Hello. I’ve been creating music for a possible homebrew project, and I have zero programming knowledge, which has lead me to a couple of questions:
1) What is the most common program for creating chip music? (I’ve been using beepbox, due to its simple user interface and simple accessibility). As a follow up, what is, in your opinion, the best method, (for quality, options, and similarity to the originals) and separately, what is the simplest method? (Easiest user interface)
2) For development and programming purposes what file format is best for a programmer?
3) Through what program or method are game sounds developed?
Thanks in advance, and I apologize if this question is old and tired.
Use Famitracker. It's really good.
Having no knowledge of how the NES APU functions, is beepbox (and all its sound options) compatible?
I will try that out. Thank you. Edit: I think I should have been more articulate about my disposition. I’ve, at this point, developed 15 tracks in beepbox. I like the way they sound, but I don’t know whether or not the final product is compatible, and if it isn’t, how I could make it so.
Not immediately, no. Beepbox is not Famitracker. The two have similarities but there is no "conversion tool" or the like. You will likely understand most of the instrument tweaking in Famitracker if you are familiar with Beepbox, however.
Knowing that they are similar is very helpful. Do you know whether or not beepbox would be compatible with the NES APU?
Some of it yes, some of it I can't tell (lean towards no). The conundrum: you're asking folks not familiar with Beepbox "is this thing like Beepbox?" while we're telling you "you should try Famitracker", which is a thing you aren't familiar with. Essentially no answer is going to suffice because we're talking past each other. In short: try out Famitracker.
From what I can see, Beepbox is a generic chip music composer that is able to play sounds similar to those generated by the NES and other retro systems. It has its own data format for saving songs, that you can't directly use on the NES. Assuming you compose songs using only the features the NES APU is guaranteed to support, you'd have to code a conversion script to turn that data into something usable by one of the existing NES music engines or your own engine.
Famitracker on the other hand, is a tool made specifically for the NES/Famicom APU (and expansion chips), that exports code/data ready to be included in any NES program. Granted, Famitracker's playback engine isn't the greatest (EDIT: in terms of speed, size and sound effect support), but there are other engines out there that are able to play songs converted from Famitracker's output (not all of Famitracker's functions are supported in this case).