Press pack — v1.0 · out now

Panel 01/16

Renata

The Swiss army knife of chiptune apps

Press contact Assets

Panel 02 Specification

02.1 230+ formats played
02.2 10 sound chips
02.3 7 chip export formats
02.4 16 Studio instruments
02.5 15,000+ visualizer presets
02.6 100% offline

At a glance

Product: Renata — "the Swiss army knife of chiptune apps"
Developer: Mark Wright (solo developer)
Platform: Windows 10/11 — desktop, fully offline. Mac and Linux may follow later.
Model: One-time purchase. No subscription, no cloud, no account.
Price: $10 USD, about £8. One-time.
Status: Released 27 August 2026. On sale now at renatachiptune.itch.io/renata.
Social: @RenataChiptune — YouTube · X · Instagram
Press contact: markwright44@hotmail.com. I answer press mail myself.

The pitch

One sentence: Renata is the Swiss army knife of chiptune apps: a Windows desktop tool to design original, copyright-free chip sounds, compose original tracks in a chip-native studio, and play, convert and export 230+ retro formats around them, all offline for one price.
Three sentences: Renata is built to make your own chiptune music. Its Generator is a real SID/AY/YM synth for designing original, copyright-free sounds from scratch, and Renata Studio is a chip-native DAW for composing original, ownable tracks, both unlimited and yours to ship. Around that creative core it also plays 230+ chip and tracker formats, converts them to multi-track MIDI, pulls per-channel stems, generates sample packs, and exports seven chip formats (including native .sid/.nsf/.gbs/.ay driver files on its own from-scratch assemblers). That side of it is the on-ramp that feeds the music you make.
The name: I named the app after my wife, Renata. The name also happens to be Latin for "reborn", which suited a tool that gives old chip music new life and makes new music from reborn chip sounds.

Four pillars

05.1 Play
230+ chip and tracker formats: SID, NSF, GBS, YM, AY, SNDH, VGM, MOD, 52 tracker loaders (libxmp), 175 exotic Amiga players (UADE). Playlists, favourites, batch library tools, BPM analysis.
05.2 Convert
Any supported tune to multi-track MIDI (tempo, key and time signature detected), WAV/MP3 renders, clean per-voice stems, and full sample packs (one-shots + stems, loop points, key/BPM tags, SFZ mapping).
05.3 Generate
A genuine SID (6581/8580) + AY/YM synthesizer: ADSR, waveforms, filters, 50 Hz parameter macros, four-voice layering, DefleMask .dmp import. Plus the Song Generator, which composes a complete original track (form, harmony, melody, bass and drums) on real chip voices, deterministically and offline.
05.4 Compose
Renata Studio, a chip-native DAW: 16 instruments, 11 of them authentic chip voices, piano roll, mixer with 9 effects, sends/groups, automation, session view, MIDI and audio recording. Export to WAV/MP3 or a real chip-format file.

Plus the Light Synth (15,000+ music visualisations including the full MilkDrop library), a Sample Editor with 15 effects, nine themes with CRT effects, and built-in video export.

Numbers that hold up

MIDI, WAV, MP3 and FLAC are outputs alongside the seven chip formats, never counted as an "eighth chip format." Every chip export plays in a standard emulator.

230+ Playable input formats
7 Chip export formats — .ym .vgm .mod .sid .nsf .gbs .ay
3 From-scratch assemblers — 6502 / SM83 / Z80
12+9 Studio chip instruments + mixer effects
15,000+ Light Synth visualisations
1 Developer · ~9 months solo

Export formats

MIDI
.ym
.vgm
.mod
.sid
.nsf
.gbs
.ay

Native .sid, .nsf, .gbs and .ay exports are real executable players built on Renata's own from-scratch 6502, SM83 and Z80 drivers. They play in a standard emulator.

The angle: copyright, answered plainly

Renata's rule is stated inside the app and in every channel: "copyright-free / yours" applies only to what you make from scratch: the Generator's synthesized sounds and your own Studio compositions. Converting or re-voicing someone else's tune produces a derivative work, a cover, not a copy. Renata says so, plainly, instead of hiding it. The conversion pipeline is framed as what it is: a learning and sound-design on-ramp, not a loophole.

I think candour is a feature. Quote it.

Mark Wright, Renata's developer, at the desk where Renata is built — FIG. 09.1Mark Wright — developer

The story

Renata is nine months of me building the chiptune tool I wanted: real chip emulation rather than samples of chips, a DAW where the instruments are the chips, and a converter deep enough to open four decades of game music as editable material. No investors, no team, no AI composing. The on-device AI does only unglamorous jobs (sample naming, sorting, loop-finding). Offline by principle: one purchase, your machine, your files.

It began in October 2025 as ym2149-rs, a Rust emulator taught to behave like a 1980s sound chip. From there the board filled in: Z80, a from-scratch 68000, then a 6502 and a from-scratch SM83, until ten chips and 230+ formats played inside one instrument. The Generator shipped in May 2026; Renata Studio, the chip-native DAW, followed in June 2026.

Suggested story hooks

"The only honest chiptune converter" The copyright-candour angle above.
"A DAW where the instruments are the chips" Chip-native composing vs. sample-based retro plugins.
"From .sid to studio session" Open a 1987 C64 tune as multi-track MIDI + stems, then re-voice it on a Game Boy (a cover, not a copy).
"One developer wrote three CPU assemblers so your track can be a real chip file" The from-scratch 6502/SM83/Z80 export pipeline.
"Anti-subscription" Fully offline, one-time purchase, in 2026.

Press FAQ

Is this AI music?: No. Renata's Song Generator does compose complete songs, but it is a deterministic music-theory and genre-grammar engine, not a model trained to imitate music. Same settings and seed, same song, every time, entirely on your machine. The only on-device AI does boring jobs: naming samples, sorting, loop detection. Nothing is generated in a cloud, and nothing you make leaves your computer.
Do exports run on real hardware?: They play in a standard emulator (VICE, NSFPlay and similar). Real-hardware validation isn't claimed.
Can users sell what they make in it?: What they synthesize in the Generator and compose in the Studio is theirs. What they convert or re-voice from someone else's copyrighted tune is not, and the app tells them so.
Windows only?: Yes at release: Windows first, offline, one purchase. Mac and Linux may follow later.
When does it ship / what does it cost?: Out now, 27 August 2026. $10 USD, about £8, one-time. I believe in keeping it retro, and that includes the price.
Review build?: There isn't one, and I'm not sending out early builds. What I can offer is on this page: screenshots and the free music pack.

Press coverage

This section collects links to features and interviews as they appear.

10 August 2026 — Rekkerd — FREE: The Hundred: 75 Chiptunes made with Renata chiptune studio
10 August 2026 — SoundShock Audio — The Hundred: 75 Chiptunes
31 August 2026 — Rekkerd — Mark Wright releases Renata chiptune studio for Windows

Assets

Logos, screenshots and the app icon are shown and linked below (right-click → Save, or download the full-resolution files). A complete media ZIP with the source video is available on request: markwright44@hotmail.com.

Logos & icon

Wordmark transparent dark

Monogram transparent dark

App icon 192px touch

Logos
"Renata" wordmark (2400×600) and "R." monogram avatar (800×800), each as a transparent PNG for light grounds and a reversed PNG for dark ones. App icon in 192px and Apple-touch sizes. All carry the signal-orange accent.
Screenshots
Main player in the nine captured themes: Faceplate (the default), Modern, Mono Line, Breadbin Glow, Copper Dreams, Rubber Key, Mega Blast, Grey Tray and Handheld Green. Plus Renata Studio, Sounds & Instruments Generator, Sample Editor and Light Synth. Real 1080p+ app captures; samples below, each captioned with the theme it was shot in.
Video
"This is Renata" hero promo (~36 s), feature promos, tutorial series on YouTube.
Brand
Plate #DEDCD6, ink #16181A, signal #FF4A00, Inter + Departure Mono; the final "a" of the wordmark always carries the accent, which takes each theme’s own palette.

Screenshots

Renata Studio: the arrangement timeline with three named tracks and their clips — FIG. 13.1 · RENATA STUDIO · ARRANGEMENT · MEGA BLAST THEME

Renata's player in the Faceplate theme: the spectrum, scrubber and transport row — FIG. 13.2 · MAIN PLAYER · FACEPLATE THEME · THE DEFAULT

The Sounds & Instruments Generator: the SID 6581 oscillator group with its waveform buttons and pulse-width slider — FIG. 13.3 · GENERATOR · SID 6581 · COPPER DREAMS THEME

The Sample Editor with a sample loaded: the waveform of a Renata-composed loop above the edit toolbar — FIG. 13.4 · SAMPLE EDITOR · WAVEFORM · MODERN THEME

A Light Synth visualisation: symmetrical green and cyan light forms on a dark field — FIG. 13.5 · LIGHT SYNTH · PRESET COLOURS, THEME-INDEPENDENT

Boilerplate

Renata is the Swiss army knife of chiptune apps: a Windows desktop tool for designing original, copyright-free chip sounds on a real SID/AY/YM synth, composing original tracks in a chip-native studio, and playing, converting and exporting 230+ retro formats, fully offline, for a single one-time purchase. Built by one developer. renatachiptune.com.

Contact

Press enquiries and interviews: markwright44@hotmail.com. I answer these myself. (There are no pre-release review builds; see the FAQ.)

Web: renatachiptune.com · Social: @RenataChiptune on YouTube, X and Instagram.