Broadly speaking, most would compose on actual instruments, notate on staff paper, and then program the audio chip instructions manually, in Music Macro Language, or using a custom utility developed by the musician or studio. Tracker programs became available starting with the Amiga platform in the late 1980s, but most trackers were still written specifically for the hardware the program ran on. Today, NES... Source: about 1 year ago

You can use a program like FamiTracker (tracker-style interface) or FamiStudio (midi/piano-roll-style interface) which reproduce the NES's limitations and can export .nsf files which you can play back on an actual NES or emulator. Source: over 1 year ago

Recently using FamiStudio for Chiptune music. Its like FamiTracker but with a regular DAW like workflow - https://famistudio.org/. Source: over 1 year ago

Here you go dude. Pretty sure there is every game here, and all of the nsf files for them. AND if you want to actually delete an instrument or change it, there is a way to edit them on pc. https://famistudio.org/. Source: almost 2 years ago

For this cover I used FamiStudio to be as close as possible to the sound of the original NES. Source: about 2 years ago

This was the first subtractive snth I got really into. It's so good! Matt Tytel also made an open source wave table synth called vital that I'm also in love with that you can find here: https://vital.audio/ git repo is here: https://github.com/mtytel/vital. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago

Don't forget Vital which is Matt's newer synth. It continues to be open-source as well. https://vital.audio/. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago

Good stuff! I started getting in to this at the start of the year. Already had an old, dusty MicroKORG and MIDI interface to use it as a controller, but recently splashed out on a bigger controller as the Korg's tiny keys were hurting me - plus, I wanted something bigger to get better at piano! A couple of free soft synths I'd recommend are Surge XT, and Vital. https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/... - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago

Serge is great, but Vital whips the llama's ass: https://vital.audio/ There was a time when Sylenth and Serum-quality synthesizers didn't exist for free. Back then, shit like Serge and Helm were really the best you could rely on. Maybe a few free U-HE plugins or your DAW defaults. Today's producers are downright spoiled with so many excellent free options! - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago

Download Vital Synth from https://vital.audio/ and install it. It usually goes into some VST folder. Then point Reaper (under settings/preferences plugins location) to that folder so it can find it. Source: 11 months ago