I will make a very short 8bit intro theme song to your fictional podcasts

How does Renoise compare with something like FL Studio, which I have but haven't really cracked yet?

ha ha that "middle" theme, awesome!

I haven't tried FL, but fruity loops had a reputation of being beginner-friendly. Just looking at it though, it looks like as steep a learning curve as anything.

It depends what you're going for. It would be hard to input specific melodies (for say a TV theme cover) in something like nano loop but it does look easier conceptually to get a beat going:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ4yCiUSTc4

If you want something a little less feature-packed than Renoise but still in the pattern-based tracker family, you might try https://openmpt.org
In some sense, MPT is closer to "real" VGM composing since it saves/opens files in some game formats like .mod

There are also neat web experiments in programmatically generating chip-py stuff:
http://idroppedmyphonethescreencracked.tumblr.com

Is there a lot of interest here in making chip tunes? what kinds would you want to make?

these rule i have an actual podcast called illogical contraption that wants a thing!

I'd just like to make cute little tunes as an intro to basic songcraft. I'm not a hardcore era-specific creator or anything, just basic waveforms maybe with the ability to add fuzzy synths later. Here's a beat, here's a bass line, here's a coupla melody lines, etc.

This Amway Life - stories from the trenches of multi-level marketing

illogical contraption theme:
https://soundcloud.com/chiptheme/8bit-powerhouse

have you tried general sequencer programs like garageband? (they should have waveform instruments as options)
there's also a lot of interesting web tools now:
http://www.beepbox.co/

The only iOS device I own is my phone, but yeah I do have GarageBand on it.

Could you make the Pass the Mic sound clip downloadable?

Ball-ywood Babylon:
Step behind the scenes, as we interview the actors, directors, cinematographers, and foley artists behind the greatest crotch-hits in cinema history.

This Amway Life theme:
https://soundcloud.com/chiptheme/8bit-nina-totenbag-pyramid

Ball-ywood Babylon theme:
https://soundcloud.com/chiptheme/8bit-ballywood

all clips now downloadable

That's amazing! O_O

Excellent. Thank you.

Is there a lot of interest here in making chip tunes? what kinds would you want to make?

Is there a rolling chiptune thread? There's the "songs that sound like earthbound" thread that sees a revive now and then, anyway I am very interested in chip tunes, I love that in many cases the music playing in an NES game was an afterthought, and in many other cases whomever was tasked with programming the music obviously put a lot of time and thought into it, and somehow quite a few of these computer programmers were also brilliant music composers, fascinating stuff!

Hearing the music from Mega Man 2, at the age of four, was almost certainly a formative experience for me

This Amway Life theme is spot on! Sadly, I know enough people involved in MLM schemes I could actually use it.

Garageband isn't a bad way to get into this -- just pick simpler sounding instruments and heavily quantize everything:
https://soundcloud.com/chiptheme/beat-brat

Megaman music is really dense and I think it was designed to allow some tracks to drop out during game play to make room for sound effects, so it's a particularly challenging set of constraints to work with.
I'd recommend starting with Ramones covers, then work your way up to Dr. Wily.

That's another thing, that the NES could only handle so many (four?) tracks at a time, and the sfx would take up one or two of them during gameplay, and they'd have to account for that! That a punch or an explosion would just cancel out an entire track of your song quite all of a sudden, just tremendously interesting constraints to work with.

It's the limitations I think that elevates the "chip tune" into some kind of bizarre instrument unto itself, an instrument that only a handful of people learned how to play and then just as soon completely forgot about as soon as videogames could incorporate any kind of recorded music, for better or worse...

Philip, are you a chiptuner in a professional capacity?

haha no! unless some podcaster has a dumptruck full of squarespace money to unload...

also, the sample-based way of tracking is a bit different from the NES paradigm, though there was some crossover whenever you had space constraints, like fitting the music + samples to under 1K.
but mostly it tended to be more maximalist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAcWkfww30I

Philip, how should I credit you for the theme music?

The Mysterious Breakfast'r Cereal

Right then

Philip, are you still doing these?

as long as there are fictional podcasts without themes...

What about one about holding conversations with engineers located in the PacNW?

OK!
https://soundcloud.com/chiptheme/8bit-rainy-day-singularity-conference

Hey, that one sounds familiar. Thanks!

I really want to do a podcast about video stores but I know I never will. if I heard a theme song, I could dream a little more vividly

I have an actual podcast with no theme tune, is it ineligible? https://centuriesofsound.wordpress.com/about/

Video Stores are Still a Thing?

Lyrics:
Video Stores
Are still a thing
You owe 10 grand in late feeeeees

https://soundcloud.com/chiptheme/8bit-video-stores-are-still-a-thing

A centennial song for a century of sound:
https://soundcloud.com/chiptheme/8bit-centennial-party

Though this old one might be more apropos, given that it spans both Daisy Bell (1892) and The Message (1982)?
https://soundcloud.com/chiptheme/8bit-geriatric-rap

that rules philip thank you

Brilliant, Philip, I love both of them, might make something with the second one...