These retro sound generators are so good, I eat 'em like they're potato chips. They're just so addicting!
Blocks is a port of the digital oscillator code from the Mutable Instruments Edges Module. Blocks contains four identical channels, each with a sine, triangle, quantized triangle, sample and hold, short LFSR, and long LFSR oscillator.
Features
- Quad wave generator: Quad 16-bit wave generators with six different shapes
- Quantized triangle wave generator: Generate NES style triangle wave with 16 steps of quantization
- Noise generator: generate pseudo-random numbers using sample and hold and short and long LFSRs
See the Manual for more information about the features of this module.
InfiniteStairs is an emulation of the Ricoh 2A03 audio processing unit from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The 2A03 chip contains two pulse wave generators, a quantized triangle wave generator, and a noise generator. The original chip featured a DMC loader for playing samples that has been omitted in this emulation.
Features
- Dual pulse wave generator: Dual 8-bit pulse waves with four duty cycles: 12.5%, 25%, 50%, and 75%
- Quantized triangle wave generator: Generate NES style triangle wave with 16 steps of quantization
- Noise generator: generate pseudo-random numbers at 16 different frequencies
- Linear Feedback Shift Register (LFSR): old-school 8-bit randomness!
See the Manual for more information about the features of this module.
Pulses is an emulation of the Sunsoft FME7 audio processing unit from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The FME7 chip contains three pulse wave generators, a noise generator, and an envelope generator. Only the pulse wave generators are implemented currently.
Features
- Triple pulse wave generator: Triple 12-bit pulse waves with duty cycle of 50%
- Amplitude modulation: Manual and CV control over the individual voice levels
See the Manual for more information about the features of this module.
StepSaw is an emulation of the Konami VRC6 audio processing unit from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The VRC6 chip contains two pulse wave generators, and a quantized saw wave generator.
Features
- Dual pulse wave generator: Dual 8-bit pulse waves with eight duty cycles: 6.25%, 12.5%, 18.75%, 25%, 31.25%, 37.5%, 43.75%, and 50%
- Quantized saw wave generator: Generate NES style saw wave with variable quantization including the overflow bug in the VRC6
- Amplitude modulation: Manual and CV control over the individual voice levels
See the Manual for more information about the features of this module.
Jairasullator is an emulation of the General Instrument AY-3-8910 audio processing unit. The AY-3-8910 features three pulse waveform generators and a noise generator that is shared between the channels.
Features
- Triple pulse wave generator: Triple 12-bit pulse waves with duty cycle of 50%
- Amplitude modulation: Manual and CV control over the individual voice levels
- White noise: Generate noise using the frequency knob for channel 3
- Tone/Noise control: CV and switch to control tone and noise for each channel
See the Manual for more information about the features of this module.
Pot Keys is an emulation of the Atari POKEY audio processing unit. The POKEY produces four pulse waveforms, but contains a variety of bonus controls, including extended frequency ranges, high-pass filters, and noise generators / distortion effects.
Features
- Quad pulse wave generator: Four pulse waves with 8-bit frequency value and 50% pulse width
- Low-frequency mode: Change base clock of the chip from 64 KHz to 15 KHz
- High-frequency mode: Change base clock of channels 1 and 3 from 64 KHz to 1.79 MHz
- High-pass filter: High-pass filter channel 1 using channel 3 as a clock or high-pass channel 2 using channel 4 as a clock
- Linear Feedback Shift Register (LFSR): old-school 8-bit randomness!
- Noise/Distortion generator: generate per-channel pseudo-random numbers at 15 different frequencies as a distortion source
- Amplitude modulation: 4-bit amplifier with linear amplitude modulation
See the Manual for more information about the features of this module.
Mega Tone is an emulation of the Texas Instruments SN76489 audio processing unit from the Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive, and Sega Genesis. The SN76489 chip contains three pulse waveform generators and an LFSR-based noise generator that selects between pitched white-noise and static periodic noise.
Features
- Triple Pulse Waveform Generator Three 8-bit pulse waves with 50% duty cycle and 10-bit frequency parameter
- Noise Generator Generate either pitched white-noise based on the frequency of oscillator three, or static periodic noise at one of three shift frequencies: N / 2048, N / 1024, N / 512 where N is the reference clock rate (which is something like 3579545Hz).
- 4-bit Amplifier A 4-bit amplifier controls the output level of each oscillator with mixer sliders and CV inputs
- Channel Mixer: Mix the voices together internally with hard clipping and aliasing.
See the Manual for more information about the features of this module.
Boss Fight is an emulation and re-envisioning of the Yamaha Yamaha YM2612 audio processing unit from the Sega Mega Drive & Sega Genesis. Boss Fight provides the key functionality of the 3rd channel of Yamaha YM2612, in addition to some hacks, omissions, and re-envisioned features, namely,
Features
- 16-bit Audio It's 8 bits better than the previous generation of chips! This is marketing! We're actually lying though -- the YM2612 produced a 14-bit PCM stream, and so does BossFight. You're not getting those 2 bits back; go cry about it.
- 4-Operator FM Synthesis Full panel and CV control over the parameters for each of the four operators including envelopes, multipliers, rate scalings, tunings, gates, and LFO modulations.
- 8 FM Algorithms 8 different arrangements of the four operators following the original chip implementation.
- Operator 1 Feedback Feedback into operator one for interesting timbres or total wave destruction.
- Individual Operator Frequencies Control the frequency of each operator to produce weird, harsh, and trashed noises.
- Looping Envelopes Transform the one-shot envelope generators of individual operators into looping AD envelopes.
- Aliasing Control The YM2612 hard clips the output signal when it gets too loud. This is both a musically useful effect for introducing high-order harmonics, as well as aliasing. Nyquist lied to you, aliasing is your friend. However, if you are not a fan of clipping and aliasing, aliasing control allows you to attenuate the output signal from the chip before it passes through the hard clipper to prevent fully saturating the 14-bit PCM stream.
- VU Meter A VU meter tracks how hot the signal from BossFight is getting and makes it easy to visualize how much clipping is occurring.
- Low-Frequency Oscillator A shared low-frequency sine oscillator controls amplitude modulation and frequency modulation of each operator.
- Mono Output The original YM2612 was stereo, but only because it had six channels of synthesis. Boss Fight is a monophonic voice so there is no built-in stereo processing.
- Semi-Modular Normalization Inputs are normalled forward across the operators to reduce the amount of patch cables for setting up simple patches quickly.
See the Manual for more information about the features of this module.
Mini Boss is an emulation and re-envisioning of the Yamaha Yamaha YM2612 audio processing unit from the Sega Mega Drive & Sega Genesis. Mini Boss provides the key functionality of a single operator from Yamaha YM2612, in addition to some hacks, omissions, and re-envisioned features, namely,
Features
- 16-bit Audio: It's 8 bits better than the previous generation of chips! This is marketing! We're actually lying though -- the YM2612 produced a 14-bit stream, and so does BossFight. You're not getting those 2 bits back; go cry about it.
- Single Operator FM Synthesis: Full control over the parameters including envelopes, multipliers, rate scalings, tunings, gates, and internal LFO modulation.
- Feedback: Feedback into the operator one for interesting timbres or total wave destruction and noise.
- Looping Envelopes: Transform the one-shot envelope generator into a looping AD envelope.
- Low-Frequency Oscillator: A shared low-frequency sine oscillator controls amplitude modulation and frequency modulation of each operator.
- Mono Output: The original YM2612 was stereo, but only because it had six channels of synthesis. Mini Boss is a monophonic voice so there is no built-in stereo processing.
See the Manual for more information about the features of this module.
Name Corp Octal Wave Generator is an emulation of the Namco 163 audio processing unit from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The Namco 163 chip contains eight channels of wave-table synthesis and 128 bytes of operational RAM. The wave-tables are 4-bit and can be as long as 63 samples. This module uses a bank of five 32-sample wave-tables to act as the waveform for all eight channels.
Features
- Wave-table synthesis: 8 channels of wave-table synthesis with bit depth of 4 bits and table size of 32 samples
- Waveform morph: 5 banks of wave-tables to morph between using 32-bit floating point linear interpolation (not very retro, but it sounds nice)
- Frequency control: 18-bit frequency control with linear frequency modulation
- Amplitude modulation: 4-bit amplifier with linear amplitude modulation
- Namco 163 compute limitation: activating each additional channel (up to 8) reduces the amount of compute available for all channels. This causes all channels to drop in frequency when additional channels are activated.
See the Manual for more information about the features of this module.
Pallet Town Waves System is an emulation of the Nintendo GameBoy Sound System (GBS) audio processing unit. The GBS is similar to the Ricoh 2A03, but replaces the triangle waveform generator with a wave-table synthesizer.
Features
- Dual pulse wave generator: Dual 8-bit pulse waves with four duty cycles: 12.5%, 25%, 50%, and 75%
- Wave-table synthesis channel: wave-table synthesis with bit depth of 4 bits and table size of 32 samples. 5 pages of wave-tables can be interpolated between using CV
- Noise generator: generate pseudo-random numbers at 7 different frequencies
- Linear Feedback Shift Register (LFSR): old-school 8-bit randomness!
See the Manual for more information about the features of this module.
Super ADSR is an emulation of the ADSR from the Sony S-SMP audio processing unit in the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). The envelope generator has three stages, (1) an attack stage that ramps up linearly to the total level, (2) a decay stage that ramps down exponentially to a sustain level, and (3) a sustain/release stage that ramps down exponentially from the sustain level to zero.
Super ADSR provides the key features of the ADSR envelope generator of the S-SMP chip, namely,
- Stereo Processing: Two envelope generators on one module for stereo modulation, cross modulation, or both!
- Total Level Control: Control over the overall level of the envelope generator, including inversion for ducking effects.
- Stage Length Control: Control over stage timings using sliders and control voltages.
Features
See the Manual for more information about the features of this module.
Super VCA is an emulation of the BRR filter & Gaussian interpolation filter from the Sony S-SMP audio processing unit in the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). The four BRR filter modes were applied to BRR sample blocks on the SNES and the Gaussian interpolation filter was applied to output audio and removed high-frequency content from the signal.
Super VCA provides the key features of the BRR filter and Gaussian filter of the S-SMP chip, namely,
- Stereo Processing: Dual processing channels for stereo effects or other create multi-tracking applications.
- 4 BRR Filter Modes: 4 filter modes from the BRR sample playback engine that act as low-pass filters.
- Gaussian Interpolation Filter: A filter that removes high-frequency content and adds subtle distortion. This filter provides the muffling character that fans of SNES audio will find familiar.
Features
See the Manual for more information about the features of this module.
Super Echo is a Eurorack module that emulates the echo effect from the S-SMP sound chip on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES).The Echo effect of the S-SMP chip has 15 different delay levels of 16ms each, a 64KB echo buffer, an 8-tap FIR filter for shaping the sound of the echo, parameterized feedback, and parameterized dry / wet mix level. The echo buffer is stereo, although the echo parameters and coefficients of the FIR filter are the same for both channels.
Super Echo provides the key features of the echo module of the S-SMP chip, namely,
- Stereo Processing: Echo buffer for two independent inputs in stereo configuration. The parameters are the same for both inputs, but the inputs have their own dedicated echo buffers.
- Expanded Delay: The 15 levels of delay has been upgraded to 31 levels that each add an additional 16ms of delay (up to roughly 500ms). 31 levels of delay is able to fit in the RAM of the original S-SMP, but the instruction set does not normally support the addressing of 31 levels.
- Feedback: Additive and subtractive feedback following the original implementation
- Surround Effect: Stereo mixer with the ability to invert the phase of either channel resulting in odd Haas effects.
- 8-tap FIR Filter: Fully parameterized 8-tap FIR filter for shaping the sound of the echo. The filter can be parameterized as low-pass, high-pass, band-pass, band-stop, etc. and includes presets with filter parameters from popular SNES games.
Features
See the Manual for more information about the features of this module.