FamiStudio NES Music Editor

FamiStudio is very simple music editor for the Nintendo Entertainment System or Famicom. It is designed to be easier to use than FamiTracker, but its feature set is also much more limited. It is targeted at both chiptune artists and NES homebrewers.

Features

• Modern DAW-style UI with sequencer and piano roll, no hexadecimal anywhere
• Instrument & Envelope edition
• NSF import
• DPCM sample editor (WAV and DMC support)
• Full Undo/Redo support
• Copy & Paste support
• Note drag & drop with audio preview
• Import from FamiTracker FTM & Text (official 0.4.6)
• Export to various formats (WAV, ROM, NSF, FamiTone2, FamiStudio Text, FamiTracker Text)
• Volume, fine pitch, vibrato effect tracks
• Slide notes (portamento)
• Arpeggios
• NES sound engine (CA65, NESASM, ASM6)
• MIDI input support
• MIDI import/export
• Audio expansions supported: VRC6, VRC7, FDS, MMC5, Namco 163 & Sunsoft S5B.
• Windows, MacOS and Linux versions.

Latest Release

Fixes in 3.0.2 (Latest hotfix release)

• Fixed crash when pasting past the end of an envelope
• Fixed FamiTracker (FTM/TXT) import when a jump or skip effect is exactly at row 255
• Fixed FamiStudio currupting the keyboard state on some european keyboards
• Fixed oscilloscope vertical orientation in toolbar + video export
• Fixed crash when using 150% scaling on Linux
• Fixed crash when parsing FamiStudio text file using VRC6 expansion.
• Fixed fine effect adjustment (shift + drag) again
• Stopping all audio when undo/redo happens to change the selected song
• Showing all 8 channels when importing MIDI using N163 expansion
• Added error message when trying to import a corrupted WAV file
• Made auto-scrolling when selecting more gradual in both sequencer and piano roll.

Fixes in 3.0.1

• Fixed crash on startup on Linux when RtMidi fails to initialize
• Fixed fine effect adjustment (SHIFT + drag) when multiple values are selected
• Fixed race condition when stopping song playback that could cause a crash
• Fixed small OpenGL leaks
• Fixed pattern duplication when CTRL+SHIFT were already pressed when starting the drag
• Fixed import of MIDI files containing polyphonic key pressure events
• Fixed duplicated labels when exporting projects containing multiple songs to Famitone2 or FamiStudio sound engine
• Fixed crash when double clicking or left clicking in some cells of grids
• Fixed export of VRC6 duty cycles to FamiTracker
• Properly shutting down MIDI input on Windows
• Adding error message when trying to import NSF using multiple expansion chips

New features in 3.0.0 (Latest major release)

• Redesigned FamiStudio tempo
• Redesigned note editing
• MIDI import/export support
• Oscilloscope in toolbar
• Optional scrollbars
• Revamped Mac version
• 1/2 and 1/4 playback speed
• Configurable QWERTY keyboard keys
• Improved sound engine music data compression (15-30% smaller)
• Audio expansion volume/low-pass filter configuration
• S5B and VRC7 and now properly low-pass filtered
• Ability to re-order songs
• Hi-DPI support on Linux
• Quick DPCM source data reload
• Improved video rendering speed

Breaking/behavior changes:

• Setting a zero volume on the volume track of the triangle channel will now stop the sound. This was always the intention (this is what SoundEngine/NSF and FamiTracker does) but it was not correctly implemented inside FamiStudio.

Release trailer

Download

Download links

Windows Installer Windows Portable EXE	MacOS Bundle	FlatHub Linux AMD64 Binaries	NES Sound Engine (CA65, NESASM, ASM6)

Installation Instructions

• On Windows simply download and run the installer (Setup.exe). A shortcut to FamiStudio and the included demo songs will be added to your Start Menu. If you get a warning when installing or if the app crashes when running, please check out the documentation for the fix.
• On macOS, download and uncompress the file anywhere and the launch FamiStudio app. The demo songs and included in the zip. The app is unsigned and might require you to ignore a few warning.
• On Linux, the FlatHub page contains the instructions, if installing from the ZIP file please read the installation instructions.

Demo Songs

A few demo songs are included in the installation folder (typically C:\Program Files (x86)\FamiStudio). Songs with no author are my approximate re-creations, based on the NSF.

• After The Rain (by Shiru, included with FamiTone2)
• Danger Streets (by Shiru, included with FamiTone2)
• Dedricil - Full Soundtrack (by How2Bboss. Thanks!!!)
• Layla : The Iris Missions - Iris (by Supper, my approximate recreation)
• Tower of Heaven - Indignant Divinity (Flashygoodness, cover by Danooct1. Thanks!!!)
• Mega Man 2 - Stage Select & Dr. Wily's Castle
• Journey To Silius - Intro
• DuckTales! - The Moon
• Castlevania 2 - Bloody Tears
• Shovel Knight - Strike the Earth! (Plains of Passage)
• Shatterhand - Final Stage
• Gimmick - Strange Memories of Death
• Silver Surfer : BGM2
• Gradius II - Farewell
• Gyruss - Stage 2
• FamiStudio - Tutorial Song (song created in tutorial)

Documentation

Please visit documentation page for detailed documentation.

Getting Started

Here is a 1h video tutorial that will show you how to create a basic song from scratch.

Source Code

The entire source code is available on GitHub.

Contact & Social Media