Thank you, I'll bear that in mind!

Fluency with the interface of trackers is quite different from musical talent. If you are in need of the ability to construct interesting melodies, you will have to do a ton of listening. I have used nanoloop 2 to explore the general essence of every scale (I have come up with 9 really catchy melodies). If you set the notes of the scale you want to get to know by ear into a phrase, you are able to set it to play a perpetual random sequence of only those notes. This way of understanding is much different  than just memorizing a scale. It seems almost impossible to get bored with it, but at the same time you have to be able to remember what exactly you just heard and write it down or record it. I am also experimenting with leaving some notes out of scales completely. I almost have to have a guitar in my hands to come up with anything musical. Chiptunes for me is the whole backup band.

Well I suppose that's what I'm going to have to do then, haha

Thanks for your help, I think I'm going to pick up Nanoloop as soon as possible  ^^

Nanoloop is one of the only usable music tools specifically for the GBA.  What you want can be provided by almost any tracker.  What you actually need is the skill to create it.

Again, I believe you could just tack that down to the fact I have pretty much no idea what I'm looking for, sorry for seeming ignorant.  From what I saw of Nanoloop I gathered it was certainly powerful, but I wasn't sure whether or not it would be suited to the kind of thing I wanted to do for it.  Do you know if many do?  Where would you suggest looking?

Thank you for your help, I really appreciate it!

The "default sounds" are a very well put together FM synthesis engine in addition to your regular pulse and noise.  Kits are not available on the GBA unless you were to use MML which is certainly not what you want.  Just about everything in the three tracks you posted can be done in Nanoloop, you just lose the super lo-fi samples.  The tricks used for these tracks is to get them running on real hardware beside a real game.  Using it for just music you are not stuck with that limitation.  Look up anyone using Nanoloop 2.X and you'll see how crazy versatile it is once you learn how to use it.  6 note polyphony and a robust synthesis engine can accomplish just about anything you could possibly want from a GBA.

Also, it's nothing personal, but if your "research" hasn't presented you with any of the information in this thread you have not done much research at all.

That's probably just my lack of vocabulary, I'm not really sure how to describe it perfectly I suppose.  I saw in stuff like LSDJ it's possible to have custom sounds (I think they're called kits?) is something similar possible in nanoloop or do you only have the defaults to play with?

Sorry for asking so many questions, my own research hasn't really gotten me anywhere.

What exactly is wrong with Nanoloop?  Almost every sound in all three tracks is not outside the realm of possibility for NL.  Yes, there are some samples, but Nanoloop 2.x has a pretty powerful engine.  Also, if anything is "too synthy" then you have quite a but to learn about chip music as a whole.

Thank you all for the help!  I think I have a general idea of what I should be going for, sorry for dismissing some ideas too early ^^

If your not looking for something "synthy" i'd suggest LSDj.
You can get the ROM for as little as a penny (donate like 5 dollars tho, it helps the dev behind its creation), and emulators are free all over the place.
You really wont know what you want until you get out there and give them a spin, so don't be so quick to discard
I started out on the GBA btw.

Don't immediately dismiss a tracker because a few of the sample songs you heard were too "synthy", because these tools are pretty versatile. People are giving you the kind of advice you were asking for and you are giving up on them after "a little look-up". That's not very polite and will make people more reluctant to help you out.

So your saying you want to make vgm without using anything too "synthy" and you also don't want to use vgm samples? I'd say the reason you are stumped is because what you are trying to achieve isn't really possible. My advice would be to use soundfonts with little piggy tracker. I believe using soundfonts requires that you use a ghetto build of the piggy but it should be stable. Snes soundfonts should sound similar to gba stuff but gba soundfonts shouldn't be hard to find/make.

Good snes soundfont sites:
http://woolyss.com/chipmusic-soundfonts.php
http://snesmusic.org/v2/select.php?view … mp;limit=0

Ive always wanted a gba tracker just to make Battle Network inspired tunes.

^^^ I second that. They are very fun and useful. Best GBA specific music tool to date.

if i understand correctly the gba has some internal synth stuff in its firmware or bios or some shit like that. but i guess no one uses it and most of the music is sample based. if your hellbent on tracking with a handheld then im not sure if you can accomplish it on the gba. lots of people here have chubbs for Little Gamepark Tracker. maybe theres a way to playback songs on the gba with a particular sound engine  and a flashcart? anyway take everything im saying with a grain of salt, im no expert on these types of things.