How to Turn any song into a 8-bit/16-bit (retro video game) sound.
8- bit noises you hear them in the distance
You like those clacks and noises from 8 bit/16 bit songs aye?
Does the sound track from ninja gaiden make you want to cream your pants?
You like that style but you want to make music(well copy music and put noises over the music) into that type of sound!
You do not know how to make it. =(
Well your in luck! I got a quick and easy way to make any song that you want into a song that sounds like it is from a nes or a genesis.
Grab the program
FL studio
There is a million and 1 websites where you can get fl studios or you can buy it. This is up to you!
Let it download.
Choose a song.
For my song I chose.
Blind Melon - No Rain
Now you can do 1 or 2 things with next step. You have to convert your music to MIDI.
You can grab music from
http://www.vgmusic.com/
Which has music that is already MIDI
no point in grabbing something from the 8-bit era or 16 bit era
Grab something from now and see what comes out of it!
Unlike me which I did this step.
I found parts of the song
You want to look for
Bass
Drum
Guitar
Vocals
Back ground stuff.
You want to grab all of them because if you do this take one song and put it into the program it will be a garbled up mess
Once you have those parts you want to make them as a MIDI file
The quickest way to do that is
youtube to midi
https://youtube2midi.github.io/
Once you make it into a MP3 then you upload and convert it to a midi here.
http://www.ofoct.com/audio-converter/convert-wav-or-mp3-ogg-aac-wma-to-midi.html
After you do all that you want to
Download a sound font. for FL studio
Here is the one I used
it is called 8BITSF
https://musical-artifacts.com/artifacts/23
Ok once you get that put it in the sound font folder in FL studios directory.
Now it is time to use FL studio
Click on file at the top and go to new
Do not worry about all of that bullshit
Kick clap hat snare
fuck all that
you click on the little tiny dude plus right below those 4 and go to none at the top
You drag over the different MIDI parts to FL studio and you put it all in that none box If you did it right then you will have this
the different parts and their notes will be ported over to the program.
The main problem here is it is not lined up perfectly musically so you need to go to a youtube or a file and match up the parts of the music together
It takes some patience but once you do it. You will know!
The last is trying to do different effects on the sound.
I left the bass alone because it is perfect
I put a little reverb on the guitar because it was too stiff and zanky sounding.
And you can see the setting I used for vocals In my pic above
I some how managed to keep the vocals and a 8 bit sound it sounds soft but this is the first time I ever used this program! Here is the track you can listen to right here
Tell me what you think! Did I do a good job? was it horrible?
Also this content is respected by all means and owned by their own creators.
I hope you all enjoyed this piece and if you need to or want to or do not care follow me at @sinned
That's cool... Will try it out for sure 😁
Do it and let me know about it please =)
I loved your post, the song of Blind melon had never listened to that retro version !!
Right
There is all these classic songs and they do not get any retro love.
Pretty neat, I learned something new today!
Since you asked though I'll provide a little constructive feedback on your 8-bit version. First off, you nailed the sound style very well - I think the sound font works perfectly here and it comes across in the song. However as tends to be the case with automatic conversions like this I think there was something lost in the translation, so to speak. The mix sounds a bit more cluttered and unfocused than the original song, and in some areas I'm not sure what part I'm supposed to really be paying attention to.
Consider this 8-bit cover of Poker Face:
Notice how you can pretty clearly hear the melody, and that throughout the song you can pretty easily pick out which instruments are the foreground and background? That's along the lines of what I'm thinking. You could probably accomplish this to a certain extent by playing around with the mix, maybe even with just some volume and panning adjustments. Of course I think you could get an even better result by re-writing the parts yourself but that's not exactly quick.
Even so, I still think it's pretty cool. Your post is making me want to get back into music production since I haven't done it for a while (I just do it as a hobby). Guess I'll have to go make some time for that :)
I think you should get back into it and let me know when you do I like to see new things people are creating.
My way of doing this is I like my stuff to have a grimey-industrial-muddy sound. It is not the best it is not the most perfect it is not the most clean sounding. It does not work really good with 8 bit sounds. I am sorry I didnt matchup with your techniques. If you want we could get together sometime and talk about sound structure so I mix my way with your way. I cannot rewrite the parts because it is the music from a midi file id be making it for like a day and a half. My mix. I ALSO skipped a couple of things because they were redundant. I tried to put the drums on there but the drums just sounded like a garbled up mess the vocals did that but I turned em into partially the singers voice and the synths mixed so it was good for what it was not the best though.
Thanks for the encouragement! I'll see if I can find some time to spend on it probably even this week.
I see what you mean with your grimey-industrial style - the way you mixed the 8-bit piece makes more sense now. I was only suggesting that since it's a cover and not a remix or something else that similarity to the original piece might be a little more important. My point was that there's a very apparent style difference between the two.
Nothing wrong with your style, so no need to apologize :) I'll send you an example of my stuff when I get a chance. I think it would be cool to collaborate or at least talk styles mixing sometime!
Where can I contact you steemit chat discord what works best with you!??!?!?!?!
Yes I got a lot more work that is hidden that steemit does not see. I will share with you if you wish
Discord works: xerdo#0333
Loved the 8 bit music. So melodious!
I am glad you liked it it took forever to create!
It sounds good...