2A03
Every page on the site

Nineteen pieces, six sections

The complete run, in section order. Each line is one page.

Five voices and no more

The Chip · 3 pieces

  1. 1.1Two pulse, a triangle, some noise and a sampleThe 2A03 gives a composer two pulse channels with four duty cycles, one triangle with no volume control, a noise channel and a DPCM sample channel. Everything written for the console lives inside that.
  2. 1.2A bass line you cannot make quieterThe triangle channel has no volume envelope at all, which is why NES bass either plays or stops, and why composers used it for percussion as well.
  3. 1.3The Noise Channel Is a Shift Register PretendingNoise comes from a linear-feedback shift register with a short mode that produces a metallic pitch rather than a hiss — which is why NES drums sound like that.

The year the hardware fixed the sound

1983 · 3 pieces

  1. 2.1The console shipped in 1983 and the audio was already fixedThe Famicom's launch froze the sound hardware for the console's whole life, so every later advance had to come from the cartridge or from the composer.
  2. 2.2The audio was cheap because it had to beThe 2A03 puts the sound unit on the CPU die to save parts, and the compromises in it are a bill-of-materials decision before they are a musical one.
  3. 2.3The sample channel cost more than it was worthDPCM playback steals CPU cycles and cartridge space, so it was mostly spent on a kick and a snare rather than on melody.

What composers did once they knew the limits

The Peak · 4 pieces

  1. 3.1Writing a theme people can hum after one hearingKoji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda scores are built for repetition at length without fatigue, which is a harder constraint than melody.
  2. 3.2Atmosphere out of a chip that had noneHirokazu Tanaka's Metroid score uses the noise channel and detuned pulses to build unease rather than tune, which was not what the hardware was expected to do.
  3. 3.3A chord on a machine with no chordsWith one voice per channel, a chord has to be played as a very fast arpeggio — the sound everybody now recognises as chiptune.
  4. 3.4The score people cite when they argue about the bestMega Man 2 (1988) is the usual reference for what the chip could do once composers had five years of practice on it.

Writing for it now

Trackers · 3 pieces

  1. 4.1The tool the scene actually usesFamiTracker and the 0CC fork write for the real chip rather than emulating a sound, which is why output can be played back on hardware.
  2. 4.2Music preserved as code, not as audioAn NSF file contains the player routine and the data, so it is executed rather than decoded. That is why the format survives emulator changes.
  3. 4.3Writing Music as TextMusic Macro Language describes a score as characters, a tradition older than the console and still used for chip work.

The chip after the console

Now · 3 pieces

  1. 5.1Cartridges that Brought Their Own ChannelsKonami's VRC6, Sunsoft's 5B and Namco's 163 added voices from inside the cartridge, which is why some Famicom titles sound impossible on a stock console.
  2. 5.2Getting it wrong is easy and audibleBand-limited synthesis, the non-linear mixer and the DMC's CPU stealing are the details that separate an accurate emulator from a plausible one.
  3. 5.3Playing a Chip on StagePerformers drive real hardware live rather than playing a rendered file, which puts the console's timing on stage with them.

The other chips, and the trades they made

Rivals · 3 pieces

  1. 6.1A chip with filters, and a personality to matchThe Commodore 64's SID has three voices but a resonant filter and real envelopes, so its music sounds nothing like the NES despite the same era.
  2. 6.2The chip that was everywhere elseThe AY-3-8910 turns up in arcade boards, home computers and handhelds, which makes it the most-heard chip almost nobody names.
  3. 6.3A fourth channel, and headphonesThe Game Boy's audio adds a wavetable channel and, crucially, was heard through headphones — which changed how people wrote for it.