DefleMask lets one composer write for a Sega Mega Drive in the morning and a Game Boy in the afternoon without changing program. It emulates each machine’s sound chips in real time, uses the same pattern editor for all of them, and can switch a song from one system to another. Its change log records the moment that worked: after an update that kept pattern data when changing systems, “Green Hill zone on NES sounds good!”
It started much smaller. The first beta, in April 2011, supported a single chip, Yamaha’s YMU759, a synthesiser found in mobile phones, whose MMF files were used as ringtones. Two months later its author, Leonardo Demartino, known as Delek, added the Mega Drive’s Yamaha YM2612 and Texas Instruments SN76489, and DefleMask became the “multi system chiptune music tracker” its website describes. The site calls it “the first of its kind in history”.
Fast facts
- Creator: Leonardo Demartino (“Delek”), with Dario Genova (design) and Francisco Demartino (code).
- First release: version 0.1.0 beta, April 2011.
- Runs on: Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android.
- Licence: closed source. Free until version 1.0 in April 2021, then a one-time purchase; the older 32-bit “Legacy” version stays free, “think of it as a demo”.
- Exports: VGM files, WAV audio, video, and ROMs or music files that play on the real machines.
The systems
Systems arrived one at a time over thirteen years, each with its own instrument editor: FM instruments for the Yamaha chips, envelopes and wavetables for the others.
| System | Sound chips | Added |
|---|---|---|
| Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) | YM2612 and SN76489 | 0.3.5, June 2011 |
| Sega Master System | SN76489 | 0.3.5, June 2011 |
| Game Boy | Game Boy sound circuits | 0.5.0, December 2011 |
| PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16) | HuC6280 | 0.6.0, May 2012 |
| NES | 2A03 (APU) | 0.8.0, September 2012 |
| Commodore 64 | SID, 6581 and 8580 | 0.9.0, 2012–13 |
| Sega arcade boards | YM2151 and Sega PCM | 0.11.0, October 2015 |
| Neo Geo | YM2610 | 1.0.0, April 2021 |
| Japanese Master System with FM Sound Unit | SN76489 and YM2413 | 1.1.0, February 2022 |
| NES with Konami VRC7 | 2A03 and VRC7 | 1.1.1, February 2022 |
| NES with Famicom Disk System | 2A03 and FDS | 1.1.2, April 2022 |
| MSX2 | 1.2.0, December 2024 |
The Mega Drive’s FM chip is the most complex of them. Version 0.12.0 (June 2016) added a separate system for the YM2612’s special channel 3 mode, in which “the operators have independent frequencies”; the YM2612 entry explains the mode. A channel on that chip has four operators, and DefleMask’s FM editor exposes each of them.
Playing it on the real machine
Every system’s output can be saved as a VGM file, a log of the values written to a sound chip, which VGM players replay through their own emulation. For several systems DefleMask also has “ROM builders” that produce a file the real machine can run: Mega Drive, Commodore 64, PC Engine and NES exporters by Michael J. Stamper, Neo Geo exporters by StereoMimi and FULLSET, and a Game Boy exporter by Pegmode, according to its website. Its NSF files for the NES play samples with a trick that, according to the NESdev wiki, DefleMask made popular: a play routine that never returns, so it can stream sample data continuously. Not every NSF player supports it.
Game developers use it that way. Wireframe reported in 2019 that the 16-bit half of Sabotage Studio’s The Messenger took its soundtrack from the Mega Drive, “created using the Deflemask tracker’s Yamaha YM2612”. In 2020 the developer of Brock the Crocodile, a Mega Drive-style action game, told the magazine that his sound designer Ap0c (Steve Lakawicz) wrote in DefleMask because it could export music “that can easily be played back on actual game consoles”, and that “the entire soundtrack and all of the sound effects … are recorded directly from actual Mega Drive hardware”.
From free to paid
DefleMask was free for its first ten years. Version 1.0, in April 2021, brought 64-bit builds, a new interface and Neo Geo support, and a price. Its website explains that “offering this software for free is not a sustainable option for us anymore (we did it for 10 years!)”. A purchase is a one-time payment with free updates; the last free version, now called Legacy, stays available as a demo. Later in 2021 the playback engine was rewritten to work in real time, so every change to an instrument is heard at once, and from then on the desktop and mobile versions were updated together. Version 2.0, in June 2026, added PareidoLink, a mode for several musicians to compose in the same song at once over the internet.
In May 2021 tildearrow, who also co-wrote one of DefleMask’s demo songs, started Furnace, an open-source multi-system tracker that opens DefleMask modules. Most of it is under the GPL version 2 or later.
Sources
- DefleMask official website, home page and “Buy Benefits” and “Legacy” pages (web, secondary): the description, the systems, the team, the ROM exporters’ authors, the move to paid versions and the free Legacy version. https://www.deflemask.com/
- DefleMask change log, versions 0.1.0 beta (April 2011) to 2.0.5 (July 2026) (web, secondary): the YMU759 beginning, each system’s arrival, the YM2612 channel 3 system, the “Green Hill zone” note, the 1.0 release, the real-time engine, PareidoLink. https://www.deflemask.com/changelog.txt
- Leonardo Demartino, personal website (web, secondary): DefleMask as his work. https://demartino.ar/
- Wikipedia, “Synthetic music mobile application format” (web, secondary): the YMU759 (MA-2) chip, the .MMF extension and its use for mobile-phone ringtones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_music_mobile_application_format
- NESdev Wiki, “NSF” (community reference, web, secondary): the non-returning play routine “first made popular by Deflemask”. https://www.nesdev.org/wiki/NSF
- Wireframe issue 12, April 2019, pp. 45–46: The Messenger’s 16-bit soundtrack by Rainbowdragoneyes.
- Wireframe issue 44, October 2020, pp. 80–81: Brock the Crocodile, Ap0c’s music in DefleMask, recorded from Mega Drive hardware.
- tildearrow, Furnace repository and licence (web, secondary): “a multi-system chiptune tracker compatible with DefleMask modules”, created May 2021, GPL version 2 or later for most of it. https://github.com/tildearrow/furnace