GXSCC: How to make your own chiptunes/8-bit music/retro music

Have you ever wanted to make your own chiptunes/8-bit music/retro music? I haven't attempted creating my own chiptunes until recently, but this article will give you an introduction of how to make your own awesome 8-bit music. Before trying to create your own, I would recommend watching the video below by the 8-bit Guy on YouTube on how old-school music works.

I started composing with Musescore, which is a great music notation program which lets you export MIDI files and other sound files like MP3 and WAV. Any software that can export MIDI/MID files will work for this tutorial. onlinesequencer.net is another great online music composition software which directly supports 8-bit Sine/Square/Sawtooth/Triangle.

Once you have your MIDI/MID file you will need to convert the instrument voices in your soundfile to more simple 8-bit voices. The simplest way to do this is with GXSCC. You can download it here:

http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-SanJose/8700/P/GXSCCB236/indexE.htm

Open GXSCC and it should look like this:

Drag you MIDI/MID file into GXSCC and GXSCC should automatically start playing it - in 8-bit! There is absolutely no settings that need to be adjusted to get the perfect output. Click "authoring" and it will export the completed project into the same folder as the original file in WAV format.

Enjoy!