Early mini firm chips had only simple tone and detonation generators with few channels, imposing limitations on both the complexity of the poem they could result and the fraction of notes that could be played at once. In their frenzy to build a extended complex arrangement than what the medium apparently allowed, composers developed creative approaches when developing their own electronic sounds and scores, employing a diversity of both methods of sound synthesis, such as pulse width modulation and wavetable synthesis, and compositional techniques, such as a liberal use of arpeggiation. The resultant chiptunes sometimes seem harsh or Voice Chip squeaky to the unaccustomed listener.

• As newer computers stopped using dedicated synthesis chips and began to primarily use sample-based synthesis, added realistic timbres could be recreated, but often at the expense of file size (as with MODs) and potentially without the personality imbued by the limitations of the older robust chips.