8bit-sfx

Version: 1.0.0

8888 chip sound effects across 44 categories — synthesized on demand, not downloaded. There are no audio files in this package. Every effect is a deterministic function of its name, so render('kick_003') produces the same samples in a browser, in Node, today and in five years. Game SFX and musical sound design, every effect carrying a catalog description so you can find what you need by reading instead of auditioning. MIT licensed — use them in anything.

Try them: https://cportka.github.io/8bit-sfx/ — the whole library, synthesized live in your browser as you click.

Install & use

npm install 8bit-sfx

import { SfxPlayer, render, renderWav, describe, effectNames } from '8bit-sfx';

// Play — no preloading, no fetching, nothing to bundle
const sfx = new SfxPlayer();
button.addEventListener('click', () => {
  sfx.resume();              // browsers gate audio on a user gesture
  sfx.play('kick_003');      // synthesized on first use, then cached
  sfx.play('bass_120', { volume: 0.8, rate: 1.0 });
});

describe('bass_120');        // "wobble bass — ramp LFO on amp gate, 8.6 Hz at A1"
render('snare_012');         // Float32Array, 22050 Hz mono — feed it anywhere
renderWav('rpg_levelup');    // Uint8Array: a complete .wav file, if you want a file
effectNames();               // all 8888 names, no synthesis

Dependency-free and build-free — pure ES modules, no bundler required, no assets to copy. The package is a 377 kB download (3.0 MB unpacked): ~940 KB of engine plus the 2 MB catalog. No audio ships — 8888 sounds cost kilobytes of code instead of ~130 MB of WAVs.

API

render(name)	Float32Array of samples in [-1, 1) at 22050 Hz
renderPcm(name)	Uint8Array of 8-bit unsigned PCM
renderWav(name)	Uint8Array containing a complete .wav file
describe(name)	the catalog blurb — what makes this effect different
duration(name) / describeFull(name)	length in seconds / full metadata entry
effectNames() / CATEGORIES / COUNT	the catalog's shape, without synthesizing
categoryCharacter(cat)	the one-line description of a category
loadManifest()	the prebuilt catalog: every effect's description and duration
new SfxPlayer()	Web Audio playback: resume(), play(name, {volume, rate}), muted

Categories

Each category holds 202 effects, named <category>_000 … <category>_201. (The one exception is rpg: rpg_000–rpg_173 plus the 28 ported sounds under their event names.)

Game sounds

Category	Character
jump	rising square hops, snappy or floaty tails
coin	bright two-note pickup blips, classic coin grab
laser	fast downward zaps, clean or warbled pew
explosion	noise booms, dry cracks to sub-heavy rolling blasts
powerup	rising scale fanfares, bright pickup arpeggios
hit	blunt impacts, noise burst over a diving low thud
blip	tiny UI ticks and menu selects, crisp square clicks
alarm	alternating two-tone sirens, frantic to steady
drone	sustained bass hums, gentle to seasick wobble
jingle	short melodic stingers, 3-6 notes resolving upward
ambient	wind gusts, cricket chorus, cave drips, thunder, rain, shimmer pads
ui	menu clicks, hovers, toggles, dings, error buzzes, key ticks
voice	chip-speech babble, grunts, hums, laughs, gasps, sighs, hey! calls
dog	chip barks big and small, yips, whines, whimpers, growls, pants, howls
zombie	undead groans, moans, hisses, gurgles, rattling breath, snarls
monster	creature roars, screeches, snarls, chitter, stomps, flaps, squelches
water	drips, splashes, pours, streams, underwater blubs
fire	crackling campfires, ignition whooshes, torch flutter, sizzles, ember pops
footstep	steps on grass, gravel, stone, wood, snow, mud, puddles
mech	creaks, slams, latches, levers, switches, rattles, ratchets, key jangles
person	heartbeats, breaths, sneezes, snores, claps, gut growls
rpg	sword swings, spells, loot jingles, level-ups, warps, save chimes (174 generated + 28 ported)

Musical sound design

Category	Character
kick	tight chip kicks, 808 drops, gated and crushed thumps
snare	noise-and-tone backbeats, cracks, gated slams, rimshots, flams
hihat	crisp closed ticks, open sizzles, pedal chicks, metallic sheen
tom	tuned rack and floor toms, falling bends, roto rises, fills
cymbal	long crashes, pinging rides, ride bells, splashes, chinas, chokes
perc	tuned cowbells, blocks, claves, shakers, congas, agogo bells
bass	plucked and sustained chip bass, acid sweeps, wobbles, slaps
sub	808 slides, deep drops, gated and growling sub-bass
lead	square and PWM chip leads, glides, licks, echoes, stabs
pluck	harp and marimba plucks, glassy mallets, muted stabs, octave doubles
arp	chord-tone arpeggio runs, octave jumps, glissandi, ratchets
chord	tuned chord stabs, power chords, wide voicings, gated chops
bell	struck bronze bells, tubular chimes, music-box tines, shimmer tails
organ	drawbar stacks, church pipes, rock bite, leslie swirl, percussive taps
string	bowed swells, tremolo and spiccato bowing, pizzicato, detuned ensembles
brass	chip brass stabs, fanfares, swells, muted buzz, section falls
reed	breathy chip flutes, hollow clarinet, nasal oboe, ocarina, pan pipes
pad	warm detuned beds, glassy stacks, dark slabs, filter sweeps, gated pulses
riser	noise sweeps, pitch glides, gated builds, drum rolls, filter falls
impact	cinematic booms, metallic slams, sub drops, braams, debris tails
glitch	buffer stutters, bitcrush bursts, tape stops, garbled data chirps
vinyl	crackle beds, needle drops, tape hiss, wow/flutter, static, motor hum

The rpg category also contains the complete sound set of pixel-rpg — 28 sounds ported exactly from that game's Web Audio engine, keeping their event names (rpg_levelup, rpg_menu-open, …) and the game's intended relative loudness in the catalog's gain field.

Exporting WAV files (optional)

The library never needs files, but you can have them:

npm run generate                       # every effect -> sfx/<category>/<name>.wav
npm run catalog                        # just rebuild sfx/manifest.json
node scripts/generate.mjs --only kick_003 rpg_levelup

sfx/*.wav is git-ignored — it's an export, not a source. The testing page also has a ⬇ button on every row that exports that one effect. Only sfx/manifest.json (the catalog) is committed and shipped.

How it works

src/dsp.js holds the chip-synth primitives: a seeded xorshift PRNG, NES-style 15-bit LFSR noise, square/triangle/sawtooth oscillators, and a 16-level amplitude quantizer that gives the library its 4-bit-DAC voice. Each category in src/generators/ is a small module that draws its parameters from the PRNG, renders samples, and records what it chose — which is where the descriptions come from, so they always describe the actual synthesis rather than an intention. Because the PRNG is seeded from the effect's name, the whole library is reproducible from under a megabyte of code.

Stability

1.0.0 is a stable API commitment: the exported functions, the manifest entry shape, and effect naming are covered by SemVer. Effects only ever get appended — existing names keep their sound.

License

MIT — free for commercial and non-commercial use, attribution appreciated but not required.