question in the title (im talking abbout the soundschitp aariety)

my 2 favourites are YMF262 and SPC700. YMF262 is great because it is a 18ch 2-op fm beast that is really fun to use without being overly complicated and SPC700 is great because it is a sample chip with actual features.

the purple poker chip. it's my favorite color and poker chips look cool

ok fine. the spc700. sampols 4 life

you will be boiled

surprised this thread hasn’t been done yet!

good ol LR35902 is certainly one of them, and my second would have to be the YMF262 as well.

the LR is great because… well… do i even need to elaborate? just a goofy little handheld system chip that’s also a CPU. totally no tomfoolery can be done here ;)
and yeah same reasons for the YMF262 as noodle. such an insane chip that you can do a lot with. i would say moonsound/OPL4 but that’s not an official furnace thing yet and there’s no format for it on botb either, so yeah :P

atari tia

AY-3-8910, 2A03, OPM/OPN :D

2A03 cuz its the only one i know how to use "properly"

the organga

eww fantasy chip

You even have to ask?? 🤣

ym2612 gives me joy. fds is very underrated

Most of my favorite game soundtracks uses the YM2612.

My favorites are the YM3812, AY-3-8910, 2A03, and SNES.

tortilla

same with arda, 2a03

also vrc6 is cool too

8580 SID rules everything around me.

All Yamaha FM chips, QSound and Namco WSG chips

I'm in the 2A03 gang

YM3812! the YMF262 rules but the YM3812's cheaper and more common so I feel better writing for YM3812. nine channels gives me lots of room. 2op fm's lean and complete. and I get sine, half sine, abs sine, and quarter sine for carrier and upstream! the quarter sine's really cool. crispy up top bc the wave's chopped in the big part. it's easy for me to get good kicks and hats from fm but I really like the snares I get from YM3812 bc quarter sine

first for the 2149

SPC700 (S-SMP). technically 2 chips but whatev

I can like something despite me not being "good" at it or some I have limited time with or want to learn but like regardless (:

YM2149, 8580, ZXBeeper, POKEY, MIKEY, LR35902, 2a03 (+expansions generally), Wavetable chips in general, Open MPT and such.

This isn't in any particular order. Its hard to pick a favorite this early on though but these are contenders.

Overall, it's the SPC700. It was so ahead of its time and it was responsible for my favorite soundtracks even to this day.

To work with, my favorite is the 2A03, and the VRC7 if using expansions.

...you asked for this, sweaty.

FAVORITE 2ND GEN CHIP
this one's obvious, since the intellivision did have it. the ay-3-891x series of chips are, in the right hands and with the right knowledge, super versatile and somewhat on the level of the c64's sid? i still need to study that chip and use it more often. close runner up is the sn7, which the colecovision had

FAVORITE 3RD GEN CHIP
honestly, i don't think many can really take the cake much like the vrc7 can when it's coupled with the 2a03. i know, sorta cheating by putting these two together, but it's the only way the former can really operate so i have no choice! if we're going with single chips only, though, i'll keep the 2a03 since it operates on its lonesome. the limits of the 2a03 are enough for me to manage, but putting it together with the vrc7 makes it into a POWERHOUSE. you have a pretty okay array of prebuilt fm patches to supplement the pretty anemic 2a03 pulses and triangle and a universal custom patch to do ANYTHING with. that alone makes it the ultimate expansion combo. close second is (again) the sn7 if we're doing single chips, and the sn7 + fm sound module if we're doing combos.

FAVORITE 4TH GEN CHIP
the ym2612, no question. this chip is a classic and trying to explain how awesome it is would be like reciting the dictionary at this point. absolutely powerful on its own, and an absolute dream to work with combined with the sn7 and sega psg. it's no wonder sega had their fair share of iconic game osts back then. runner up would probably be the wavetable sound chip the pc-engine had

FAVORITE IBM PC SOUNDCARD
you come over to my hobbit home in the middle of the mythical woods, wisconsin. you ask me, "hey lumby! i'm gonna play the secret of monkey island on my 386 tower and i need a soundcard to plug in there! what do you recommend?" before you finish that last question, i am immediately in your face and screaming ADLIB ADLIB ADLIB ADLIB ADLIB before immediately passing out on the floor. i don't think i need to elaborate on that opinion. second favorite would probably be either lapc-1/mt-32 or gravis ultrasound

FAVORITE PC CHIP PRE-1982
difficult decision, but the atari pokey honestly has a lot of potential when it comes to music. it's very versatile for the time and has a ton of tones types you can combine to create different instruments with. the ti-99 had a variant of the sn7 in it as well, making that my runner up

FAVORITE PC CHIP 1982-1984
probably an obvious choice, but i have to go with the sid. 3 channel synthesizer with a filter? sign me the fuck up and give me two while you're at it!! wickedly versatile and lush when doubled up. runner up is the ay-3-891x/ym2149f series, since those got popular use in this generation of computers as well.

FAVORITE PC CHIP 1985-1990
the commodore paula is also probably an obvious choice as well. this is the chip that started the tracking phenomenon, after all, and it alongside deluxe paint made the amiga a veritable creative powerhouse back in the 80s and 90s. as well, though, it's pretty damn versitile for a non-ibm sound chip and has led to quite a few of my favorite tracker tracks

FAVORITE BEEPER
the zx spectrum goes fucking sicko mode when it comes to beeper music. there are DOZENS of beeper engines out there, a lot of them being SHOCKINGLY amazing from the wavetable-based wtbeep and fluidcore to the old-school classics octode and tritone. legit, you can present 10 random zx beeper songs and all of them could sound completely different. runner up is the ibm pc's beeper

i could go into which chips are my favorite in terms of what type they are, but then this post would go on forever. i think one and a third of my screen height is good enough

realtek

Definitely a basic pick but ym2612. Honestly I'm a sucker for anything FM, so give me that and I'm set for life. Otherwise, probably the VRC6. It and the 2a03 combined are basically everything the NES needed to be its truest self lol

opl2
opm (ym2151)
2a03
vrc7
opll
opn (ym2203)

pokey at the moment but it is so changeable next year ill prob give a different answer
i do admire the ym2612 but from a distance, its a bit intimidating

YM2608 and VRC7 I love when my soundchips are served with arbitrary hardcoded presets

fr tho, YM2608 is a perfect combination of different synthesizer chips into a single one, just enough PSG and PCM for it to be powerful but still highlight the FM as the main focus

VRC7 has fun presets to work with, particularly outside of their intended range, and being 6 channel only makes the 1 custom preset limitation feel less jarring compared to the OPLL

YM2608 - like saria says, it's got a little bit of everything going on at once - FM, PSG, fantastic sample channel, free drumkit - and as such there's a lot of freedom to make arrangement decisions and introduce new elements. time-consuming to write for, but oh so worth it. (i also actually like the stock drums........)

SPC700 - deep diving into making atypical/subversive music on the SNES has been one of my greatest joys in exploring chiptune, and for that matter the standard stuff tickles my ears in the right ways too, seeing as i grew up with one. i'm happy that writing a guide on this a couple years ago has led more people into making SNES music too.

doritos

Digital-to-analog converter

i love how people either can't settle on one and talk abt why they love all the chips or make a joke about snack food

the people who said snack chrips CLEARLY didnt reasd the original post ):< ):< ):<

the jalapeno flavor sun chips are literally the best. Doritos do not even come close

POKEY for sure. It’s so crunchy

pokey rules!!! too bad there isn't a tracker on atari 8-bit (is there?)

I think my silver badge can speak for me

All of them! :D

The SPC700 is my own favorite chip. I see it as more than just doing samples: it also has an echo buffer, a noise generator, pitch modulation, and some volume envelope automation built into it... though you also have to program for it. I've gotten plenty of mileage getting it to do things you'd never expect it to do, some of it not even ever discovered during the commercial era.

I have a feeling it might actually be the gameboy apu (or whatever the proper name for it is)

I just wish I could use famitracker to write for it, instead of furnace.

The addition of the wavetable, the character of the noise channel, and what little panning allowed is like - just enough of an upgrade over the 2A03 to feel like a treat that I have no yet fully explored.

Gonna go with SID, as it has the most character. Runner up goes to 2A03 for nostalgia factor.

atm

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i might edit this post every 5 minutes or so

6581
and
AY-3-8910

@big lumby : "the ay-3-891x series of chips are, in the right hands and with the right knowledge, super versatile and somewhat on the level of the c64's sid?"

nah, the YM2149 happened to be featured on a machine with more processing power than the other machines equipped with the same generation of chips. as a result coders came up with ways to use timers and the processor to update the chip registers at audio rates and create SIDesque sounds. i would guess the sms chip could do the same if associated to a faster processor. the SID is really a beast by itself. it's got a filter ffs!

ESFM for real chips, Tiledarrow sound unit for fantasy chips. ESFM is like OPL3 but better in every way and the Tiledarrow sound unit is like a beefed up SID without going into absurdity like the SID3 and still having more bite then the SID2

i like mayo chips i think theyre underrated

...oh right. I'm a rather simple guy, I love the SPC700 and the YM2612. Can't go wrong with the 2A03 either

based duv

i've always been a fan of 2A03 and its extensions (VRC6 my beloved), but fm chips have been growing on me lately, particularly ESFM

I am (unfairly) biased towards the SPC700. Not because I grew up with it, if anything I grew up with watered down versions of soundtracks that came from it thanks to GBA ports. No, my main attraction to it stems from it being pretty much the only chip I'd worked with in the 3.5 years of chiptune I'd done on SMWCentral prior to coming here (with the exception of 2a03 and VRC6 that I dabbled in a tiny bit). Being here has greatly opened my horizons in terms of understanding both chiptune and other adjacent styles of composition, but my love for SPC has far from subsided in lieu of these discoveries.

Hopefully in the not-too-distant future I'll at least have a bronze badge to prove that; and while I don't expect to be the first at this rate, I do see the sacred golden spc badge as a crowning achievement on the site for me to strive for.

I don't know. I like the ay3 I guess and the 2a03 has meat to it, fm is awesome and the opls and opm-y chips are fun to play with, the fucked up sample-ish shit on the mt32 and friends is interesting, and the spc700 tends to sound pretty cute. IMPULSE TRACKER

final answer fluidsynth with musescore soundfont

i have equal skill issue with every chip (even modern day computer sound chips lmao) so i really don't have much of a prefrence

ig if i had to choose, then uhhh
nintendo ds (mainly the PSG mode lmao)

i just find it about flexible enough in order to make a decent song without having to suffer a stroke from the bs that is sound design

Salt and vinegar, because I am kind of weird.

Ricoh 2A03, because I'm not that weird.

BLOODY 'ELL YOU 'MERICANS ARE DUMM
BLIMEY IT'S CHIP NOT CRISP EH

ATARI POKEY (grayscale rulez)
SID (both version is fine i guess)
YMF262(OPL3)
YM2608(OPNA)

and don't forget about AMIGAAAAAAAAAA

grayscale rulez BIGLY

ym21280 (yamaha dx7)

VRC7