The audio demo above only uses instruments from this pack. No melodies or MIDI patterns are included, and no games were sampled.
Alien Island: Notes
Up up down down left right left right B A start (unless you're a total badass).
Alien Island: Notes is a collection of NES-style instruments inspired by the game Contra, faithfully capturing the tonal character and signature sound heard throughout its soundtrack. This pack includes a curated set of leads, stabs, bass tones, and drums designed to replicate the sound of the original hardware while providing clean, playable instruments for modern production.
This pack contains:
- 10 Instrument Patches
- Formatted for Kontakt • Ableton Live • FL Studio • EXS24 / Sampler • Maschine • MPC • TAL-Sampler
- 88 8-Bit Note Samples (lead, bass & stab)
- 12 8-Bit Drum Samples (kick, snare & hi-hat)
- 24-bit / 44.1 kHz WAV
- 25 MB
For sound effects from this series, check out Alien Island: SFX.
Get both packs together in the Alien Island Bundle.
The audio demo above only uses instruments from this pack. No melodies or MIDI patterns are included, and no games were sampled.
More Sound Info
The lead instruments use all three NES pulse-width settings, including a double-pulse waveform for a faux-chorus effect. The pack also includes pulse stabs with short delayed attacks and a triangle-wave stab modeled after the game’s percussive bass hits.
The drum samples mirror the lo-fi, early-sampled aesthetic of the soundtrack. The kick and snare were recorded acoustically, shortened, pitch-shifted, and processed through a sound-chip simulation engine to recreate the character of the originals. The hi-hats are noise-generated variants, designed for fast repeated patterns and alternating sequences.
Instrument & Sample List
Instrument Patches:
- 4 8-Bit Lead Instrument Patches
- 4 8-Bit Stab Instrument Patches
- 1 8-Bit Bass Instrument Patch
- 1 8-Bit Drums Instrument Patch
Sample List:
- 40 Lead Notes
- 39 Stab Notes
- 9 Bass Notes
- 4 Kick Drums
- 4 Snare Drums
- 4 Hi-hats
Formats Included
Instrument Formats & Required Software:
- Kontakt Library (Kontakt Instruments, .nki), Kontakt 4+
- Maschine Expansion Pack (.mxsnd), Maschine 2+
- Ableton Live Pack (.adv), Live 9+
- FL Studio DirectWave Patches (.dwp), FL Studio 12+
- MPC Expansion Pack (.xpn), MPC Software or MPC Beats
- EXS24/Sampler Instrument Patches (.exs), Logic Pro 9+
- TAL Instrument Patches (.talsmpl), TAL Sampler 3+
- Single WAV files (.wav), usable in any DAW or audio software
