1. Download the Plugin. The website is in Japanese and Google doesn't do a great job of translating, but it's pretty self-explanatory. There are three black download buttons near the bottom of the page; click the top one.
2. Install the Plugin. This part sounds complicated but it's actually pretty simple. Open the downloaded file, and look around until you find something called "component." Drop it in Library > Audio > Plug-Ins > Components folder.
3. Open it up in GarageBand. Open GarageBand, and create a new track. It will give you a few options; choose "software instrument." This next part is a little complicated because it's different depending on what version of GarageBand you have, but hopefully this will make sense. When the software instrument track is selected, there should be an option to the right allowing you to "edit" the track. Under "sound generator," select "magical8bitPlug." It should look a little something like this:
Following so far?
4. Play with it! This is the fun part. If you have a MIDI keyboard, it's a fun thing to use at this point; if not, just open Musical Typing (under "Window" on the top) and use your computer keyboard. Click on the yellow/orange circle icon in the picture above, which will open a control panel for the 8-bit sounds you can create. Use the slides to change the sounds, and experiment a bit to figure out how it works. Pretty cool eh?
I installed this plugin on my MacBook shortly after I got it a few months ago, and created a little song. I may have showed it to you guys before, but it's a decent example of what an amateur can do with the Plugin in about an hour.
For an interesting, but very technical explanation of how 8-bit music works, check out Owl City's blog post on the topic: http://owlcityblog.com/2011/01/24/halcyon/
DFTBA my friends!
Emily
So I put the component file into the components folder, and I got nothing. It doesn't come up as a sound generator. Any suggestions?
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