PICO-8 JavaScript Music Player

A tiny JavaScript library that generates music from PICO-8 cartridges.

Features

Play PICO-8 sound effects and music
Super tiny 1740 bytes (1134 bytes zipped)
Custom instruments! Introduced in 0.1.11, see tweet

Instructions

1. Grab the source here:

Original: ...
Minified: ...

2. Extract music and sound from a PICO-8 cartridge in .p8 format.

Open the .p8 file in a text editor.

Find the __sfx__ and __music__ sections.

Create string variables in your code with the respective contents.

For example:
const __sfx__ = `...`;
const __music__ = `...`;
See tunes1.js for a full example.

3. Include the player in your project (using HTML <source>, webpack, etc)

4. Play sound:

pico8.sfx(mySfxId);

5. Play music:

pico8.music(mySongId);

Examples

Demo songs by Gruber.

Song	Length	Size	Gzip	JS	Original
Pico-8 Tunes Volume 1
1. Demented Mario	24.0
2. Pastoral	38.4
3. Sand	23.5
4. Space	32.0
5. Ice	22.4
6. Nostalgia	41.6
7. Dungeon	38.4
8. Boss	13.1
9. Evil	72.5
10. Travel	22.4
11. Puzzle	19.2
12. Village	20.0
Pico-8 Tunes Volume 2
1. Into the Belt	26.1
2. Need for Speed	28.8
3. Like Clockwork	12.8
4. Morning Shower	32.0
5. Robot Dance	36.3
6. Eyes in the Dark	51.2
7. Flight of Icarus	17.6
8. Fickle Flame	21.3
9. Autumn Wind	32.0
10. Dimensional Gate	27.7

Known issues

Arpeggio not implemented.
Custom instruments are slow to generate. This is a one-time performance hit at startup.
Smooth transitions across instruments (When instrument changes, an attack/release envelope is applied. Some instruments appear to be compatible, and the envelope should *not* be applied. You can hear this in "Nostalgia".)
Vibrato not quite correct.

Acknowledgements

This project was made possible by these amazing people: