How to Achieve a Retro SNES Sound Using Ableton Live
Hey everyone, Azakaela here with another blog post attempting to blow your socks off — but this time it’s for the musicians and music producers out there (I like musicians not wearing socks… I guess).
Anyway….
Let’s say you want to make some music that sounds like it came straight from the 90s, straight from a video game and sounded just like that ever-relevant-yet-enigmatic console — THE SUPER NINTENDO.
Now, I’ve been way into the SNES ever since I was a youngin’ and it was always a dream of mine to make the kind of music that you hear from this era of video games. Over the years, I’ve experimented and found a way that is simple and will yield pretty authentic results, as well. I have created many tracks using this method, including two free sound packs available on my itch.io store (Froggi’s Adventure, inspired by Yoshi’s Island and Hellkeeper, inspired by Super Castlevania 4).
Well, if you share my obsession with that retro SNES sound and want to make music of your own that sounds this way, then I’ve got some good news…
Hang on, because I’m about to sound like clickbait…
USING THIS ONE SIMPLE TRICK (in 5 easy steps!), you can achieve this sound easily.
STEP 1: Find and Download a Sound Font
Go to williamkage.com/snes_soundfonts/ and select and download a soundfont. There’s several dozen to choose from—the list isn’t entirely complete but this is a fantastic resource for finding SNES sounds.
STEP 2: Download A Free Plugin to Load Your Sound Fonts
Download the SFORZANDO VST and add it to your VST Plugin Library.
https://www.plogue.com/products/sforzando.html
This will load any SoundFont Files you need.
STEP 3: Accessing Your Instruments
Load up your up your DAW, throw SFORZANDO on a track and then click on instrument. After that, import and select your SoundFont file — the first time you do this, it will ask you to enter a directory where it can store its relevant processing files—but from there you’ll be able to open a drop down menu to select which instrument from the game’s SoundFont you would like to use.
STEP 4 (Optional): Copy, Make a Template
I highly recommend copying your SFORZANDO track and going through each one and making a template that has all the sounds at the ready, so each is loaded up with its own instrument — then rename the tracks so you don’t get confused about which instrument is which.
STEP 5: Create!
Time to make that sweet new track with a retro, SNES sound! You’ll notice from the get go that you’re using these highly compressed wav files that sound just like they’ve been emitted from a SNES console.
From there, you can go ahead and start creating the retro soundtrack of your dreams!
That’s it for today, folks—I hope this was a helpful resource, and shoutout to William Kage for making such an amazing site with such great resources for music creation.
‘Til next time.
—Azakaela
If you liked this article, please consider supporting me by following me here on Medium.
I make music and sounds for indie games and other creative projects, and I also write about games, music, and creativity. If you’re interested in free music and soundtracks that can be used in your creative projects, consider signing up for my newsletter.
Thank you SO MUCH for supporting independent artists and creatives!
