Mini 8bit Tracker

a.k.a "Incredible simple way to make NES/8bit/retro sounds in HTML5".

What

A very small (just two classes, an object and a couple functions) library that helps you making 8bit alike sounds and/or music.

It uses basejs to write code "the way it is meant to be", WebAudio to make sounds, and the magic of micronjs for the advanced example - musixbox, a "complete" tracker with 6 channels and whatnot.

This thing is good for:

• playing sine/sawtooth/square/noisy-based sounds, using the Equal Temperament Tuning (which means you just play notes like in real instruments).
• easy to overload/change the generation functions to make any sound you want.
• friendly C-D-E-F-G-A-B/DO-RE-MI-FA-SOL-LA-SI interface for all notes.
• a bunch of generation functions already in place (the ones above plus a couple extra ones for extra funkyness).
• possibility to just make a "channel" and start playing sounds or use a complete multi-channel tracker (to load and play your .json songs).
• awesome 6 channel support! (did I mention this is alpha version? 😄 )

The base code for the audio generator is based on this. The code doesn't use oscillators or any other WebAudio fancy-shit because...

Why

Well, I wanted to explore and experiment with 8bit sounds in the browser for my games, and while sfxrjs is the best thing to create 8bit SFX (because the original sfxr is just awesome) and [bandjs](https://github. com/meenie/band.js/) is... kinda... actually, this is an overkill: not "tweakable" enough, it has too many classes/interfaces and didn't work for my purposes (make a simple tracker). Other tools (like chirp) are cool but a bit "too much for my needds". Also I was looking for a pure-code approach too, and not only something to make .wav files. So there you go!

How to use

Include minitracker.js in your project and then:

var test = new MiniTracker(TrackerBass, 1.0);
test.play('C3', 0.0);
test.play('E3', 1.0);
test.play('G3', 2.0);
test.play('C4', 3.0);

Or you can just instance an entire multitracker like this:

var yourSong = {
    tracks : [
        {
            waveFn: TrackerSine,
            soundDuration: 0.2,
            volume: 4.0,
            notes : "DO3 RE3 MI3 DO3 DO3 RE3 MI3 DO3 MI3 FA3 SOL4"
        },
        {
            waveFn: TrackerBass,
            soundDuration: 0.1,
            volume: 1.0,
            notes : "DO2 DO3 DO2 DO3 MI2 MI3 MI2 MI3 SOL2 SOL3 SOL2 SOL3 DO2 DO3 DO2 DO3 MI2 MI3 MI2 MI3 SOL2 SOL3 SOL2 SOL3"
        }
    ]
};

var multi = new MultiTracker();
multi.load(yourSong);
multi.play(0, true);

If you want to see a somehow advanced usage, check the musixbox sample.

Also, check the docs to see a quite simple and shitty API documentation.

Examples

• Pure code
• MusixBox

How to build

Coming soon!

FAQ

• Q. Is this actually useful? Depends on your needs. I'd like to keep using this for experiments.

• Q. Can this create sounds like sfxr? Depends on how well you write your generation functions, but if you just want to create SFX... keep using sfxr.

• Q. Will you develop this further or the musixbox editor? Likely not. I want to go back making games now :)

• Q. Why is the tracker/editor so shitty? Well, making an app takes time. Everything you see there is kinda proof-of-concept code (including the icons and so on). The main idea is use it to create small loops (5-10 seconds) with a limited set of channels. Also this system is kinda not ready for full games, so you are better off playing .wav files or .mp3. Or maybe not!

Who

(c) Almar. 2016. Check the license.