Conference Agenda

Musical notation is a necessary tool for providing information to performers and musicologists alike, but is not without limitations. By design, it has a bias towards Western music. Rhythms are easiest to transcribe when they are easily divided into measures; pitches are communicated almost exclusively through a twelve-tone equal-tempered system. When music operates within technological systems that resist these assumptions—such as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), whose five-channel audio processing unit (APU) allows distinctive approaches to timbre, polyphony, rhythm, and texture—it raises many notational questions, specifically how to notate music that was written for a sound chip rather than an acoustic instrument.

Introduced as the Famicom in Japan in 1983, the NES was released in North America in 1985. This 8-bit console’s sound capabilities were limited to two pulse waves with variable widths, a triangle wave, a white noise generator, and a DPCM channel capable of playing 1-bit samples. In response to these challenges that arose from these idiosyncrasies, this paper focuses on the process, methods, and challenges of transcribing the essential musical and timbral information of NES music without having to rely on source-code analysis.

The NES music catalog can be divided into three categories that all benefit from different methods of transcription. 1) Music that is compromised by the restrictions of the NES. Games such as the original Final Fantasy were inspired by common-practice classical music, and the composers attempted to translate it to adhere to the restrictions of the NES. 2) Games whose soundtracks resemble popular music, and use synthetic timbres for special effects. This is common in series such as Mega Man and Castlevania, which have very pop/rock-inspired soundtracks. These present some difficulty when communicating how the noise channel (and sometimes triangle channel) is simulating percussion. 3) Games whose soundtracks are written idiomatically for the NES by experimenting with the nuances to make their own unique timbres and special effects. Silver Surfer and other games by Tim and Geoff Follin experiment with timbre by quickly adjusting the pulse widths, detuning pitch, and writing musical passages that are impossible for human performers.

The sound of Nintendo’s Famicom game console (“NES” outside Japan) is foundational to video game music, inaugurating many of its most iconic themes. Despite its iconic sound, the Famicom’s timbral capabilities remain undertheorized. “Four Channels and the Truth – Analyzing Timbre in 8-Bit Chiptune Music” explores the creation of an analytical lexicon of 8-bit timbral techniques and applies it to three case studies.

Both aural transcriptions and on-the-staff notation typically prioritize pitch and rhythm over timbre. Rendering 8-bit timbral techniques legible requires loading the game’s programming code (.nsf files) in “tracker” software. FamiStudio, a cross-platform Famicom tracker and synthesizer, provides a productive platform for analyzing and visualizing 8-bit timbral techniques. Methodologically, Roman numeral analysis provides a fitting analogy for an analytical timbral lexicon, concisely conveying a wealth of musical information including mode, root motion, voice leading, and phrase expectations through standardized symbols. Analogously, this analytical lexicon concisely conveys the 8-bit timbral technique used along with its musically-relevant parameters. Additionally, these terms should work equally well in standalone prose, annotating on-the-staff notation, or analyzing an .nsf file in a tracker.

Three case studies illustrate the analytical potential of this 8-bit timbral lexicon:

1. Mother, ‘Melody 3 – Monkey’: The Square 1 channel exhibits +2/-3 oscillating detuning, while Square 2 has wider descending gestures of -1/-6 and +5/+1. Together, the two evocatively suggest a monkey singing.
2. Bionic Commander, ‘Boss Introduction’: The Triangle and Square 2 channels are paired, featuring a 1-frame cross-channel echo (“D1”) to create a frenetic affect. Additionally, the Triangle channel is voiced above Square 2 when it would usually be the bass.
3. Fire Emblem Gaiden, ‘Final Map BGM (CP)’: The Triangle channel bass line rapidly arpeggiates in octaves (“A12”) to facilitate the track’s eerie affect. Square 1 and Square 2 are paired in a 1-frame echo (“D1”) with 0/-2 oscillating detuning, suggesting a high, reverberant wail.

By writing idiomatically for 8-bit chiptune, game composers approached the Famicom not as a medium of primitive technological constraint, but rather a gateway to limitless sonic possibilities.

“Creativity under constraint” has become the catchphrase of scholarship on 8-bit video game music (Collins 2008). Subsequent research follows two primary trajectories: one focused on harmonic and motivic analysis through western notation (Elkins 2023; Grasso 2020; Anatone [ed.] 2023), and another on technical reconstructions at the level of assembly implementation (Schartmann 2018, 2025; McAlpine 2019; Altice 2015). Chang’s (2025) article continues this technical inquiry, emphasizing the noise channel to inform percussion orchestration through FFT analysis.

Building on Chang’s work, this paper proposes a signal-based methodology for modeling the dynamic behavior of the NES noise-channel. The channel operates through three parameters: frequency, duration, and dynamics. While Chang’s scholarship provides accessible means of observing frequency and duration, the dynamic parameter remains comparatively undertheorized. Analyzing amplitude presents particular challenges, since the NES’s internal Triangle-Noise-DMC mixing alters the amplitude before final amplification, complicating direct observation of register-level dynamic settings.

A histogram analysis is used to observe the dynamic properties of NES noise. Histograms display the distribution of audio samples by amplitude, allowing dynamic behavior to be understood in terms of distributional shape rather than isolated peaks. From these distributions, root mean square (RMS) values are calculated to model average amplitude levels. RMS values and histograms generated from the console are compared with emulated noise signals to infer the hexadecimal code. In conjunction with FFT analysis, this method enables a systematic account of all three parameters–frequency, duration, and dynamic envelope–yielding a more integrated representation of programmed noise.

Taken together, the integrated analysis of frequency, duration, and amplitude demonstrates that dynamic balance in NES percussion was structurally encoded at the register level rather than merely inferred by ear. Because many composers modeled drum-kit idioms drawn from popular music (Chang 2025), amplitude settings shape perceived balance, genre inflection, and timbral hierarchy. Distributional analysis therefore enables dynamic relationships among noise-based percussion sounds to be examined as compositional decisions rather than technical artifacts. More broadly, this framework highlights the need for a notational system capable of mediating between perceptual intuition and signal-based precision–an issue increasingly central to questions of game-music preservation (Lowood 2023; Rebillard 2024).