October - Chiptune Maker 4+

Great app! Really enjoying it.

Would you consider adding controls for the envelope and sweep on the pulse channels per NES APU specs? The combination could be used to customize the sounds further.

I’ve found the drag / drop to be a little temperamental. Sometimes the app tries to scroll when I want to drag a note.

Would you consider a mode to create/edit a note on long press? Or do it via a gesture? The context menu is ok - just slows the process a bit.

Any suggestions for creating distinct notes? I’ve tried shortening by a 16th or manually decreasing volume over time. If there were an option to release a note just before it’s duration (simulating lift) that would be helpful.

Thank you for the suggestions!

I agree not having sweep and envelope control are big omissions. When I was first building the app, these features were a little beyond my own understanding. I’m using some simple equations to generate the different waveforms right now, and I’d need to do some research into how the waves would need to change based on sweep and envelope. It’s not in my plans for the short term, but it is definitely something I want to add, because without it, it’s harder to give a song more personality.

I’m also looking into some ways to make it less work to add notes, but I just want to do it in a way where accidental input doesn’t happen too often. But perhaps I’m placing too much importance on avoiding accidental input, and not enough on just making it easy. There is a an undo feature, and a lock switch on the toolbar, so making note entry as frictionless as possible should probably be a higher priority for me.

I find that using faster tempos helps with having more control over the sound, especially on the noise channel. And on the square channels, the faster tempo allows placing multiple notes after another for switches in duty cycle and volume, which can give the notes a little more character. But I agree it’s not ideal, and having full control over the APU capabilities is the right way to go.

I have some ideas on why drag and drop is finicky and I will be looking into that soon.

Thank you again for your rating and I will keep these suggestions in mind as I work to improve the app.

UPDATE: Thanks for the reply! Double-tapping cells is currently how I am entering notes, but it would be much quicker if the note editor just stayed open until I closed it manually (e.g. with an ‘x’ button) or if there were buttons to move to the next/previous note (← / →) within the note editor.

Entering notes is very slow and involves mostly waiting for (standard system framework?) animations to finish. Otherwise a very cozy tracker at this price. Simple and well thought-out, with some very handy macros. Export to various formats is 👌.

UPDATE: I’ll look into what it would take to keep the note editor active, and allowing for moving around between notes while it’s onscreen (possibly including an option to adjust this behavior). The biggest hurdle I can think of is landscape mode for small phones, where the note editor UI is already a little cramped, but it might still be doable.

Thank you for your review! Starting in 1.8, you can also double-tap for certain actions to avoid the built-in delay of the press-and-hold context menus. For example, you can double tap to add notes or loop instances to an empty spot in the timeline, or to navigate into a loop instance on the timeline in the full song view. I will also check if some of the animations can be sped up, particularly when bringing up the note editor view.

This would honestly be the best music making app if we were able to import our own custom sounds/instruments and/or if you provided this from the get go. It’s still a wonderful app though. I use it all the time.

I’m so glad to hear you are enjoying the app! It would take some time to implement, but I plan to add support for the NES DMC channel in the editor. This would allow for samples and custom sounds, while still staying within the limitations of the NES hardware, so ASM6 code and NES ROM exports would still work. There are still some other features that will need to get finished first, but I will keep this in mind and try to make it happen as soon as possible.