How to make 16-bit video game music (for free!)

so recently I was having lunch with  a buddy of mine who just happens to be a lead designer at Bungie and we were  just chatting about life and video games and I asked him you know from a design  perspective in your opinion what would you say is the best designed video game of all  time and without even a hint of hesitation he said needless to say I was extremely excited  when I was commissioned to write music for one second this this is the my arcade  Tetris Nano Player Pro miniature arcade cab

inet and this is the my  arcade micro Player Pro miniature arcade cabinet slightly larger and  I got to write the music for that dude if you've not heard of my arcade there this  awesome company out of California that basically creates retro hardware and it's officially  licensed by the game developers of classic games like Street Fighter and Miss Pac-Man and Galaga  and yes Tetris and now when I first got this I was absolutely blown away I mean the buttons and the  joystick are like so durable

and satisfying and well made the packaging is absolutely beautiful I  mean this is like a must have for anyone in your life who loves Nostalgia or retro games I mean it  makes an awesome desk decoration it's super fun to just like take a break from work and like play  around of Tetris definitely check out my arcade they have so much cool stuff on their site and if  you choose to use my Amazon affiliate link to buy the tetris arcade cabinet I get a little Kickback  supports the channel at no extr

a cost to you so either way definitely check them out they're  really really cool but really the main point of this video is I just want to show you that you  can write 16bit music like authentic 16bit chip tune with entirely free tools I had to write an  8bit and a 16bit version of the Tetris theme that would be played during this game it had to heavily  quote the Tetris theme but it also had to have enough new melodic material to stay interesting  of like how redo Village in breath of the wild

is basically just Dragon Roost Islands theme but  slowed down used using different Arrangements different Ensemble different instruments so now  let's talk about the software the free tool that I keep alluding to and it is deel mask now if you  are a fan of my Channel or if you watch my videos you know that I am a massive fan of deel mask  I even compos the entire soundtrack to Siberian which is now on Steam and the switch store inside  of deel mask a lot of people on my previous video talking

about how to make 8bit music mention that  Siberian is now paid and that is true while they do have a premium version they have an entirely  free Legacy version and you can do everything I'm going to show you in this video inside of the  Legacy version so let's go ahead and open up deel mask I'll open up my Tetris file we'll break it  down together and I'll show you how you can make authentic 16bit Sega Genesis style chip tune with  entirely free tools all right so downloading deel mask is super

simple you're just going to go to  deil mask.com you can scroll down read a little bit about it and then you're going to want to  get the app here now for whatever reason it is more expensive for Mac than it is for PC I'm  not sure why that is but if you don't want to pay for it again the title of this video was free  tools and I intend to deliver you can click try the Legacy version here and then you basically  just download it for whatever operating system you have and also it's going to be a

good idea to  download the manual as well because you're going to be referencing that a lot so when you first  launch deel mask you're going to see something like this and I know it looks a little daunting  and a little strange and probably probably unlike any other music software you've ever seen before  it kind of looks like a spreadsheet but fear not I am here to help you me and King Buu over here  are going to guide you through to a nostalgic chip tune Nirvana here by the end of this video 

so let's break down each section of deel mask to make it a little bit less intimidating so first  up we have the pattern Matrix right here on the far left side of your screen now you can sort of  think of these as chronological chunks or sections of your song each of these things here across  the top represent a different Channel and one of these represents one chunk of music so you could  add different chunks of music like this delete different chunks of music like this so right now  this piec

e only has one giant chunk of music so let's go over here to the instruments panel  now the instruments are going to change based on whatever sound chip you're using so you can see  this logo here or this text here that means we're using the Genesis sound chip and so it says FM  because as you know the the Genesis chip is very famous for that Classic FM synthesis sound so we  have our six FM synthesis channels I'll get into that in a second but each of these instruments  essentially you use them

on each of these channels now if you don't want to spend a bunch of time  tweaking instruments which you absolutely can you can go in here and actually tweak each of the  individual operators which is super fun if you're really into like sound design you can essentially  create your own Sega Genesis style sounds exact L how the you know old school developers would  have developed them and designed them which is really cool if you're into sound design if you  don't want to do that you can just c

lick this folder button here and you can actually open up a  bunch of pre-made instruments that defel mask has created for you so you can go in here and do FM  and then you can basically grab any of these FM synthesis instruments and just load them up into  your deel mask instance so this final panel here essentially lets you adjust the parameters of this  sequencer you don't need to worry about all that for this beginner tutorial and by the way leave  a comment below if you want me to do like a

full in-depth tutorial of deel mask I'm just going to  scratch the surface in this video but let me know if you want me to do a full in-depth tutorial  lastly but not leastly leastly leastly leastly lastly but not least we have the sequencer here  which I've alluded to several times throughout this video and this is essentially where you're  going to be programming all of your notes so I'm going to open up one of the many demo songs  that deel mask comes pre-loaded with this is actually in my o

pinion the best way to learn the  software is by studying other demo songs so let's open up Angel Island zone so it automatically  started playing there each column across here represents a particular sound channel and what's  really cool about deam mask and Chip tune trackers in general is that you are constrained by the  same constraints that all of the composers had when they composed all of our favorite games  from you know the 80s and and '90s and so for example I only have six FM synthesis

channels and  I have to work within those parameters and then I have these here which are basically like  basically just sine waves so you can listen here and then you have one noise Channel which  a lot of composers use for like a high hat sound each Channel you'll notice you have  all sorts of different multicolored text in here basically inputs these notes here  are going to be your actual musical notes so C3 is going to be the actual C3 like  on the piano so if you actually watch this if we

just solo this FM channel  and you watch this keyboard down here you can input notes by using your keyboard  there's musical typing enabled but I prefer to use a midi controller this does have midi support  so you can plug in your MIDI controller makes it super easy to input notes now now this  value here in every column this green value is your volume so notice how this is sort of  fading down now by the way it uses a heximal system so 7f is going to be the loudest possible  volume and it's go

ing to keep going down down down down so listen listen to this notice  how the volume changes in this particular Channel now this right here is an effect the  manual will tell you essentially all the effects that you can do so if I click this little face  logo here you can actually see that I can choose my sound chip and what's really cool is if I click  let's say I want to click NES I can say the NES plus the famon dis system so I can click that and  notice how all the channels have now changed

we now have exactly how it was right with the famicom  disc system two square wave channels a triangle Channel a noise Channel a PCM sample Channel and  the famicom dis system other sample Channel all right so I will show you more about deel mask as  we go along but let's rewind a little bit cuz I want to tell the story of kind of my process  of how I wrote this Tetris theme so the main Tetris theme is extremely simple it actually  only has two sections there's an a section that that everybody

knows and then  there's the B section which is the very Legato and really the whole piece is just the  a section twice followed by the B section and then the whole thing Loops so I knew that if  I was going to flesh out this piece I really needed to add quite a bit more original material  I just thought about the Tetris theme I thought about the game I thought about The Vibes that  people have while playing the game and really what happens is like these musical ideas just  start bubbling up in m

y brain and what do I do I capture it with my handy dandy voice memos my  best ideas by far come to me when I'm going for a walk around the neighborhood doing the dishes  getting groceries like that's when the ideas come to me and so I'm always ready to record those  in voice memos and the positive side of that is that when I come to my software when I come to  deel mask I have all these ideas just ready to go and that's really my first tip when it comes  to composing 16bit music which is don't

come to defel mask or any Daw or really any piece of  technology just trying to compose inside of the software especially if you're a beginner because  think about it if you're trying to compose inside the software you're not only trying to exercise  the skill of composition but you're also learning a new piece of software while you're doing it  I mean that's like composition on hard mode how much easier would it be if you had the idea of  the arrangement and the melody or the chords or the Rhyt

hm and it doesn't need to be fully fleshed  out you just have some basic foundational idea of what you want the piece to sound like before  you come to deel mask that way you can focus on learning the software rather than having to  compose on the Fly also I should mention here that if you're like well Matt I don't really know  how to even create these Melodies and harmonies that you're talking about to begin with uh I  have a free one and a half hour Workshop where I basically guide you through

everything you need  to know a full road map to becoming a video game composer it is completely free I essentially  exhaust all my knowledge on everything you need and then if you want to go even deeper I  have a fully paid course where I essentially guide you through everything Melody writing  uh the importance of motifs Harmony there's quizzes there's all sorts of stuff to basically  give you a super solid foundation of video game composition so whether you're a developer  whether you're an a

spiring composer or you just want to improve your skills I would love  for you to check out those resources definitely at least check out the free workshop and if you  want to go deeper check out the paid course as well so once I had some arrangement ideas I knew  that I was ready to open up deam mask and start putting some of these things things down in the  tracker so in the beginning here you'll hear this introduction so this whole piece  is an A Minor so it's really going from the a to the G

to the F and  that base is emphasizing that this way and you hear that Bo that is the portamento  slide 03 is the portamento slide up 02 is the portamento slide down so listen to  this introductory effect as it comes in here notice that the volume is going down with  each cycle so now like watch this if I were to select all of these effects here and I were  to delete them listen to what it sounds like now not nearly is compelling but  when I put the comportamento slide in there that's that chip

tune Vibe we all love the  intro continues I basically repeat that same a to G to F to G to a in the base except this time I'm  actually starting to phase in some other effects here so 07 is a tremolo sound so you can  hear that in action here with this particular effect kind of add some buildup some excitement  fm1 I almost always use for Bas I just I've always done that FM 2 and three and four and  five I'll use interchangeably for things like Melodies counter Melodies uh pads organs guitars 

things like that fm6 I always use for drums and yes your boy is using the drum samples from  Sonic 1 and two I mean come on bro did you think I was going to do anything else let's go  dude so now moving on to the next section of the introduction you'll notice what I'm doing  here is heavily quoting the main Motif but not quite getting into the meat and potatoes of  the actual Melody so here's what that sounds like now notice how there's an echo there you  cannot produce effects like we would th

ink of them in a Daw in a Tracker like you can't do  there's not like an echo Plugin or a Reverb plugin so you have to make your own echo which  I actually think is super fun so let's listen to that and really all it is is exactly what you  would think it's the same note but it's just sequentially lowered in volume over time  and I'm matching that with the PCM channel here so the drum beat is very  sparse so what I like to do is sort of in those subdivisions add  some more movement with these AR

pegos and then with the base now you'll notice here  the high hat actually changes from an open to a closed high hat listen to the sound so the way I'm doing that is I'm actually  switching instruments and one of these is a zero 9 is going to be my open high hat so if I  scroll down to my instrument list see this one right here 09 and if I was if I was organized I  would label that but that's going to be my open high hat and then 08 is going to be my closed  high hat the way that you set this u

p is super simple you just go into the instrument see this  volume channel right here I'm slowly bringing this curve down so that when the noise Channel  hits it goes like like an open high hat but then on the this one on the closed high hat  notice how drastic it is so it's like so it kind of emulates what a real drummer would do all  right so let's continue on so here's kind of the quote and then your boy has to go into  the Dorian mode because I mean what are we doing here if we're not going

to  the Dorian mode here here it comes ready now if you're paying attention  you'll also hear that I added in a counter Melody this is also a really great  way to take a super familiar theme and to spice it up to make it different here is my  counter melody in the context with bass and drums so now we're in the official a section so you can hear that counter Melody here here so notice how the instrument switches it  goes from this kind of uh horns sounding thing to these bells that's because I'm

actually switching  instruments which is pretty fun actually the fact that you can go back and forth between instruments  and switch them really quickly on the Fly so another thing I'm doing is creating an  echo effect using the PCM Channel this is a very very common technique for old  seog Genesis composers so here I have my FM synthesis um main Melody here  but then notice how it's playing the exact same thing except a couple octaves  away but it's playing it one row delayed so this is how it

sounds without the echo  chorus without the PCM Channel activated okay and here's how it sounds with that Echo and then of course we have this really  cool effect that goes up like this listen to this that to me is like the essence of  composing in a Tracker those really really fun effects all right so this is that  b section I was talking about listen to this again I feel like what  makes this is that counter Melody now what's funny is my first pass at this  piece was actually more upbeat and

I even had this crazy like death metal double  kick break down during the B section and the developer was like this is cool but  it's a puzzle game okay like we're trying to like help people relax and I'm like  fair enough but that's what this sounds like so after the B section I knew that  I couldn't just loop back to the a section I needed to add something a little  different I needed to take the piece in a little bit of a different direction so this  is the C-section this is completely origin

al composition now if you notice the bass does not go off of the  a but what I love to do is just keep the bass on a note and let the chords change over top of that  petal note so literally it just stays on the a now this is probably my favorite part of the  piece so what I do is is a little bit of a fake out I make the listener think we're going back  to the a section by quoting that really famous but rather than going into this very typically  minor sort of cadence I completely change it up an

d do this super Jolly like celebratory major  key kind of vibe it's pretty fun so check it out now this section basically is a fully  chromatic walk down from the a minor to the E because the E is the five chord  back to the a so if I knew if I went from a to e it would be a perfect transition  for the loop so that's what this sounds like also dude those drums come on bro let's go and then he goes back to the  top so here is the loop in context n the best way that I know of to really  really qui

ckly improve your chip tune composition skills is transcribing  so definitely check out this video next about why transcribing is  so important thanks so much for watching be sure to check out my arcade in  the description and I'll see you next time