The Formats Used

Adlib tunes need AdPlug to play correctly on modern systems. The Adlib was one of the first PC sound cards and used Yamaha's OPL2 FM sound chip. Most people wrote it off as incapable of any sound except for bleeps and harsh clangs. Later, in the 90's, I found this wasn't true and began writing my own music for it.

Chiptunes are often in the same format as the sample-based modules, only the samples consist mainly of short simple waveform loops. Sometimes lo-fi digitized drums are added. The filesizes are only a few kilobytes. Often, these are written for contests. They typically only take an hour or less to write-- often competitions are limited to a half hour. Ideally, the number of channels (notes at a time) used is also small. Arpeggio effects are used to simulate chords or to roughly change the tone of the waveforms. Chiptunes are best played with interpolation set to none. If the chiptune sounds too noisy, a lowpass filter can be used to limit the high frequencies.

MP3 Sample