There were no tools to speak of so everything was entered as numbers in the assembler/editor. Later on I turned the numbers for command codes into macros to make entering and reading the sequences of notes a little easier but that’s as sophisticated as it got. I worked out tunes on a little Yamaha keyboard and typed in the pitches and durations. Often I’d work out timings on some squared graph paper, mostly by trial and error.
NES Composer Neil Baldwin, in “How NES Music Was Made” (via Dave Dribin)
