Show HN: Wario Synth – Turn any song into Game Boy version

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.

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anonymous908213 2 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

For anyone actually interested in Game Boy music, I would recommend the LSDJ software, which is a music production tool that runs on an actual Game Boy (or emulator). You can get much nicer results than this vibe-coded slop that feels insulting to the craft. It's not even that hard to do, if you just want to remix existing songs and have the sheet music/MIDI on hand (which this requires anyways) a song can be transcribed in just a couple of hours.

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palisade 21 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Boogie Wonderland https://www.wario.style/s/42pJyn4i

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Waterluvian 29 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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?

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oersted 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Ra Ra Rasputin! :)

https://www.wario.style/s/B4FB7uz3

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CatMustard an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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)

	▲	ekipan an hour ago \| parent [-]
		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.

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ekipan 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

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calmworm 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It’s basically a midi search engine?

“No MIDI files found. Try a different search” …

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memalign 4 hours ago | parent [-]

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.

	▲	turnsout 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Now just get Claude Code to build a hUGETracker exporter, and you could actually bring one of these songs into GB Studio!

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nunobrito an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Add a download button, this was fun.