BITCADE Retro Synth & SFX Generator

Make retro game sounds in seconds. Make chiptune music for hours.

Bitcade is a synthesizer in the style of classic 8-bit and 16-bit game consoles. Use it two ways:

• as a standalone app for game developers: pick a category, click RANDOM, tweak, and drag the finished WAV straight into your project
• as a VST3 instrument in your DAW for chiptune music

Sound effects in three clicks

1. Pick a category: Coin, Jump, Laser, Explosion, Power-Up, Hit, Blip, Bass, Lead, Percussion or Anything.
2. Click RANDOM. The new sound plays instantly. Almost right? Click MUTATE for a small variation.
3. Click DRAG and drop the WAV file into your game engine, your DAW or any folder. Done.

• Locks for wave, envelope and pitch: keep what you like, re-roll the rest.
• Undo and redo through your last 100 sounds. A good sound is never lost.
• Shortcuts: R = random, M = mutate, Space = play again, Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y = undo / redo.

Variants: 8 versions of a sound in one click

Coins, hits and footsteps get boring when the same sound plays a hundred times. Click VARIANTS and Bitcade makes 4, 8 or 16 versions of your sound: the same sound, slightly different each time.

• Click a tile to listen, untick the ones you don't like.
• Each version gets a slightly different pitch and length. Choose how different they are (low, mid, high) and optionally spread the pitch further by 1 or 2 semitones.
• DRAG ALL drops all versions into your game at once, neatly numbered (Coin_C5_01.wav, Coin_C5_02.wav …).
• Locked parts (wave, envelope, pitch) stay the same in every version.

A real chip synth for music

• CHIP engine with four classic sound sources: pulse wave (12.5 / 25 / 50 / 75 %), stepped 4-bit triangle, noise (long hiss or short metallic loop) and a 32-step wavetable with 8 shapes.
• Draw your own waveform right on the screen: 32 steps, 16 levels.
• Clean or Raw: Clean is smooth and band-limited. Raw is the gritty, unfiltered original style.
• Volume envelope (attack, decay, sustain, release) with an optional 16-step mode, just like old sound chips.
• Pitch tricks: pitch sweep (up to ±48 semitones), vibrato with delay, portamento.
• Arpeggiator: Up, Down, Up/Down, As Played. Free speed in Hz or synced to your DAW tempo (1/4 to 1/64, including triplets).
• 8 voices, with Poly, Mono and Legato modes.
• Plays like an instrument: velocity, pitch bend (adjustable range up to ±24 semitones), mod wheel for vibrato, sustain pedal.
• Lo-fi section: bit depth from 16 down to 1 bit, sample rate from 48 kHz down to 500 Hz.
• Four engines: CHIP (console sound), COMPUTER (8-bit home computer sound: sawtooth, smoothly variable pulse width, PWM, ring modulation, oscillator sync), FM (16-bit FM sound: 4 operators with their own envelopes, 8 algorithms, feedback, 4 waveforms per operator) and SAMPLE (16-bit console sampler with soft interpolation and 4-bit crunch).
• Every engine has its own look: the whole window changes colour with the engine (and greets you with a little start message), so you always know which sound chip is playing.
• 18 built-in samples (orchestra hit, choir, strings, brass, organ, flute, basses, harp, piano, nylon guitar, bell, marimba, drums) – or drag your own WAV onto the window. Your sample is saved with the project and your presets.
• Filter, echo and reverb: low-pass and high-pass filter with resonance and a per-note filter sweep, tempo-synced echo (dotted and triplet values, too), reverb from small room to large hall. All included in the WAV export.
• Built-in limiter keeps the output from clipping.
• 120 factory presets, 30 for each engine (93 for music, 27 sound effects), neatly grouped by engine and category. Save as many of your own as you like.

WAV export

• 44.1, 22.05 or 11.025 kHz. 8, 16 or 24 bit. Mono, optionally normalized.
• Export with a save dialog, or drag the sound straight out of the window.