synths. They are probably the best, most accurate in the software world.
If you want to try out writing NES style music without spending money though, there are NES Trackers available. FamiTracker, and another one (can’t remember off the top of my head). Just grab one, and start laying notes down.
Edit:
Trackers:
FamiTracker
FamiStudio
Look for anything that can do the 2A03 sound.
mutable instruments plaits, which you might already have in some form, outputs a NES triangle wave in orange mode 8 on the aux channel.
no idea how accurate it is however.
Speaking of non-NES related options.
All you need is three pulse waves with static widths, a stepped triangle, and shift register/LFSR noise and you have all the necessary voices on just about any synth.
The stepped triangle is the most involved, and can be done several ways. The easiest though is a simple sample rate reduction / bitcrusher to bring out the aliasing needed to sound like the NES triangle.
So most digital synths, samplers, (Elektrons especially) will allow you to make convincing NES music.
These guys are your software plug-in chip guys though:
Tracker:
This looks cool:
auto sample and go to nes heaven
Yeah was just gonna mention Plogue. Their shit is legit. I compared the MegaFM to their Genesis FM plugin and it’s basically the same damn thing.
and their sales are spectacular, grab everything
I have the Megadrive and SID ones, and they’re great!
I kind of miss ReFX QuadraSID. It wasn’t the most accurate, but it was fun to use. Then ReFX turned into the SoftROMpler king of Chicago run by Abe Froman.
Nice! I know they had the 2A03 in ChipSounds (the older plugin) but the new dedicated one will be quite welcome!
knowing them they willl model it on multiple units/editions because they go crazy deep with this stuff…
they are my neighbors so maybe i can knock on some doors for you and put on the pressure.
j
0=0
while I’m not expert on the subject, listening to the demos sounds a lot like what the rytm SY CHIP can do, there are triangles, square, saw and noise waves, there are combinations for drums and 4 note arp with deep rate control, from what I hear it should be pretty close, maybe the NES sounds bit less harsh, nothing the lowpass filter can’t fix…
and I assume with some sampling one can do creative things with these and make fx sounds and whatnot…
I could be way off here, but to my ears the demos really close to what ThomasJ does
Oh! I nearly forgot about Megaman! I actually have it, but gave it to my daughter. That is definitely a good way to get a bit of NES sounds going in inexpensive hardware.
@neilbaldwin has some tools
A hardware option which amongst other things can give the NES feels is the Sonicware 8 Bit warps, I think it is kind of fantastic but not everyone likes the Liven workflow, due to the 7 seg display or something.
NES single cycle waveforms…
I gave my 8 Bit Warps to my son, and it’s his favorite synth. I don’t think he sequences on it, so not really much of a work-flow to worry about. He just samples parts that he plays. Definitely has some lovely NES-ish sounds though.