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Comment by snowram | Hacker News Reader

A classic for starting is the NES sound chip (Ricoh 2A03). It only has 5 channels and is very straightforward to use. FM chips like the one in the Megadrive or Commodore 64 have a way steeper learning curve in comparison.

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>> A classic for starting is the NES sound chip (Ricoh 2A03). It only has 5 channels and is very straightforward to use.

Such a simple chip and yet it was capable of producing amazing music in the right hands. Tim Follin created some legendary game soundtracks with that chip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzTDAgG4EXk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_gObHt1uZA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQlLl2j5THQ

The Follin brothers used straightforward methods but took them to the extreme. Arpeggios? Double them and make them use complex chords. Triangle channel? Use it both as bass and drums. Note attack? Use the octave to simulate guitar sound. Wrap all that in prog rock composition and you get a very unique entry in the chiptune landscape.

Can't talk about Tim Follin and not talk about Plok!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peuTnilEv9g

Feels very proto-Hotline Miami to me

Plok! was SNES, not NES, though. Very different audio hardware.

Agree NES is a good place to start. C64 SID is not FM at all, but agree it's not easy to learn.

SID chip does have some FM components to it, for exemple ring modulation or LPF/HPF. This is what makes the learning curve pretty high for it.

Ring modulation is a form of amplitude modulation, not frequency modulation. Filters are not modulation at all.

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