BeatBax Tutorial (Game Boy)
In this tutorial we will build a simple but complete BeatBax song called Tutorial Groove for the Game Boy sound chip, section by section.
On pages with examples, press Play to hear a preview, or Copy to copy the full playable song and paste it into BeatBax Desktop, the BeatBax web-lite client, or a .bax file for the BeatBax CLI.
Note: examples hide surrounding song wiring with
…, however Copy still copies a complete playable song for you to try.
For NES, SMS/Game Gear, Spectrum 128 / CPC, see Sound Chip Plugins. The grammar is the same only instrument types and channel layouts change with the chip.
Topics
Work through these sections in order:
| Topic | What you’ll learn |
|---|---|
| Song header | song fields, chip gameboy, bpm |
| Notes and lengths | Pitch, steps, :N, rests, sustains |
| Instruments | Pulse, wave, noise, macros, drum kit |
| Sequencing | pat, seq, four-channel arrangement |
| Modifiers | Colon-chained transforms (:oct, :rot, …) |
| Effects | Vibrato, arpeggio, portamento on the finished song |
Optional language topics outside this walkthrough: Scale awareness, Imports, Effects reference.
Next
Continue with Song header — metadata and global directives for Tutorial Groove.