Turbulent
By ess on February 1, 2026 10:58 pm
MIDINES + Konami VRC7 expansion chip emulation
The Japanese version of the NES (Famicom) had support for expansion audio, which let 3rd parties add more sound channels via external hardware in (for example) the game cartridge. One of the most unusual expansion chips was the VRC7 by Konami, it implemented 6 channels of 2-Operator FM synthesis via an onboard Yamaha sound chip.
You can play around with the VRC7 and other expansion chips in Furnace Tracker, but I wanted to use the MIDINES alongside an emulated VRC7– so I whipped up a VST3 plugin that wraps Nuked's OPLL (YM2413) emulation – the VRC7 is based on this chip, and Nuked conveniently made a mode that emulates it specifically.
So everything in this track is the (real hardware) MIDINES alongside 6 virtual voices of the VRC7. I worked with the emulation plugin much like the MIDINES, just straight up MIDI and some automation, velocity for volume. No fancy mixing here. 
And what did I make? Some cheesy eurotrance or something. I'm sorry.
In any case, this was a super fun setup and the lo-fi FM pairs really well with the sound of the 2A03.
<3
Audio works licensed by author under:
CC Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works (BY-NC-ND)