Music for games, with no wrong notes.

The sequencer I make my games' soundtracks with: parts that come in and out depending on what's happening on screen.

See how it's built

Where it comes from

I know nothing about music, so I built myself a place where wrong notes don't exist: pick a scale, minor, harmonic minor, Phrygian or Dorian, and the rest follows.

It started as a tab inside Bombozzi, the editor I make my games with. Then it grew, and now it's a studio of its own: it opens in the browser, saves in the browser, and exports so you can take it elsewhere.

The sequencer

Each theme has its stems, each with its own wave, volume and condition. Below, the hit grid: you switch on the steps and the row on the left says which instrument.

Every part knows when to come in

A stem is one part of the music: the drums, the bass, an organ. In Gattofrigi each one has a condition, and it only plays while that condition is true.

It can be the intensity of the moment, a fight, the boss, or a value from the game: the «Hunger organ» comes in when blood drops below 55, the «Magnetic withdrawal» when drugs go under 40. Whoever is playing sees none of this. They just hear that the music knows what's going on.

Four rooms

Sequencer

Themes, stems and a hit grid of 16, 32 or 64 steps. Reverb, echo and sidechain on every stem. MIDI in and out.

Arrangement

Themes in a row, intro, drop, bridge and ending, each repeated as many times as needed. The whole track comes out as a WAV.

Live

One clock: whatever you launch comes in on time and in key. Energy, filter, your own WAV or MP3 samples, and a record button.

SFX

The sound effects workshop: jump, hit, coin, door, boss. Each one is a wave, two frequencies and a duration, and regenerates with a click.

Live: the drawer of each theme's parts. Press one and it drops in on the beat.

SFX: the game's sound effects, one per row. The little triangle plays them, the die rolls a new one.

Twelve styles so you never start from nothing

The Generate button writes a four bar theme in one of twelve styles: techno, house, trance, drum and bass, hip hop, chiptune, synthwave, goa, metal, funk, ambient and dungeon. Each style has its own rules, four on the floor, the broken break, the double kick, and the fill lands in the last bar.

What comes out is playable straight away, but it's a starting point: then I touch it up, which is the fun part. The same seed gives back the same track, so nothing gets lost.

Where it stands

I use it for the music in my games. For now it isn't open to everyone.

WHERE IT WAS BORN

Bombozzi, the editor and engine behind my games. Gattofrigi grew up inside it.

THE BOMBOZZI CASE STUDY