MD Synth DAW

Write music for the Sega Mega Drive

Or just make music with the same limits the console had. The YM2612, the SN76489 and the sample channel are the instruments, and the hardware stays in front of you the whole time.

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Version 1.0.1 · Windows, macOS and Linux · Free and open source

The instruments

Eleven channels, the ones the console has

Six FM channels, three squares, the noise and the sample channel. Each keeps its own colour everywhere it turns up in the app.

FM1FM

FM2FM

FM3FM

FM4FM

FM5FM

FM6FM

PSG1square

PSG2square

PSG3square

NOISEnoise

DACsample

YM2612 six four-operator FM channels, one of them able to play samplesSN76489 three square waves and a noise channel

The hardware stays in view

Draw a note the chip can't sound and it's hatched in the piano roll straight away, with a warning that clicks through to the note that caused it. Hover an FM parameter to see the register it writes and the raw value.

What you hear is what you export

One part of the program makes every register write. Playback, the export, the register timeline and the hardware meters all read that same stream, so nothing can quietly drift.

Small, with nothing to install

An 8 MB program next to a copy of SDL. No runtime, no framework, no .NET, no Electron and no Java. Download it and run it, or keep the portable copy on a USB stick.

Composing

Write the way you already do

Patterns on a playlist, a piano roll with lanes underneath it, and a tracker view of the same notes in hexadecimal rows. If you've used FL Studio, most of it will feel familiar.

A playlist of clips over named tracks, each with a colour and an icon
A scale and key, snap, and zoom to fit
Plug in a MIDI keyboard to play or record the selected channel
Undo and redo on everything, drags included

The piano roll, with a velocity strip under it

Sound design

An FM editor that shows the wiring

Every operator has its envelope drawn and its values in reach, and the algorithm is drawn as separate wires. Automation lanes write straight to the chip's registers.

Preset banks you can search, group, sort and filter
A square editor beside the FM one
Automation points that curve into the next point

The automation editor next to the FM synthesizer

Watching the hardware

See what the console sees

A scope for every channel, a register timeline that says which chip took each write, and a meter showing how much of the console the song uses.

Waveform or spectrum in the scope
Three output stages: the chip alone, the Mega Drive or the Mega Drive 2
Play through a driver, paced the way the console's own sound driver would

The scope, with a lane for every channel

In and out

Bring music in, and get it back out

Import a VGM and get notes, presets, square envelopes and samples back, with the timing, vibrato and slides kept as the file wrote them. Export for the console or for everyone else.