Sound hardware

Overview

The programmable sound generator found inside the NES and Famicom is located inside the CPU chip (called 2A03 for NTSC and 2A07 for PAL).

- The 2A03/2A07 sound is explained on this page

External sound hardware

The Famicom had the possibillity to mix audio from cartridges, this was used by some games to add extra sound channels from chips in cartridges. Some of these chips are supported by famitracker and is enabled from the module properties dialog. Multiple expansion chips enabled at the same time is at this moment not supported.

To create instruments for these channels, select the channel with the pattern cursor and then add new instrument.

The following sections explains the hardware and instruments:

- Nintendo MMC5
- Konami VRC6
- Konami VRC7
- Nintendo FDS
- Namco 163

One chip is still unsupported: Sunsoft 5B.

Note: External sound was not possible on the NES hardware, so songs containing external sound are not strictly NES sound. Also do not try to use expansion chips in PAL mode.

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