BeepBox Tutorial

Skullkid755 Who here likes 8 bit music? Only me I see. Who here considers it one of their favorite genres of music? Only me again, I see. here is the link to a website where you can make 8 bit music. Nah, click here for the actual link. It requires no account, so you can start using it as soon as the webpage the link is to opens up. Now that I've explained how to get there, I'm gonna explain other stuff.

Song Settings - The tempo bar controls the speed of the song as a whole. To speed up the song, slide it to the right. To slow down the song, slide it to the left. Reverb controls the amount of echo. If you're gonna make an 8 bit game, use this setting to make the cave levels and levels that would also have lots of echo sound more realistic. The key is like a guitar's tuning. Fret 1 - String 6 in Standard tuning is higher than Fret 1 - String 6 in One Step Down tuning. Going from fret 1 to fret 3 in 1 step down tuning would make it sound like Fret 1 in Standard. Same for the notes in beep box. Different key, same placement of the note, different pitch. Different key, placement of the note changed to make the same pitch, same pitch. The scale seems to mean how the horizontal bars are placed. The easy:) scale has spaces while the expert scale doesn't, and expert scale also has the most notes to pick from. The rhythm does some weird s**t, just mess with it yourself to see if you like it more or less.

Instrument Settings - The volume is pretty obvious. Left is less, right is more. Effects individual instruments, whichever one you are controlling will be effected by your choices for any instrument settings. Wave, I think it effects the shape of the sound wave. Triangle sounds like ear rape to me, but you could probably pull it off well and make it sound good. Plateau does to. But again, I think you have the potential to pull it off well somehow. Double pulse seems to add a percussive sound to each notes ending. Hard to describe some of the instrument settings. Filter seems to effect how each sound lasts. Sustain keeps the note going, decay makes it go away. Sharp seems to be stronger and soft seems to be weaker. I think chorus effects how the note sounds like itself more than once. Like two guitars playing the same chord at once. That's what a chorus pedal does on guitar so I'm sure it's the same for beep box. The sounds are hard to describe so just experiment. Effect obviously adds an effect. Vibrato seems to make the note change pitch a lot as it makes sound. Tremolo repeats the note multiple times as he plays.

Preferences Menu - Show piano shows the piano, which you can use to know how a note will sound before you put it in the song.
The note is next to the button on the piano. Highlight 5th notes highlights every fifth note for you, making navigation a bit easier. Show all channels, well I'll probably add what that does when I figure it out. For now, not gonna explain it. Octave scroll bar allows you to scroll through multiple octaves, meaning your song can use different notes that don't belong in the same key. Just realized what channels meant. Basically, you go to by default, the square with an orange 1. You place a note. You then go to the square with a blue one. You see an orange note. Basically, showing all channels means that, besides the drums, from any instrument you can see any instrument.

Edit Menu - Almost everything is self explanatory here, like undo. Except a few. If you import a JSON file that was originally a song made in beep box, you can continue working on it. Otherwise you'd have to keep up with the very long URL. Clean Slate erases all of the notes, be careful sense it doesn't prompt you if an "Are You Sure" or something like that so one mistake and all of your work is gone. Song size changes the songs speed with the beats per bar and size with bars per song.

Instruments and Patterns - Now for the basis of all music, the instruments. The blue one and uppermost one, along with the yellow and 2nd highest one, is kind of like a piano in my opinion. Just they're 8 bit pianos. The orange one, near the bottom but not all the way at the bottom, is like an 8 bit guitar. And the grey instrument at the bottom, that's the drums. Patterns are basically the individual grids the notes go on, and are represented by the numbered boxes. You can have the same instruments with different settings in different patterns by setting it up so that you can have more than one instrument in a channel.

That's about it, except for a few more things to say. You can export songs as wav, midi, and JSON files. JSON is good if you want to exit your browser and return to the song later, I know I've already said that but I said it again. You can also copy and paste the URL to keep it saved, just don't lose it. If you want to share it easily, copy and paste the URL in a post or message. It's a long URL though so it might be kind of hard at first. You might have to tell them to copy and paste it themselves into another browser sense I don't think Instagram can open up songs in beep box from personal experience. Also, experiment yourself. You might be the next big thing in electronic music (8 bit = electronic). And remember, practice makes perfect. Well, perfection is basically impossible, but practice still makes legends. If you want to get started with a sample song to edit, I'll make one for you and send it to you on band (main band is TTT Dot Com). Feel free to edit it as much as you want, feel free to download your result if you can, and feel free to share it with me and other people including in real life and on the internet. Also, don't get discouraged if you can't make anything good, I thought I was a s**t guitarist when I first started but now I'm average, which is fine for someone who's been playing for 5 months and spent at least one of those months without an amp or good picks. Making electronic/chiptune music may become your passion if you commit to it, you just don't know until you try.

Comments

I tried to link to a sample song I made but it wouldn't work since beepbox requires the original url's for songs to open them. - Skullkid755 (10/28/2017)

Eh won't do this - Martinglez (10/31/2017)

I've come across an issue: I used to be able to export the songs to my phone's files as wav. files, but nowadays if I try it they become wav.null files which I can't open or use. Would you happen to know the reason behind this issue? - Mik4el (12/27/2018)