Retro Composition
Finale is traditionally used for scoring films or composing symphonies. Its use here is a deliberate choice to treat 8-bit music with the same gravitas as a traditional score. This approach allowed me to visualize the interactions between melodic lines and accompanying voices.
Finale helped me chart the melodies I imagined into the staff notation with which I was familiar. Composing in staff notation on Finale enabled me to better align voices/instruments to the melodic structures sought, in spite of the limited 8-bit palette available.
Finale granted the ability to create, manipulate, and combine these sounds to compose works resembling traditional music but brought to life digitally, without the need to assemble trained instrumentalists.
Digital Audio Implementation
The process of creating MIDI Quest involves a significant amount of "format shifting,” employing Finale to write his works in high-level musical notation and export them as MIDI data, which is then interpreted by a sound machine or virtual studio technology (VST) that emulates the Ricoh 2A03 sound chip native to NES gaming consoles. The resulting audio is recorded in real time and exported into an audio file (MP3).
The unique hardware limitations of the 2A03 sound chip gave its output a distinct audio characteristic, consequently defining the sound palette for an entire generation of video games in the late 1980’s and 1990’s.
The unique 8-bit sound of MIDI Quest was achieved by emulating the Ricoh 2A03 sound chip native to the NES gaming consoles popular in the 1990’s (2A07 for PAL regions). This hardware was characterized by its extreme limitations, consequently defining the sound palette for an entire generation of video games.