Existing homebrew music engines

Discuss NSF files, FamiTracker, MML tools, or anything else related to NES music.

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply
tepples
Posts: 22705
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 11:12 pm
Location: NE Indiana, USA (NTSC)
Contact:

Existing homebrew music engines

Post by tepples »

In [url=http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?p=156494#p156494]this post[/url], rainwarrior wrote:Also, "just about everybody" has written an NES music engine? I think the number is probably around 10 people, really.
That got me curious as to how many there actually are. As I understand it, some homebrew NES music engines are intended for NSFs, music ROMs, and demos:

NerdTracker II
FamiTracker
Musetracker
PPMCK: Macro based

Some are specifically designed for games, with smaller ROM and RAM footprints:

FamiTone2
My own sound engine, which lacks a snappy name

Which am I forgetting?
User avatar
freem
Posts: 176
Joined: Mon Oct 01, 2012 3:47 pm
Location: freemland (NTSC-U)
Contact:

Re: Existing homebrew music engines

Post by freem »

Two examples I can think of left off your list:
  1. Metalslime's sound tutorial from NintendoAge ("Nerdy Nights Sound")
  2. The Japanese NSD.Lib (NES Sound Driver & Library)
User avatar
rainwarrior
Posts: 8731
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2012 12:03 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: Existing homebrew music engines

Post by rainwarrior »

I've written two of my own, and hacked a lot of the others at one point or another.

Did TheFox write a unique one for Streemerz?
User avatar
thefox
Posts: 3134
Joined: Mon Jan 03, 2005 10:36 am
Location: 🇫🇮
Contact:

Re: Existing homebrew music engines

Post by thefox »

I used Musetracker for STREEMERZ.
Download STREEMERZ for NES from fauxgame.com! — Some other stuff I've done: fo.aspekt.fi
User avatar
Bregalad
Posts: 8055
Joined: Fri Nov 12, 2004 2:49 pm
Location: Divonne-les-bains, France

Re: Existing homebrew music engines

Post by Bregalad »

I've written two of my own, one "largely featured" and another "resource efficient" one.
User avatar
Kasumi
Posts: 1293
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2008 2:09 pm

Re: Existing homebrew music engines

Post by Kasumi »

Here's one by Gradual Games: http://www.gradualgames.com/p/sound-engine.html
There's DragNSF which isn't publicly released as far as I know.

I actually do think a lot of people end up writing their own, even if they don't release them.
User avatar
Memblers
Site Admin
Posts: 4044
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2004 6:04 am
Location: Indianapolis
Contact:

Re: Existing homebrew music engines

Post by Memblers »

Long ago, I made a song using the music engine from Mouser.
User avatar
Dwedit
Posts: 4922
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2004 7:35 pm
Contact:

Re: Existing homebrew music engines

Post by Dwedit »

I got a copy of dragnsf, it has some good features I'd like to see in other engines, such as triggering sound effects from note events.
Here come the fortune cookies! Here come the fortune cookies! They're wearing paper hats!
tepples
Posts: 22705
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 11:12 pm
Location: NE Indiana, USA (NTSC)
Contact:

Re: Existing homebrew music engines

Post by tepples »

Dwedit wrote:I got a copy of dragnsf, it has some good features I'd like to see in other engines, such as triggering sound effects from note events.
My engine does that for all notes in the drum channel.
User avatar
Alp
Posts: 223
Joined: Mon Oct 06, 2014 12:37 am

Re: Existing homebrew music engines

Post by Alp »

I started to write a music engine, for a quick Halloween game. (A cute Bubble Bobble clone.)
Unfortunately, work happened, so it's unlikely to be finished any time soon.

The .asm file is simply labelled "psg"
It's nothing fancy, just bare-bones functions.
zzo38
Posts: 1096
Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2011 12:46 pm

Re: Existing homebrew music engines

Post by zzo38 »

Attribute Zone has its own music engine, using a compiler written in Csound, using CsoundMML to input the score. It is very simple though and does not do much.
(Free Hero Mesh - FOSS puzzle game engine)
Post Reply