16 thoughts on “AudioThing Intros miniBit 8-bit/Chiptune Synthesizer”

1. My 7 year old who’s never been near an 8-bit machine loves the sound of this! 😀

   1. I was thinking it would be easier to erase the 80’s then try and sell this synth, but it does sound quite good, nice character and crunch to it.

2. Another one? That makes about four commercial VSTs and at least three free blip chiptune synths, plus all the hardware ones. This one even has the rainbow stripe of at least two of them. I guess the analog resurgence has evolved into a game sounds resurgence in retaliation. It is the war of the ’80s all over again. I wonder what would happen if an all analog show were booked the same night as a chiptunes crowd? Would there be TRON and Scott Pilgrim characters popping out of the woodwork and battling across the landscape?

3. Anyone who does a little reading about the sound generation capabilities of old school computers and consoles will be able to reproduce those sounds with ANY synth. It’s all square waves and pitch envelopes/LFO’s, for the most part. Throw in an FM synth for the Sega Genesis and PC/Arcade sounds, and you’re all set. These chiptune specific VST’s are sort of redundant, although the stuff that Aly James Labs and Plogue puts out are useful and unique. Some sounds are difficult to reproduce, like stepped envelopes and certain noise sounds, but really, the features seem to be like most other subtractive analog VST’s, except with a built in bit crusher.

   For a more authentic chiptune feeling, learn to use a tracker.

   1. Thanks for the suggestion. What is a “tracker”?

      1. I think he means a MIDI tracker, a program that reads MIDI files, which come in dozens of formats beside .mid, and plays them directly using GM sounds. I use Winamp, but there are many others. They’ve sort of fallen out of style since the rise of high resolution samples and recordings. At one time it was the only music computers could play, and we were glad to have it.

      2. A tracker is an alternate way to write music from piano rolls. It’s a vertical paradigm that scrolls with notes in vertical columns. Renoise is a very modern Tracker that can hose VSTs and has a pseudo-modular approach to instruments. This is the only commercial software I’m mentioning, but it’s very much worth it’s modest price if you want something with a lot of modern bells and whistles but still like writing in a tracker environment.

         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB6fbq9RU-0

         SunVox is another tracker that has an actual modular approach to instruments and effects. Plus it runs on a ton of OSes (including lots of mobile OSes).

         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Auiv49gqmQA

         LSDJ is tracker that runs on a Gameboy. I used to use this with a Gameboy emulator on a PSP.

         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAyEOcVZyJg

         GoatTracker is a C64 SID emulation tracker.

         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQqma_AlVaE

         Famitracker is designed to do NES tracks and now (… wow I’m out of the loop, a while ago = now) supports extra sound chips that were in some Japanese carts (like the Japanese Castlevania 3).

         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2LdvE1FBgQ

      3. I would also recommend Milky Tracker, which is pretty much a close emulation of FastTracker 2:

         http://www.milkytracker.org/?download

         It uses small samples as waves, and traces it’s lineage back to the Commodore Amiga’s method of sound production. Here is a tune from Sonic the Hedgehog recreated with samples in Milky Tracker:

         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw4Aa0FfuJU

         And here is a badass song made entirely in Milky:

         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ovFIEU-heM

         If you download Milky you can download the working file for that song here:

         http://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=65928

         Watch the file as it plays through the program and you’ll start to learn how to do all the cool chip tricks.

         Much better than just downloading a VST with “8 Bit” or “Chip” in it’s name and a skin that looks like C64.

   2. i’m curious how one would go about re-creating the tuning on an NES (which, is not by any means exact) with “ANY synth”. especially when being swept with the sweep unit.

      also, how would one make the stepped triangle wave which is quite different than a normal triangle? even the 4-bit NES envelopes are impossible to reproduce with any commercial synth that i know of.

      i’m not saying that this product solves any of these problems, since i haven’t used it and don’t plan to, but the reality is, the actual tones of old hardware is quite difficult to reproduce with most modern synths.

   3. There’s an excellent video on U2b that shows a Proteus 2000 creating extremely expressive chiptunes sound with presets. That little rack unit is one of the forgotten giants. Paul Shaffer has always had one in his live rig, as far as I know.

      1. Man, I just missed the edit window by half a second. Anyway, the video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y2XUomeahM starting at about 5:40 for 8-bit sounds.

4. indeed, Plogue’s chipsounds is a great product. Makes everything else unnecessary IMO

5. There’s a free app used by game developers called ‘cfxr’ that generates these types of sounds as small sample files. It’s not a plugin, but it is excellent if you want some quick bleeps, bloops, and laser zaps to toss in your DAW.

6. If someone would make a hardware module, well designed and under $500 combining CHIPTUNES, the usual trills etc bit crusher and a sequencer. It’d sell like hot cakes. Purpose built is everything for this genre.

   1. It already exist, and it’s really good: soulsbysynths.com

      1. Nah I find that thing stupidly confusing, it’s designed more like a random noise generator than an instrument.