Show HN: Wario Synth – Turn any song into Game Boy version
4 days ago (wario.style)
Search any song, get a Gameboy version.
Emulates Nintendo's Sharp LR35902 sound hardware: 2 pulse waves for melody/harmony, 1 wave channel for bass, 1 noise for percussion.
Finds MIDI sources, parses tracks, maps to GB roles, resynthesizes with Web Audio. Everything runs client-side.
Site: https://www.wario.style
Open source: https://github.com/b1rdmania/motif
Hobby project, non commercial, so please don't sue me.
Ra Ra Rasputin! :)
https://www.wario.style/s/B4FB7uz3
Not fair. That's a video game soundtrack already.
... no but it so totally could be.
OOT Title theme - https://www.wario.style/s/qQ8kCQGX
Reminded me of the first time I learned to program, I made an "ocarina songs" player in the console. It plays 3 songs. I figured them note by note, finding the notes online, testing until it was right :) https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B81lhIzyJLJbNTViWmh0bUlYMzg...
A few fun ones:
Walk this way: https://www.wario.style/s/Eg9zi56k
Live and let die: https://www.wario.style/s/8qt4OfdS
Ramblin Man: https://www.wario.style/s/wSd51DBA
Smells like teen spirit: https://www.wario.style/s/CQq6Dc6f
Paranoid: https://www.wario.style/s/202Hs3lV
and of course...
Stairway to heaven: https://www.wario.style/s/SNPSmI8u
Cool enough I suppose, but the framing had me expecting the more farty twisted squarenoise instruments like in Wario Lands 1-3, and less smooth sines and squares. I tried out Kimi No Shiranai Monogatari and Daft Punk's Aerodynamic.
https://www.wario.style/s/yWHphmhO
https://www.wario.style/s/BSN15NEs
Maybe you could list examples for midis you thought sounded cool next time you share this, or in a comment.
Edit: though I guess a huge part of Wario flavor is the dissonant intervals in the music, as much as the farty instrumentation.
Shoutouts to SimpleFlips: https://www.wario.style/s/BRwFnLDe
TTYD File Select: https://www.wario.style/s/paznaBKf
Chemical Plant Zone: https://www.wario.style/s/L7kD5jJP
Robo's Theme: https://www.wario.style/s/MzeU9PVc
Everyone's beloved Rick: https://www.wario.style/s/byMyoc3Z
Better MIDI search: <https://bitmidi.com/> I guess you could copypaste the 12345.mid id number into the Wario Synth URL, but it's a bit tedious.
It’s basically a midi search engine?
“No MIDI files found. Try a different search” …
It looks like it requires a MIDI which it then converts to sound like it’s coming out of a Gameboy.
Here’s what the FAQ says:
> How it works
>> Search a song, pick a MIDI source, hit Generate. The Wario Synthesis Engine analyses the MIDI and resynthesises it using Web Audio oscillators tuned to mimic the Game Boy's 4-channel sound chip. All processing runs in your browser.
Now just get Claude Code to build a hUGETracker exporter, and you could actually bring one of these songs into GB Studio!
That’s fine, but “turn any song into…” is just a lie then.
After 5 or 6 misses I found gimme gimme gimme by ABBA worked pretty well:
https://www.wario.style/s/owplrJi2
(first 20 seconds are junk but then it sounds a bit like a castlevania song)
Wanted features: (1) a way to preview the original MIDI again from a share link like this so I could still compare. Searching "ABBA Gimme Gimme Gimme" found one with the title "ABBA Gimme Gimme Gimme L" so I can't be 100% sure it's the same. And (2) a seekbar for the preview as well.
Kinda weird that search results seem hard-capped at 5. I guess it keeps things simple.
Always happy to listen to some Pink Floyd: Comfortably Numb - https://www.wario.style/s/gODq0CUm
This is really cool!
Because I might learn something new: are there additional reasons for having an enable audio button that can’t be covered by the fact that the user has to interact with the page to Play the song anyways?
Boogie Wonderland https://www.wario.style/s/42pJyn4i
I can't find a download and upload button, Do I missing sth here?
Add a download button, this was fun.
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