Punchpak is a collection of sounds created from the 8 bit synthesizer chip on the classic Nintendo® (NES) gaming console.

Puremagnetik sound designers have extracted this collection of blippy waveforms from the internal synthesizer of an NES and reprogrammed them as an Ableton Live Pack, Kontakt Instrument and Logic Library.

The NES board supported a total of five sound channels. These included two pulse waveduty cycle (12.5%, 25%, 50%, and 75%), with a volume control of sixteen levels, and hardware pitch bending supporting frequencies ranging from 54 Hz to 28 kHz.

Additional channels included one fixed-volume triangle wave channel supporting frequencies from 27 Hz to 56 kHz, one sixteen-volume level white noise channel supporting two modes (by adjusting inputs on a linear feedback shift register) at sixteen pre-programmed frequencies, and one delta pulse-width modulation channel with six bits of range, using 1-bit delta encoding at sixteen preprogrammed sample rates from 4.2 kHz to 33.5 kHz, often resulting in poor sound quality. This final channel was also capable of playing standard pulse-code modulation (PCM) sound by writing individual 7-bit values at timed intervals.

The Ableton Live version of Punchpak includes instrument racks for both Sampler and Simpler while the Kontakt version comes with a customized KSP panel for easy editing.

Punchpak Includes:

• A comprehensive collection of “8-bit” Nintendo® sounds
• Fully integrated with Kontakt and Ableton Live audio effects
• Extensive rack and Macro programming for Ableton Live
• Glitch and lo-fi effect menus
• Easy editing KSP interfaces for Kontakt