What's the best part of Mario Paint? No, not the painting! The Composer mode! Who didn't spend hours on Mario Paint making tunes with fire flowers, mushrooms, coins, and boos?
Mario Paint Composer has become something of an online hit in the years since the SNES game's release, with many budding musicians picking up their SNES mouse and creating tunes of their favourite songs and video game tracks. There have also been plenty of downloadable versions and variants of Composer over the years. But, thanks to a tip from reader Erik, we've been pointed in the direction of a browser-based version.
Created on the data visualisation start-up called Observable, 'Mario Music Composer' is a Javascript version of Mario Paint Composer created by Rob Sutcliffe. There's no need to download anything to get it running, just head on over to the website right here and you can get on with making music!
It's just as easy as it is on the SNES — simply drag and drop any of the symbols onto the stave and hit the play button to listen to your creation. And voilà! You could become the next digital music whiz with this!
It's pretty perfect, though it is missing a few symbols present in the SNES version. Still, it's a wonderful slice of nostalgia who spent hours sitting on the floor with their SNES mouse and mat trying to create something palatable for the ears. Thanks for sending this to us, Erik!
Are you a Mario Paint fan? Would you like to see a new Mario music game? Let us know!
[source observablehq.com]
Comments 26
This is very cute!!! Nice of Erik to spend so much time creating it. good work
I was just thinking that they should put Mario Paint on the SNES NSO app! Tie the mouse controls to the analog stick.
So
When will Nintendo take this down?
It warms my heart to see the internet continues to keep Mario Paint going. As a Sega kid I may have eventually begged my parents for a SNES because of Street Fighter 2, Starfox and Donkey Kong Country... but it was Mario Paint that made them relent as before videogames I'd been into drawing, animation and music, and they figured it might make me want to get creative inbetween gaming, and at the time they couldn't afford a PC or Amiga for more complex software packages.
I spent a lot of time with Mario Paint making pretty precise drawings, music, and what little animation was possible, and recording snippets of them on VHS to make scenes a few seconds at a time... often spending weeks to make full little cartoons with multiple setups. Sometimes I did this for homework presentations, other times, because I just wanted to make a cartoon. When my parents got a camcorder and let me use it to make movies, I still used Mario Paint for the titles, credits, etc.
In my professional life havign worked in the music industry in production and writing/composition, animation with Don Bluth, Richard Williams and Disney, and nowadays producing and editing feature films, these creations I made in Mario Paint were probably the earliest complete "films" I made. I wish I still had the VHS tapes, but I fear they are long gone.
Ah we have started the cat and mouse game of 'stealing from Nintendo and then complaining when they take it down' again.
Online versions of Mario Paint Composer have existed for many years now, and are much more faithful to the original program than this is.
https://minghai.github.io/MarioSequencer/
Feature-wise, Rob Sutcliffe's work here is a very different creation. There's no options to change the tempo, the time signature, load preset compositions, change the length, loop the playback, or place notes in fixed positions according to note or time.
All it really has in common is a few graphics, and sound effects taken from Super Mario World.
come on, this thing is not even 10% of what we have on mario paint composer for the snes.
By the way, it is a cheap game to buy today, come with a mouse and a mouse pad, both are terrible to today's standards, but hyperkin makes a phenomenal optical mouse for the snes, it worth it
Ah, Mario Paint. Never was good at composing stuff back then. I was more content with playing the third demo piece on loop. Even now it plays in my head.
It would entertain for days, not hours, if Nintendo didn't take it down after a few hours.
Yeah I nearly commented about the shortcomings of this particular version but decided not to because despite there already being several more complete options than this, this was made in a new tech presumably as someone learning/experiementing with it, and the standout for me is that its new - meaning that as per my original post, the main point I take from this is that even to this day people continue to be inspired by Mario Paint.
I suspect that the posts above aren't trying to criticise the creator of this version, more the article saying "It's pretty perfect" gives false expectations, because it clearly isn't for anyone who's spent time to explore both (no shade to Alana intended). Never the less its a nifty little project and fun that Mario Paint is still alive in people's hearts and minds.
Why was this game never re-released?
@anoyonmus ask the other mario paint composer clones that have been around since like...before 2007 with no issues
https://youtu.be/5uZr3JWYdy8
My kids will absolutely love this. That’s tonight’s activity sorted!
I read the title as "Bowser-based" and then I read the tweet and I "huh, looks pretty much the same?"
@Bobb hahaha
I read it the same way at first.
Enjoy it for the ten more minutes it's allowed to exist. The "Red And Dlue Demon" is already on its way to gleefully HAMMER it out of existence...
Never mind just the composer… it’s high time for a new Mario Paint game. I figure it could be one of their smaller, cheaper titles like Part-Time UFO & Box Boy + Girl yet still a complete and full experience in its own right.
… Wun can only hope.
I literally can hum two of the pre built songs despite not plaiying it for 25 years (twinkle twinkle rendition and the default one....the one with the dog bark.........cant remember the third one. I keep thinking its a rendition of Super Mario overworld theme)
"It's pretty perfect".
Uh... oh, never mind. It's free. Whatever.
nintendo doesnt deserve our love. but mario paint is a great game and they should at least honor it a little bit.
@calbeau
doot, doo doo doot! ARF!
doot, doo doo doot! MEOW!
doot, doo doo doot! yoshi!
doot, doo doo doot! UH UHMM!
edit - i think the "yoshi" may have actually been an "oink." apologies, everyone.
I liked to pull up the pre-made Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and then replace all the stars with pigs.
@-wc- Hahah, yes! This exactly.
@calbeau when you said 3rd demo, I didn't even have to think about it. 😊 it plays in my head, like a symphony, whenever id like lol.
this was my first brush with digital art, animation, and music making.
btw the third bgm in the options menu is my all time favorite nintendo music, sometimes, maybe. talk about leaving it on a loop! i found it enchanting as a kid.
@-wc- You know a song is good when it just resonates with you even decades later.
@Toads-Friend The creator's name is Rob.
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