Pico8 Music Synthesizer
johanpeitz.itch.io
johanpeitz.itch.io
If there are any questions around the program, just let me know!
Nothing I've made has ended up on Hacker News before so I'll also take the opportunity to shamelessly plug my Patreon if someone want to support my work. :D https://www.patreon.com/johanpeitz
Good idea to recommend PicoCAD at the same time, my first thought was, "he does it again!".
Beautiful program. I'd love to be able to set different sequence length in the sequencers. then its a great ambient generator.
Really cute!
Biggest challenge was that I basically don’t know anything about how synths work in real life, and made up my own way as I went along. This lead to unnecessary rewrites as I needed to sometimes change assumptions that stopped me from progressing.
It was very basic but let me familiarise myself with the basics of subtractive synthesis.
This project instantly made me think of DS-10 and VCV Rack.
Something in between this project and VCV Rack would be a fantastic tool for teaching synths to kids that can't yet be trusted with a real (expensive) synth.
It's a lot of fun to play with! This is a neat project!
Over the years I've come to the conclusion that kids are about as trustworthy as adults with expensive gear, as long as you instruct them properly and point out that it is irreplaceable. I give my kids free reign on the stuff here including workshop tools and instruments, usually I'm around in the beginning to help out and keep them safe but once they have the routine and have proper fear of anything dangerous there isn't much point in hovering over them. So far so good, all fingers, toes, eyes and limbs accounted for. And all the stuff also still works. The adults however...
I've been wanting to play around with synthetizers / trackers (?) for a bit. I played around with TIC-80 (another fantasy console like PICO-8) amazing track + SFX editor, but I'm very lost as to how to actually make... music, instead of noise.
Does anyone have any beginner resources on music theory, specifically oriented to working with synthetizers and trackers?
https://github.com/Dirtywave/M8HeadlessFirmware
You might also look at Pure Data and Max.
https://cycling74.com/products/max
In terms of actually making music, I think that probably just comes with both practice and experimentation.
These trackers are built around the limitation of old computers, some people prefer working that way because that's how they started but I wouldn't bother with them as a beginner nowadays. Some DAWs like reason try to emulate a real studio with cables and all, simmilar to this pico-8 app, but again, if you never worked in a real studio why would you bother?
The only "real" classical music theory you need to know is Scales, the bigger chunk will be knowledge about digital audio production. Synthesizers, compressors, filters, ... that information is also plenty available on youtube.
If you want lower-level stuff and program a synth manually, then you can try PureData, but it might be too low-level for you and require dealing with math equations and algorithms. Also, its GUI is a little outdated.
If you want to know how certain sounds are created, you can look for tutorials or Youtube videos. Or you can take any virtual synthesizer, choose the preset you like and see how it's made. You can disable units one by one and see how it changes the sound. For example, you can take Dexed or Surge, both of which are free.
Of course, beforehands you have to learn the basics (what kind of waves are there, what is a spectrum, an envelope, how filters work and so on).
Regarding music theory, I think that tracker or 8-bit music uses standard notes and chords and you don't need any special music theory for it. Also if you can hear the notes then it will help you a lot. A good ear is important because it helps you to hear what is wrong with the sound and how to fix it.
Also, a desktop DAW like Ableton (which is recommended by neighbour comment) might be easier to use than a tracker.
Also, you can listen to the melodies you like and reverse-engineer them, if they are available in a tracker or MIDI format.
I'll also have to admit I stole a sprite or two from Spacehog for my own little horizontal space shooter as a teenager, hehe...
So, not sure I put it to good use. But it was a lot of fun. :)
The example switching seems to be buggy: once I switch on the sound, it cannot be turned off.
BTW I am also developing a music programming language here: https://glicol.org/
It also works as a NPM library for building synth/music apps in browsers: https://glicol.js.org/
This alone:
> picoSYNTH 1.1 (Linux) 757 kB
Is really remarkable these days.
Some strings from the binary:
head cart not found download timed out downloading.. cancelled /temp- catsub could not find cart could not fetch cart downloading.. ok loaded #%s (%d chars) could not connect to bbs could not load cartridge data is corrupted * failed to save screenshot saved screenshot to desktop set video starting point * failed to save video joystick %d connected joystick %d disconnected %d %d %d %d %d %d %d %d %d %d %d %d %d // Location of pico-8's root folder // Location of cartridge save data // Specify which player index joystick control begins at (0..7) // Custom keyboard scancodes for buttons. player0 0..6, player1 0..5 // Play notes as they are plotted in frequency mode // iff 1: when using keyboard cursor, snap to closest pixel / map cel // 0 default 1 dark blue background in code editor 2 black background in code editor 3 gray background in code editor // scale of screenshots and gifs // 2 means 256x256 // maximum gif length in seconds (0..120; 0 means no gif recording) // when 1, reset the recording when pressing ctrl-9 (useful for creating a non-overlapping sequence) // 0 for off. 1 for auto. 2 to allow control of a cart's framerate due to host machine's cpu capacity // 0 off 1 on (exclude cartridge tagged as 'mature' by community) // tab display width (1 ~ 4 spaces) // 0 off 1 on: draw tab characters as small vertical lines // 0 off 1 on: record the current cartridge and editor view every 3 seconds (see [appdata]/activity.log.txt) // 0 off 1 on: allow F6..F9 (alternative: ctrl 6..9) // 0 off 1 on: automatically check for a newer version of a BBS cart each time it is run. // hide mouse cursor for n seconds when typing. // 0 off 1 on: backup with a new timestamped filename on every run // normally not needed -- was used for debugging crash-on-run // back up cartridge in editor every n minutes when not idle (0 for no periodic backups) // global screen transformations: // 134 rotate CW 180 degrees // 135 rotate CW 270 degrees // 0 off > 1: colour to draw pixel grid in the gfx editor at zoom:8 and zoom:4 (16 for black) stopped. press button to exit future version. please update! no video recorded (rec: ctrl-8) saved %d second gif to desktop reset cart volume: 01234567update cart volume: (ctrl-/+) legacy: 0.1.1 api injected print("archeos",98,34,7) %s%s.p8%s %s%s%s.p8 found not found could not compress code hexdump %d bytes to clipboard writing %d bytes (code only) writing %d bytes pico-8 cartridge last_run.p8 loading future cart version future version: %d
Pico8 if meant to be like perculate is actually a nice pun for modular style synthizers.
For example take a look at ableton live, it changed the music panorama worldwide because even a 12 year old kid from united kingdom can create grime music with it
It's not pixelated, like yours.
Music makers/artists need constrains/influences and some times to mix things up by taking a harder/weird approach.
Judging by demo videos, I think that the UI is not very efficient. For example, let's count how many gestures an user has to make to add an oscillator and connect it to a speaker:
- click "+"
- carefully read the menu, locate and click "oscillator"
- maybe drag the oscillator to a desired location
- click "+"
- carefully read the menu, locate and click "cable"
- drag the cable to the oscillator
- catch another end of the cable, which is swinging and trying to escape from your mouse cursor
- drag it to a tiny speaker's socket
This takes too much time. I believe the UI can be significantly improved. Or maybe this can be turned into a game where the devices are playing against you, jump and crawl trying to escape from you (but you can bind them with cables), and so on.
Also, "+" button is too close to a trash button, and it is easy to accidentally click it.
I can totally understand where you’re coming from, but the program is not designed to be efficient. I think of it more as a toy, or and interactive machine that you can figure out how it works. The fact that you can make loops and beats with it is almost a bonus.
Yeah adding a cable is a bit frustrating instead of just adding one when you click on a jack input (like in Reason IIRC).