Ateno wrote:I would love to mod, but as you can see, I have no idea where to start at all. Piano Roll is mainly what I am using now and some sequencer to do my drums. And synth based is more or less out of the question, because my piano skills aren't exactly up to par. I also think I want something more stationary, and because of such more flexible as far as capability.
What would fit into those categories, and what is the best way to go about procuring such hardware and how to set it all up, and how to mod it?
its like asking someone how to set up an instrument but you havent told them what instrument you want to play
theres loads of choices
~ gameboy
~ c64
~ atari
~ amiga
~ nintendo
~ zx spectrum
~ old pc
~ new pc
~ wacky hacker stuff a la gijs gieskes
~ old fm synths
~ amstrad cpc
~ psp
~ dingoo
thats maybe 5% of the different things you could use to make chiptunes
if youre rich you could just buy any of them and hope that youll be able to figure out how to use it. but if you want to get something you know you will like. the best thing to do is emulate stuff on pc until you settle on something that you like the sound and the interface of
here's a gameboy emulator http://bgb.bircd.org
here's a gameboy tracker http://www.littlesounddj.com/lsd/
here's a c64 emulator http://vice-emu.sourceforge.net/
here's a c64 tracker http://sourceforge.net/projects/sid-wizard/
here's an amiga emulator http://www.winuae.net/
here's an amiga tracker http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=13329
here's a NES emulator http://nestopia.sourceforge.net/
here's a NES tracker http://blog.ntrq.net/
here's a search engine http://duckduckgo.com
as was mentioned earlier your question is really open ended and thats cool but you need to give us something to work with...
did you ever use any old games consoles? which were your favourites?
do you have any fond memories of old soundtracks and stuff? which?
otherwise people are just going to blindly recommend you what they use and/or tell you to google it - because the possibilities are literally infinite!!!
i hope you find some kind of setup you enjoy though. and dont worry if that setup is just your computer/ipad/mobile phone/whatever. no one is going to judge you for your hardware choices as long as your songs are cool. fwiw i just use a cheap second hand laptop i got for free