If youāve heard of Famitracker then you realise it for writing music thatās playable on an actual NES right?
Take a look in the Famitracker manual and youāll get a good idea of the limitations of that particular platform.
Chiptunes are partly defined by lack of polyphony as far as composition goes, for instance the NES or gameboy had 5 monophonic channels. A triangle wave generator, two variable width pulse generators, noise, and a really lofi sample channel that was usually used for percussion. The lack of polyphony means no sustained chords(well you could play one triad at a time but nothing else with it), so lots of arpeggiation, counterpoint, and riffs and a lot of the music was characteristically melodic where a lot of game soundtracks these days go out of their way to not be melodicā¦modulation effects are also very important when you have just a few simple sounds, really utilize vibrato and tremelo. Pokemon RedBlueYellow is one of my favorite gameboy examples, lots of good use of vibrato in that soundtrack especially
Radian: I didnt try it yet. I will look at the manual, thank you.
Shadowpsyc: Thank you! Great starting point. So chords are not needed to create great music :-).
- So you are saying that chiptunes are based mainly about used sounds, not about composition.
Indeed. Regarding sounds and pitfalls, I think the fastest way of making chiptune sound non-chiptune is to use normal pads instead of arps or very simple pads. Too modern drum samples is also a give-away (unless lofi filtering). At least it doesnāt provide the style I associate with āchiptuneā.
- Why Milky Tracker and not Renoise?
I know both and i know that Milky Tracker is more used for chiptunes (or famitracker) but i dunno why.
The simple answer is that Iām used to Milkytracker. Doing the same in Renoise as I do in Milkytracker would take too much time due to bad workflow. Setting up vibsweep and detune delays is too much of a hassle, for instance. Also, the restrictions in Milkytracker are good and the possibilities of Renoise can easily tempt me to divert from the chiptune sound. Be careful of dsp effects - the general rule would probably be that more dsp effects can be used the more simple the arrangement is.
ā¦Setting up vibsweep and detune delays is too much of a hassle, for instanceā¦
What is vibsweep and what do you mean with detuned delays? Sorry for the noobish questions 
The lack of polyphony means no sustained chords(well you could play one triad at a time but nothing else with it), so lots of arpeggiation
Aaaand, in true chip fashion that would be achieved with the arpeggio command 
A37 (Minor))
A47 (Major
etc.
The arpeggio works in tick rate - usually, 12 times per line.
^And you can now make super-arpeggios with phrases.
What is vibsweep and what do you mean with detuned delays? Sorry for the noobish questions
Vibsweep means the vibrato depth is increasing after time. XM has it as an instrument setting, and itās possible to make in Renoise since V3 by using the pitch envelope.
Detuned delays means the āechoesā are slightly detuned (like Ā±8 cents). It will make them sound more spatious, especially when panned left and right.
38911 Bytes is a great little C64 chip VSTi for free:
http://theodosynthsarchive.wordpress.com/category/38911bytes/
I made the little tune below in a spare 20 minutes restricting myself to just 3 tracks with no effects to make it C64 authenticā¦
Yes. Chiptune music rules!
(also - donāt forget to turn off interpolation when working with lofi samples)
Also donāt forget a lot of real chiptunes used actual synthesizers. There might well be some lo-fi going down due toā¦ whateverā¦ but maybe not re-pitched sample grunge/aliasing. The chip referred to is a synthesizer on a chip.
Vibsweep means the vibrato depth is increasing after time. XM has it as an instrument setting, and itās possible to make in Renoise since V3 by using the pitch envelope.
Detuned delays means the āechoesā are slightly detuned (like Ā±8 cents). It will make them sound more spatious, especially when panned left and right.
Thank you
Also you can change the song playback choosing SONG playback & compatibility option from Renoise to Amiga/FT2.
38911 Bytes is a great little C64 chip VSTi for free:
http://theodosynthsarchive.wordpress.com/category/38911bytes/
I made the little tune below in a spare 20 minutes restricting myself to just 3 tracks with no effects to make it C64 authenticā¦
Did you know that Odo, creator of this synth, uses Renoise?
I had wet dream onceā¦ Odo created native synth for it 
if you compose a song in goattracker, then you have made a chiptune, mostly
Love the digidrums on that goattracker tune!
Some Atari ST demos used this before soundtrack was portedā¦
I mean Soundtrackerā¦ No edit button?
Wonāt be able to sleep knowing that typo is thereā¦
lolz, had to check if goat tracker was ported to android and found this:
Goat Tracker https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sbumpkin.goat
Description
Goat tracker is an application to help a farmer track when a goat should come into heat based on the last heat date.
If the farmer has bred the goat then it will calculate the earliest date to draw blood to check for pregnancy.
If the goat is pregnant it will calculate the approximate due date.