X68000

The HuC6280 was made by Hudson Soft and is used inside the NEC PC-Engine / Turbo Grafx 16 starting in 1987. It’s actually the CPU of the system that features a build-in Sound Generator which is described here.

Compared to other popular Soundchips from this time, like the 2A03 (NES) or the SN76489 (Master System), the HuC6280 does not generate basic waveforms like squarewaves, but plays back very short 32 Byte long samples. There is also an option for FM and Noise Synthesis.

Hudson, known for many PC-Engine Titles

Technical Specifications

• Channels: 6
• Channel 1-2: Waveform playback – Channel 2 can work as an LFO for channel 1.
• Channel 3-4: Waveform playback
• Channel 5-6: Waveform playback OR White Noise Synthesis
• Stereo: Yes, Global Volume for the left and right channel
• All Channels have their own volume and panning control aswell
• DAC: Internal
• The Waveform is a 32 byte, 5 bit unsigned linear sample
• PSG runs at 3.58 MHz

Used in

Video Game Consoles

• NEC PC-Engine / Turbo Grafx 16

Handhelds

• NEC PC-Engine GT / Turbo Express

Detana Twinbee

Special Applications

• The CD-Rom Attachments of the PC-Engine comes with an additional OKI MSM5205 ADPCM Chip.

Emulation

• HES | Todays standard to store PC-Engine Music is the HES Format. The probably largest archive of those is Kaminarimons HES Music Archive (Link), where you can also find Players and Tools. HES files also work fine in Hoot.

Music Creation

MML

• HuSIC