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Chiptune tools on MacOS Catalina

Most chiptune tools are made for Windows (or an actual retro machine), but if you're unlucky enough be on a Mac, like I am for work, here's what to do to get a couple of the main ones running.

OpenMPT / ModPlug Tracker can load/save many different module formats (and MIDI) so can act as a kind of Rosetta Stone of modules.

Famitracker is a go-to tool for writing for the NES / Famicom console.

We're going to do stuff in the terminal. Anything that looks like `this` is a command to paste & run.

First, you need Wine

You need brew[1]: if `brew -v` tells you a Homebrew version number you're ready, otherwise: `/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"` installs it.

1: Brew website

Use Brew to install Wine `brew install wine-stable` gets the main release.

next run `wine64` and you'll probably get a message like "“Wine Stable.app” cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified." which is more Apple bullshit.

Go to System Preferences -> Security -> General and you should see "“Wine Stable.app” was blocked [...]". Just click Open Anyway and then Open. A window saying it's doing some setup might appear

OpenMPT

You will need a 64 bit version of ModPlug. For use in Wine on Catalina, only the "experimental" retro build with Win XP support works for me.[^1] Get it here[2].

2: OpenMPT downloads

Back to the terminal, `cd` to the directory you unzipped Modplug to, e.g. `cd ~/Downloads/openmpt-retro-winxp-amd64-1.30.01.00-r16291` or whatever

`wine64 OpenMPT.exe` you'll get a (series of?) similar message(s) as in step 3 of the Wine section above, so repeat the process in step 4 to unblock ModPlug and the .dlls it needs to run.

Should see the splashscreen now & then you're ready to rok.

[^1]: Even if Wine is set to emulate Windows 10 via `wine64 winecfg`.

Famitracker

You will need a 64 bit version of Famitracker. Currently only the port Dn-Famitracker[3] provides a 64 bit release. (Marked x64 in the list of files.)

3: Dn-Famitracker releases

`cd` to the Release directory inside the directory you unzipped Dn-Famitracker to, e.g. `cd ~/Downloads/Dn-FamiTracker_v0300_x64/Release` or whatever.

`wine64 wine64 Dn-FamiTracker.exe` you'll get a similar message as in step 3 of the Wine section above, so repeat the process in step 4 to unblock Famitracker

Lastly,[^2] in Famitracker you should see a warning at the bottom left "Warning! Audio buffer underrun". Go to File -> Configuration... -> Sound and raise the buffer length until this is cleared. about 100ms works for me.

[^2]: Before Famitacker would crash here, but this doesn't seem to be the case in the latest (as of 2022-01-06) version of Wine. If it crashes for you, a workaround is below[4] and I also had to run `wine64 winecfg` and set the Windows Version to Windows XP to fix some other graphical issues. If you're stuck on an older version of Wine try those.

4: https://github.com/Dn-Programming-Core-Management/Dn-FamiTracker/issues/54#issuecomment-815011255