Plogue Chipsounds

Plogue has released Chipsounds, a virtual chipsounds synthesizer plug-in for Windows and Mac.

This new product allow any musician to faithfully reproduce the sound and style of vintage video game music and sound effects in a convenient plugin format, usable inside any sequencer or DAW, or as a standalone virtual instrument.

Powered by Plogue/Garritan’s ARIA virtual instrument engine, chipsounds reproduces the idiosyncrasies of the most sought-after classic sound chips, including their most well-known variations, as sonically accurate as possible without adding any non-authentic aliasing or DSP artifacts. Whether musicians are already versed into chiptune/chip music or just interested in those sounds, this is one unique instrument for them.

Research and analysis for this project has been made in house on Plogue’s large collection of cartridges, modified consoles and classic computers and also on the chips themselves using custom made circuit boards and low level 8 bit software code.

Chipsounds simulates the following chips

  • TIA used in the 2600 & 7800
    • Accurate Multipulse/Polynomial bit pattern waveforms for those unique combat, engine drones and powerful mix piercing “fake-saw” sound.
  • 2A03 and its portable variant, used in the Big N consoles
    • Accurate pulse width settings (1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4).
    • Drawable 4bit/32 step bandlimited Waveform.
    • Huge number custom and classic waveforms to choose from, including the unique triangle sound of the Big “N”.
    • Short (93/127bit) and Long (32767bit) noise patterns accurately modeled.
  • AY-3-8910 and its numerous clones 8912/8913/8914/2149F, used in Intv, ZX, ST, Arcades
    • Emulation of Sync Buzzer Envelope Looping tricks.
    • Accurate logarithmic 4Bit DAC.
  • POKEY used in 400/800 series computer and Arcades
    • Fat and accurate Multipulse/Polynomial bit pattern waveforms with clock desynchronization.
  • SN76489AN and its SN76496 SN94624N predecessor, used in the ColecoVision, SMS, BBC, TI99, PCjr, Tandy and Arcades
    • Basic and RAW, the purest chip there is.
    • Different NOISE patterns for all variants, all emulated.
  • UVI used in the Arcadia 2001
    • A rarity that can prove effective in the grinding department with its logical anding of pulse and noise patterns (As used in the Arcadia 2001 and MPT-03).
  • P824X used in the Odyssey 2
    • Obscure chip that oddly only plays the scale of E5 (slightly detuned).
    • And the subtle psychoacoustic sound of screaming at the start of its noise pattern.
  • SID including 6580 and 8580, used in the C64
    • The most important sound chip of the 80’s gaming era.
    • Variable Pulsewidth, SAW, Triangle, 8bit noise and even combined waveforms.
    • Most waveforms are actually SAMPLES of the real thing for 100% accuracy, especially for the combined waveforms.
  • VIC-I used in the VIC20
    • This chip is very underhestimated gem with tolally unique sounding waveforms.
    • Newly discovered “Robotic” waveforms are emulated.
    • Rough, nasty noise pattern too.

Chipsounds is available for PC and Mac (VST/AU/RTAS) for the introductory price of $75 USD until November 1, 2009.

More information: Plogue / Chipsounds